I hit it last night in Icecrown while trying to save the Argent Crusade dude infected with the plague. I expect now to be spending some time over at
Arena Junkies. For the record, WoW is a lot more pleasant this time around. I think it has to do with joining a guild filled with people my age and older. I've yet to hear anyone call anyone a nubcake ("though I love that word"). I've yet to hear anyone tell another guildie, "Dude, that's so gay." Everything is so much more civilized.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Take it from a reformed hardcore gamer that's over 30, married with kids, and fully employed.
Your gaming hours a precious and limited. It makes no sense whatsoever to waste even minutes dealing with children or (shudder) newbs.
I joined one of the oldest and best organized gaming syndicates, Sturmgrenadier, back in 2004 when playing Planetside. They also had portals (read as departments for different games) for WoW, EQ2, Eve Online, and some fps twitch games. You cough up $12 a year for dues, but in return you get a rigorously organized command staff, dedicated TS servers and protected channels. To add to that, there is a very strict CoC (code of conduct) that allows people to play games and enjoy them, but cuts way, way down on the BS.
I've been fairly inactive with SG since my youngest daughter was born last year, but I'm starting to pick it back up with Eve Online and Warhammer.
Sigh...you can take the boy away from the geek, but you cannot exorcise the geek from the boy.
Speaking of...when the hell did computer nerds get lumped in with guys that bite chicken heads off in traveling shows?
I'm curious to see if anyone is trakcing the median Age of WoW participants over time. I think it's getting older, as a lot of kids I am aournd (Church, my wife teach HS) are both banned, and not really interested in playing. Most Wow players I know now started in college, and dropped out in order to get jobs thta could support a Wow lifestyle.
Scott,
That sounds awesome. Never heard of those guys. I found when my son was really young--under six--I basically had no gaming time. It started improving after seven, when he had more extracurricular stuff and really got into reading. Still, it's limited, as you say. And I'm just not inclined to see it wasted.
Speaking as a 28-yr old casual gamer, I wanted to know if it's even worth me getting into WoW since I probably would have no idea where to start. I've played a few RPGs (Paper Mario, Command and Conquer RA series) in the past, and even messed around with second life a bit but nothing hardcore. Is it an easy game to learn/progress through?
@TNC
Congrats on hitting 80, btw. Hopefully there's enough endgame content to make it worth the while. Since you're dipped deeply in the waters of WoW, this is probably unnecessary, but have you ever watched the South Park take on WoW? Truly classic.
@Charles J
It depends on what you want out of an MMO. WoW is the most successful MMO in gaming history, imho, because it's so simple. There's depth if you want to go after it, but one of the main reasons it's got so many subscribers is its accessibility for new players to get up to speed quickly. There's pretty much no learning curve...more like a learning slight bend to the right. Watch the server you pick, though. If you want to learn the game gradually, pick one that's not set for open PVP (player vs player) or you'll regret it...
If you want something to really sink your teeth into, try Eve Online. While there's no learning curve there (it's a learning Victoria Falls), I've been playing for four years and still haven't touched about half the possible game content. The other advantage here is that as its a more complicated game, the player community tends to be old, more mature, and far more international in flavor.
Good luck and make sure you have a clock somewhere nearby your comp so you can see how many hours you wasted :)
Never played WoW, but I'm a very casual gamer and huge sci-fi fantasy geek. I've always been afraid of getting sucked in. I heard that they were releasing a Star Wars online game sort of like WoW set in the Old Republic. That might ruin my life.
Make that "older" not "old"
lol
Congrats, your dedication has paid off.
@TNC
Come on, admit it. You paid some 7-year-old Chinese kid to PL your toon up to 79 and ding'd it over yourself to show everyone your massive epeen.
Grats!!
Yes, who you hang with makes a huge difference. If anyone in our guild lets fly with a "that's so gay!" we have a little chat.
Oddly enough, there isn't much of that in server-wide chennels either. There's plenty of other drama though.
Grats!
I'm not too far behind. Logged off last night and I was about 4 suasage links away.
