First Thoughts

Day 0, 10/16/08: Last night, I was videotaped for my gamer profile. (Wow, being on camera's weird.) I remember saying something about being the skeptic in the group, and I still hold to that. I don't game as a lot of the other people here, and most computer games I play are those short online games that take ten minutes or so. I think video games are something that I've always been curious about, but never really got into. I never had a game system, and books and TV were more easily accessible. So I figured it would be cool to study them.

Besides, geeks play video games. Once, I was at a computer science meeting and had the "It's great to meet another geek who sucks at video games" conversation. Connecting with the subculture here. Ahem.

I don't think I'll get addicted to the game or anything. I mean, it looks cool, but it's a game, and I have a lot to do this term. I can't really justify playing it more than necessary for the class.



After interviews, some of us were chatting about games in general, and somehow Michelle and I got around to talking about which games looked pretty, and I brought up reading Final Fantasy summaries on Wikipedia. I do that a lot, skim summaries of TV shows or games that I either don't have time to watch or don't have access to. Maybe I'm more drawn to these games than I'd thought...

I have a rather addictive personality, in some ways. When I'm reading a book, often I'd feel compelled to finish it in one sitting. (The "I think I'll read a chapter of the 5th Harry Potter book before bed" plan did not work well. I learned for the 6th one.) Dealing with a narrative there, though. Same with TV, or even reading video game summaries. How would taking an active role and actually playing a game be different?

Day 2 of gameplay, 10/18/08:
I just died, so I figure this would be a good time for a blog post!

This is really quite an amazing game. It feels weird to be playing it as part of a class, though. Especially when so much other stuff is going on, in terms of midterms, and so on.

Ok, I just died again.

Picking my character...I picked a zealot, since that was a character that I liked, and balanced out our team. Started playing about a few hours after everyone else because of a particularly pesky problem set. Linden and I commented on how scantily clad all of the female characters are. The zealots look kind of creepy, but in a cool way. I mean, who doesn't want to carry around a human skull. Seriously.

I discovered the world map today! I know to most seasoned Warcraft players this is no big deal, but it's really going to help me improve my game.

Speaking of which, right now, there's no one else in the lab, which is ironic, because on screen, my character has been swimming around without a single creature in sight for the past fifteen minutes. I try to get on land, but everything's surrounded by rocks. In retrospect, it would've been wiser to stay where there were more people, and kill them. I haven't even gotten to level 2 yet. It's so frustrating! I want to complete my quests but I don't know where to start.

And...I just died again. I think it's time to go.

Wow, funny how you really don't notice how much time passes.