Define Casual

I've been thinking about the definition of a casual gamer lately. I mean come on, I claim to be a casual gamer, I even named my blog after it.

So, what is a casual gamer then? Is this anyone who isn't in a super hardcore raiding guild? Well, that would be just about all of the people I know (or who are probably reading this blog - I imagine the word "casual" might shy some away from here to begin with). Maybe a casual gamer is someone that can only raid 2 or 3 times a week, or ... maybe not. There isn't a hard fast rule, or a magical number of hours played in a week that draws a fine line, one that separates the causals from the hardcores.

No really, what makes the difference between hardcores and casuals? I don't think its just the time spent (however that does make an impact). Hardcore doesn't equal full time player just as casual doesn't equate to part-time player. Instead, I think, its a state of mind or a player's gaming style. Using this definition I would probably consider myself a "part-time" player instead of a casual player. Why would I say this? Well, for one, I write a freakin' WoW blog. The very fact that I'm writing this probably kicks me out of the casual camp altogether and makes me a bit of a paradox, or a least a misnomer. I might not have ran Naxx yet, but I have quite a few WoW podcasts on my iPod, my Google reader is full of other WoW blogs, and I even have a WoW shirt that says "I'm not addicted to WoW, I just want to finish it."

Perhaps I should rename my blog, "The Part-Time Huntering Blog". I'll have to think about that. So, here's the question. What do you consider yourself? Hardcore? Casual? Part-time? Something else?

Random Ramblings

So, I've finally dinged 79 recently. Now I'm in the last stretch to 80 (fans gather in eager anticipation). My brother all ready pretty much has a schedule laid out for us once we hit 80 of heroics gearing up for Nax. I have been pretty much clueless as y'all talk about this raid and that. I honestly haven't done that much research in the matter, partly because I want it to be new (to me at least) and also because... well, because of boredom. Not that raiding is boring, but to read about raiding that you aren't able to do as of yet, yeah that's a little much.

Oh, we did AQ40 last night in a pug. I got 2 new mounts out of it (even if I can only use them for AQ, at least they count towards the achievement). I'm up to 62 mounts now, still need 38 for the Mountain of Mounts achievement. I still have a lot of huntering to do for that.

I've noticed that the google searches that make their way here are mostly about hunters. I haven't written too much on huntering as of late. I should get back to that a little more. I probably will when I'm level 80. I did get one google search that found me by searching for "casual bobs". Well, you found one, although I'm not sure sure what that entails. Maybe it could be a title for some future achievement. Casual Bob Aoirselvar the Brave. Hmm, I'll have to think on that, its kind of catchy.

Balance

I've been playing the game for almost 3 years now and I've had my fair share of neglecting RL for the game, but I like to think that I've found a much happier balance in life at this point. The game use to be an issue of conflict between me and my spouse. I would play too often or when she needed help with the kids. She still reminds me how much she hated it when I would play all morning on Saturdays. More recently I've cut back my playing time and this has greatly decreased contentions concerning this game, and added more balance overall to my life.

In my opinion there are certain things that should always supercede playing WoW. If you have a family they should always come first, you probably shouldn't lose your job or fail a class because of the game. Your health and personal hygiene would be bad to neglect as well (lol - don't forget to eat & bathe).

The people who don't do this make the rest of us look bad. These idiots give gamers in general a bad name and are the reason people do studies that claim that WoW breaks up marriages, makes students drop out of school and increases the crime rate in the lower 48 states. Its pretty common sense if you think about it.

Yes, I understand WoW is more than a video game for those probably reading this blog. Most non-WoWers think of our game as something that should be easily set aside like a nintendo game. They don't realize that we consider this game more of a hobby. We all have hobbies, our just consists of killing demons and dragons and stuff with our guild on-line.

Now, I have kids, young kids. My oldest is 3 years old, and I have 2 others that are younger. I have come to the point where I try not to play when they are awake. So, I play in the morning before I go to work and intermittently after we've put the kiddos to bed. We got a second account so that my wife and I could play together. Now its together time instead of contention time (of course those times when our computers are being stupid we are still contentious, but not with each other). Now its much more balanced. Of course we aren't raiding (we're still level 78), but we'll get there. We'll never be hard core raiders. We'll never be doing the hardest raid. We're okay with that. We are much happier this way and we can always talk about WoW through out the day if we want.

