So, I was asked by a certain someone to review and respond to an earlier post of mine . . . and here goes . . .
"It felt like Richard Dryfus from Close Encounters with the mashed potatoes . . . this means something!"
Still does, but less often and less . . . globally. Yet, I am not JUST playing a game . . . seriously . . . stop laughing! This does mean something.
"Ironforge is huge in exactly the way a Dwarf city should be . . . dwarfing everything within. This is the first time the game came alive for me. The hustle and bustle of a busy city . . . knowing the majority of those folks are players and going about busy business. The auction house was packed and the forges were ringing and there was just a general sense of real life."
Overall, things are much the same . . .and different. Iron Forge is no longer my home . . . though, I suppose it is and always will be. I [ViaMedia] live in Shattrath City now, but don't really do more than business there . . . it's just where my hearth is set . . . not my heart. I spend my time on the road . . . by land, air, sea or portal . . . I'm a traveling man . . . err . . dwarf.
I'm far closer to day 1000 than day 1. I'm leveled and geared. I've completed all the solo quests. I've run, if not led. every instance in Outlands . . . slain every boss. I don't see the masses, huddled and yearning, in IF . . . I just retrace my steps and hit the mailbox, AH, bank and back to Outlands. Yet, I see my party clearly enough . . . striving towards goals both stated and unstated. I've not lost my awe in them.
I wrote "a general sense of real life" . . . damned, if that doesn't ring so true through two years. I think the rest of my peers do a better jorb of separating themselves from . . . errr . . their selves. I don't know what motivates you folks, but I know I simply like ViaMedia better than James . . . and I like being him more. And I don't think that is a confession many of the 8 million would find shocking. In WOW there are so many fewer failed expectations . . . broken hearts . . . personal recriminations . . . impersonal accusations . . . betrayals . . .etc . . . Simply, ViaMedia is as good as James always wished he could and has been rewarded for being so.
"Yet, here is the huddled masses with all their yearning."
Should have been "are", but maybe should have been "Mass" and "Its'". Still, here the masses be . . . and become.
"Some run out and challenge the experience. Others, like me, hold back and watch and listen and wait to gain some level of understanding."
Back to the first line about "this means something" . . . I wait and watch . . and yes, agitate and aggravate . . . all in the pursuit of finding out what that meaning is. I fear on some level it is both too universal and personal for most to admit.
"Where all this is going I am not sure, but I can see that there might be a place in this world for me."
"a place in the world for me" . . . damn . . . yeah, I've carved that out so many times only to have it eroded by the sands of time. In WOW . . . at least you get to keep your gear and rep.
"It is a long day of exploring for me. I'm getting comfortable. I am in and out of Ironforge many times. I retrace some of my adventures and get them right. I explore other areas. I spend a lot of time learning how the professions work. By the end of the day, I get mining, blacksmithing, first aid and cooking. I start to realize all the mistakes I made early on . . . wishing I could correct them."
Another way that WOW is better then RL.
"Linda and I team up for a mission to take out an 'elite' character. Next thing we know we're dead and reminded of how far we still have to go. We're level teens in a world that goes as high as 60. There are monsters out there that we probably couldn't do enough damage to get their attention. And there is real sense of that. As Linda pointed out later, being in this strange land had a real sense of adventure. We didn't know these creatures or this terrain or where we were. We had already made the 'other' land our home in our minds. This was a foreign land. I didn't' kill a cow for fear of offending the locals. I got mobbed by these frog things because I was too curious. We were strangers in a stranger land."
And now? I don't know [especially from rereading the above] if I am any less stranger . . . or a stranger, but I know this world isn't to me. I know it better than anything I've ever known. There are places I've not been, but I know the parameters of what to expect . . . and am rarely disappointed anymore. I'm uber now . . . in level, gear, knowledge, etc. The distance between day 5 and now cannot even be fathomed by me. It is in all honesty at least 10,000 lifetimes ago . . . 10,000 runs from the graveyards . . . 10, 000 return to life and the pursuit of . . .what?
Like day five . . . still asking . . . myself and you.
I don't know if it's that I've distributed my attention among so many alts and even across factions, but I still find new things in the game that keep me interested enough to play on.
ReplyDeleteHere's something from just the other day...
Saami was riding her epic ram across the open grasslands in Nagrand. I was riding fast, over a long distance...and I began to recall really riding a horse in an open grassy area for a long distance. I was impressed that visually the game was able to trigger that memory.
Similarly, but not at all real wordly, Hall often rides the flying mount around just looking at the world. I like it. It's well not exactly breathtaking, but some lighter version of that.