My, has time passed...

Wow. Where to start?

So much time has passed. Yes, I did seem so happy when S and I spent time together. Yes, I was so hopeful that things were going on in a positive direction with S and I. Yes, I was even cautiously optimistic that S would scale back her WoW usage and return her focus to her family, her life, and the man that loved her.

Boy, was I stupid.

Fast-forward a bit through May, June, July, into late August and early September. Things seem to be working well - S and I are spending as much time as I can get to spend, driving down in my car to where she lives (a few hours away from Los Angeles, but I try not to make that an issue).
We go to Sea World in San Diego, she comes up to LA to spend time with me, we have a nice picnic, enjoy each other's company and things look promising.

But I keep getting the impression that while she likes all this, she's still distant.

I talk to her about this. She says she's still dealing with the loss of her mother. And despite any effort I put into our relationship, I'm getting the impression that despite any suggestions I have that she's going to do exactly whatever she wants to do. And of course, that means hours upon hours playing with her Guildies on World of Warcraft.

Despite my sincere request that we spend time together, work on her career together and even help fund getting her re-trained to get back to earning the money she used to make - money she really could use.

The end of the summer comes along, and things start returning to the more difficult times we had - she even texted me one evening that her "friends" (as I referred to her Guildies) revere her and don't judge her, don't dismiss the things she does online and generally blow sunshine up her arse.

Remember that comparison I made between World of Warcraft and Alcoholism? I have a feeling that any substance abuser has had that conversation with those who love them. "Oh yeah? Well my friends don't judge me! You're just jealous! We have a special bond! They always love me and know how smart, talented and pretty I am! I have fun with them and you never got that!"

Meanwhile, hours upon hours disappear behind her computer, cooked meals become fast-food runs in the middle of the night...only AFTER the evening's 2nd or 3rd Heroic Raid is over.
The day begins and ends with S behind her computer, running World of Warcraft.

Exactly how different does this sound from someone who is a substance abuser?

Things finally come to a head in September. I have a dear friend who invites my parents and I to spend time with him and his family somewhere out off the beaten path. So my parents and I go out of town for a week. I tell S about this and she goes ballistic.

S interprets this as a direct insult. How dare I go anywhere without her.

Never mind that I go out of my way in an isolated area to find a cell phone signal and even go into the nearest town to send emails to her. She was still angry.

I come back and get really sick. Which means I can't see her when I come back. This is unacceptable. S is incereasingly furious.

Things come to a head when one weekend I get so sick I was running a temperature and just spent the weekend in bed. S of course took this as a direct affront as we were going to watch a movie on TV, with her at her place and me at mine. This was a usual thing as we didn't live near each other.

S was furious at me (being so sick that I didn't return her call and was asleep in bed all weekend) for wasting time that she could have been online on WoW, raiding.

How dare I waste her time. After all, she had to tell her friends that she wasn't available just for me. People she's never actually met. So that she'd spend time with someone she said she loved and wanted to marry.

I was even lambasted over the phone over this turn of events.

I answered the phone from a dead sleep that weekend, only to be hit with both barrels. Did I know that she turned down spending time with her guild, who needed her? Why didn't I call her? She waited ALL DAY to hear from me. How dare I?

At the point of exasperation, I tell her not to wait up for me as I wouldn't want her to look bad with her friends. She can make all the plans she wants. Spend as much time as she likes with whomever she wants. If she wants to find me, she knows where to call.

S hangs up.

I take this as having been dumped.

In the following weeks, S spends the time and puts considerable energy into calling me and leaving me rather creative answering machine messages telling me (depending upon her mood) that either I'm the worst person on the planet or that she loves me and wants us to work.

She texts me and wants to talk. I tell her that I'll write an email reply. A quick text reply says that if we can't talk by phone then there's no point of writing back.

So no email reply. And that seems to be that.

Time passes.

S stops calling/texting/emailing.

Time passes.

One evening I'm checking my bookmarks on my laptop and remember that this blog is still sitting around.

