Thinking on the gaming again ...

I'm still having those random thoughts bouncing around like crazy ...

One of them today was on the gaming again. I think because I'd touched on comparing Star Wars The Old Republic to World of Warcraft.

There's a thing with Massively Multiplayer Online games that we didn't see before the online thing really took off. At some point, you stop playing the game for yourself. You start playing it for other people. You feel compelled to log in and Do Stuff in game because you're supporting other people. That's where it starts getting into dangerous territory ...

Specifically the question : "Why am I playing this game ?"

After all, gaming is one of the most unproductive activities I can think of, especially when it stops being Fun. If the answer to the question is one of the following, that's a good reason :

To relax (Settlers IV is mind numbing ... and sometimes that's precisely what I need)
To enjoy a good story (Deus Ex, Mass Effect)
To complete everything possible (Skyrim will do this)

Some of the games coming out these days have writing and action that's every bit as good as novels on the shelf or movies on the screen. Better in some cases, as you have the chance to rewrite the story the way you want. Like where my Mass Effect play throughs always seem to go Paragon (good guy/gal) because those are the dialogue options I like. I have real trouble acting the bad guy. Something in me is fundamentally uncomfortable with being rude, arrogant or cruel.

I don't include "to be the best at it" as a good reason, which is probably why I avoid online shooter type games. There's plenty of other things in life to be "best at" which are more productive than fleeting games.

But if the reason you're in the game is :

Because other people expect me to be in there.

Then it's time to find another thing to do. Note "expect", that's different to you being with a bunch of people like Violence Reborn (my WoW guild) and Mercs (old WoW guild) who were awesome to be around. "Expectation" is much different to "Anticipation of fun". Some of the time I'd log into Warcraft just to see what crazy thing was coming over the guild chat. And then I'd be drawn into Mumble which would make me laugh even more.

The problem with Warcraft is that the expectation of being in the game started to overweigh the Fun factor inherent in playing the game. And this gets more than a few people too. Trouble is, they don't realise they've got burned out on the game and keep playing because they feel that expectation. If your MMO has become a second job, it needs to be binned before it becomes more important than your primary job. (Like me binning the indoor cricket team all those years ago)

I've binned all my MMO subscriptions now, I just wasn't enjoying the game play style. I've been ignoring the calls from one or two people who say I should come back into Eve, WoW or SWTOR. If you're not enjoying something that is supposed to be fun, then why pay for it (Masochists may disagree).

With my current state of mind, being involved in an MMO would likely be highly dangerous too. I'm in a state where I'm needing to be involved with other people. I can be quite self contained but I also depend on contact with others. My own feelings of self worth depend on that (and it's quite low at the moment). So an MMO would expose me to that contact which I crave, exposing me to an addiction that had me at emotional collapse in the last days of me leading the Mercs guild.

But - while I'm not doing the MMO thing, I'm still logging into Steam almost every night.

There's someone who I randomly ran into in a game store last year (in a "Isn't that ... ????" kind of way) who I ended up chatting to for way too long, which led to me getting another Steam friend. We'll bounce thoughts about gaming off each other (we both like the same games) and I hope I make her laugh as much as she makes me laugh.

Laughing is the best therapy for a weary soul.

Oh and I'm allegedly a people person :-) Not sure if I believe that because of the difficulties I have with communicating but if The Boss says I am, I definitely won't argue :-). And that's someone I'll definitely miss over the next week or so - Snow Queen and The Boss are both out all next week. Missing them already.