After Day 1 of my World of Warcraft trial, I wasn’t that convinced that it was an epic, addictive masterpiece that had the potential to take over some peoples’ lives. On Day 2, I kept telling myself, "It’s not that fun. I don’t see why everyone’s so excited about it." Yet when I quit, I would keep thinking about it, and I found myself logging back in a couple of times throughout the day.
I ran to a different town in Day 2 for the first time. I had to consult a map online to make sure I wasn’t running into certain doom, but I was already headed in the right direction. I found more interesting tasks there such as filling phials at moonwells and killing more advanced monsters. There is something fun about running errands for people – tasks that ordinarily don’t receive much glory in RPGs are rewarded with the appreciation of NPCs, a higher local reputation, and often money and/or an item.
One such quest involved obtaining tumors from monsters called Timberlings. It was a lot of fun because the Timberlings were very close to the quest giver and it was no trouble at all to help out a man who was trying to save the environment. The themes of environmentalism were part of the reason why I chose to be a night elf. I enjoy nature and have respect for it – another reason why I enjoyed Okami. Several Timberlings later, I had reached level 7 and quit for the day.
By Day 3, I had accepted a quest to kill Gnarlpine Ambushers, some beastly humanoids who were making the road to Darnassus unsafe (according to a pretty night elf who rode on a tiger). I searched far and wide for these beasts, but I could not find them anywhere. I asked around but no one seemed to know where they were. I went on other quests, but, by the end of the day, I still had not found those Gnarlpine Ambushers.
I asked a friend from the real world about the Gnarlplines. I was frustrated because I kept getting slowed down by other monsters when I went looking for the Gnarlpines. I found a few camps where there were many other types of Gnarlpines (Shamans, Warriors, etc.) but never any ambushers. My friend suggested that I try to group with some other players to make the fights end faster. I ruled out that possibility because I like to play games by myself without having to depend on other people or do their bidding. (This is one reason why I have avoided MMORPGs for so long – I don’t like to leave others in control of my destiny when I don’t even know who they are.)
I reached level 8 when I quit playing WoW today (Day 3), but I was extremely frustrated about my inability to locate those Gnarlpines. If this is how the game is going to be, I didn’t know how much I want to play. Perhaps it won’t be as addicting as I had feared.