Game addiction: Life after WoW

I am La, short for La Woman from that great Doors song.
I was La for the last 2 years, well, a bit less for the last couple of months, but not that much less. As for one there is the fact that every game I tried in my fanatic quest for a suitable replacement for WoW invariably got a main char with the same name. And whenever a site or programm requests a username, likewise invariably 'lawoman' appears in the appropriate bar. It makes one wonder, yes, it surely does. But it's also highly practical. I never get the annoying message 'this username already exists'. Lawoman is unique. My game friend Drake thinks it's a great name. So great, in fact, that he even advised me to delete my druid Lawoman, who never got further than level 66 because I got bored with her, and start a new char with that name. I did not feel like it. My hunter, who got to 70 in no time, was simply called Lawomen and that was just as fine with me.
She ceased to exist. As did my druid. As did all my other chars.

They all had Doors related names. Immaculate, my level 40 warlock. I would rather have called her StonedImmaculate, but that name was not available. So there were some other Doors fans around in WoW after all!
Azureforest, my horde hunter, after the forest of Azure in 'The Wasp'. Shamansblues, a warrior, a char I wanted to try out because I wondered why each and every warrior is so mighty arrogant. At least, that's what I told my WoW mates. And it certainly was one of the reasons I created a warrior, but not the only one. I also wondered if I would be able to play one. Or rather, a tank. Most warriors are tanks, and tanks are what it's all about in a team. You can run a dungeon with whatever players you like, but it will be near to impossible to make it without a tank. And a healer of course. Healers are very much wanted too.
I had not joined any group as a warrior yet and I had my doubts if I'd ever be actually ready to do so, but at last I don't need to worry about that anymore. Shamansblues shared the fate of Lawoman, Lawomen, Immaculate and Azureforest. And Idolseye, let's not forget her. Another hunter. I really had a thing with hunters. Shooting from a safe distance, while your pet is doing the dirty work. And you're only responsible for your own deeds. As long as you follow the orders of the tank, no reproach from team members will be made. When everybody acts like that, a team is a smooth machine. It feels like being in a flow, much like a double in badminton, when strategy ensures that your partner will always be where you expect him (or her). You don't even have to look.

I miss that. I miss all of woW. It looks spectacular. You're part of a real society. it's absolutely far more 'second life' than the world by that name. And that's exactly why I abruptly ended my life in that world, a couple of weeks ago. I woke up with a voice in my head, telling me to stop NOW, and that's what I did. I winded up my affairs neatly. Sold all my char's possessions, including their gear. There will have been lots of pple that day wondering why there were so many women running around naked in Stormwind. All my gold was mailed to Drake. I told him why I stopped playing WoW. He said he got it, but I doubt he really did. Otherwise he would not have suggested to play Guildwars together again . Guildwars is much like WoW, but not as great. No way!
I stopped my payment to Blizzard. Then I deleted my account. Blizzard wanted to know why. Much to my surprise there was an option 'I play too much'. WoW is a great game, but a bit too great for me''. was my epitaph. And then came the final step. The hardest one, but very quickly done. My daugther Dewi approvingly watched me clicking 'uninstall'. It took my pc 5 seconds to get rid of something that took about 5 hours to get there.

We ate out that evening, to celebrate. Everybody was happy. Me too. I felt very strong and I was very proud of myself. I still do, but even so, I do miss WoW. Almost immediately I started looking for an alternative. An off-line alternative. Because what got me hooked was the on-line character of WoW. At least, that's what I think. I've been gaming for a long time. Mostly adventures, the classical ones, with loads of puzzles to solve. Although my patience tended to run out fast when I could not find the solution quick enough. The discovery that internet, besides all those other goodies, had also walkthroughs to offer saved my a lot of money, because before that I often ended up bying a walkthrough book when desperate.
For me, the most appealing part of adventures was what i called the 'gaping effect'. Adventures mostly look terrific, you can go anywhere you like, try out anything you want.

For a while I played the Sims too, but mostly not for a long time. Creating complicated relationships between chars - like two man and one woman, or the other way around - and see how long they could last was what I enjoyed most in that game, but I got bored easily wih that.

I did not have that much experience with RPG's (role playing games). There was this very old game, so old I don't even remember the name anymore. And Diablo II was so much to my liking, that I actually bought extra Ram to make it run more smoothly. Never finished it though, the foes in the end game proved to be too strong, in spite of the loads of health potions I brought with me.
Now that I think about it, my experience with RPG's turns out better than I thought after all. A sales-man in a game shop suggested Half Life when I was looking for a game, comparable with Diablo. I was not that pleased when he automatically assumed the game was meant for someone else. Middle aged women clearly don't belong to the target group.
Now this middle aged woman admittedly had some difficulty moving around in the game. Left and right, and forwards and backwards, well, I managed to do that, but jumping! My daughter had to save me from precarious situations on a fairly regular basis.

The last game I played before I immersed in the wonderful world of online gaming was Vampire Bllodlines. Not bad, not bad at all. But when you finished it a couple of times with different chars, you're really ready for something else. And exactly on that moment my nephew told me he had discovered a great new game called Guildwars. He was very enthusiastic about it. First he thought the world you start the game in is was all there was, but then he found that was just a small part of it. 'You'll really like it', he cheered. It took me some time to get over my doubts. An online game! Diablo could be played online too, but I'd never dared to do that. I was sure my pc clumsiness would seriously show. But I ended up buying it anyway. And I was hooked. My second life had begun. Or my second?

(will be continued)