carry the cross on your back and run through the fire ready to die

Fight against the compelling urges associated with peer pressure!

I was once a hopeless World of Warcraft addict; the game had me on dominating grip like a proprietary slave doomed to walk the endless path of virtual progression, and spending over fifteen hours a day on that game for over two years probably presented its fair share of potentially life-degenerating hazards. It would not have been surprising had I walked away with Paramnesia amongst other things, such as a gender identity disorder which I now suffer from (and many are entitled to cite the validity of this statement).

It certainly didn’t help that there once existed a pathetically structured PvP system that coerced you into dedicating more time to the game than the next person down which resulted in a seemingly eternal struggle with players competing against each other on a sleep-deprived basis; it was no longer about skill (haha, still in an MMORPG… good one), it was about whether person A could invest more time into the game than person B. Grinding to become the first rank 14 priestess on my server whilst witnessing my own mental atrophy due to the pressure and strain from having to wake up at 4am everyday because of timezones differences for months straight, only to PvP in the same battleground until I dropped dead from 15 hours of the same tedious mind-rape - in this respect, it was mercifully unforgiving, and at that point in time, my life could be narrowed down to an endless repetition of crudely sequenced frames like a low-budget anime. I really would like to meet the prodigal genius who invented such a system, as he obviously lacked the ability to think proactively regarding the longterm detrimental effects, such as the fundamental substructure which emphasized the meanings of time investment, patience and rewards more than anything else in the negative sense of those words. Tch.

Hours a day for months straight earned me this shitty title and a virtual glowstick.

Now before we continue, the one point which I’d like to stress and make clear: this is not about bragging, this is simply the act of me announcing without doubt the exceedingly hazardous risks and repercussions which spiral up and escalate as a result of such unregulated behaviour, and anybody who has lived to tell the tale can concede with such sentiments. Again, I’m not over-dramatising this, nor am I exaggerating; this is simply the unbiased, impartial truth. If you’re an outsider, then I don’t expect you to comprehend the menacing grip that this previous honor system had on its gamers. Thankfully, Blizzard had half a brain and has since long acknowledged the failure of such a system which was lacking in sustenance excessively, but that still doesn’t stop me from saying “Fuck you cockbags for implementing such a piece of shit in the first place” (and if you’re stuck wondering why this is even here, this is a blog before it’s an anime blog).

In the end, I wound up ditching my priest and shifted to a rogue (grinded to rank 13) where I walked down the path of an end-game raider; come expansion my priest stayed at level 60 even until my departure in June-ish of 2007, and I have not touched World of Warcraft since; however, it’s difficult to avoid that one undeniable fact that looms over you like anticipation from an impending crisis - World of Warcraft is the best timesink ever, and is also the best game in the over-saturated market of other crappy MMORPGs. You can bash it all you want, but know this - WoW is more complete than any other MMO out there, it is more balanced than any other MMO out there, and it is more enjoyable than any other MMO out there; the game itself is streamlined for accessibility and smoothness, and as such, those who deprecate it excessively are only blindingly influenced by the false notion of wanting to do so because of its stupendous popularity, and as such, you are each entitled to your own wrong opinions (and this also happens to be coming from somebody who left the game on extremely bad terms by quitting out of boredom). World of Warcraft is proof that Blizzard possesses the aptitude required for creating a fantastic MMO; as spoken from a relative respective, try juxtaposing it with other games of the same genre in an insightful fashion if you want to make true comparisons instead of being led astray by disparaging propaganda.

“Espy, why don’t you come play WoW again? Everybody rerolled Horde on this new server and it’s so easy to get gear now!”
“Espy, you should come play with us; we got a spot open in the guild just waiting for you.”
“Espy, you should be my arena partner! I need somebody good to PvP with.”
“Espy, it’s like so casual now so you should just come play again.”
“Espy, we love your accent on Ventrilo.”

With the replaying of aforementioned lines in my head repeatedly, I feel like I’ve been driven into a corner which is lacking in escape routes, though it’s kind of facetious if you think about it given WoW’s rate of returning customers which is no revelation; when did I become so arrogant thinking that I could break that vicious cycle? I honestly feel like I’m walking the tightrope of irresolution, with World of Warcraft metaphorically represented as a sea of moélicious anime girls right below me and my mind dwindling in a state of ambivalence, unable to stray too far away from the temptation. Guess that’s not enough to sway my adamant will though because there are other benefits involved, such as being able to experience the game without getting FIVE FRAMES PER SECOND during raids (while I was on my old computer). I always felt like I was deprived of a certain aspect and that was one of them; the other involves surpassing physical limitations in order to reduce latency from playing in Oceania, and is thus highly unrealistic.

However! I have not started to play WoW again if that’s what you’re wondering, it’s just that I’m best suited for it; after all, WoW ruins lives, but that’s assuming you have a life to begin with. Will I ever go back? I wouldn’t ever discount the possibility completely, but right now it’s about as unlikely as it gets. Going back now would result in perpetual feelings of failure, having broken a self-promise and all.

Thanks for reading this far if you did, because it probably cleared up a potential misunderstanding.

~ by Espydon on 6 April, 2008.