Real Life vs. World of Warcraft
Tuesday, January 8th, 2013 07:35 pm I've been thinking a lot lately about the days I spent playing World of Warcraft. I stopped playing last Spring before I moved across the country and have not bought the MOP expansion... yet.
However, I think about WoW all the darn time. Sometimes I have flashes of memory of running around in Orgrimmar , or various raids I participated in over the years. Hell, I remember the nights I stayed up far too late after the previous 2 expansions came out (remember when flying over Durotar was a novelty? yeah.. those were the days).
Anyway, I got to thinking about some interesting comparisons between real life, and World of Warcraft:
When things get boring in WoW, you can always log onto a different toon, or roll a new one. No such luck in real life.
In WoW you can take up a profession that allows you to craft a flying carpet. I'm still waiting on that flying car in real life.
In WoW you can carry weapons that are almost as big as you are, with no visible signs of stress. In real life, it's a pain in the ass to lug 40 lbs of cat litter from the car.
In WoW you can play an elf, an orc, a goblin, a tauren (which is this big cow-like creature), an alien, a human (yawn!), a pandarin monk, a reggae troll, a flesh-eating zombie (undead FTW!), or something called a "Death Knight". You can be fierce, overpowering, and downright fugly, or your toon can be lithe, ethereal, and downright hot. It doesn't matter what you are in the real world, male, female, old, young, tall, short, fat, thin, in WoW you can be something entirely different. No such option in real life, unless you're into cosplay (and well, you're still somewhat limited by your actual human form and costuming skills).
In WoW, there is no laundry, you don't have to pay rent, and your job is to run around and kill monsters, or enemy players (or heal other characters in raids or battlegrounds). Real life? Yeaaaaah.. no comment.
In WoW, when you do something really stupid like aggro an entire room full of dragonkin hatchlings, or survive a fall from a great height, you get an achievement. In real life, you end up getting the crap beaten out of you, you break your leg, or worse - you're pwned and without the benefit of getting to go and find your corpse so you can try again.
In WoW, you work together with a group of your virtual friends (guildies) or a group of random players to achieve some sort of positive, winning outcome. You kill some big honkin evil thing, gear drops, sometimes you actually get gear you can use, and you feel some sense of accomplishment. Not quite the same outcome in real life when you're working on a project with a team of software engineers who really just want to get the project done so they can put the release on their review for the year. Sometimes the project is bound for epic fail status, but there's no kicking the hopeless newbies from the group. You're stuck with 'em for the duration of the project.
In WoW, there are characters that can heal another toon from "almost dead", and some can even resurrect the dead. In real life, we don't get the option to resurrect our dead friends. Yeah, you get it. (yeah Denise, I'm thinking of you hon - and wondering if your hubby is still playing your Orc out there on Suramar)
I have to admit that I do miss World of Warcraft, my old guildies, and flying over various landscapes searching for archaeology dig sites, or enemy cities to wreak havoc in for one of the "holiday" achievements. Hell, I even admit to missing LFG or LFR for a random dungeon. It's a harmless form of escape that allows you to interact with other beings without a lot of risk.
I started playing WoW back in 2007 or so and played up until May of last year. Even though I rarely met folks in real life that I played with online, I always got the sense that I "belonged" to some sort of really strange club. In times like these where I'm feeling a bit disconnected from the real world and so-called real humans, I think about picking up that expansion and venturing back into the world of Azeroth, just to go kick a few murlocs around, see what my old guildies are up to.
One thing that WoW and real life have in common is that there always seemed to be something to laugh about, and like any neighborhood bar there was always someone around at 1am to shoot the breeze with and make an attempt to pwn insomnia.
However, I think about WoW all the darn time. Sometimes I have flashes of memory of running around in Orgrimmar , or various raids I participated in over the years. Hell, I remember the nights I stayed up far too late after the previous 2 expansions came out (remember when flying over Durotar was a novelty? yeah.. those were the days).
Anyway, I got to thinking about some interesting comparisons between real life, and World of Warcraft:
When things get boring in WoW, you can always log onto a different toon, or roll a new one. No such luck in real life.
In WoW you can take up a profession that allows you to craft a flying carpet. I'm still waiting on that flying car in real life.
In WoW you can carry weapons that are almost as big as you are, with no visible signs of stress. In real life, it's a pain in the ass to lug 40 lbs of cat litter from the car.
In WoW you can play an elf, an orc, a goblin, a tauren (which is this big cow-like creature), an alien, a human (yawn!), a pandarin monk, a reggae troll, a flesh-eating zombie (undead FTW!), or something called a "Death Knight". You can be fierce, overpowering, and downright fugly, or your toon can be lithe, ethereal, and downright hot. It doesn't matter what you are in the real world, male, female, old, young, tall, short, fat, thin, in WoW you can be something entirely different. No such option in real life, unless you're into cosplay (and well, you're still somewhat limited by your actual human form and costuming skills).
In WoW, there is no laundry, you don't have to pay rent, and your job is to run around and kill monsters, or enemy players (or heal other characters in raids or battlegrounds). Real life? Yeaaaaah.. no comment.
In WoW, when you do something really stupid like aggro an entire room full of dragonkin hatchlings, or survive a fall from a great height, you get an achievement. In real life, you end up getting the crap beaten out of you, you break your leg, or worse - you're pwned and without the benefit of getting to go and find your corpse so you can try again.
In WoW, you work together with a group of your virtual friends (guildies) or a group of random players to achieve some sort of positive, winning outcome. You kill some big honkin evil thing, gear drops, sometimes you actually get gear you can use, and you feel some sense of accomplishment. Not quite the same outcome in real life when you're working on a project with a team of software engineers who really just want to get the project done so they can put the release on their review for the year. Sometimes the project is bound for epic fail status, but there's no kicking the hopeless newbies from the group. You're stuck with 'em for the duration of the project.
In WoW, there are characters that can heal another toon from "almost dead", and some can even resurrect the dead. In real life, we don't get the option to resurrect our dead friends. Yeah, you get it. (yeah Denise, I'm thinking of you hon - and wondering if your hubby is still playing your Orc out there on Suramar)
I have to admit that I do miss World of Warcraft, my old guildies, and flying over various landscapes searching for archaeology dig sites, or enemy cities to wreak havoc in for one of the "holiday" achievements. Hell, I even admit to missing LFG or LFR for a random dungeon. It's a harmless form of escape that allows you to interact with other beings without a lot of risk.
I started playing WoW back in 2007 or so and played up until May of last year. Even though I rarely met folks in real life that I played with online, I always got the sense that I "belonged" to some sort of really strange club. In times like these where I'm feeling a bit disconnected from the real world and so-called real humans, I think about picking up that expansion and venturing back into the world of Azeroth, just to go kick a few murlocs around, see what my old guildies are up to.
One thing that WoW and real life have in common is that there always seemed to be something to laugh about, and like any neighborhood bar there was always someone around at 1am to shoot the breeze with and make an attempt to pwn insomnia.
With that, I'll leave you with a now legendary internet meme (that actually lead to a real achievement you can get in the game. I have it on 2 of my toons).
The epic fail raid that spawned LEEEEROY Jenkins....