Now, during holidays all of this balance stuff is kind of thrown out the windows for us. Its a good thing there aren't holidays all the time.

Lost in WoW

I wanted to confirm that the Hatch on Lost is definitely in the Northrend. I read about this on OneAmongMany's blog when Will wrote a guest post there. This revelation answers so many questions in regards to where the stupid island is. No wonder no one can find it, the Lich King has control of it, and its stuck in an MMO on Northrend of all places.

But this also brings up some questions.

Like what time are we at in the game? Apparently the timeline for WotLK is before 2003 or so, but after the Darma Inititive landed on the island. So, Azeroth is somewhere inbetween 1970-1990 or so. You see the hatch hasn't imploded yet. Oceanic 815 hasn't crashed yet (well, maybe they have). But then we still might be able to see our friends Jack, Locke, Hurley, Kate, etc, etc, (if you watched the new episode this week).

Another question, what are our heros from Lost doing in Azeroth?

Now that gets me wondering about what class all of those characters from Lost are going to be (now that we have found out that the island is really Sholavar Basin).

Hmmm, Jack has to be a paladine. He's noble, crys a lot, and hmmm, probably would look good in plate. Oh and Jack should be able to heal, he is a doctor.

Sayid has to be a rogue with all of the assassin work that he does.

Locke, well, duh, Locke is a warlock, mostly just because of his name. I might also be a deathknight given certain events that have taken place this season.

Sawyer is a, I don't know, I want to say he's a warrior. I don't have any good reason for it. Maybe a hunter without a pet, because he's pretty good with a gun.

Faraday is some kind a mathmatical wizard, so he gets to be an Arcane Mage (what does arcane have to do with math, I don't know, go ask a mage).

Kate is a druid, a kitty druid. Doesn't she already seem like a cat? Cats like to run, Kate likes to run, right? And if you take the "e" off of her name than is spells Kat. So there you have it.

Well, what else would Juliet be? Of course she's a holy priest, because she's our healer who can't seem to get off that stupid island.

Okay, Miles will be our Deathknight, not because he's particularly scarey, but because he talks to dead people. I guess if we had a Necromancer class he would have been that.

Desmond is our awesome sorcerer or something, master of something or other. I'm going to say he's a fire mage, because hmm... he had a fire in his heart to get back with Penny. Okay, that was a stretch.

Jin has turn out to be one of my favorite characters. He has his fishing skills all the way up. What class is Jin? I'm going to say that he's our Shaman. Mostly because I see him doing Melee combat and hmmm... he...uh... well, I need one of them to be a shaman, right?

Oh, evil and coniving Ben. I wouldn't put it past him to be working right along side with Arthus himself. Ben I'd say is a warlock. He's evil, but often makes others do his work for him.

I've decided that Hurley is a hunter. Why? Well, no good reason other than that Hunters are awesome and Hurley is awesome. Dude.

Well, there are several characters that I'm missing, but I best get back to work. I obviously got a little too carried way with this post. Maybe not.

Stupid Computers

Well, we haven't been able to play since last Wednesday when our internet connection started acting all funny. Finally got that working then the router started being stupid, got that working then the other computer was being dumb. aghghghghgh. Finally both computers are working, internet is working, router is working. What then? WoW won't work on the old computer because of the system restore. So, I got done reinstalling WoW on the older computer this morning, I'll have to work on getting all the updates this afternoon.

On top of that, I went from 40 fps (frames per second) down to 5-11 on my newer computer. I'm trying to run things like Malware bytes and Spybot Search and Destroy. I'll have to scan the computer with AVG tonight. We got a on that computer last week, but so far we haven't been keylogged. I think we've gotten rid of it, but I'm still having flucuating performance on WoW. :(

So, I haven't played as much as of late for the above reasons, but I did get my DK to level 69. Now I have lines from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure stuck in my head. /sigh.

