|
  I'll admit it ... I'm a grown man, and I enjoy playing video games. There is a satisfaction to "virtually" killing 13 year old pimply punks who are screaming "yo mamma" every time they lay you down with a line of auto machine gun fire (to be completely honest, most of these pimply-faced teens wipe the "virtual" floor with my dead body).
I'll jump online and play for 10-20 minutes every other day or so. It's slightly therapeutic, and instantly gratifying. Heads roll, blood sprays, bombs explode.
I've recently learned that there is a completely different side of online gaming to which I have had no exposure. I am speaking about "World of Warcraft."
From what I understand, this is a game in which you create a character and go online to battle, walk around, walk some more, and walk around again. There are tens of thousands of other virgins playing this game at the same time. It sure sounds morbidly exciting to me.
The only reason I even know about this peculiar game in which people spend literally hundreds of hours a week playing, is a co-worker who is deep in the thralls of this game. He is a level 73 Paladin (no relation to Alladin from Disney fame). I don't know what this actually is, but I did inquire how much his character would be worth on ebay. We looked it up, and using 7th grade math figured that he earned .3 cents for every minute he played the game. Who says that playing video games is a waste of time??
Conversations generally float to this topic, as playing the game is largely what he does in his spare time.
The conversations usually go something like this:
 Me: And then my wife tells me...
World Of Warcraft Lying Around Most of the Evening dude: Did I tell you what happened last night when my guild performed a raid? Me: No. WOW LAME: We were totally attacking this boss, and had like 30 guys fighting. Me: (feigning interest) What are your weapons? WOW LAME: I don't attack. I'm a Paladin. Me: and... WOW LAME: I heal people. Me: What else? WOW LAME: What do you mean what else? Me: You don't kill anybody? Doesn't that get boring? WOW LAME: No ... it's fun. I have really wicked spells and armor. Me: ... WOW LAME: So ... anyhow, we were about 2 hours into fighting this boss ... Me: WAIT!! It took you 2 hours to kill the boss?? WOW LAME: No ... closer to 3. Me: And you just sat their healing the whole time. WOW LAME: Yes. Me: Were you doing a split-screen with porn on the other half? WOW LAME: No ... I need to concentrate on the battle. So ... this level 63 ... Me: (slowly drift off to thoughts of how to change the subject)
Roughly 63% of our conversations end up with me drifting off while I try not to have my eyes roll back into my head.
For a while, I laughed and smirked at how someone could spend thousands of hours playing this game. I thought the "Second life" video "game" was bad, but this approached it in terms of anti-social behavior.
But the more I thought about it, I realized that we all have our vices and ways to waste time during the day. I watch a lot of TV and sports.
Deep down, we tease these WOW'ers because we're jealous that we can't do our "hobbies" in our underwear like they can. Touche...!! |
Matt D
