Gaming Irony

[Chris Savage]

And of course we're not far away from the release of the next expansion for World of Warcraft called, Midnight. The last expansion was called, The War Within, and sadly, I had pre-ordered it, but never played it. I stopped playing WoW before it went live. So now I come back to find a new expansion coming out and I'm so far behind. So many changes to this game that I hardly recognize it. So many down says already and bugs in the pre-release.

[granz]

I've actually never played World of Warcraft. I didn't even know that you have to buy it. That would probably explain why there could be no way that I would play it.

[Chris Savage]

I've actually never played World of Warcraft. I didn't even know that you have to buy it. That would probably explain why there could be no way that I would play it.

In 2005 when the game first came out, we had been playing Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 at our LAN parties. These were RTS games. I refused to play a game that I had to pay a monthly fee for. The guy who was trying to get me into the game swore I'd love it if I would just give it a try, but I said no. He asked me if I had ever gone bowling or golfing (mini-golf). I said yes. He said that the monthly fee was no more than I would pay to go bowling or golfing, but I would get unlimited playtime for the month for that fee. It still didn't get me to try.

It was in 2007, when our older boy came home with the game, explaining that he was going to install and play it that we put our foot down. Apparently his friends bought him a copy. But when we moved to CA there were numerous ads and news articles talking about people who lost their jobs and / or relationships to the games. Stories of kids who quit school to play full-time, including one of the friends our boy was referring to. There was also the scare of child predators since anyone can "chat" you in the game. My wife and I decided to check the game out ourselves before we would allow him to install it and play whenever with full access to chats with people we would never know about.

He was upset, but agreed. It took us hours to install and update the game just to check it out, and my late wife's laptop really had trouble playing it at all. It didn't seem like we were playing it for very long when suddenly our boy came out and said, "You guys are STILL PLAYING?!? I hope that means I can install it and play after school!!!"

Apparently, we had stayed up all night playing, trying to figure it out, and on the phone with my old friend from NY who asked me to play years earlier, but who had recently stopped playing for another game. Eventually, we all started playing as a family (two boys and us). My late wife and I justified it that we were "keeping an eye on the kids" as it were. But we were hooked too.

The boys had moved out by the time Wendy passed and the older boy had stopped playing. I stopped playing for a long time. It wasn't until I moved back to NY and had literally nothing to do that I decided to go back. Then I quit for over a year when Val and I bought our house. She's into football and NASCAR, and I don't do sports, so I decided to go back for short stints when she's not around.

[granz]

I never thought about the predators out there in WoW.  That kind of stuff can be scary.

Several of our kids got into "Clash of Clans." Marilyn got into it so that she could keep in contact (through in-game chatting) with them. Shortly after she got into the game, most of the kids quit playing. Peter left the game several months later. Marilyn has been playing without any of our kids for several years. In addition, she discovered that she can use different devices to play different aspects (?) of her village, or maybe different villages(?) So, she has three different tablets, plus her phone going at the same time, jumping from one to another during her play.  I tease her about me being married to a war lord. 

[Chris Savage]

Marilyn has been playing without any of our kids for several years.

We all have our vices...when summer gets here I won't have time for it. I'll be outside a lot more.

[granz]

Interestingly, Hack-A-Day has an article, this morning, about an Open Source client for WoW:

https://hackaday.com/2026/02/18/an-open-source-client-for-world-of-warcraft/

Funny how the timing of things works out.

[Chris Savage]

Interestingly, Hack-A-Day has an article, this morning, about an Open Source client for WoW: Funny how the timing of things works out.

I will have to check this out more when I am home. There was a time when people who missed the original "vanilla" game were running hacked servers. Blizzard let it go for a while, then one day sent out cease and desist letters to those people. They then re-released the "vanilla" version of the game, now called, "Classic" and available with your existing subscription. There were a lot of people who only liked the original game and now what they did to it over time.

[Chris Savage]

Two weeks ago, I was complaining about not getting some things done. My wife pointed out that I had made this claim before while playing World of Warcraft. Two days later I guess I was complaining about drama in the guild and once again, she reminded me of things I had previously said.

That night I did some self-reflecting and ironically, that same night a former co-worker who I played the game with was telling me his account was about to expire and he couldn't afford to renew it. WoW is his only form of stress relief. I asked him if he wanted my account, which was paid through November. At first he couldn't understand what I was asking.

But I realized, the only way I was going to get away from WoW, was to get rid of the account. Each time I went back, it was as simple as reactivating my account. Once I was paying for it, I felt justified in "getting my money's worth." So, the only way to break the cycle was to remove that ability, and help someone else in the process.

[MicroNut]

My "stress release" during college was the 2 arcades in State College PA. I got to be the second best on Mappy!! After being late for classes I decided to stop playing the new games that came in. It wasn't long that there wasn't anything to play.

I have developed a liking to open world problem solving games. My favorite is Final Fantasy XV which came free with the purchase of my laptop in 2018. That one can be played turn based or real time. Since then the servers that gave the game some interesting features were moved to be used for XIV online so it isn't as interesting any more, I have many of the Final Fantasy games.

I don't have much time now so when I get free time I am spending it learning a logical simulator to create a simulated 1802 cpu and AI guiding my steps, but that is for another post.