A quick read reminds me of just how hopeful I was - What's interesting about this is I've left out a few things that weighed much more on my conscience that anything listed here - I'll leave them unsaid but let's just say that being lied to for years isn't something I take well to.

Do I still love S? I always will. It's bittersweet, but she will always have a place in my heart.

I had a look tonight on the Armory page and saw that S's character was still active, updated today - which of course means she's still playing.

The funny thing is that I almost typed "using" instead of playing. That substance abuse allegory thing again.

I just hope she finds happiness. Or at least the kind of happiness that doesn't interfere with her addiction.

Reading. And Learning.

This past weekend, I drove down to see S. After not having seen her in a few weeks, we were really starting to miss each other. So Sunday afternoon after cooking up a batch of my favourite pasta sauce (with care not to use too much spice) I drove down and spent Sunday and Monday with her. Dinner was great, we traded pasta dishes, watched some TV and reveled in each other's company. I purposefully left my laptop at home (which S was surprised to discover) and wasn't remotely interested in gaming.

I even took the pains to turn off her desktop and made sure it stayed off.

The most sophisticated electronic equipment we used those two days was a portable DVD player to watch movies in bed.

I was in heaven.

At some point S mentioned that she caught herself up on the very blog you're reading right now, Gentle Readers. And she was not entirely happy with the allegorical tale I told.

You see, a few points bothered her. We talked about it and I told her that while I had my misgivings about how things have been, I am optimistic about our future together.

I also pointed out that she's been constantly referred to as the one I love. And that any time I spent with her I was in bliss.

I told her that I look forward to any time we spend together - we smiled, we held each other and told each other that we'd work on that together.

S even took me out to see her brother's nice new house and re-acquainted me with her brother and his family. Nice people, great house and a noisy little dog.

As I drove up late Monday afternoon, I thought about the time we spent together and made plans in my head (as most couples do or those besotted with someone does) for the next time we have a chance to go do something interesting, like picnic at the Hollywood Bowl, walk the trails along Will Rodgers Park, spend the day exploring the Getty, that sort of thing.

Yes, Gentle Readers...I am in love with this woman. Tough to tell, isn't it?

We spend the day Tuesday texting each other. And I love me some texts from S, let me tell you.

So Tuesday night, after coming home from work, S and I talk on the phone. We talk about her day, what she's been getting herself into, and that sort of thing.

I asked if she wants to catch up with some TV...to which she asks if I want to spend some time gaming with her.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was more than happy to. So I log on, she finds one of her guild members and offers to help me get my skills up in group combat, learning how to target and keep a target "sheeped" (or having a spell cast on an enemy to turn them into a sheep for a short period of time in combat, rendering them safe until you're ready to take them on) and getting the guild member to talk about effective ways in which to play my chosen character, a Mage.

While it was tough going at times and both Ventrillo and TeamSpeak have yet to really work properly with me, I learned a lot and was genuinely glad that she took the time and found one of her guild members (who, as one of their better Mages knows what he's doing) to walk us through a lower level instance.

I learned yet again that this game has soo many variables and so many damned things to do/get/make/equip/fight/kill/farm/etc that it it's often times overwhelming. What do I do first?
Since S has done most things in game (and repeatedly until they've become old and uninteresting) I used to think that she'd be bored to tears if I asked her to help on a quest or help me do one of the many verbs I used in that last sentence. Luckily for me she told me that that isn't the case and if she's on and not in a raid, she'd help me. More importantly, she'd help me be a better player, as I've been used to soloing for so long I really have few team skills to draw from.

Love does strange things to one another, doesn't it? Here I am, looking at S and realizing that she wants to spend time with me in game again.

Mind you, I'm not asking her to drop everything and come running but the offer that she would help when she can was something that brought a genuine smile to my face. There will be many nights ahead of ramping up of skills, abilities, learning how to move as quickly as she does, targeting things and keeping everyone in your party alive.

She even told me that even if she's been in an instance with her guild - all she needs is a bit of a break, some time to rest a bit and she'd be interested in gaming with me afterwards.