Future WoW killing MMO

So, we're recently learned that Jeff Kaplan has given up his lead position with the World of Warcraft team to work on the secret new MMO that Blizzard is making. So, this leaves so much room for speculation. Hmmmm....

Most people think this means World of Starcraft, or the Universe of Starcraft (which I think sounds better) and there are just endless possibilities with this. Yes the Sci-fi MMO has already been done, and many argue, not very well. But when has Blizzard ever done anything haphazardly. I think could make a sci-fi MMO be freaking amazing. They wouldn't develop the game if they couldn't. But someone on twitter told me that they heard from this guy who heard from this other guy who... well you get the picture, that Blizzard's new MMO won't be based on any of their current games. Really? I don't know.

So, if that's the case what does that leave us with? Bliz can't do another fantasy because that would pull away from the WoW crowd unless its a completely different spin.

They could do some kind of vampire MMO? /ponders the notion... Naw, that would be too close to Twilight and all of those silly Edward lovers out there.

Could it be historical? No, that makes me die of boredom just suggesting such as ridiculous notion. Sci-fi still sounds good if you ask me. The mounts would be awesome. ooOOoo we could do some robotech or firefly based MMO. I'll have to ponder that.

But what are they really doing???? Oh, I'm dying to know. They would have to do something completely different than WoW of course. I really haven't tried any of the other MMOs out there, so I don't even know what has already been done. WoW was my first and so far only MMO. And of course we probably won't know for another 5 years or so.

So, what are your speculations about this future secret Blizzard MMO? Do you think it will really be a WoW killer?

Current Projects in WoW

Just thought I'd quickly say what I'm doing in the game these days. I have 3 main projects. The first one is to level to 80 (yes I'm not level 80 yet). I know only work on leveling my main (my dwarf hunter) when my wife is playing. So, we're doing pretty good, we're both level 78 now... plugging along.

When I'm not playing with my wife I have two projects going. I'm trying to level my DeathKnight alt as a farming alt. At least that was the idea initially. I'm finding myself really enjoying the DK class. I speced unholy so that I could have a pet. The ghoul might not be as lovable as Mungula my Gorilla, but its comforting to have someone to hang out with, even if it stinks from decay.

My other project is the one everybody else has, to make money. Right now I really want to get enough gold to help fund my wife's epic flying training. When you haven't had an epic flying mount you don't know what you are missing, but when you have had one, you don't ever want to go back.

I'm still obcessed with mounts (I'm up to 60 now) and vanity pets (up to 40). I still have a lot of mounts to get, but there all going to take some work and/or luck. And I just need to get off my butt and look up which vanity pets I'm missing. Oh, and whenever there is a holiday I also get obcessed with that.

I'm still not raiding, so when I hear all of your talk about this 10 man or that 25 man in twitter or on the podcasts I'm pretty confused cause I have no idea what you are talking about. Pretty sad I know, but thus is life.

Anyway, what are your current WoW projects?

When Are We Too Old To Play?

So, I had been wondering when I was going to give up on WoW or MMOs in general. I'm an adult and adults aren't suppose to play games like this, right? For some reason I was using my parents and in-laws to gauge what I would be like when I got to their age. What would I enjoy or do? Part of me thought, well, they don't play video games so eventually I probably won't either.

However, they didn't grow up with video games either. They did grow up with TV and they still do that. So, why would I eventually stop doing something that I grew up with? We aren't the previous generation. We evolve.

So, now I realize that I probably won't grow out of this form of entertainment. I like it a lot more than TV because its more interactive and more social. If I were a betting man I would bet that our brains do a whole lot more when we are playing video games than when we are watching TV. We have to think, make decisions, plan, strategize, etc, etc. When you watch TV you have to ... sit, and ... watch. We also do more socializing with MMOs. We have guilds, we play with friends, family, etc. We meet new people, make new connections. That doesn't happen when you watch TV either.

Don't get me wrong, I love TV. But I really only watch my favorite shows and nothing else (The Office, Scrubs, LOST, Grey's Anatomy, Simpsons). But I'd rather watch my favorite shows while playing WoW (unless its a new episode of LOST then everything stops).