I've bounced around several severs looking for the right one with the right guild. It makes a huge difference on how enjoyable and how addictive the game is when you play with the right group of mature people.
BTW, I am constantly amazed at who plays WOW. Maybe I'm just a bit too old school, but I remember when playing online games was the equivilant to being in a leper colony.
What I'm amazed at is the diversity of other interests AMONG GAMERS. Adult gamers are still looked at kind of funny by those that don't partake, at least in my experience.
So hows your gear up to this point? You still have all blue or have you dived into warsong gulch for a few million hours? To me out of all things in WOW, doing PVP outside arena is the most tedious thing in the world after a few hours. Wish it was like eve where you can rape somebody for their gear. could you imagine the mayhem and fun that could be had. You could have raving gangs that find high level players take them out and divy their gear between themselves. I dont think id ever be bored, that way a guild could really mean something.
Darkfall will be just that. Eve's PVP is the single-most unforgiving, and thus, most heart-pounding, in all of MMO-dom. When you get killed in Eve, there's no respawning with your gear, or grave to go get your stuff back from. Your ship, all your gear, drones, cargo, maybe even weeks of real-time skill accumulation, all gone gone gone.
Darkfall will be the fantasy equivalent of this. No tabbing your targets, no auto-targeting for ranged dps or spells at all. Everything will be manually aimed. In fact, if the beta testers aren't blowing smoke, if you swing your weapon too close to your buddy, he takes damage.
Scott,
I loved Eve with a passion, but got really sick of getting blown up just for wandering. I mean, it's space! Who's not gonna wander? It's impossible to be a noob in that game these days, because people are douchebags. But it's an awesome game, no doubt. Absolutely engrossing. Best MMO I ever played, bar none.
Gratz on 80.
My 9 year old son responded to a "That's so gay," comment with, "Men having sex together has nothing to do with you being a noob."
Being young doesn't mean being stupid.
Not a WoW player, I'm only 25 but I haven't gamed all that much since SMB3. I just wonder, with the WoW and the like, what is the endgame there? (I have a lot of friends that play, since I am a hardcore geek, and so I've seen the interface, understand the concept, etc.) I mean, obviously Blizzard keeps releasing new expansion packs, but eventually does someone get to level 1000? What then? I just went on to that arena junkies site and they had a long post about how 'damage is out of control' and they were soliciting suggestions about how to control it. What? Is the computer system now in control of the game? This entire WoW/Second Life thing has far too many unpleasant metaphysical questions involved for me, but maybe that's part of the appeal?
@GKM
I hear what you're saying. I took about six months off (with the exception of logging in long enough to change skill training) and when I came back, enough had changed that I had to un-newb myself. Me, a carrier pilot...
To address exactly what you're talking about, though, CCP has instituted the New Player Experience. Its a pretty slick way of getting you up to speed quickly and, despite angst from oldsters like me, you start off with what amounts to six real-time months of skills ready to go.
They also instituted factional warfare, so if you're new and a newb, you join up with your racial faction and jump right into the fray. This also means that you have peeps to call on if you get jumped.
As long as you stick to .5-.0 systems, you should be fine. The second you go .4 and below, though, I take no responsibility...
I've yet to hear anyone call anyone a nubcake ("though I love that word"). I've yet to hear anyone tell another guildie, "Dude, that's so gay." Everything is so much more civilized.
Wow, that sounds great. The last guild I was in, they called everybody stupid a "nigger." Even the one black guy (!) was doing it. I thought to myself "you know, I can put up with this shit if it gets me the loot." But, you know, I couldn't. Kinda sapped my interest in the game itself. (I'll be back in for Lich King, though, when I'm done with this semester.)
My wife was one of the top-geared warlocks on her server - no welfare purples - and she was turned away from the second-best raiding guild, who needed warlocks desperately, because they "don't raid with girls." She was pissed for two weeks, and I don't blame her.
This was all Burning Crusade-era. Something in that expansion really messed up raiding. Used to be, you could get a group of skilled players together and do the whole Molten Core in a night plus half of Blackwing Lair, with a raid equipped with nothing but blues. Skill, teamwork, and creativity could make up the difference.
