World of Warcraft

It took me a long time, but I finally gave in and gave World of Warcraft, the computer game a try this month. As a teenager I quite enjoyed the strategy game Warcraft II and Starcraft by the same company, but I've never been able to really connect with the roleplaying and first person character types of games, which is what World of Warcraft is.

However, Russell is a big fan of the game and has been desperate for someone to play with since his past comrades have gotten married to wives who won't let them play much anymore. He had a 30 day free trial that he signed me up for a day or two after Holly left town and I started testing the waters of the game.

It took me a few days to really get a handle on things and work out some confusion I had about how things worked, but Russell sat down and teamed up with me for a couple hours and got me all straightened out. Now I'm cruising through the game having fun and Russell and I have enjoyed a couple sessions of teaming up for some quests and adventures.

The games is quite different from what I was expecting because there are so many different things you can spend your time doing. You can go on quests, simply explore, have multiple different characters, each with different skills, or you can do a mix of a little bit of everything. Right now I've got a Dwarf Warrior, named Tierk, who is a Level 22, which I guess is pretty decent. We'll see how fancy I get get him before Holly gets back in town.

After the free trial is up it costs $15 a month to keep playing, so I think I might pay for the two months of summer remaining and then see where I stand. Once school starts I don't think I'll have time to play much and Russell said you can save your character as long as you like, so if you walk away for 6 months without playing you can just pick right back up where you left off as soon as you start paying again, which is sort of nice. So I can put it aside during the school year, maybe pay for a month over Christmas break, and then wait again until summer to pick it up again. Or, if Russell and I wanted to sit down for a "guys day" one Saturday I think I could get $15 worth of value out of an afternoon and evening of questing. Lots of options, fun game to be sure.

I think Holly was worried that I might become addicted to the game like so many people do, but for me it is more of a distraction type thing during the month I've been playing. Instead of flipping channels I'll go play for an hour and then go see some friends. Instead of going to see all the movies in the theater I can play for an hour until the urge goes away. I don't think I'll ever be one of the guys who has to gather every single thing possible, or beat every single quest by any means.

Good time waster while the wife is out of town though.