The Family that Slays Together, Stays Together


In the same vein as the digitial gravity I discussed yesterday, there is another phenomena I have recently fallen prey to. I don't really have a name for it yet but I bet I will by the end of this post. So here's the story if for those of you joining us mid-season:

Many moons ago (nearly two years now) a friend and I got in on the beta of a video game called World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft (hereafter referred to as WoW) is what's called a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (hereafter refered to as MMORPG or just plain ol' MMO, sorry geeks love their acronyms). In layman's terms, it's a video game that you play with a shit load of other people from all over the globe all at the same time. Anyway, WoW is one of them and I got into the beta. Overnight, this game consumed my life. I played for hours a day until the beta phase of development closed (sometime around October) then purchased the game as soon as it was released to the public and continued on playing for almost a year more.

During this time Rebecca began playing as well and we played together. Given the distant nature of our early relationship (geographically, not emotionally), WoW served as a viable mechanism for us to communicate and "date". It was during this time that the above adage, that also serves as today's title, was coined. Long story... uh.. less long, Rebecca frequented a coffee shop where she would drink some kind of gross coffee drink and make use of their wireless network to play WoW with me. All the while, I would sit in my gross apartment and drink sweet tea and play WoW with her. She often got asked about what she was doing as passers-by could see what was going on her laptop was not your typical internet browsing or spread sheeting. If memory serves it was one of the coffee guys that coined the phrase. Anyway, for nearly a year and a half (counting the beta) I played this game on a daily basis, often for stretches that I'm ashamed to admit to the non-gaming public (hereafter refered to as Normies).

During this time some friends and I founded a guild in the game. We wanted to make sure we adhered to a high standard of excellence and not just allow any Kothar, Shemak, or Imadlesolersys into our guild. We had expectations for our current and prospective members that included, but was not limited to: a healthy appreciation for fart jokes, the ability to "be cool", and a love of foul language. I am happy to say, a year and a half later the guild we started is still going strong. It is also a matter of some pride on my part, and for the other founders, that even though the guild has been around for quite a while (as imaginary virtual coalitions go) it has remembered it's roots and is still full to bursting with fart-joking, potty-mouthed, cool-dudes-and-dudettes.

How can I possibly know this? You might ask since you remember that I quit playing some months ago. Well a few reasons, a) there's the board that I linked earlier, I stayed on it and kept in touch with several of the members even after my departure, 2) without their knowledge I planted several sleeper agents within the ranks of the guild ready to go positively batshit on my whim, and D) I started playing again a couple of weeks ago.

After Rebecca and I quit we were pretty good for a long time about overcoming our addiction. I would only occasionally check the official WoW website, which, at the height of my sickness, had been a daily ritual for months on end. Then, as the months, passed we started developing noticable ticks and twitches. We did our best not to talk about it for a long time, but the cause was obvious. We also kept in contact with a good buddy, Jared (who assured me he was going to set up a blog), who had stayed in the game and kept us rapt with news about all the cool things we were missing. Jared also constantly would tempt us to come back like a stranger with candy. Naughty, naughty candy. So I guess one name for this unnamable phenomena that sucked me back into the game could be, Peer Pressure.

I don't have as much time to play as I used to but I'm hoping to get some quality over quantity time in with the game on this second go-round. If things don't go as planned, I've still got plan Q) with finger poised directly over the batshit button.

-Kroy has gone offline


count the time in quartertones to ten