I would like to thank you, Yahtzee, for the insightful review. It was quite enjoyable. ^_^
I am a fervent WoW player. I actually went through a cycle:
1. First, I started playing b/c my husband plays. I slowly leveled a character with his help, enjoying reading the quests and the lore Blizzard has worked so hard on.
2. When I hit level 80 (this was pre-Cata), I began what's called "running heroics" (playing through heroic dungeons that drop superior gear to up the amount of damage/healing/etc. a character can do).
3. After I had enough superior gear on my character (I was a tauren [cow race] druid, with a restoration [healer] spec in my talent tree [enhances abilities you use often in your role]), I moved on to raiding. {And, to a degree, Yahtzee is right: you raid for better gear, which you use for raiding again. The point there is to be able to maximize your ability within that raid, and then you farm it for badges to buy tier gear (the best gear you can get) to prepare for the next raid that will be patched in (this is where end-game content is: not the first raid, but more like the 3rd / 4th raid to be patched into the game). After that, players tend to farm raids for badges to get other useful things that can be bought with them, like mounts (flying or ground), and they far to make money to buy things they want to buy, and they do it to pass the time.} But anyways, I healed through the first Wrath of the Lich King raid (Naxxramas [which was actually a revamped version of the original Naxx that came out before the first two expansions]).
4. I didn't raid for very long: it is very stressful when there are a lot of elitist pigs that play World of Warcraft. When everything gets critiqued, and it becomes an unenjoyable job, it turns you off to playing at all. So I did something new: I switched to a Roleplayer server, created a new character (Night Elf druid) and decided to basically start over to remind myself why I -do- enjoy the game. I leveled her quite quickly, mostly because I wanted her to be an RP character. The reason I ever leveled her was because there was something I found that I liked and wanted her to use or wear for her RP. I downloaded a Storyline addon (MyRolePlay) and filled in her information when I started her.
5. As I continued to level her and get new "RP gear", and occasionally work on achievements that added to the SL (storyline) of my druid, I came across an abandoned tailoring shop in the Park in Stormwind. It was being used by two other players as an "RP base of operations" of sorts: they ran an RP clinic, openly taking in "injured" players and helping to care for them by bandaging wounds, offering water to drink, and even offering to "house" a player overnight in the "upstairs rooms". I found the environment welcoming and relaxing and friendly, and offered my services as a healing druid.
6. As I played, spending a "shift" in the clinic with another healer, it was interesting. We got different people every evening, and the RP was varied from person to person. It was quite fun. But it got a little monotonous. So I decided to finish leveling her to level 80, and ran heroics a bit, and occasionally got into one of the one-boss raids with other players. I also tried to remember to do daily quests each day to make money, as I was attempting to work on different achievements that require a fair bit of gold-spending.
As I did each new thing in this cycle of changing my activities, I updated and deepened my character's SL. It went from a two-dimensional character to a living, breathing, feeling being that I found I deeply enjoyed role-playing as. Then, when Cata hit, and everything changed, and the new things opened up, I worked fervently to quest in each new zone, reading every single quest to absorb the new / updated lore, until I hit 85. And as I did this, I took in how the world had changed, and I reminisced leveling my druid when I first started her... it was very personal for her SL info, and I updated it a few weeks ago, smiling as I filled in everything that had happened in her "life" within Azeroth.
All in all, WoW is a great game (even though it is indeed insanely evil XD), as long as it's done lightly, and with moderation. As long as you can remember to do ti because you enjoy it, instead of playing it like it's a job, then everything is fine.
Anyways, thank you again, Yahtzee! I love your videos, and while this one was completely unexpected, I'll always be grateful that you were honest about every aspect of World of Warcraft. ~bow~ Elune protect thee. ~.^
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