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World of Warcraft Guild Wars

Willow — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:54:08 +0000

About a week ago, I quit World of Warcraft. For the umpteenth time I felt annoyed and angry while playing the game, so I walked away from the computer for a while and realised I was completely and utterly stressed out. Quite literally almost every muscle in my body was tense. I made my decision there and then: no more. Not everyone in-game was happy with this decision (I guess I had made myself somewhat useful, or some such thing) but I’d made up my mind. So the day after that I sold/gave away all the items and money my characters had, and accordingly I deleted them all. I know myself, if I don’t eliminate all reasons to go back I’ll forget about the bad part and start playing again at some point. So, for a week now, I’ve been WoW-free.

I play Guild Wars now! ^^

Quick summary about Guild Wars: it’s got much better graphics and runs much better on my laptop, it’s much less time-consuming and you can always play with anyone in the world. About the latter: in WoW you can’t change servers with a character unless you pay for it, so playing together can only be done if you start on the same server. On top of that, there’s the horde vs alliance thing, so you can’t play together if you’re from different factions. Then there’s the part where a character from a PvE server can’t be transferred to a PvP server, or to a role-playing server. And last but not least: Europe and the USA have their own games, so it’s impossible to play on servers in the USA if you’ve got the Europe game. That’s a total of 4 factors why playing together in WoW can be impossible. Guild Wars has districts in which you play, but you can simply change districts and then you can play with anyone you want (provided you go to the same district). There are no different factions and no different types of servers. The difference is immense.

There are only 20 levels in Guild Wars, of which I did 4 in a couple of hours. It’s much easier to put this game aside since you don’t need all sorts of crap to get anywhere in Guild Wars. It has seperate chapters which you can buy and play (or not), so you get to decide how far you go (as opposed to WoW, in which the expansion was simply necessary to keep playing – nobody wants a level 60 char anymore). Additionally, I noticed that every hour the game will tell you how long you’ve been playing, and that you need to take a break. It’s easy to forget the time while playing, so it’s good to get a reminder.

All in all, I’m very positive about Guild Wars and I hope to see more of it (but at an easy pace).

WA (World of Warcraft Anonymous)

Willow — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:25:07 +0000

My name is Willow, and I am an addict. Please read this not so much as a warning, but a slightly cautionary tale.

World of Warcraft is getting it’s second expansion, after The Burning Crusade (or TBC for short), now comes The Wrath of the Lich King. That will be my cue to stop playing.

I started playing on 19 september 2005, so my account history says, and I remember having been a very casual player. I played 2, max 3 times a week and sometimes not at all for perhaps a month. My main character therefore took ages to level and the game never got old. Then I got to level 60, and the big ‘endgame’ began. I started doing dungeons (raiding) 3 times a week in a 40-man group, and together we killed some of the most intricate and difficult bosses. There’s no end to the amount of factors that matter in such fights. That was pretty hardcore already.

Then TBC was released, the leveling began again (to 70 this time) and the people I used to raid with fell apart. I didn’t game much at that time, until a real life friend of mine suggested that I start a character on another server. Four of my real life friends play on that realm, so I thought that would be fun. This character turned out to be the main cause of my stress for the past half year. Since my friends were all level 70 before I even rolled the character, I was rather alone in questing and I really really really wanted to level to 70 asap, so I could enter the first level 70 dungeon. I didn’t just play for fun anymore, but I played in order to belong with some friends. Leveling wasn’t about the journey anymore, it was about the destination.

I have almost reached my destination now, I’m level 68 and 30%. Has it been fun? Some of it, yes, most of it, no. I’m counting on the fun to start at 70, but if that doesn’t happen I will have done a lot for nothing. What if I can’t get into the dungeon with my friends in the end anyway? What if I turn out to completely suck at playing in such difficult raids?

I never expected World of Warcraft to become an issue in my life after having played relaxedly for 1,5 years. But still, in 6 months’ time it became a liability. An obligation. I want to quit, but first I need to level, and then be able to get into the dungeon (that requires quests first), and then do the dungeon, and then, and then.

In the mean while, our friendship has suffered from it. My friend and I are ok now, but I got so depressed about this character at one point that I just sat down and cried at it, something that he couldn’t quite stand. Imagine that, getting all emo over some bits and bytes.

I’m not saying World of Warcraft isn’t fun, and I’m not saying that it’s wrong to play. But if you do, keep an eye on how serious you’re really taking it. And don’t ever make it a priority over your real life.

OMFG My First Big Wipe LOL!

Willow — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:55:56 +0000

No WoW-playing person is truly an initiate until he/she has been in Molten Core. Today, Taranis (Mark) and me lost our MC virginity. We went along with people from Starrock (thanks for having us n00bs along!) and of course, we had to wipe. Also, we met some nasty enemies but we did quite well (or so I thought, it was probably mediocre). Taranis got epic gloves, I got nothing so far. But we will be back!