Since I work in the afternoons and come home in the evenings, this seems to be an ideal arrangement. I know this is an effort on her part and I couldn't love her more for it.

I also realized that I have to be able to pat myself on the back here and there. I'm not the n00b I sometimes feel that I am and I do pretty well for myself. I can't expect to do the massive amounts of damage without being properly equipped. Fine, call it Equipment Envy, or Wish-I-Was-Unstoppable-Like-A-Warlock-Is.

But I know that given time (and that's the key here) I'll have a character fine-tuned and properly equipped to do as much damage as the Mages in her guild.

I'm looking forward to this, this more intimate arrangement that she and I have reached in game.

I also understand she's still a co-founder of her guild and she still has all those responsibilities - something that is still a bit of a double-edged sword for me. I will work with that and not let it be a factor in our relationship. I get the feeling that she's trying on her end as well.

Without WoW, our relationship is amazing. In-game, when things work, it feels almost as good these days.

That's something I look forward to seeing a lot more of.

Heh.

While I missed the original airing, I found the complete episode of The Simpsons spoofing World of Warcraft. Yes, I know South Park did it better and with the game's graphics but something about this spoof made me smirk, from the way the caught the look of the game to the way Bart and Marge have their issues. Among the one-liners. "What a fun quest. Aren't you glad I made you take that nap in the middle?" "If you kill me, I'll egg your houses in real life"...

I did like the subplot about Lisa finding love for the Beautiful Game, with a cameo by Ronaldo... who ruins families...muhuhaha.

Link to a games page that has the links to the Simpsons video (split into two parts)...
http://www.destructoid.com/the-simpsons-spoof-world-of-warcraft-31134.phtml

Gah. AC Milan beat ManU. Still, ManU wasn't putting up much of a fight from what I could tell.

Under the influence

Good morning, readers.

Ever have those mornings that you lie in bed, your mind racing?

Consider this, if you will:

Let's say you're involved with someone who enjoys drinking. They have an encyclopedic knowledge of drinks, recipes, what drink goes with what, what glass to use with what sort of drink, etc. They spend hours researching the newest and most interesting drinks, trying out new recipes. Drinking is a social thing to them, they have a large group of people that they meet daily somewhere you enjoy too.

Now, you enjoy a good drink - after all, it was you who got this person to appreciate the nuances of of alcohol in the first place. Your loved one knew about alcohol but really didn't show that much interest before - so you got them to join you as you thought it would be yet another thing that you could share with them. But you weren't expecting your loved one to get so involved so quickly.

Your loved one and her friends enjoy drinking so much they form a private club within the place you hang out at.

This starts to put a strain on your relationship, which was having problems before. Now, you've known and been in a relationship with your loved one for years. You've had your ups and downs, gone through various crises but always emerged together. Lately, things had gotten distant. You two were comfortable but the passion had cooled a bit.

Now, you found that your loved one is far more into drinking than you ever were, spending vast amounts of time with her friends in her private club and less time with you, ending up in fights and long uncomfortable quiet moments on the telephone.

All the while, you become worried - where is this going? Am I losing my loved one to drinking and their private club? You rarely get to spend much time with your loved one, having always to wait until they're done with their "responsibilities" and they have a bit of time with you.

Things come to a head when planned outings are delayed or forgotten altogether because of commitments your loved one made to her drinking buddies in the private club. Mind you, your loved one has now become treasurer, chief organizer, and helps run the club with someone else, whom they always speak highly of.

So you tell them you need time to yourself. That you're tired of being lowest priority. The two of you split up.

4 months pass.

You still go to the same hangout, spend time with a couple of people you know there and leave. Your loved one, however is always there with her friends in their private club. They are there when you walk in, they're still there when you leave.

You have a few awkward conversations with your loved one in those months, mostly about their private club. They tell you how much responsibility they have, how so many people rely on them, how important they are to the club, and how your loved one is now becoming far more interested in concentrating on the competitive drinkers within her club. They now consider themselves among the elite of the competitive drinkers, often complaining that the others in her club aren't as good as they are.

