Thursday, October 16, 2008

How WAR saved me from WoW

In August I was playing Lord of the Rings Online and pretty happy. I was excitingly looking forward to the expansion and gladly provided information, pictures and movies from PAX to my fellow LoTRO players.  In September I got into the Mines of Moria beta and also got my minstral to 45, five levels bellow cap.  I'm not sure what happened but I got bored. I think as much as I love Tolkien and his works, playing a character in his world is just a little ... bland. Perhaps it's my preference for a more sword and sorcery type of setting. Regardless I was playing way more Tales of Vesperia than I was LoTRO. 

Then that day came. The day I dread fairly often. My boyfriend, my gaming and roleplay partner, the love of my life said words that cut to my heart....

"I'm thinking about going back to WoW."

In a instant panic attack full of visions of duo farming SM for that dagger I never got my 40 rogue and countless hours of mind less gulch farming and a world full of men with shovels for hands and barrens chat my mind raced for a way out. The first thing I thought to say was "I won't love you anymore if you make me go back to WoW!" but I deemed the situation not quite at that level yet. Taking a sharp turn to the right my brain scrambled for something, anything to divert him from that terrible idea. "Sex!" There was a good idea. "I'll do you if you don't go back to WoW." I felt this was probably a short term solution and I was not ready for dedication it would take to make it a long term one. 

"We can play Warhammer Online!"

I said these words not a week after stating that Warhammer Online didn't interest me and that it seemed like a PvP centric gankfest. (Can you feel the carebear shining through there?) But faced with the threat of a return to the land of epic farming, faction farming and ... and ... Goldshire (!) I was desperate.  Blessedly, he said that would work.

I bought a copy of WAR the next day while my boyfriend was at work. Just one single copy. You see, I still wasn't sold. I'd read a review that stated very clearly "If you are not a fan of PvP this game is not for you." I am in fact, not a fan of PvP, so I was pretty sure the game was in fact not for me. 

By the time he got home a few hours later he had to nearly pry the mouse from my clutches and peel me away from the desk to get a chance to play. Even then I hovered over his shoulder, pointing out the Tome of Knowledge and how it was "a deed log on steroids" and shoving at him like an excited kid telling him to join a scenerio que and yammering about class combinations that would work well for us.  Needless to say, a second copy was in my hands the next day. 

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Waaaagh! I never thought I'd play WAR or any PvP centric game, but this blog post made me take the plunge.

Also, I really liked LotRO's deed log, but I LOVE the "deed log on steroids" aka ToK!!! <3

Anonymous said...

This post made me very, very happy. =) Welcome to WAR.

Ainilome said...

@ Hanna - that post is pretty spot on. For me, it's the team play that made it ok. I've never enjoyed the "you vs. me" of PvP. It was personal to me, I got too competitive. If I won I was ecstatic, when I didn't I was so pissed I didn't want to play any more. WAR's RvR turns it into a "us vs. them" and that seems to make all the difference. In WoW for example, if I were fighting someone and they killed me, followed by another person finishing them off my thought was "Ugh! That bastard stole my kill.". Here when I die I'm yelling at my screen "Get him! He's almost dead someone avenge me!" I love it.

@Archmagery - Thank you very much ^^ I'm glad you got a laugh out of it.

By the way, since I made this post and found myself filling my non-WAR blog with WAR posts I bit the bullet and created a focused WAR blog for my rambles if anyone is interested:

http://obsessive-focus.blogspot.com

Ooo, shameless self promotion.

nazgum said...

Awesome post =)