Post-BC, you had to be specc'ed in a very specific way, with specific quality gear, playing a specific way, with a specific kind of guild organization. No room for flexibility or error. It really sapped the fun for me. Not to mention how it killed any reason to raid Molten Core, UBRS, or Strat, which were all tremendously fun.
Grats on 80! w00t!
Ok, I feel obligated to ask, even though I imagine you'll want to keep these details private:
Realm/Class/Race/Name, or just post an armory link?
I know your wife being told "we don't raid with girls" sucks from your wife's perspective and from a maturity aspect. However, on the freedom of association tip, I've got to come down on the side of "play who you want to play with". Doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it, though.
The reason for this is, for instance, if I'm playing BF2142, which has built-in voice comms, and some 13-year-old kid end up in my squad, I'll drop out of that squad in a heartbeat. For no other reason than his/her voice will be like nails on a chalkboard to me. Simply...can't. I won't declare the kid's suckage, though, I'll just drop off.
T - I can't believe you hit 80 already... man you flew! Grats.
Chet - if TBC left a bad taste in your mouth, I'd strongly encourage you to try out Wrath - they've really really gone our of their way to make it more accessible to a variety of classes/specs, and I think they've done a great job with it. The end game raids are a lot of fun, and I'm mostly a pvp guy. Add to that the ability to do any raid in either 10 man or 25 man, and you've got a flexible/casual player's dream.
You're playing horde I guess, don't let me catch you in WG.
@ErinSiobhan:
Right on. I'm 27 and I game, sometimes with teenagers. Every time they call something "gay" as a pejorative, I always look at them quizzically and say, "I'm not really sure what this has to do with one man having sex with another."
I'm not sure I'm getting through, but you gotta try. So, 'grats on raising an enlightened child.
I thought that 70-80 was probably the most entertaining leveling experience that Bliz has offered so far. I really recommend that you continue questing even though you've hit 80, since for some reason they decided to put their most interesting, innovative and lore-filled quests in Icecrown and Storm Peaks, which can be completely skipped if you wanted to.
That being said, end game content so far is a huge disappointment. It seems to me that they put everything they had into the leveling process and left end game as an afterthought. WotLK essentially has only 4 raids: One "real" raid dungeon in Naxx (which is recycled from pre-BC and took no effort to implement beyond retooling for level 80), and three single boss Onyxia-style raids with Sartharion, Archavon and Malygos. BC, on the other hand, was released with a full entry level 10 man instance, two onyxia-style raids and four full and challenging 25 man raids. And on top of this, the current content is absurdly easy. The world's top guild actually cleared all content only four days after the release of the expansion. My guild is just minimally competent and we've managed to clear all of it less than two months after release; compared to the 4 or so months we spent raiding pre-wotlk that only got us partially through a couple of the 25 man raids.
Now obviously raiding isn't everything at 80, and it is kinda nice that you could put together a pick-up group of players and advance reasonably well through all the instances, but there's just a serious lack of challenge and variety in the game right now. But this, combined with the fact that arenas and pvp are basically broken right now, makes me wonder if it's worth subbing again to continue running the same single easy raid for the next few months until the next big content patch.
gratz on the ding
gratz!
Tell us, what class do you play?
I'd put in my 2c on having you come back to GS, but as I'm off playing Warhammer atm it isn't like we could get our 2v2 back together ;)
If you do get the itching for WAR shoot me an email. If I come back to WoW I'll do the same.
Nice job man! I got bored and bailed on WoW in the 40s, but every so often I get tempted to go back...
One of the things I love about your blog is that you're "open" about your gaming - and that it figures into your actual blogs as well. As another commenter mentioned, married/parenting/adult gamers have been pariahs for so long. *Especially* MMO gamers.
I'm a "normal guy": 30 years old, father of 1 (soon to be 2!), holding down a "real" job, and and a regular gamer (City of Heroes is my dru--game of choice). We do exist.