On the wall of the place you and your loved one enjoy hanging out, there are dozens of pictures of your loved one, surrounded by her friends, showing that they've won yet another round of competitive drinking.

You have a life-changing event that makes you stop and take stock in what's important to you. You realize that although you and your loved one drifted apart, that they are someone you see yourself building a life with. Growing old with. Sharing everything you have with them.

You make the effort and contact your loved one. Long distraught conversations ensue. You laugh together, you cry together, you realize that you two had so much shared that it was painful to be apart. And so you two promise to make things work.

And then you learn that your loved one was involved with the co-founder of her private club in during those months you two weren't together.

(Yes, dear readers - typing this out suddenly makes it astoundingly obvious that I should have seen THAT one coming...the signs were all there but I wasn't even looking for them...)

Despite that, your loved one tells you they were uncomfortable with how the club's co-founder was pushing for marriage, moving in, frequent and vocal outpourings of affection...in short, the things you weren't doing in those years past. Your loved one takes time ending things with the co-founder, saying that they didn't want to hurt the co-founder, that this individual was there for them when you two split up. And that they would never want to hurt them.

While you wait, in limbo, for your loved one to decide where they want to go in their life.

Your loved one says that they can't wait to build a life with you. So you begin months of intense courting again, taking care to make sure you do all the things they said you didn't do in the past, making sure to call, text, send emails, do all the silly things you always wanted to.

Ah, but there's still that private club and all those friends at the hangout you two share, remember?

When your loved one spends time with you and you two share a drink or two, you're in heaven. But we get back to the fact that they still hold their private club and their friends in high regard. And of course, let's not forget that they spend a large amount of time with the club's co-founder, who still carries a torch for your loved one.

Isn't this fun, Gentle Readers? Who said blogs can't have all the ingredients of a bad afternoon soap?

So you keep coming back to your mutual hangout to spend time with your loved one when she's not doing things with her private club. And woe onto you if you should ask your loved one to cut back. Cold, stony silences interspersed with angry words reward you if you should dare suggest such a thing.

So I suppose my question is this: Does this make me an enabler? Someone who always meets at the hangout you two share and encourages the use of alcohol?

Does this make me an optimist, hoping that my loved one with wean themselves from this lifestyle on their own?

Or am I simply not seeing the bigger picture again; that my loved one is addicted and has no interest in changing how they are?

More to think about, I suppose.

Is it a crime to enjoy single player in a multi-player world? UPDATE

I came across some interesting links in my meanderings on the 'net recently...
One of which talks about the endless treadmill one seems to be on in MMOs - the good and bad of it, I suppose.
Here's the link:
http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/04/23/the-game-without-treadmills/

Personally, I find that in WoW if you want powerful items/armour/enchants to said items/armour you need to "farm" or engage in a gathering behaviour repeatedly in a tightly-defined geographic location and repeat doing so until you have the raw materials you need.
Um. Yeah. Great way to keep someone in-game and busy, I suppose but I don't ever recall hearing amazing tales of how the Brave Knight stayed in the Forest of Evil, killing hundreds upon hundreds of evil critters just to collect their spleens or what-have-you (which have a drop rate in the low 1-6% region) and then take his prizes to the local enchanter to have his Sword of Cleaving blessed with a bonus.

Nor do the epic fantasy stories I remember have such a plot device that boils down to "And so, our band of adventurers spent the next 10 days in the Valley of Being Uncomfortably Warm, fighting Fire Elementals until they gathered enough of the life essences from these evil creatures to craft their Enchanted Armour Of Not Dying As Quickly As The Others."

Gathering components for a potion, enchant or armour can be so insanely annoying (not to mention time-consuming) that people end up going to the in-game Auction House (or AH) to just out and out buy what they need. This creates an-in game economy of supply and demand that many have put to good use, gathering the items and selling them on the AH to those who want then and don't have the time/inclination/ability to suspend boredom to do so.

