Keepin up with the Jones

Wow, Frackin WoW

World of Warcraft.

If you like the game, you should really stop reading now. Yes, now.

If you don't like this game, read on. (And hi! I think we'll get along just fine.) If you hate this game with all the heat of a thousand suns, I love you, kindred spirit. I'm about to trash it. Make sure you're wearing your safety goggles. Big purple elephants are gonna get hurt...

Nearly the entire family has been playing this game for months now and it has taken residence on our computer screens every night, clogging everyone's mental arteries, stealing our time together, and making me pissy.

I just don't understand the draw of this game. For those unfamiliar (consider yourselves lucky) with World of Warcraft, it is an online role playing game (Akin to Dungeons and Dragons, only you get to play in your underwear since no one is physically there with you...except the wife in the background who is plotting your motherboard's death) in which your goal is to complete levels. There is no winner (because that would mean the game ends at some point. And this game does not end, hence my hatred.). There is only surviving. You perform certain quests, you make friends with the other online players, form cliques and alliances (like public school, only on this, you pay a monthly fee for the social torture you spent years trying to escape) and you can even be good or evil depending on your preference.

There are races and species of characters, villages, entire cities, magic performed, etc. This game seems to offer many parallels to reality, except it ISN'T.

Millions of people are addicted to this game. That's right, I said ADDICTED!

- Divorces have been finalized due to this game.

- Lives have been lost due to this game! (Okay, not literally, but there are people on this game who spend DAYS living in their alternate universe, not caring that reality is just beyond the screen they are so focused on. ( I imagine these people see everything in pixels.)

I have stood behind each of them at some stage or another and watched their character for minutes before I thought of something better I could do. (do the washing up...do my neighbour's washing up...paint the house!)

Did you know the characters have to walk everywhere? Their character doesn't just begin another quest right after he finishes the last one. They have to get to it first.(Like visiting relatives who live in another State.) They walk or ride their big purple elephants (I think there are different options for these creatures, but they prefer something that looks like an elephant and it's purple, so there you go.) to get to the next village or wherever the next quest begins. They say this usually takes about 20 minutes or so depending on where he's going. That's right everyone, twenty minutes of walking and watching the virtual terrain pass you by. This mean they spend a good part of their time staring at his character's butt as their character walks or rides to the next adventure.

I'm actually surprised that the kids made it to the wedding without their purple elephants...

The characters can team together with others to complete a quest or just gang up on an unsuspecting or weaker character and beat the virtual snot out of him. (Online bullying even affects this game!)

The kids have told me that their character gets killed several times a night, sometimes several times within an hour. (If you pause the game to pee, get a drink, put your eyes back into your head, your character can get killed just for standing there. He often needs backup to protect his character when he has to pause. ..Can we say virtual gang violence?) They then become a ghost and is sent to a graveyard to be resurrected, and then they can go right back to what he was doing. Which was walking, basically.


I'm trying to be a good family man and let my family have their hobby, but this game just pisses me off. Maybe I should try it myself?

They wouldn't want me on their game anyway. I would make his virtual life a living hell. I'd have my character go after one of their characters just to nag them about taking out the trash, stacking the dishwasher, feeding their cats or cleaning up the dog yard. While walking or riding our big purple elephants to the next quest, I would keep telling them to turn the radio station or "let's pull over somewhere, I gotta pee". I would bring snark into a realm where snark has never dared to enter. (No, I'm not going to. I actually love my family despite their stupid gaming ways and I'm just not interested in wasting my evening hours on this when I could be cleaning the afore-mentioned bathroom grout.)

I guess I just don't see why so many people would choose to exit reality and enter this virtual world where nothing you do actually impacts your life. The game does not increase your social skills, because, let's face it, you are still alone in your own home and projecting yourself or who you wish you could be into a pixelated being that will always only be a figment of your virtual imagination. This game will not make you smarter. This game will not make you richer (unless you sell your character on Ebay to some really stupid schmuck who will buy virtual merchandise just so he doesn't have to take the time to complete the levels himself). This game will not help you network. And if it does, um, yeah, not going to wrap my thoughts around that one.

Okay, I'm winding down. My rant is done.

Next we will get onto ChiChi's addiction - Virtual Villages.....but that is for another time

Last update : 27-02-2009 17:06