Me and MMOs: A Story

So I've recently started playing D&D online as I posted previously, and while this doesn't seem like a big thing to the average stranger coming across this blog, the readers I have who have known me well for the last five or six years have been well aware of my vehement opposition to MMORPGS on a number of principles. When I posted on facebook that I'd finally started playing an MMO, I got a ridiculous number of responses from friends both new and old alternately congratulating me, giving me crap, or something in-between.

And it's well deserved, as my decision to start playing DDO has got me eating my words.

So where did this dislike for MMORPGs begin? And what changed it?

Well, the story begins shortly after I moved to Nebraska. It was my senior year in high school and, having just moved four thousand miles across the world from London, England, I didn't know anyone. In England I had left behind twelve years of experiences, friends, and a boyfriend, and the two of us decided to try the long-distance thing, and that went well for a while.

And then he picked up WoW. The quintessential MMO. He started playing after I moved, and while I won't be the kind of asshole ex-girlfriend who sits here and soapboxes about how the game (I just lost) ruined our relationship, I will say that it was a contributing factor in the decline of that relationship. There were of course other things that pulled us apart (the distance of course being the main one), but many webcam chat dates were forgotten or skipped over because he was in a raid and didn't remember until he received an angry email the next day.

So yeah. It's a sore subject, as it can be for many female gamers - the feeling of being less important than a videogame, whether that be true or not, is not a pleasant one.

I carried this resentment for several years, to the point where finding out someone played WoW or other similar MMOs colored my perceptions of them. Not actively, but I know I definitely felt the unpleasant twist in my gut every time I heard about the videogame that contributed to the downfall of my relationship with my high school boyfriend.

I look back on it and feel silly. Believe me I do, but at the time, I felt completely justified and comfortable in calling myself a proud Warcraft Widow.

And then I met Jim and his friends.

I already knew several of them through mutual friends at my old high school, but he moved to Nebraska from California almost two years ago so it took a little while for us to meet. And finding out that he was a WoW player made me hesitate and proceed with caution into the friendship.

Then I found out the story behind the WoW. And how it had given him a place to go when he needed to get out (a bad family situation back in California) and his friends in the game gave him Nebraska. So he loaded up all his worldly possessions and drove out to live here. I still think that's a pretty cool story.

It took a bit of getting used to, listening to him and his friends play WoW and talk about it. I knew a lot of the jargon of course, being a denizen of the internet and a HUGE fan of the Guild webseries. Jim was an active member of his guild and spent a great deal of time playing WoW, something I gave him no end of crap for at various points in the year we have been friends. I think the way I put it once was describing MMOs as soul-stealing baby-rapers. I know, melodramatic and silly. But I was going for humor, I promise.

The game has definitely been a factor in my friendship with Jim. We dated for a couple months (we're still friends though), and during that time I admit the game was an issue. It wasn't the downfall of the relationship (that's a completely unrelated and unnecessary story I'll save for a night I've had a little too much mead and a not enough sleep), but issues to do with it were a factor. I blame past bad experiences coloring my judgment for the most part, and while I will forever stand by the fact that human interaction is better than videogames, I know that at the time I did not understand the appeal of MMORPGS at all.

Then I started playing one.

I had already started considering it after multiple nights of watching Jim raid while chilling on the other side of the room with a book or my laptop, listening to him enjoying himself, talking with his friends, and going through the crazy quests and boss killing akin to most fantasy games.

The main thing that stopped me of course (besides my innate prejudice) was the cost. That and the time commitment, but it was mostly the fact that playing WoW cost money, and while I do have a job, I'm still a poor college student.

Thus, when my roommate Chris came across DDO a week or two ago, I expressed some vague interest. And then a few nights ago on a whim, I signed up and downloaded it to give it a shot.

And I'm having a blast. Way more fun than I ever could have anticipated. I'm running my wizard around setting things on fire and collecting loot and XP while also engaging in random chatter in the General channel.

Reflecting on my past attitudes towards MMOs now that I play one make me feel like I was unfair, not just to the games, but to the people who play them. And while I still admit that some issues that arose because of MMOs still hit sore spots in me in friendships and relationships, a lot of those are things I take issue with regardless of a videogame being involved, and should never be blamed on the game itself.

Thus, I remove my hat to all my MMO-playing friends, past and present, especially Jim and that long-distant ex, and apologize for not giving MMOs a chance before passing my judgments on them.

You were right.

It is fun.

So that's my story. I'm delving into all new levels of nerdery, and I couldn't be happier. And proving that before you knock something, you really have to try it