Of course, that requires the in-game coin of the realm. And in WoW, it's gold. Gold that you earn killing things and/or selling things. Of course, where there's money, there's always a way to get more. Which leads to this next link I found. Now I know if you've played an MMORPG you've been spammed at one point or another by companies selling gold. And many people have strong opinions about that. Here's the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6592335.stm

S and I talked a bit more and even managed to play together last night for hours. We had a great time and I really enjoyed gaming. It was one of those things that happens infrequently and I am hopeful that it happens a lot more often.

I found a link that talked about the gaming habits of MMO players and the comments left by readers were illuminating. Here's the link: http://www.dailytech.com/Nick+Yee+Uncovering+the+Truth+Behind+Video+Gamer+Habits/article6278.htm

I never did put that much thought into the seemingly impossible act of getting everyone in a guild to do exactly what they're supposed to do when you tell them to and be able to work together to complete a common objective, like going through a raid or instance. In fact, playing with her last night I asked for her help in finishing a quest - it took us a few tries but I could see how you'd have to have lots of hours of gaming experience in a group to make things go smoothly. As some of you might have noticed me point out in an earlier post, I've spend a majority of my time playing solo.

Oddly enough with a Level 70 character, that means I've put at least (in my case) a month of real-time into leveling - that's total hours logged in and playing. That's a lot of hours for me.
If you're in WoW and really want to know how much of your life went into your character, type "/played" and be prepare to feel surprised/guilty/relieved, depending on what the result is.

I know, there are people who fly through what I did in a matter of days, or perhaps a week or two at most, but I took my time.

The comments on that last link make me think more and more about the vast difference in experiences people have online - and what that means to people in relationships.
I'll have to reflect on this a bit more. Puts the part S's life that is tied into her guild and the dizzying amount of daily effort she pours into it in a slightly different light.

Cue flashback...

"Sherman?" "Yes, Mr. Peabody?" "Set the WABAC to 1991"
Back in the days before the World Wide Web, proprietary online services were the way to go.
Back in the '80s, it was the BBS, or Bulletin Boards that I roamed, searching for Apple ][ software to share/exchange - I remember being in 10th grade and having a classmate named Wilfredo bringing a whole shoebox full of pirated Apple ][ games to share. When IBM PCs became easily available by other manufacturers, it became affordable to buy one. So playing one afternoon and looking for patches from the Sierra On-Line BBS, I noticed a note for something called "The Sierra Network", offering gaming with other people and the ability to chat and hang out. Of course, back then CompuServe was available and so was America online, in one version or another. But this was a graphical version and allowed you to create an online persona. Sounded good to me.
And so I signed up, had the starter package sent to me and installed the software.

Thus began my online journey.

TSN was great. Back then, you had the ability to create a cartoon bust of yourself, hang out in a chatroom, play a simplified flight sim called "Red Baron" against others, play card games, and pass mail to each other in a proprietary email system that stayed only within the TSN system.
Text only, of course. passing along pics of things, people, etc required a real-world address and a diskette or Polaroid via snail-mail.
Upgrades to TSN included a more adult-ish version based on Sierra On-line's "Leisure Suit Larry" world, with a casino where you could play things like blackjack, roulette, and slots.

Time marched on. America Online was the 800lb gorilla in online services, CompuServe was rapidly becoming something that while comprehensive, only something really serious users were on. AOL grew and grew. Eventually, the market share of TSN, which was never big to begin with forced it to be sold off, first to AT&T who changed the name from "The Sierra Network" to "The ImagiNation Network" or INN, and eventually it was sold off to...you guessed it, AOL.

AOL took the gaming technologies that TSN used, gutted it for it's intellectual property and then shut it down. Most of TSN/INN's users migrated to AOL, as there was really no other choice.

At first, I didn't like AOL. It was huge. There was a lot you could do, certainly but where was everyone I knew? I started looking in chatrooms. And eventually settled on a few I visited on a regular basis. And began to recognize some of the usual users. Soon that led to becoming a fixture in some of the chatrooms. But those were usually in the evenings, after college and work.

In 1996, I had back surgery for a ruptured disc. This put me at home, recuperating from surgery and having a lot of time on my hands. So I spent a lot of time on AOL in chat when I wasn't walking or getting rehab for my back.

