My friend Sean Bonner is a self-described "casual player" in World of Warcraft. Sean is also the co-creator of Metroblogging.com, so he recently added Metroblogging: Azeroth to the list of Metroblogging cities.
Yeah, "casual," not "totally into it." I totally believe you, Sean.
I don’t play WoW (for reasons which will become apparent in a moment) but six million people do, and a Metroblog for a virtual city is just too geeky to ignore, so I interviewed Sean for SGNews Geekwire this morning:
W – Unlike something that would make a great April Fool’s gag, like Metroblogging: The Island from Lost, this could actually take off, because to many people, Azeroth is a real place. When you did it, did you think at all that it would have a life longer than the typical "I kiss you" meme?
S – Oh totally, we didn’t do this as a prank, and that’s exactly why we didn’t do it on April Fools. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for several months now at least and finally had enough people who wanted to give it a shot. So we put it together in all seriousness, just like one of our other cities, to see what happens.
[. . .]
W – How much time do you spend playing?
S – More than I want to admit?
W – Hah. That’s a great answer.
S – That’s actually a kind of deceptive question, but you wouldn’t know it if you don’t play.
W – Oh, perfect. Another Geek meme I’m not in on.
S – Dude, seriously, it’s nuts, you should check it out.
W – No way. I lost a year of my life to a MUD, and that was free and just text over telnet. I’m going to have to go to a meeting now, just because you brought it up.
Technorati Tags: WoW, Warcraft, metroblogging
I too have lost over a year of my life on a MUD, not so much on WoW, I’m a very casual player on that game, 4 hours a week or so.
Now Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion is taking up too much of my time.
By the way hi Wil , from a long time fan.
Sean tried to drag me into his crack habit a couple of months ago (from my February chat logs):
me: I saw your post about the new WoW guild. Very tempting, but seeing as I can’t find enough time to properly complete my own blog move and all of the stuff swirling around SXSW, both SXSWi and the showcase my band is playing, there’s no way I’d have the time.
sean: oh snap!
sean: yeah, that’s what I thought before too..
sean: it’s so fun, you make time
sean: 🙂
me: uhoh. here comes the sell.
sean: hahaha
I’m pretty sure the wife and kids would disown me. I know how much I was sucked into GTA III, Half Life/Counterstrike, Quake and oh so many others.
Must…resist…
This all reminds me of Tad William’s book series Otherland where people get sucked into online role playing gaming. The closest I got was being addicted to Simcity about ten years ago or so.
What’s MUD?
I can top all of you, I left college, moved to another country and got married because of a MUD. I rule!! 🙂
7 years, still going strong. It’s worked out well so far. 😉
There are still Muds and Mushes up and active… TinyTIM comes to mind..
Getting married through a MUD is pretty geeky. I linked the MUD that sucked most of my time in college in my metblog author profile. Does that count?
WoW is geek crack and I need my fix. I got it as a birthday gift from my doting boyfriend. But it’s just too much hawesome for my desktop to take with my sweet little video card and the computer cuts off after an hour of playing WoW. So I am in the market to replace my lame power supply so I can fully pursue my addiction.
I think my best friend did MUD a couple of years ago. Now his time is split between WoW and FFXI.
I used to run an AberMUD, way back in the day (WAY back, gosh how time flies), until my poor little machine got hacked and never recovered. Was fun being a Goddess for a while. Didn’t do my GPA a lot of good… learned some good UN*X skills though, installing the darn thing! Ended up on the student CS staff as network administrator.
I met my husband on a MUD, and moved almost 3000 miles to marry him. We’ve been married 8 years, and have 3 beautiful children. We also made lots of friends, who have become real-life friends, from all over the world. Muds are dying because of WoW and the like…now you can have live VoIP and all, who needs boring text on a screen, right? And yes, I’m a geek…and so is my husband…and my 6 year old has volunteered to start her own computer tutoring business as she has had her own login and password since she could sit up on her own in the computer chair 😛
who needs boring text on a screen, right?
Yeah, but can you compile your own WoW server on a spare Linux box in your home office, and invite your friends to play on it?
That is why MUDs will always rule.
Christ, I have to go to another meeting.
