metaViper

If you haven’t already, see the first post in my series before reading this.

My life continued for many years MMORPG-free. Then, deep in the labs of a company called Turbine some evil genius came up with a way around all of my objections. They offered a one-time payment for a lifetime subscription. A game with a pedigree no D&D game could argue with. Ever wonder where all these D&D races, rules, and ideas came from? The Father of fantasy writing and the idea that would launch all of the fantasy role playing games that would follow, J.R.R. Tolkien.

Following the success of the movie trilogy it was only logical that someone would make video games about the movie. I played a few of the hack ‘n slash, 3^rd person RPGs. I wasn’t impressed. So when the MMO was announced, I didn’t pay much attention.

One fateful day a disc arrived in the mail inviting me to try the game in beta for free. Free? Free! “Ha,” I thought, “I can suck all the life out of the game during beta and never play again”. Best of all, my old D&D buddies got copies and we could play together for free!

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It seemed stupid, I told people I wouldn’t do it. What could on online role playing game offer that I didn’t already have? There are many great single player role playing games out there; my favorite of all time is the Gothic series, www.gothic.net . In Gothic there is a medieval world that’s truly alive, everyone stays in character, and you are the center of the universe. No one is better than you, and no one can take away from your experience. But paradoxically, no living person can add to it either.

I found myself learning weaknesses in the AI of almost all video games and exploiting them. No matter how new or great the game there is always a way around the next tough boss or “impossible” puzzle. Don’t believe me? Try building five pieces of +20% blur armor in Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Wear them all at once and say hello to God mode. You’ll be able to walk through the whole game bashing monsters in the face. All they can do is stand there and die.

The video game industry and I grew up together. Back in the day, and in some respects still today, the RPG world was trying to match table-top gaming. Most video role playing gamers over the age of 20 have roots in Dungeons and Dragons. I did my time as dungeon master for 13 years – yes, I’m an alpha geek. Then everybody grew up, got jobs and the other people in their lives prefer they don’t spend every spare moment on weekends in the basement with potato chips and D&D buddies.

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In the beginning it was an exciting and rich experience. I could enter an online reality where millions of other people were eager to casually mingle. That can be a rarity in the real world, where we seem to frequently be “busy” with no time for “games”. A year and a half passed while I happily leveled up three characters in World of Warcraft (WoW).

On some of my days off from work I would wake up, start gaming and only stop when my eyes were glazed over. During the day I’d only turn away to eat or for bio breaks. Phone calls from family and friends seemed to become an annoyance because it would detract from my complete concentration on WoW. After all, a second can be the difference between casting a healing spell in time and death.

Then one day as I began my adventures through the dark portal I started to realize (more…)