October 2006

I have finally come to the decision to, pretty much, quit my current MMORPG, Anarchy Online.

There are many reasons that I am leaving behind the one MMO that I actually can say I enjoyed for a while.
The major reason is budget constraints. I can’t keep forking over $36 every three months for a game that I’ve stopped playing that much. $36 is two tanks of gas for me.
The second reason is that I came to a realization, after reading another blog entry that Dan linked to. For some odd reason, I decided to go monetize the number of hours I spent in Rubi-Ka and the Shadowlands… and realized that if I had spent those play hours working another job…

At $9 an hour, I’d have $13,000 at my disposal, before taxes.
At $12, I’d have had $17,000 before taxes.

It’s strange that it takes the concept of monetizing time spent to get the idea that maybe I’m wasting my life doing something useless, instead on focusing on the important things. I need to focus more on getting a better job, or two of them, so that I can make sure it’s not ME who loses this house.
I need to earn the money to get insurance on the car I have — Haven’t been able to afford it just yet.
I need to earn enough to pay off the debts I owe, or have them all flushed down the toilet, whichever comes easier.
I need to earn enough, so I can go see a doctor, and finally have my health issues hacked, sorted, and patched with the latest bugfixes.
I need to have money, so I can go out, have social time with other people, and get out of the house more.

With the only MMO that I really gave a rat’s ass about out of the way, I have less incentive to sit down and waste my life playing a stupid game.

What bothered me is, I said I’d never get involved with an MMO, and largely, I was true to my word.
Ragnarok Online, I got bored with in a couple of months, even with private servers, GM abilities, and a Balmung to rape everything with.
Mu Online, I never really got into — I don’t think I ever leveled a character over 21.

World of Warcraft, I couldn’t stand, and it deserves a story to explain:
I was doing a lot of trash talking about WoW a long time ago, but I had never played it. I caught myself being a hypocrite, too, in telling someone that they can’t trash talk a game that they’ve never played. So, I stopped talking trash about WoW, and said, “Okay, I’m going to try that free trial of World of Warcraft. I won’t talk trash about your game until I am done with the trial.”

So, I downloaded 2.5 GB of Blizzard, unpacked and installed the monstrous game — 5 GB, installed, mind you — to give it a whirl. Then it wanted to patch. An hour later, we were good to go.
I started up the game, created a mutant cow thingy (she was cute, I’ll give you that), and tried the game.
I started to suffer from near-instant grinditis, but there was this odd, lingering effect that was happening at the same time. It was the Train Wreck effect. The game was horrible!, but there was that nagging, “Don’t stop now. See if it gets better with a few levels?” effect dragging its way through my brain.
I found myself burning about 25 hours into the trial, with that mutant cow girl thingy, and with a human, before I snapped, and uninstalled the game in disgust. I went back to AO, and said, “How the hell do people play that shit?” while doing stuff that was quite similar to what happens in WoW, but didn’t really mind it so much there.

Maybe it’s just the community that some of us get absorbed in. We make online friends here and there, but never really get to know each other outside of the game environs that well, either by instant messenger, by phone, by actual snail mail, or, God forbid, in person. Yet, many of us are willing to ignore our significant others, our families, our friends, just to sit down and collect three dimensional objects that “give us bonuses”.

I admit, I let myself get sucked into AO. I started enjoying it when people were willing to talk to me, and give me advice on how to become a better Martial Artist in game. I learned to raise Brawl, Martial Arts, Bio Met and Sensory Improvement, so I could hit harder, heal more, and generally dance on the shoulders of the gods themselves in the game. I was good at taking damage, despite my breed (Nanomage are suited for support roles, not direct action roles), and I was just as good at delivering damage. I actually topped out at nearly 11,000 Damage Per Minute, fully buffed, with a trader running an Umbral Wrangle for level 100+ characters.
I had First Tier Martial Artist Armor on, by level 100 on her.
I started joining regular teams and Kite teams, to get some heckler exp under her belt, since everyone was flying past her to level 200 and above, leaving fewer and fewer in teaming range to play with.

I had a Keeper, and had a Frosty on her before she hit level 30.
I had a Styg on her by 39, and it was only over-equipped until she hit 40.
I kept her under level 60, because I was going to burn creds to twink her out, so she could go kill Aztur the Immortal with very little outside help (She was able to solo Guardian of Tomorrow, a BIG HORKING ROBOT THING, with an Essence of Behemoth, and the best First Aid kits she could use, combined with her dual Heal Over Times).

I realized that this was all stupid, because I was proud of the wrong things.

I have friends who make more in two weeks than I make in two months.

I have something I cannot let go of. This house is almost all I have left of my mother, who gave her blood, her sweat, and her tears, and ultimately, her life, to make sure my aunt and I have somewhere decent to live. I don’t want to be the one who is responsible for this house going by the wayside.

I have my morals, and my standards, though. This is why I haven’t bombarded you all with PayPerPost entries that don’t fit here. This is why I’m heading out to drop off my resume with a couple of staffing services, so that hopefully, I can do some work that fits on my days off, and my mornings off from my day job.

I will succeed, and this is not an option.

MMORPGs be damned. I’ll stick to something I can pick up, spend a little time on, and then easily put it down without feeling left behind.