split/screen co-op

Massively Multiplayer Epic by *Kirbopher15 on deviantART

I am wondering why people think it is easier to build teams in a few minutes online when it cannot happen in real life.

My husband Dilyan has become a World of Warcraft player and is a Hunter nearing level 79 now. Every evening when I grab the Xbox 360 controller to start up yet another Mass Effect 2 session, he sits on the PC for yet another WoW game . What I most often hear him say while playing is : “Why is nobody doing what they should do?” or “Why is that guy just standing there, not defending himself?” or “Why is there no order in this raid? Everyone is doing just what they want, nobody is in charge!” ect.

My dwarf hunter Indnur on his white ram

3 March was a national holiday over here and I took the Friday off for an extra long weekend. I spent almost all of it in Azeroth. I’m so engrossed in World of Warcraft as I never imagined possible. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I regret not playing it earlier, because I’ve definitely enjoyed great games in that time, some of which better than WoW. But I do admit that all my reasons for not playing it have been proven wrong.

Over the past four days WoW had me glued to my PC in a manner no game has done in a long, long time. True, I was committed to the Fallout series for almost five months before embarking on my journey through Azeroth, but still.

The other night I half-awoke at a kick from Vanya who must have been signalling that I was snoring. I remember being indignant at that as I was only doing the blue-icon quests, which in that semi-conscious state I was in represented quests that did not cause vibration of respiratory structures.

Only one other game has entry to my dreams and it, too, is a Blizzard title. Whenever I play the original Diablo, I always fall asleep to an image burned into my visual memory long after I’ve exited the game: of chests yielding loot.

Dungeon by *eWKn on deviantART

A window pops up centre-screen. I hit the join button and it begins.

We’re in a dark and small room that seems overcrowded. Are all those people here to join our group? I thought there’d only be five of us. Oh, wait. Some of the characters in the room are NPCs. I still can’t tell the difference between them and real “people”.

Nobody’s standing still but me and it’s hard to keep track of who is doing what. I anxiously monitor the chat window for a whisper from Maerwo, the only person I know here. But he’s silent.

I completed Fallout: New Vegas yesterday and I’m now moving on to World of Warcraft.

I was surprised to discover that finishing the main quest in New Vegas really puts an end to the game. There’s no going back to pick up lose threads. I hadn’t yet reached the level cap and I had several quests I wanted to return to later, so I was not quite done playing it. However, I think 80 hours is as much time as I can give this game right now, so I’m not going to begin a second play-through. It was a decent ride, but nothing in New Vegas makes me want to go through it all again so soon, least of all the bugs that killed at least two quests for me.

This wraps up the final leg of my Fallout marathon but is not yet the end of my blogging about Fallout. I have several posts in mind, including a more elaborate opinion on New Vegas, a recap of the experience of trying to play through all the games in the franchise in a row, a piece of New Vegas fan fiction and a critique of Fallout‘s post-apocalyptic monetary system. I’m writing this here because I hope that now I’ve promised it publicly, I’ll be shamed into not forgetting to write those posts.

I started playing World of Warcraft. Having been a WoW virgin so far (if you don’t count that night many months ago when we almost made it to second base; and I don’t), I’m jumping right into Cataclysm and it is a bit discombobulating. I’m still struggling with how you move around and attack things. I really like the game and I suspect I may be in for the laung haul this time around.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find where the leveling-up screen is.

Last week I joined Lord of the Rings Online and my starting of a new MMO game prompted an interesting discussion with a couple friends are experts in the field, so to speak.

I was first amazed with the number of character races and classes I had to choose from. It was a bit confusing and our conversation started from there.

An incredible display of skill in the beta of World of Warcraft Cataclysm. The video is a bit long, but it is worth it

At first I was agasp. I might have even been adrool. I’m a sucker for artsy graphics, so I sucked hungrily. I’m gay for fantasy RPGs, so I turned.

Hit the jump to see what else happened.

Like stamp-collecting, the hobby of coin-collecting is usually associated with rich, wealth-savvy people. The kind of people who, rather than buy shares in a mutual fund like regular small-fry investors, prefer to invest in violins. The kind of people who sprinkle their muesli with caviar and gold and drown them in champagne. The kind of people…

Okay, envy bout now over. Hit the jump for more coin talk.