writer in peril
My buddy Joel and I have been playing computer games online together about as long as such a thing has been possible. Starcraft is a favorite of ours, but we've also played several more action-oriented games including First Person Shooters. We've even attempted the D&D-based RPG "Neverwinter Nights" together, although we didn't get far.
In November, Joel bought World of Warcraft.
I'm sure you know it, but if you don't, it's a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMO for short) which involves paying a monthly fee to participate in an online world with thousands of other players. In WoW's case the world is Tolkien-lite, with elves and orcs and dragons and the like.
Joel has spent dozens of hours in that world as an elven archer, slaying monsters, completing quests and honing his trade of choice (which I believe is fishing). He puts in quite a bit of time each weekend, and probably an hour or two most weeknights. He's not addicted, but it keeps him busy.
He keeps trying to get me to join.
I've been resisting. In my misspent youth I burned the midnight oil on far too many projects and papers because I couldn't resist working my way up one more level on whatever computer role playing game was at hand. I spent days as a conflicted Jedi when Knights of the Old Republic came out. I was totally immersed in my wide-eyed super-soldier in the futuristic political thriller Deus Ex. When Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines came out I prowled the streets of noir Los Angeles for dozens of hours.
Those were single player games, games with finite endings - you put in thirty or forty hours and you're done. I can assure you that know writing (and not much of anything else) got done while they were in progress.
World of Warcraft has no end, at least, if there is a point at which one has seen and done everything, it is hundreds of hours in. And there's always the endless game of social interaction and conflict with entire nations of other players. That never stops. I worry that if I got started it would be six months before I put digital pen to digital paper. Sigh.
I've refused to buy the game, but that may not help. Joel is threatening to get me a copy for my birthday, a couple of months away.
Gulp.
In November, Joel bought World of Warcraft.
I'm sure you know it, but if you don't, it's a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMO for short) which involves paying a monthly fee to participate in an online world with thousands of other players. In WoW's case the world is Tolkien-lite, with elves and orcs and dragons and the like.
Joel has spent dozens of hours in that world as an elven archer, slaying monsters, completing quests and honing his trade of choice (which I believe is fishing). He puts in quite a bit of time each weekend, and probably an hour or two most weeknights. He's not addicted, but it keeps him busy.
He keeps trying to get me to join.
I've been resisting. In my misspent youth I burned the midnight oil on far too many projects and papers because I couldn't resist working my way up one more level on whatever computer role playing game was at hand. I spent days as a conflicted Jedi when Knights of the Old Republic came out. I was totally immersed in my wide-eyed super-soldier in the futuristic political thriller Deus Ex. When Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines came out I prowled the streets of noir Los Angeles for dozens of hours.
Those were single player games, games with finite endings - you put in thirty or forty hours and you're done. I can assure you that know writing (and not much of anything else) got done while they were in progress.
World of Warcraft has no end, at least, if there is a point at which one has seen and done everything, it is hundreds of hours in. And there's always the endless game of social interaction and conflict with entire nations of other players. That never stops. I worry that if I got started it would be six months before I put digital pen to digital paper. Sigh.
I've refused to buy the game, but that may not help. Joel is threatening to get me a copy for my birthday, a couple of months away.
Gulp.
posted by braun at 8:30 AM
4 Comments:
Tell him NO and stick to it. You sound just like me and if you get started you'll never stop!
I can't start the Sims2 unless I want to emerge from a fugue several hours later, wondering why I have a headache and regretting I didn't get a thing done.
That said, I'm still going to get Spore when it comes out. At least the online quotient of that game won't really change the play as a single player game. It's that one-more-thing aspect that'll get you.
For a while I played The Sims (the original, not the sequel) quite a lot until I realized that the only thing I really liked about the game was building houses!
As soon as somebody comes out with an architecture game, I'm there.
You'd really like Sims2 for the house building. I find I waste a lot of time doing that, too.
I look forward to reading your story, as well.
Oh, I'm sure I'd lose days building houses in Sims2! However, I have resisted doing so for that very reason. heheh
Go read my story! Let me know what you think.
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