"starting over ain't no big deal
they rebuilt Rome
and life goes on." -Pray for Rain
Many of you know I've been playing
World of Warcraft this year. I started in February to have an online game to play with Levi and Noah. This post is sorta about that, so if you don't care (and there's no particular reason you should) feel free to skip this one. I'm not gonna explain much, so just hang on for the ride if you read it anyway.
They were way ahead of me in levels, so I spent a fair amount of time playing it trying to level up quickly and in a few months I caught up. They needed a healer, and back when I worked a UofC a guy named Dave on the support line played (way back in original WOW... tier 2 was released while I was working there) and he healed with a priest, so I decided to roll a priest. It was an okay game - not the best I've ever played but pretty well executed, and with my slightly addictive personality, I kept spending time on it even after I caught them. Then I got to the level cap, and suddenly the game got
fun. I'm certainly no master, but the great part of WOW is when you play in a group and all work together, and playing a healer you really get a sense of the interaction between all the components in a good group.
After another month or two (sometime this summer) I had gotten enough gear and stuff to run heroics, and the game just got more fun! I had been in a "guild" with Levi and Noah, mostly so we could trade stuff and I could keep track of them when they were offline, but it occured to me that I could join a casual guild and get more social interaction and play 10/25-man content. If Levi or Noah logged on I could still see them, but they seemed to have left the game for a while. So one day I was playing in a pick-up group, and I decided to quit Noah's guild and see what happened. Before I got to the end of the run another guy in the group asked me to join his. It was exactly the kind of group I'd hoped to find..
I didn't realize this at the time, but the game became a reasonably important social outlet for me, especially after I got a headset and started talking to people in game. I never really became crazy addicted or anything, but it was nice having some friends who gamed, even if that's all I mostly knew about them.
The part I really enjoyed about this interaction was that they needed me to be good, and I got reasonably good. I never got to play much of the 10/25-man content, because the guild wasn't really organized that way, but it didn't matter: I enjoyed healing a lot. I enjoyed getting to see the personalities of these people come out in their play, and I liked enabling them (and others) to achieve things they really needed a good healer to do. And frankly I liked being that guy.
There are many things about being a father no one prepares you for. One of those happened today. Some of us were in 25-man Onyxia, and I was probably healer 2 or 3 out of 6 or 7. It was a good group: all but 2 or 3 really knew what they were doing. Those 2 or 3 were making it hard, and we weren't that coordinated, but we'd had two good attempts, and it seemed likely to me we'd down her on the third. Asher was watching over my shoulder (he likes seeing daddy help fight dragons) and I was pumped. Then, in phase 3, with all the other healers dead but with Onyxia down to 10% Micah started screaming. He'd been asleep, but I was on duty with both of the boys, and thankfully I did (without thinking about it) what I hope any good father would do; I stopped spamming heals and walked over and took Micah out of his papasan. I then turned around and watched as the main tank, who was doing a great job, got absolutely eviscerated without any healing. And it hurt.
It was then I realized I have to stop playing. It's not because it's making me a bad husband or father. It's because I can't stand letting people down who depend on me. I am able to let them down - I think I mostly have my priorities in the right place - but it's no fun putting yourself in a place for people to depend on you only to walk away.
Now, in real life, they'd know Micah. If this was, say, a band, they'd eat with me and watch TV with me occasionally or something, so they'd have a different perspective. Maybe they'd even be helping with Micah. But they don't, and even if they did it's not really fair to them to stick them with "the guy who sometimes walks out in the middle of a fight." More telling about myself is the realization that I don't want to be that guy, even if I enjoy the rest of the game.
So, I'm quitting for now. I'm sure another video game will come along and suck up my time. :-)
UPDATE: To share a related image:
