I'm addicted to "Runes of Magic".
This might not want to be something my husband wants to hear since he's the one who brought me into it and I warned him long ago about the dangers of me and MMOs.
That's not an "I told you so." It's an "I'm sorry I was right." I wish I wasn't.
Either way, while I still have a life outside of the MMO, there's something that's changed for me.
One of the big things that prevented me from playing MMOs was the whole idea I had to have complete strangers join with me to complete a quest.
Ya'll, this may come as a surprise to you, but most of the general public in the anonymous world of the internet and MMOs consists of blatant assholes. Seriously. The only reason Super Husband managed to even get me on this game is because we played together. The beauty of playing with my local peeps is amazing. The annoying fourteen-year-olds can drown in fire for all I care.
But, tonight, I have to say some of my attitude has changed. Granted, I've met several peeps on the game who are quite nice, but we're still just acquaintances.
Tonight, I spent three hours, three hours, with complete strangers, killing the hell out of a particular brand of monster to spawn an elite of their kind in order to finish a quest. This was started by a rather high level peep who wanted to help several of us.
Let me tell you, I leveled up in appreciation far faster than in the quest we were dying to finish.
That particular person had been trying for hours already, and it took several more hours of trying before we reached our goal. We had gone from congenial silliness to cannibalism out of boredom. (Peeps started challenging each other just to create enough drama to make the monotony interesting.) We started shouting insults on chat at the elite monster we were begging to spawn. We insulted and threatened the GMs. We stripped naked and offered ourselves as bait. There were offers to drag corpses through the woods.
We offered to bake brownies!
Towards the end, it was pure unadulterated stubbornness: none of us were leaving until the Bastard spawned and at least killed someone for our efforts.
There was a server maintenance planned for the night. There was much speculation that the fucker would spawn just before the GMs took the game down.
We were a determined group.
It's amazing how that brings folks together.
We're not talking some sort of real world situation that actually means anything. Any other time, we couldn't give a shit. The fact is we spent several hours not killing a bunch of MOBs but laughing at a self-induced state of boredom. We put ourselves there and continued to suffer it and by the gods, we knew it and couldn't do anything but laugh. That is what made the difference.
Towards the end, Super Husband was trying to convince me it was doable another day. I knew it was, but what I couldn't seem to communicate was that it wasn't doable With This Group Of People. He seemed to sort of understand, but he didn't really. We had killed through it together, laughing, making fun of each other, saying stupid shit, continuously agreeing we were all insane, so, by the gods, we were going to finish it together! At that point, we had simply gone too far together to split up. He would've understood had he been playing. He didn't because he was concerned about me. I can appreciate that.
I can also hope he appreciatea there are times when shit needs to be finished.
About the time Super Husband was really getting demanding, the Bastard spawned.
Holy hell.
There were choirs singing on high, and several worshiped Its presence. (Emotes can be incredibly funny.)
Hours of our lives gone, and finally, finally we were about to reach our goal!
And, we didn't know what to do. We stood there looking at it but no one had a plan. We were so focused on the journey we didn't think about what we were going to do as soon as we were faced down with our goal.
Desperation to prevent our losing out to the plug being pulled on the servers made damn sure I was going to kick start this battle.
My suggestion? Have the highest level pull, the rest of us help kill, the priests keep us alive. Yes, it's standard stuff, but apparently, everyone needed reminding.
I have to tell you, there was a certain satisfaction that the Bastard didn't go down in one or two hits from our high level peep.
All I know is once it was done, there was immense satisfaction. Someone actually mentioned that at this point we all felt like old friends.
Strangely, that's true. We had shared several personal moments in our boredom. Suddenly, we weren't just pixels on a screen waiting to kill an elite creature; we were a bunch of real time gamers who were slogging through a moment in the game that wasn't all that much fun but yet found ourselves truly enjoying ourselves through the connections we made.
And, that means something.
If you're reading this, you know what this means. The internet and gaming has offered us connections that aren't the same as real life. Some argue this is bad, but really, is it? Suddenly, I know a woman in Florida who has three cats who is quite happily gaming in her off time. I know a couple who game together (she being the corrupter in this case) when they aren't taking care of their relatively new relationship, one is diabetic. These are connections. Yes, they are virtual but connections all the same.
I now understand why some people who have a hard time connecting with others in real life find so much fulfillment in the virtual world. I've always understood a little. I've made many friends online. Hell, I met my husband online. The difference is that some of those people don't ever wish to leave the online world. I, however, at some point I actually like meeting my internet friends in the real world. Virtual connections are awesome, but it can't replace that moment of seeing that person's smiling face and giving them a hug.
But, now, I can see how for some people it can be pretty damn close.
___________________
I think it was also good to find others who play as couples. MMOs are joked about being the stomping ground for eternal virgins, so I was very happy to know that Super Husband and I weren't the only geeks bonding through an MMO. Makes us seem less pathetic at any rate.
