The last time I posted anything on WoW was last December. I played only a time or two after that post, and I let my account expire in early January. I was just finding the game, “meh.”

But then in March, I had the hankerin’ to explore Azeroth again. I reopened my account, played a couple of times over that week, and then let the account expire again.

Now, it’s been another few months since then, without playing WoW, and I’m again feeling the urge to explore a fantasy world. So last night I restarted my account. Unfortunately, I had to download all the updates that have come out since March.

I would like to say that after downloading the updates, I at least got to log in and see my old characters. But the updater was taking so freakin’ long that I just went to bed before it finished.

I think that fact that my regular, real-world, face-to-face, game nights are only once a week — at best, when we don’t have to cancel for one reason or another — that makes me long for the instant gratification of logging into WoW for some adventure.

Will this newest attempt to get back into WoW play stick, or will I again find it lacking the real feel of fantasy-world adventure that I’m looking for?

Bullgrit

(Related to Friday’s post.) At the game store, my boys got interested in some water-sports game on some unknown-to-me console system. But I spotted old-school Super Mario Bros. on another monitor, so I gravitated over to it.

The first few tries I made at the old game showed that I’d lost any skills I once might have had with it. I just right sucked at it. But after a few minutes, and about half a dozen deaths, I managed to make my way in the world. Soon Calfgrit7 (he turned 8 yesterday, but that’s another post, tomorrow) noticed my game and left his little brother to float around in the water game.

CG7 asked to play and I let him. I told him the object of the game and how the controller worked, and he took right into it. It took him less time to get the hang of the game than it did me to get back into the hang. He was stomping Goombas and Koopa Troopas left and right.

Once I saw how impressed he was with the old game, I told him that I had this game at home. He was immediately interested. “Really!? Can we play it!?”

So when we got home that night, after baths were finished and pajamas were on, I took out my old Super Nintendo and plugged it into our TV. I was mistaken when I told CG7 I had Super Mario Bros. I have Super Mario Kart — but that’s even better for our situation. With SMK, both boys can play at the same time instead of waiting for turns.

I explained the game and controls to both boys and let them loose on the first basic race track. They *loved* it! At first, though, CG7 was frustrated with figuring out how to drive the karts on the track. He moaned and complained “Why can’t I get off this wall? Why am I going the wrong way?”

I got him to calm down for a moment and said, “Now think about it for a moment. There’s no hurry for you — Calfgrit4 is just going in circles — so take your time and think about how to work the controls.”

He took a big breath and calmed down. Within a few more seconds he had it figured out and was racing. Of course, he was just racing himself, as CG4 continued his circling the starting line.

I let them play two races — CG7 won both, of course — and then I took over for CG4. I won the next two races, easily, but not without having to try. CG7 knew what he was doing by then, and if I started screwing around on the track, he’d pass me and I had to work to get ahead again.

I gave the controller back to CG4 who again lost a race. But it didn’t matter to him that CG7 was running circles around him, (as he ran circles around himself), he just liked controlling the character on the screen.

By the way, Calfgrit7 likes Donkey Kong, and Calfgrit4 likes Luigi. We all three had a ball with this old game for over half an hour. Afterwards they made me promise we’d play it again sometime soon.

The play of the game holds up well after all this time — originally produced in 1992 — but the graphics are absolutely abysmal by today’s standards. It’s really shocking to go from any modern console or computer game and then watch this thing. It’s amazing what our minds ignore or fill in with the old, simple graphics of the old games.

When I’ve always thought back on these games, I can picture in my mind’s eye, vivid details and smooth colors. Looking at Mario Kart on the Wii doesn’t look different than what I remember, in my mind’s eye, of the Super version. But actually looking at the 1992 graphics, wow, nostalgia paints a much more beautiful and detailed image than reality.

But that’s the technology we had in the day. And still, the game play was and still is superb. I’m looking forward to playing this some more with my boys. By the end of our half hour of play time, I had just started introducing the special abilities — shells, banana peels, speed mushrooms, etc. — so our next races should be even more exciting.

Bullgrit

Me and my boys were at a shopping center today, and Calfgrit7 asked if we could go into the video game store. I don’t know why he wanted to go in, and I don’t really know why I agreed, but the three of us entered. We don’t have a console system, and the only computer game I’ve played lately is World of Warcraft.

