Most people that know me already know that I'm a gamer. Granted hockey, work, real life ... they have all taken away from this and in fact over the last several years I've gotten away from not only table top gaming but online gaming as well. I still play some games, Facebook games such as Frontierville, Zuma Blitz, and others of the sort ... but those aren't truly the games I'm referring to. Neither are card games.
The games I'm referring to are actually RPGs, or roleplaying games, and World of Warcraft. Those two games are the only ones that have really held a continuing interest for me through the years (though Neverwinter Nights is close as well). There are a couple of things that these games had that other games didn't that kept them going strong for me.
The first of which was that they were always changing. With WoW the new expansions kept adding to the content. So did the fact that there were so many dungeons and the like and after finally joining a raid group it opened up even more content. The smaller groups had some challenges, but then you get into the 40 man (and later 20 man) raids and you not only had new content but difficult content as well which provided regular challenge not only to the individual but to an entire group which had to work together to achieve their goal.
RPGs always changed because not only did you have different genres, and not only could you have different characters and different roles, but the stories even within a genre and for individual characters were only limited by the imagination of the one running the game and the players at the table. There were always different challenges, different locations, different enemies. Keeping things changing keeps an interest level up.
More importantly though is the people that I played with. A game is only a game but when you are doing anything with people you enjoy doing things with it becomes something more. It can become memories of times spent with friends, which to me was the biggest factor in these things having lasting effects on me. When I began playing WoW I was playing with good friends. I imagine that I would have still played for quite a while but not nearly as long, nor nearly as often, if not for the people I was playing with. After our small group joined a larger raiding guild I met even more people that I truly enjoyed playing with, at the same time opening up even more content to me and my friends. When certain events occurred in the game which brought the group a bit of infamy, and when those friends I had been playing with started quiting I started playing less.
However other friends began playing and I got brought in to that new group with new challenges (this time of leading rather than following). I quickly took it back up again and had new people that I really enjoyed playing with and new memories being created within that group.
RPGs were the same in many ways here. This was a chance for me to sit down and enjoy a story that I was a part of while hanging out with my best friend in high school. Soon it was us and a small group. Over the years much of that group remained, and I have played in a couple of groups and seen people come and go, but the key is that when playing it isn't all about the game. It is about sitting around having a good time with friends that you enjoy being with. It isn't much different than going to the bar to play pool, or going fishing with others, or any number of other activities. The activity changes but at the heart of it is good times with good friends.
I don't play either of those any longer. Part of me would like to at times and in fact I've thought about trying to form a new gaming group. (WoW is just much too time consuming to be the choice here.) The biggest challenge in that though ... besides convincing the soon to be wife of it ... would be finding the group though. Those that I would choose to start that are three hours to the west, five to the east, and in Canada. There are others here that could be added, a co-worker and my old DM who I have lost touch with for example ... but much like anything, if the group isn't a good group then the game isn't as much fun either.
Who knows, perhaps getting that group together online somehow could be worked out. Then other challenges would appear but who knows what the future holds. Even if nothing comes of it I am not ashamed to admit that I am a gamer, that I have great memories and great friends because of it ... and I don't regret it nor should I...
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