More Judgment!

More judgment from the younguns, this time from the high school student that DW (Dear Wife) tutors. He was initially interested that we had given each other World of Warcraft for Christmas. It seemed kind of novel. So he asked the DW what level her character was. I don't know what level she was at that point, 24 I think. The kid guffawed. "Only 24?" Then he asked what level my character was. DW replied that mine was about the same. His derisive laughter was even louder. The student knows that I am a computer tech by profession and must assume that we all are convention-going, pointy-ear-wearing nerds. DW snapped defensively "He's got a full-time job, you know."

So some folks think it's crazy (if not actually mentally sick) for grown ups to play video games. If you didn't think so then I'd direct you to some of the backlash about that woman from Texas who cyber-stalked a teenaged boy from Toronto using WOW as the means. The general pronouncement from the televised media was that any grown up who played video games should be locked up, though I suspect you'd rarely hear someone on television saying anything good about something done on a computer. Deadly rivals, you know.

And then other folks think we're crazy because we're not already level 80's with epic mounts. I talked to a guy at work who was very interested that DW and I were playing. He's been trying to interest his wife in World of Warcraft but absolutely everyone he knows who plays WOW is nearly addicted to it. There don't seem to be many boring middle class middle aged couples who log a few hours a week. The examples of WOW players we knew at work definitely fit into the "every waking second" mode of engagement. My friend's wife, sanely, wasn't interested in that kind of involvement.

About 15 years ago, actually even longer, a friend of mine, Amy, got a brand new computer as part of a grant. Bundled with it was a copy of Myst, arguably the coolest game at the time. I had played it and thought it was quite fun but Amy didn't think she'd even bother to load it. Why? Because its tag line was "It will become your world." And Amy was pretty happy with the world she already had.

Is it so crazy to just want to play a little bit, now and then?

(By the way, my night-elf hunter just made level 29 tonight.)

"Drinker!"

Silly epithet we've developed, the DW (dear wife) and I. Whenever we loot a creature that seems to have only the barest of pocket change, we figure the guy must have been a drinker, spending his money on booze instead of on shiny goods for us to pry off his cold, dead corpse. Or on weapons that, perhaps could have left US on a long chilly corpse run.

WOW is a much different game than when I played it even a couple years ago. A brief list: the utter drudgery of running and running and running has been greatly alleviated by giving mounts at level 20 AND by making them so affordable. The DW and I used to call the game "Running through the Forest" and honestly, that's what it mostly felt like we were doing.

The whole phasing of different parts of the world is nice. It makes the whole milieu feel a bit more believable, like something that actually happened as a result of the player's actions.

And I can't underestimate how much different it is trying to play according to my wife's more social mode of play than by my reclusive style. We usually play together and tonight we joined a guild. I must mention that the whole guild thing is WAY outside of my comfort zone. Time will tell.

No Judgement Here

Yesterday my night-elf-of-choice and I trekked over to the mall to make a stop at the Apple Store. It's easy enough to find since it's the BRIGHTEST store in the whole place. It attracts moths from other galaxies.

We were greeted by some youth whose hair had been cut with a gardening implement and who wore a significant chunk of someone's chandelier in the lobes of his ears. I told him that I needed a mini-DVI-to-VGA adapter. Blank look. I pointed to the laptop. (We actually brought the laptop in with us to insure that we got the correct adapter.) "We want to hook this laptop up to a larger monitor for when we play Worlds of Warcraft."

A light went on behind his eyes, perhaps as if a light bulb from the ear-chandelier rattled into its socket.

"My Dad plays that game. He's got like two level 80 characters, so you're not going to get any judgment here."