In 1999 I made the mistake of buying a computer for my then boyfriend to play a game on. The game was called Everquest.
Cue my descent into complete and utter obsession. I rolled an enchanter and proceeded to level the crap out of her. I joined the best guild I could and started raiding. For those of you who don’t know, back in those days raiding (killing the biggest meanest monsters) consisted of up to 72 people co-ordinating attacks for up to 12 hours at a time. Sometimes, in the early days, we’d camp in the North Temple of Veeshan for 16 or so hours on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Yes, those are real hours.
Since Everquest, I’ve played Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Aion, Rift, and soon Guild Wars 2. It’s also possible I’ve left a few games out of the list.
The point is, Gaming, though I love it, is my nemesis. I can rarely seem to balance my gaming and my writing. The OCD part of me takes over and I just have to have the best things and kill everything in sight!
I’ve been known to spend four days with approximately 4 hours sleep so I could hit level cap first. Yes, I need help.
Which is why I don’t play to that level anymore. When Guild Wars 2 comes out, I’m really going to try and balance my gaming with my writing. Because I refuse to give up my writing again. I’ve finally got myself to a good writing place in my head. And I plan to stay there.
However, these games give me a plethora of ideas. More than I can contain. They help my writing, if only I can control the urge to obsess about them.
Wish me luck, because that Mesmer up there looks damn tempting.
Do you have a writing nemesis like this? Something you have to be very careful not to let distract you too much?
Haha…WOW…world of warcraft. I bought it for my two older kids who spent hours leveling up on a dial up connection! Somewhere I left my youngest son’s dwarf stuck in the snow between a steep hill and a tree. Horde kept appearing to give him a swift death every time I got him raised back to life. Never could figure out how to get those weapons to work beyond the most elementary way! Oh…that dwarf…..stuck forever, perhaps. We don’t have an active account right now and my sons play other games and my daughter is busy with movies and facebook. WOW…the guilds, the forums, the …instances? I can see why it is so….addicting!
I liked Wow, but it definitely wasn’t my favourite. However, most games are geared towards it now. And for me, a little less challenging than I like. Of course, maybe that’s a good thing, I mean, at least now I’m writing, right? Haha 😀
I really do love to game, but now with only one Xbox and a book and job and housework, I tend to leave gaming to The Man. At this point, I have to be so out of practice that I’d probably have trouble killing a grunt on Halo. I keep meaning to make time for it – our house is just lousy with Assassin’s Creed games that I haven’t even touched – but something always comes up. Revisions or chores, etc.
*sigh*
Ooo, I know what you mean, but I love WATCHING hub play. There’s something about watching the game progress on the screen that I find fascinating. Unless it’s Skyrim of course, then I want to play too.
Also – revision is important. I’M WAITING!!!
I pretty much quit WoW last year while I was finishing up the book, and now that I have time to play I find myself getting antsy after an hour or so. I just kind of hate sitting at the computer for that long 😛
YES! Just like I quit (for a while) games. I mean, I’ll play Skyrim expansions and try to do a more casual approach to GW2… buuuut 😉 I know what you mean haha
Don’t worry, we’ll help keep you writing 😛
I’m surprised that Malice received no mention in this post! 😉
Well, I was only awake in so many respects. I’m surprised it was even partially coherent lol
Nice post. I’m just finishing Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE. Good book, although a little long at 1000 pages. I never knew much about the online gaming world before. Interesting,,, and addictive as you say.
The online gaming world is fascinating and addictive. I love it, but I’m wary of it 😉
I have a few friends who are WOW gamers to the extreme. They do all the stuff you mentioned in your posts, organizing with other gamers from around the world, you, know the whole time zone differences and all. I’m not a gamer so I don’t get it, but I don’t knock it either. It’s what they love to do.
I happen to be a reading geek so if I get myself on a reading roll, then I have to be careful not to get too carefree because then I would get no writing done.
Yeah, it’s really bad. You can end up spending 60% of your life in the things. Hub and I have been known to use them as an excuse to avoid almost anything haha.
If I get into a reading binge, no one had better talk to me lol. I do not have time. I’m READING lol.
I was a WoW addict for about four years. Eventually I knocked it on the head, but then along came SWTOR which was great. I had to stop playing though. I can’t fit everything in so something had to go.
Yep, WoW is like that. I didn’t play SWTOR. I’m not the biggest SW fan, so that helped. But if something has to go – this time it won’t be my writing.
I understand this all too well. Games give ideas, but they also take time. I think it helps me to have a schedule and set a timer so I only play for so long. Once the timer goes off, I’m done playing for the day (no excuses!).
Enjoy the rest of the a-to-z challenge!
Dianna Fielding
sociologyfornerds.com
Oh they do give awesome ideas. I like the timer idea, it was even built into EQ2, but I generally just ignored it haha.
Thank you!
Never done any gaming, but I know how easy it is to get distracted away from getting on with my writing. Good post.
Thank you. And yeah, it’s easy enough to get distracted with other things. Avoid it!