Harman's Room

The title alone could mean one of many things to you. You are likely in one of these camps:

1. You have never heard of WoW
2. You used to play WoW
3. You currently Play WoW
4. You despise WoW because the people in group #2 disappeared from your life for the duration of their account’s active status, and when they did talk to you, it was solely about WoW and because the people in group #3 are currently nonexistent in your life and will be until their account is as frozen as the Lich King.

There are two groups intentionally missing from the above: People who have never played WoW because they know they will become addicted to it, and People who have heard of WoW and have no real opinion on it. I don’t know anyone who would fall into the latter category who would not describe WoW as “that stupid game everyone plays and goes on raids for?” nor do I know anyone who really can admit to the former.

I used to belong in the first group, for a short time. In Spring 2006, I knew a few classmates who played religiously. They spoke of nothing else and I quickly tired of it. My ex-girlfriend (she was my ex-girlfriend in 2006 as well as now) Amanda began playing sometime around there was well and in August when we went to Ruby Tuesday for lunch she spent 45 minutes or so of our seventy-five minute long lunch explaining how much fun she had and how much she loved playing, and also how it scared her: that the girls at school would think she was some freak or not want to socialize with her because she played an MMO. By this point, I was a #4.

I got to school and some kids in my hall played WoW pretty hardcore. I resisted, instead getting myself excited for the Wii I would have in a few months. Everyone loved my Wii and made plenty of time to come by my room and play Wii Sports and whatever else I had. Even my roommate, who I never saw play any video games (save for Pokemon Blue, emulated on his laptop) thoroughly enjoyed TLOZ:TP on there. It was awesome. Come the spring, I inquired with a good friend of mine about the game and wanted to understand a little more about it after seeing another good friend play it non-stop all weekend. So Wrathos told me all about the game because Graveshatter was having way too much fun with it. He explained a lot about it and said “The best thing you can do is see for yourself” and invited me to a ten day trial. He helped me get acquainted and learn the ropes.

Before the end of my ten-day trial, I walked down to Gamestop and purchased a copy. The next month, I attended less than 75% of my classes. I slept less. And I played a lot of WoW. In retrospect, it was a big time-pit. My friends who were still in group #4 placed WoW-bans on lunchtime discussions. And distanced themselves from me (with good reason). But WoW is really nothing more than an excellent video game.

That’s right, I said it. It’s just a great game. The difference is that in most great games, you can explore the entire world by foot in couple of hours. In WoW, running North to South through the Barrens (From RFK up past WC and into Ashenvale) takes a good 45 minutes. That’s one of the 50 or more zones in the World of Warcraft, each of which have their own NPCs, Quests, Lore, Mobs, Rewards, Intricacies, Instanced or Non-Instanced Dungeons and more. The world is expansive and the choices and options of how you play your game vary so greatly you can play it through 20 times and have a different, rewarding experience each time.

Pikmin, one of my favorite games ever, is great, and I am skilled enough to 100% the game in 4 hours. WoW, on the other hand, is impossible to 100%. What I’m getting at is that a good game draws you in and hooks you, and WoW is no exception. The difference is that in WoW, there is no ability to 100%, but there are so many things you can do at any given time that spending time outside of Azeroth seems like a daunting task. On one character who can no longer level, there are daily quests which offer money or reputation rewards, loot to grind for to use for either of your professions, an auction house at which you can buy or sell items, player versus player experiences in which groups of subscribers battle against another group in a setting with no monsters, dungeons to PUG, complete with your guild or raid, and that’s just on one character. You might have three. Or seven. Or a few on different servers. Options are just about endless, and I’m sure there’s a ton I forgot there.

What I’m getting at is that today I headed to Gamestop and picked up a retail disk of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and will soon be reactivating my account (I’m currently using the 10 day free trial. I look forward to my return to Azeroth and all it entails, but am aware of everything I just said: playing can have a profound impact on your life. And so, I return to Azeroth with three simple rules to keep myself from turning into an antisocial hermit devoid of any topics of conversation that don’t involve the most fun video game I’ve ever played.

1. You may not cancel any plans in order to play WoW: academic, social or otherwise. This does not exclude you from neglecting to make plans or making plans around a raiding schedule or any other form of play.
2. All obligations must be completed on time. Any deadline missed will result in a forfeiting of playing time until that task has been completed.
3. You must physically exert yourself at a gym or playing a sport for at least three hours a week unless some legitimate, non-WoW restriction becomes imposed on you and prevents you from doing so (illness, family matters, etc.)

To prove how serious I am about this, initially, I wrote “go to the gym” before acknowledging that a true addict could misconstrue that to mean “be at the gym doing anything one pleased.” I changed it to “work out” before realizing that a true addict could misconstrue that to mean “walking briskly” and occupy three hours just commuting to and from work. I am very serious about ensuring that I responsibly take up an old habit which alienated people I love. And so I firmly intend to play WoW to my heart’s content assuming the above three rules are constantly examined and I can be sure that I am not allowing it to negatively effect my life.

This may seem like overkill, but if someone abused alcohol, and hadn’t had a sip in five years, wouldn’t you want to be sure they were being cautious before telling you they planned to start drinking socially again? Perhaps the only different is that this is not “playing socially” or its equivalent but in my mind, rather, something to which I wish to make a commitment. I want to fall in love with this game for all the right reasons I did initially, without the negative effects of it. Let’s see how I do, hmm?