This might not want to be something my husband wants to hear since he's the one who brought me into it and I warned him long ago about the dangers of me and MMOs.
That's not an "I told you so." It's an "I'm sorry I was right." I wish I wasn't.
Either way, while I still have a life outside of the MMO, there's something that's changed for me.
One of the big things that prevented me from playing MMOs was the whole idea I had to have complete strangers join with me to complete a quest.
Ya'll, this may come as a surprise to you, but most of the general public in the anonymous world of the internet and MMOs consists of blatant assholes. Seriously. The only reason Super Husband managed to even get me on this game is because we played together. The beauty of playing with my local peeps is amazing. The annoying fourteen-year-olds can drown in fire for all I care.
But, tonight, I have to say some of my attitude has changed. Granted, I've met several peeps on the game who are quite nice, but we're still just acquaintances.
Tonight, I spent three hours, three hours, with complete strangers, killing the hell out of a particular brand of monster to spawn an elite of their kind in order to finish a quest. This was started by a rather high level peep who wanted to help several of us.
Let me tell you, I leveled up in appreciation far faster than in the quest we were dying to finish.
That particular person had been trying for hours already, and it took several more hours of trying before we reached our goal. We had gone from congenial silliness to cannibalism out of boredom. (Peeps started challenging each other just to create enough drama to make the monotony interesting.) We started shouting insults on chat at the elite monster we were begging to spawn. We insulted and threatened the GMs. We stripped naked and offered ourselves as bait. There were offers to drag corpses through the woods.
We offered to bake brownies!
Towards the end, it was pure unadulterated stubbornness: none of us were leaving until the Bastard spawned and at least killed someone for our efforts.
There was a server maintenance planned for the night. There was much speculation that the fucker would spawn just before the GMs took the game down.
We were a determined group.
It's amazing how that brings folks together.
We're not talking some sort of real world situation that actually means anything. Any other time, we couldn't give a shit. The fact is we spent several hours not killing a bunch of MOBs but laughing at a self-induced state of boredom. We put ourselves there and continued to suffer it and by the gods, we knew it and couldn't do anything but laugh. That is what made the difference.
Towards the end, Super Husband was trying to convince me it was doable another day. I knew it was, but what I couldn't seem to communicate was that it wasn't doable With This Group Of People. He seemed to sort of understand, but he didn't really. We had killed through it together, laughing, making fun of each other, saying stupid shit, continuously agreeing we were all insane, so, by the gods, we were going to finish it together! At that point, we had simply gone too far together to split up. He would've understood had he been playing. He didn't because he was concerned about me. I can appreciate that.
I can also hope he appreciatea there are times when shit needs to be finished.
About the time Super Husband was really getting demanding, the Bastard spawned.
Holy hell.
There were choirs singing on high, and several worshiped Its presence. (Emotes can be incredibly funny.)
Hours of our lives gone, and finally, finally we were about to reach our goal!
And, we didn't know what to do. We stood there looking at it but no one had a plan. We were so focused on the journey we didn't think about what we were going to do as soon as we were faced down with our goal.
Desperation to prevent our losing out to the plug being pulled on the servers made damn sure I was going to kick start this battle.
My suggestion? Have the highest level pull, the rest of us help kill, the priests keep us alive. Yes, it's standard stuff, but apparently, everyone needed reminding.
I have to tell you, there was a certain satisfaction that the Bastard didn't go down in one or two hits from our high level peep.
All I know is once it was done, there was immense satisfaction. Someone actually mentioned that at this point we all felt like old friends.
Strangely, that's true. We had shared several personal moments in our boredom. Suddenly, we weren't just pixels on a screen waiting to kill an elite creature; we were a bunch of real time gamers who were slogging through a moment in the game that wasn't all that much fun but yet found ourselves truly enjoying ourselves through the connections we made.
And, that means something.
If you're reading this, you know what this means. The internet and gaming has offered us connections that aren't the same as real life. Some argue this is bad, but really, is it? Suddenly, I know a woman in Florida who has three cats who is quite happily gaming in her off time. I know a couple who game together (she being the corrupter in this case) when they aren't taking care of their relatively new relationship, one is diabetic. These are connections. Yes, they are virtual but connections all the same.
I now understand why some people who have a hard time connecting with others in real life find so much fulfillment in the virtual world. I've always understood a little. I've made many friends online. Hell, I met my husband online. The difference is that some of those people don't ever wish to leave the online world. I, however, at some point I actually like meeting my internet friends in the real world. Virtual connections are awesome, but it can't replace that moment of seeing that person's smiling face and giving them a hug.
But, now, I can see how for some people it can be pretty damn close.
___________________
I think it was also good to find others who play as couples. MMOs are joked about being the stomping ground for eternal virgins, so I was very happy to know that Super Husband and I weren't the only geeks bonding through an MMO. Makes us seem less pathetic at any rate.
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