Addiction

Just one, though, and it's not Coke.

World of Warcraft. (now referred to as WoW for the rest of the post)

I first played in December 2006. My first character was a dwarf hunter, but the first one I really got invested in was my human paladin, Iswren. In the setting, paladins, as well as priests, serve the Light, and are empowered by it. There is one group of non-player characters called the Scarlet Crusade, who bend this power to serve them in less moral pursuits such as their Inquisition, which means the frequent torturing of sentient undead and even living things, but they are unique in their misuse of the Light. Otherwise, paladins are these paragon warrior-servants. I like them.

Paladins can specialize in three areas--
Protection, which is sword, shield, and pounds of magic plate armor, the emphasis being the attention-grabber of Big Scaries, and surviving.
Retribution, which is two-handed weapon specialization and lots of smiting.
Holy, which is just healing.

Iswren was specialized in the Holy talent-tree. Her concept became combat medic, and I enjoyed playing it.

In WoW, the action takes place on a world called Azeroth, and there are scads of sentient races. The original games in the series pitted humans versus orcs, and it all branched out from those conflicts. Those two peoples represented the main chunks of two factions that exist "today"- the Alliance and the Horde. The Alliance consists of the humans, dwarves, night elves (they're tall and purple), gnomes, and Draenei ("magic aliens" is a bad term, but is the most convenient). The Horde is a coalition of the "leftovers"- orcs, trolls, Forsaken (sentient undead), Tauren (cow people), and blood elves (a few inches short of human-sized, and largely human-colored). Despite the world- and cosmic-level threats to existence, the two factions still find plenty of time to hate and kill each other.

The ongoing, less spectacular conflicts are represented as Battlegrounds in WoW-- a player versus player event that goes on for a set amount of time, where whoever kills the other side and completes the objectives wins.

At first, I hated Battlegrounds-- I always died! But then I learned that there were people who leveled up to the maximum of their brackets (usually 10 levels in one bracket, 11-20, 21-30, so on) and bought or worked insanely hard for "Best in Slot" items, and those things made these characters incredibly powerful. A friend and I did this together, and we were awesome. She would kill things and I would heal her, and it was insane. We once fought two to eight-- and won. In that particular event, those eight accounted for more than half the team! We enjoyed slight fame, even, in our bracket.

But Iswren's story is why I did it. I still don't like Battlegrounds, but the goal was to attain a particular title. It's called "Justicar," and it's awarded to people who have earned enough resources in particular Battlegrounds. It's very time consuming to achieve, and I haven't yet, but I'm closer than most. Iswren's story was going to be her concern and sacrifice for the good of the more common citizenry, those who weren't in the throngs of heroes Saving the World each time a new villain came along. Most other paladins have their sights set on more fantastic enemies than the Horde, but Iswren constantly reminds people that those other things aren't the only threat to daily life in the Alliance. She'd spend her life as a soldier (or as much of one as a combat medic can be), devoid of career ambitions, yet constantly promoted just because the higher ups couldn't ignore the lives she saved, the numbers of the army she sustained. Eventually, when "Justicar" would be conferred to her, they'd tell her no Justicar had been a mere, enlisted soldier, and that even if she didn't accept the title, she'd have to take a commission to continue serving in the army. Her whole drive is based on protecting and serving, so she'll accept a post as an officer, becoming a Knight (that's the lowest commissioned rank in the Alliance) and a Justicar, and it'll be awesome.

Minrah is my main character. I love playing him, he's fun. His story is full, since he's older, but he's really done it all. He's a mage, an engineer (he built his own Turbo Charged Flying Machine-- and yes, that is an actual item in the game), a tailor (don't tell anyone!), a former admiral for a bunch of pirates, a goblinslayer (I did the math, and I killed at least fifteen hundred goblins to get the "Bloodsail Admiral" title), an historian, a boozer, and possibly a lecher, I haven't decided. He was the one I would take to all the new places and dungeons, got all the cool stuff, and the one I played the most.

I miss these characters. But slowly, I've been playing less and less. Today was the first day I logged on in two weeks, but it's not on my original account. I got a new one when I bought a character from a friend (it has to have their last name on it to swap characters), and I got six months of time for it. I ran out of time on the other in late August, and wasn't going to start it up until I saw how hectic (or not) my classes were. They're not very, but that's not the main problem anymore.

The problem is that playing WoW alone sucks. It sucks a lot. It's sooooo boring when you have no one to talk to. Usually, I play when I know my friends are on. But that has changed. They're playing more now on another server, and not just that, but on the opposite faction. They offer that as a service-- for $25, you can move your character and change their faction. And there is an unusual number of people in my group doing that. I not only don't want to PAY for that, but I don't want to change my characters! They're human, they're not orcs or blood elves! Changing them in that very slight way (when you think that it's just an avatar that is swapped, since you can keep everything else) is still just enough for me to feel that I've abandoned Iswren and Minrah entirely, that all the work I did was gone, or for something else. So I want to play my characters, but I don't want to play alone. I want to play my characters, but I may find I don't have time. I want to play my characters, but I never have much cash anymore. I will probably not be renewing anything soon.

I found an old check in a birthday card the other day, for $35. I smacked my forehead and went to call Grandma to ask if I should destroy it or not. She said to bring it over and let her do it, so I said okay and did just that. I got over there, gave the check to her, and she just said "2007!"

Apparently I had a $35 check from my 20th birthday. She went and replaced it, and now I feel like a fool. If I had taken a second to read the year, I wouldn't have even mentioned it. I feel like a dick now, as if I came off as expectant or demanding, and I really don't mean to. She didn't owe me that money, but she gave it anyway. I've talked to Grandma about this sort of thing before, about gifts I felt I "didn't deserve" or thought were too generous or something, and I didn't protest as much this time just because I knew she was going to give it to me whether or not I wanted the check. So I took it, bought some food, and will probably use more of it on gas, since I have to get to Ypsi and back on Friday.

Adam said he needed my face, so Friday, I'm going out, he's gonna sketch my face, and we're gonna talk about whatever art is, and how old school art-elitism is dumb. It's for homework, you see, so it's okay.

It needs to cool off already, because I need to sleep.

Sean