This made me realize that I’m not really much of a video gamer anymore. I’m more of a has-been video gamer. Since the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis of the early ’90s, I’ve played very, very few console games. Past, say 1995, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve played a console system. Although, I still own my old Super Nintendo (with only the Super Mario Cart game cartridge) and Sega Genesis (with only the Shadowrun cart.), sealed up in boxes at the back of my closet. [I pulled this out for my boys after our trip into the video game store — I’ll write about this experience for Monday.]

I have a shelf under my desk with at least half a dozen computer games — off the top of my head, I can think of Diablo I & II, Half-Life 1 & 2, Far Cry, F.E.A.R., DOOM 3, Guild Wars, and World of Warcraft plus it’s two expansions. But since I started WoW three or four years ago, I haven’t really played much of any other computer game. WoW takes a lot of time, and you never really “finish” it.

Before starting WoW, I’d play a game for a few months — finishing it and replaying it at least once — then I’d get another game. I played at least two new games a year. I know some would call that “barely a gamer,” but computer gaming was not my life, it was just a hobby for occasional escapism. (Table-top gaming had a deeper claim on my life.)

But now, other than the WoW expansions over the past couple of years, I haven’t bought or played a new computer game. And even at my most intense, I played WoW only twice, occasionally thrice, a week, for about 3-4 hours at a time. And now, even with getting the new Wrath of the Lich King expansion in November, I’ve maybe played it a total of 4 hours (outside riding around and exploring the world with my sons).

My main WoW character is still only level 70, and my new death knight character is only level 56. A couple of weeks ago, I canceled my subscription to WoW, and my time paid runs out this weekend. Now, I’ve canceled my account before, after reaching the top levels in the game, and I ended up back in the game after 3-6 months. But this is the first time I’ve canceled it before “finishing” it as a solo player.

Over the past year, I’ve done very little computer gaming at all. One of my friends loaned me Fallout 2 about three weeks ago, and I haven’t played 10 minutes of the game — I’ve really only installed it and started it to see what it looked like.

When I first came to this realization that I’m not doing any computer gaming lately, I felt a little saddened. What’s happened to me? I thought. I used to be “a computer gamer geek.” Computer games were part of my personality and character. But once I considered what has “happened” to me, I realize I’ve made a choice: to write (and work) on this web site every night instead of playing computer games.

And after thinking seriously about it for a while, I’ve come to realize that I like the choice I’ve made. I’ve really enjoyed writing (and working) on this web site. Not only am I doing something I enjoy doing, but I feel a sense of accomplishment looking back through the logs of this site that I never felt looking through the boxes of completed games on my desk shelf.

I do feel a sense of loss, though, over not playing computer games anymore. I’ve definitely “given up” something that has always been a part of my life — as far back as ZORK on my Commodore 64. But I guess I need to accept the fact that I’m no longer, currently a “computer gamer.” I’m just a “used to player.”

Do I have to turn in my membership card? Or can I just be put on reserve status?

Bullgrit

Since my boys like to watch me “play” WoW, I’ve decided to try gaining the World Explorer achievement. Now, when they watch me play (read: ride/fly around the zones), I can actually accomplish something more than just entertaining the Calves.

I was surprised to learn that there was still a lot of areas I hadn’t fully explored. I was mostly shocked to find out that I hadn’t finished exploring Durotar –- where my orc hunter started out. It’s kind of an annoyance to have to ride way off to some far corner of the zone map just to fill in the last small area. But, doing so does make my boys feel like they’re playing WoW.

One night, without my boys with me, I decided to explore all of Teldrassil (as an orc). The first two times I tried to get on the boat at Auberdine, I had trouble with PvP players. One human warlock ended up killing me, and one night elf something drove me away. The third time, I ran right to the boat and got on. No problem.

And then in Darnassus, I had a bunch of 70+ PvP players blasting me. They camped my corpse for about 15 minutes. Fortunately for me, though, I just minimized WoW to my taskbar and worked on other stuff to wait them out. Actually exploring Teldrassil was easy. Running through the guards in Darnassus was easy. But the PvP players were all over me, coming and going.

Then I went to Azuremyst Isle, by boat from Auberdine. I had no problem getting on the boat and exploring around the island (although I’m not finished yet). No PvP players came after me even when I jumped in and out of the Exodar.

Sadly, to me, exploring the world isn’t nearly as interesting as I thought it would be. It’s really just a time dump. I could be doing something much more fun. So I think I’ll just forget about going for that achievement. It’s a waste of my time.

Bullgrit