A few years ago, I was heavily entrenched into the original World of Darkness (Vampire The Masquerade, Werewolf The Apocalypse, etc.) by playing online chronicles in various chats and messageboards. Seriously, it sucked up my life from 14-21. I can still quote things from the metaplot and the small fortune of books that rest on my book shelf.
I did meet a lot of cool people through that text based RP; met at least 2 boyfriends through that outlet too.
Sometimes I miss it…
Burning the midnight oil through all sorts of macabre, dark, exciting, and bizarre storylines.
I think I need to go to a meeting before I get the shakes.
At the risk of exposing myself as a total dweeb…. What the Fark did this post have to do with Leeroy Jenkins? I love Leeroy, and I’m quite disappointed that the title seems to be a complete misnomer.
OMG Guild Wars is where it’s at. Because I start a game, and then leave it. I get busy with school, work, homework, or just life, and totally abandon the game. Or I just get bored or something 😛
But with Guild Wars, I paid once, and I don’t feel guilty, or like I should play because I’ve paid for it. Like some of my friends do.
Also, on a cool side note, I finally started “Just a Geek” last night even though I bought it at Christmas. And your foreword was written… April 14th.
That’s pretty kick ass! 🙂
btw, so far, it’s great!!! 🙂
I finally understand why ppl call you Uncle Willy 😉
YA PANSIES!!!
You keep throwing out the word MEME!
Give it up…just say paradigne…talk about fecundity?
Give it up. New theories? Giving life to a new theoritical objective? Challenge me….at least bore everyone. Lets be a new paradigm!!!!
wow, I thought I was the only one who lost my life for awhile to a MUD. I met my boyfriend on a PK MUD (no role playing, only a few ladies, war feature) and we’ve been together 3 years. He nearly flunked out of college due to a MUD. No WoW in the house right now (Even if he’s talking about getting it). Makes me feel better that I’m not the only ubergeek who got addicted to a MUD…
Frankly, Id prefer a complex text game with hundreds of character combinations and HUGE areas to slow-loading graphics and servers full of stupid children. I *DO* like to chat with people on the MUD, though. 🙂 And I was a green dragon, how cool is that?
I had to give up WoW. I needed a life. It is Digital Heroin. Not since I would play Adventure or Zelda have I been addicted to a game. I would go to sleep/pass out with visuals and music in my head. (Like the icons of glowing hearts from Zelda days)
Be thankful you haven’t tied off for your WoW fix.
Under normal circumstances my geek nature would pretty much insist that I took up the banner or WoW and became a permanent resident of Azeroth. (Un?)Fortunately, I saw what it did to some friend’s of mine… A group of us held an intervention when they took two weeks off work and didn’t leave the house once… In the middle of the only good weather we got here!
Damn I Miss my WOW, But Wil seriously you should check it outw ith your boys, It is a really fun game, and you can limit yourself 🙂
Sigh, to be back there again.. I play the FREE Everquest.. till I an afford to uber up my PC and pay for WOW again.
Another MUDder here who lost a few years of his life to the text-only crack. I recently took up on another MUD though and have been able to limit my use… If anyone’s looking for some sweet sweet text-only crack… http://dreamsmud.com is the address.
Oh man.. there goes my dreams of ever raiding with you, Wil. *tear*
Ah, so glad I’m not the only geek who doesn’t play. I would, you know, but it would overtake my life. And I have so little of a life anymore, I simply can’t afford that. =D Sincerely.
I doubt I could ever commit this much time to an Online game so I’ve avoided them, the last game I probably beat was 24 about 3-4 weeks ago. I have trouble commiting to casual games, I still have Black, Half life 2, Fable, Morrowind and Fable to play through, I have more games than I play and some are still shrink wrapped. At the same time I think I’m starting to outgrow games, though I did play TMNT on mame a few weeks ago, that was pretty awesome in 2 player.
DOWN WITH WoW! UP WITH EVERQUEST 2!!!
Giving up WoW
I gave up playing World of Warcraft nearly 2 weeks ago – yes, I have to count the days because every day that I dont play is a major accomplishment.
I stumbled across an article on Wil Wheatons blog that was somewhat about the addictive p…