Sorry about the TV tangent. Anyway, So, when I'm old and grey I'll proably still be playing some kind of MMO. Weather that may be Starcraft Universe 3 or World or World of Warcraft 2 I don't know. But I'm not likely to stop playing just because I reached my parents age. I may play less because of more family responsiblities, but I think in the years to come we'll see the average age of people who play MMOs will go up. Do you think you'll still be playing MMOs in 10 years?

Holidays & Achievements

So, another Holiday has come and gone. And no new title... /sigh. Couldn't Pity any Fools in Naxx. So, I thought that I'd have to wait 1 year from this point to my Violet Proto Drake, but it turns out that the Brewfest achievements take an entire year on their own because of the Brew of the Year achievement. That's right, for this achievement you have to join the brew of the month club and taste a new brew which comes... once a month. So, if you didn't do it last year then the best you can hope for is to start it this next Brewfest holiday. Which means that most of us won't be completing the "What a Long, Strange Trips Its Been" achievement till Oct 2010!!! Many of us might not even be playing WoW by then (they'll have already launched world of starcraft or something).

I can't get too mad about the achievements. For me, it has added a lot to the game. There is something more to work for other than leveling and new gear. My wife and I have really enjoyed the holiday activities, but were never before properly motivated to participate (as was everybody else). If anything these holiday meta achievements has given us proper motivation to get to level 80 before Children's Week arrives

WoW and Marriage

Over the weekend I saw an add in Facebook for a survey for people who play WoW and are married. Since I fit this category I decided to do the survey (I use to do surveys as a college job, I hated it, but now occasionally I'll give in because I know how badly it sucks to get people to take them.)

Well, having worked in telemarketing, I can see a biased survey a mile away. I wouldn't say they were asking leading questions (which companies are notorious for); however, the questions it did ask were very interesting. You could tell that this was going to be one of those "look how awful WoW is" or "WoW is destroying society as a whole" studies. After asking demographic questions the online survey asked things like "how often do you fight with your spouse because of MMOs".

Some of the questions just were ridiculous (maybe they apply to some, but not to me). They asked how often you preferred to play MMOs instead of being intimate with your spouse. Come one guys, I like playing WoW and all, but I'll leave my toon stranded with mobs all around given the choice between that and woopie. I suppose that we could compromise and RP it. Well, no that wouldn't be the same...

There were other questions that pointed to the great addictiveness of MMOs. I will admit, I'm addicted to WoW. But I'm not having withdrawals from it when I'm not playing. "Do you get depressed and anxious when you are not playing MMOs?", no, not really, I might be thinking about what I want to do on this toon or another, but I'm not a basketcase just because I'm not playing.

I think that most of us enjoy the game or we wouldn't be playing it, or reading about it on-line. Are we a little obsessed? Probably. Are there people more obsessed with Twilight? Yes. I won't even tell you how many times my sister-in-laws have read the series (but its in the double digits now). Is a little obsession such a bad thing? As long as you keep it under control and its not hurting anybody.

So, does WoW ruin marriages? I suppose it could if someone is being stupid. In my opinion, if WoW was a major factor into destroying someone's marriage then there are much deeper problems than the game. It seems really stupid to blame World of Warcraft. Its my guess that if WoW ruined your life, it could have easily been something else in its place.

Now, I do admit that when I first started playing WoW I neglected my family a little too much. My wife wasn't too pleased when I would play half a Saturday. But I've gotten that under control. Now I put my family first and only play when the kids are asleep. Plus, last summer we got a second computer and a second account. Now in the evenings I explore Northrend with my wife (or work on achievements during one of the holidays). So, now its a way for us to spend time with each other. Should we probably try to do more outside of the house? Yes, however, what are you going to do when the kids are asleep anyway? We're kind of stuck here. So, we can watch TV, play board games, fight mobs on WoW, play the guitar, examine my penny collection, etc etc. WoW (and watching grey's anatomy or Lost) often wins out.

Wow, that was a lot of rambling. So, has WoW affected your relationships for good or bad?