My Shameful Pastime

That's me sitting in that purple chair. I'm the skinny pink Wookiee, Bowann, a foot soldier for the Rebel Alliance, a Rifleman and a Combat Medic. I'm actually sitting in a player-created shopping mall, on the planet Naboo, on the Bria server of Star Wars Galaxies. The alien creatures behind the counter are the employees of my other character, Bo'Ann the Twi'lek, who was a slightly notorious and wealthy chef, and financier of the Rebel Alliance. I just finished delivering some inventory for her to her shop-keepers, and I'm chilling. I had one other character, Boann Stryker, who was the mayor of a city controlled by the Rebel Alliance. A city built by players, and decorated by players. Boann controlled the layout of the houses and which style houses were allowed, and where the public starport and cantina and shopping centers were, as well as city hall. Oh, and the Rebel base we had until the "Imps" (Imperial players) came and fought us, and eventually took down the base. Star Wars Galaxies circa 2003 to 2005 took up a lot of my free time. The economy was entirely player-based, there was an active and very challenging Galactic Civil War in which some players were Imps and some were Rebels, and there was just a lot of tomfoolery and zaniness, such as scavenger hunts, silly contests (who can run in their underwear and with only a newbie pistol for defense, through the neighboring Imperial controlled player city, and return to the Rebel cantina -- first one gets a force crystal), pub crawling, and everyone's favorite: shopping at the hundreds of player-controlled and staffed malls, shops, cantinas, merchant tents, etc. SWG was the game that had my friends and family very concerned about me, and Sig nearly broke up with me despite the fact that he and I had both started playing the game at the same time. I was the one who lost it over SWG, and blurred the line between life and virtual life.
Sig, on the other hand, did this in EverQuest. He quite often played for over 18 hours a day, following his neck surgery. I also played EQ, and because I was very fond of Sig I played frequently, and enjoyed the game world, but it never took over my life like SWG did.
Other games that Sig and I have played -- because we always play together -- are City of Heroes (Sig loved it, I barely tolerated it), Dark Age of Camelot (we both enjoyed it a great deal), World of Warcraft (we liked it, but honestly couldn't figure out why everyone in the world wanted to play it) and currently we are playing Lord of the Rings Online. Most online role playing games are based loosely on fantasy or myths of Northern Europe. I think that's why Sig liked City of Heroes so much; because it was based on comic book superhero mythology and was in an urban setting. And I liked SWG because it was science fiction mythology, with exotic planetary landscapes and very modern urban settings. You can only be awed by so many dragons and fall in love with so many Elves before it all gets a little stale, if you know what I mean.

Sig and I spent probably 3 years playing EQ, and another 2 years playing SWG, and we played a year here and a year there playing DAoC. WoW, only about 6 months. City of Heroes, about 6 months. Currently, we've been playing LOTRO since it was released in March of 2007. Sig plays more than I do, but overall neither of us plays nearly as much as we used to. It's mildly amusing, and we have a decent group of players that we hang with (mostly from New Zealand), and we really are fond of the LOTR mythology, but again -- can only take so many drunken dwarves and flirtatious elven maidens. In addition, all of the progression of your character on LOTRO is based on completing game story arc quests, of which the most challenging are usually "chapters" which you complete to finish "books". You can go out into the wilderness randomly slaying Orcs and Wargs if you so choose, but you won't get much experience from it and very little gold or silver, either. All of the games we've played, and loved, have eventually been changed beyond recognition by developers who kow-towed to either very inexperienced and whiney players who wanted the game to be easier or very hard-core elite players who wanted more high-level content. Additionally, some games had broken things from the very beginning (many of the quests in EverQuest, as well as the boat-traveling system; the battleground feature in SWG that never worked) that they never bothered to fix, as they kept adding on newer content.

Most online games nowadays have beautiful graphics and very individual and detailed characterization; my Wookiee , Bowann, was recognizable from several meters away and no other female Wook looked like me. My current avatar, Sciath, is a little fat gray-haired female hobbit. You can customize your eyes, ears, mouth, cheekbones, hair and facial hair, color and body build. Most players invest a lot of their own personalities and looks into their avatars. In searching my hard drive for screen shots, I was saddened to realize that I didn't save many for all the time I spent in these various worlds. I had probably dozens of SWG that I erased when I gave up the game, because looking at them only made me melancholy. In gaming, as in real life, you can't return to the good 'ol days -- once they're gone, once the game has been changed and tinkered with by the developers ('nerfed') it is painful to keep trying to recapture whatever it was about the game that you loved. Sometimes, you become so frustrated that you erase all the game files, and you lose forever your shots of Ketzel and his pink light saber or Sig's Fir Bolg warden.

For some reason, admitting to gaming as a hobby is considered very shameful. When you consider that I was a young woman when Pong first came out, and that I graduated from game arcades where you bought a handful of tokens for a few dollars, you begin to realize that computer and video gaming has really been around a long time. Many of us who were young when the first Sega system began selling, are now middle-aged. We literally grew up with a game controller in our hands. And gaming does not have to be some furtive activity that adolescent males do in their basement. My kids and I played, and watched each other play, console games for an hour or two nearly every day when they were growing up, in addition to other more socially acceptable family activities. My eldest and I stayed in contact with one another when she lived in Maine and I lived here in Sacramento by meeting online in The Realm, buying clothes for our avatars, avoiding being "ganked" by the infamous Mech PK ('player killer') gang and drinking grog. Sig and I played EQ together when he was in Boston studying. Sure, we could have just phoned one another -- but online gaming is cheaper than long distance phone calls, plus it gives you something fun to do together while you're talking. And nowadays, with Teamspeak and Ventrillo and Skype, you can actually talk while you game, instead of typing. I'm old-fashioned. I still prefer typing. Without online RPG (role playing games) I would not have gotten the benefit of the opinions of people all over the US as well as countries all over the world about things that the media in the US does not bother to really report on any longer. You know, inconsequential stuff like the Iraq War and US economic and foreign policy. Without the framework of gaming I would have had no opportunity to talk with these people and form online friendships that enriched my own worldview. When was the last time the Bingo crowd or your bowling team had more people who were proud citizens of the UK, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Korea than Americans? It happens all the time when you are a West Coast gamer. Sig spends a great deal of time discussing movies and viewing movies, and occasionally making movies, with a wide range of people who have created a virtual Hollywood online through their love of The Movies, which is not a traditional online game at all. There are voice actors, producers, directors, writers, musicians and critics who have given their inner muse free reign. There are even "radio shows" devoted to The Movies, taking place on open channels on Skype at the same time every weekend. And let me tell you, some of the movies that this online community from all over the world creates are excellent. They rival anything that has won awards in the actual Hollywood industry. It boggles the mind that the creative talents of so many people are viewed as an adolescent pursuit, simply because the community producing this art is an online community.

You may have heard of Second Life, and you may have the impression that this is what online gaming is. Second Life is not really a game, it is a virtual reality of largely player-based content. There is no story to it, no quests, no goals, no "leveling" of a character. The people who are making money in Second Life are making actual money, selling virtual merchandise and real estate for real cash. Pornography and gambling are huge industries in Second Life. I tried it, and it was interesting to a point, but without the goals and incentives of the gaming environment I tired of it very quickly. There are "gold merchants" and various sordid virtual services in all online RPGs, but they are only ancillary. In Second Life, they are the game, and that is just a little too much like Real Life.
I'll take drunken dwarves, flirtatious elves, and a good dragon raid over that any day.