That time I spent while recuperating from surgery on AOL changed how I looked at online services. Soon I was fit enough to go back to work and school, but I kept logging on to AOL each night.

AOL became something of a social outlet as well; most of us would meet IRL, or In Real Life at restaurants or clubs, hanging out and having fun seeing what we're like in person. Of course, this led to some awkward meetings when people with names like "SexyBunny321" end up being someone squat, shapeless and anything but sexy. But that added to the entertainment value. "Say, did you see what 'BuffGuy75' looked like? He looked like he couldn't lift a folding chair, much less all those weights he kept bragging about..." By the way, the previous names were pseudonyms - While I met many people who were exactly what they said they were, there were those who weren't...and I'm not going to use their names here.

So I kept my "AOL friends" separate from my other friends and led what you would call a double life.

And then back in 2000, I was minding my own business, hanging out online with people I'd come to know for several years...and along comes S.

More later.

1st Reader, 1st critique.

Good morning, gentle readers.
I had a nice chat last night with someone I'll call S.
S, you see is someone I hold in high regard. I happen to love her like crazy and she tells me she loves me too. When we're in each other's arms I couldn't be happier. We've talked about a future together and we are optimistic it'll happen.

But S is also deeply involved with another. That "other" is World of Warcraft.

And so the things I said about WoW she took as an attack. "I don't see why you play WoW if it causes you so much pain..." she said. I told her that I honestly enjoy playing with her and that's the reason I WoW to begin with. She was nonplussed. She and I have had long conversations about the role of WoW in each other's lives. When we're away from it, things work fine. However, bring WoW into the equation and things start to get difficult. You see, gentle readers, this is where our back story begins to take on a more substantial role.
Needless to say, I'm going to have to start filling you in soon.

Here's a bit to tide you until my next post: She and I both belong to a guild.

Different guilds.

Now I've played with S's guild a couple of times. They're really nice people. The guild I'm in are nice too, but they're not on as often at night in numbers when I'm on. S's guild seems to be always on. Maybe it's just that so many people come and go that it seems she's always got her core of people she always plays with on whenever she is.

A bit of background is in order.

S started gaming with a guild when I wasn't on (being at work will do that for you) and enjoyed it so much she initially invited me. I wasn't terribly interested at the time, as I enjoyed the single-player aspect of the game (see previous post that got S so upset).

When we started, she and I picked different classes of characters to play. As things turned out, the class she picked out was extremely resilient, didn't die very often and advanced quickly.
Needless to say, the class I picked was the opposite. I was continually dying. This was an exercise in frustration. We'd be in game somewhere and I would die in the blink of an eye (to my estimation) and S couldn't understand why. I took my frustrations out on S.

This did not go well.

After much discussion, we found that she was progressing faster on her own, playing when I wasn't on. She'd still offer to play but at the time I was becoming increasingly frustrated as to how she was flying through the levels while I was plodding along.

You see, gentle readers - I really didn't have the proper grasp of the game at the time and it took a long time for me to realise that the difference in classes (and the amount of time played/experience gained by playing more AND the research S put into becoming the best in her class, getting the best equipment, finding the easiest quests with the best rewards, etc) made a lot of difference. Of course, that wasn't immediately recognizable to me at the time. But I learned much later.

So, while I was frustrated with my character, frustrated with dying so often, frustrated with S flying through the levels and becoming really powerful - we played with each other less often. S didn't enjoy playing with me and I wasn't having a good time partly because I wasn't good at it yet and partly because S didn't want to play with me anymore.

So S joined a guild. And became fast friends with everyone she played with.
Her new found friends became a reason to play more often. Initially that was a plus - She'd be on whenever I was on and I thought that was great. But we had problems and issues outside the game, in *real life*...in addition to those we'd had in game with my slow-progressing character...and those led to us being more distant in-game. Eventually she and another of her new found friends, someone I'll call FB formed their own guild and took many players from the guild they were in. All this time S and I were not getting along as well as we could have.

And then something interesting happened.