I didn’t mean for this blog to go so political, but let’s face it, the Presidential election has been the biggest story out there in the last 2 months.

Since I’ve pretty much exhausted one of my nasty habits, politics, let’s talk about my other most disgusting habit.  Online Gaming.  If you’re reading this site, then you most likely have a passing familiarity with me, personally.  If you didn’t know that I am a weekly columnist at Massively.com, I’ll wait right here while you go check it out.

In the gaming world, there is a story that rivals the Presidential election in terms of importance (to the gaming community, at any rate).  Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft are releasing their second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, this Thursday.  With just over 11 million players, WoW is, by far, the largtest Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game in the world.

You may have heard stories in the news about grown men who take a day off of work when the latest Madden game hits the shelves?  I know, personally, grown men who are taking a WEEK’S worth of vacation in order to play this game when it comes out.  The games are so popular that Dr. Phil and others of his ilk run shows asking if these games are addictive.

To them, I would respond with one of the following:

• Are weekend golfers who spend 8 hours (or more) out of the house every weekend playing golf, addicted?
• Are couch potatoes, who spend 4-6 hours/day in front of a TV, addicted?
• Are women (or men), who spend 8-10/hours shopping on any given weekend, addicted?

It’s a hobby, folks.  Just like any other.  Like any good hobby, there are those who become compulsive or obsessive about it, and such people will always have something upon which to focus their attention.  While I spend more than a little time playing this game, I manage to have a good job, a good home, a good family, and good friends. In fact, I even manage to make a little extra money writing about my hobby.

This hobby has allowed me to meet people I never would have met otherwise.  Thanks to online gaming, I have been given the chance to meet movie stars, have dinner and drinks with TV stars from my favorite shows, and even sign autographs of my own. (Yes, he knew exactly who I was, and didn’t confuse me for someone else.)

There are those out there, most likely people who were just a little too popular in high school, who say that people like me “have no life”.  In fact, it is one of the most common insults in the gaming world to say that someone “has no life” when they are particularly successful in a game.  I have a wonderful wife, a beautiful baby girl, a job paying enough that I have to pay attention to the upper tax brackets, a chance to meet and mingle with celebrities from time to time, and get paid to write about my hobby.  Oh, and every piece of computer equipment and every copy of a game that I buy is now a tax deduction.

I wouldn’t trade my life for yours if you tossed a supermodel into the bargain. (Unless you’re Manny Ramirez, in which case we’ll talk, just as soon as I learn to hit a curveball.)

Obviously, with such an attention grabbing headline, a little clarification is in order.  Those of you who are addicted to Minesweeper or Addictinggames.com, you can leave the room.  You play games, but you are not a gamer.  Those of you who play World of Warcraft but don’t read or post in forums, or spend your out-of-game time reading blogs and information sites, you can leave the room.  You might be a gamer, but you have perspective, and this rant isn’t about you.

I’m talking to YOU, fan boy.

I was once one of you.  I played MMOs up to 18 hours/day on weekends and 5-6 hours/night during the week.  Sure, I had a job, but it was the kind of job where I could follow forums and informational websites while I worked.   Fast forward a few years, and while I write a gaming column, run 2 gaming websites, direct a gaming track for Dragon*Con, and still find time to remain subscribed to 4 different MMOs, I have a job, a wife, and a kid who all rank higher on my list of “important things in life.”  In short, I have perspective.

You see?  I love gaming.  It is a hobby that I am passionate about.  I enjoy any new game that comes out if only for a brief time because it is a much more interactive form of entertainment than a tv show or a book.  I appreciate the time and effort it takes to create a game.  The only real annoyance I have with games are the hardcore gamers who spend all their time whining and bitching about how this game isn’t good enough or that game sucks, or why cant developers just listen to them and change their games to the player’s satisfaction.

If you don’t like it, don’t play.  If you don’t like a TV show, change the channel.  If you don’t like a book, put it down.  Your personal preferences are not sufficient reason to vent spleen in a public forum.  Nobody cares, least of all me.  I realize the inherent hypocrisy of this statement.  Here I am, bitching in a “public” place about my personal distastes.  The difference is, this is “my house”, so to speak.  I’m not going to the World of Warcraft forums to vent.  I’m not stepping into someone else’s home and shitting on the floor.

When in a public forum, try to contribute something to the larger discussion.  If you have a problem with a game, provide some details and ask for an explanation.

“I’ve noticed that mages in World of Warcraft don’t seem to be able to keep up with other classes in terms of damage.  Why is that?”

Provoke discussion, gather information, maybe you’ll learn something that improves your experience and can serve as a guide to someone else who might have the same issue.  That is what public forums are for.  Unfortunately, what you find more often is along the lines of:

“ZOMG! This game is teh sux!11eleventyONE!”

Thanks for your contribution to the world’s store of information, you fucking chuzzlewit.  The only thing more obnoxious than gamers who don’t know any better, are gamers who realize exactly what they’re doing.  Call them trolls, call them flame-bait, call them “attention starved babies whose mommies didn’t love them enough”.  If you are new to the Internet and need a guide to etiquette, I’ll make it simple for you.  If you wouldn’t say it to someone while standing in the same room with them, don’t say it online.  The Internet is about information.  If you honestly think that you are completely anonymous, guess again.

It has been my experience that gamers, even the most obnoxiously hard core types, are much more polite in person.  When I run the MMORPG events at Dragon*Con every year, the people are friendly and engaging.  Even the ones who complain are persuasive in their arguments and are just looking for answers.  If I had a choice between running a convention every month or running an online forum, there’s no contest.  Everyone has a story, and it is a genuine pleasure to meet folks who have the same interests and passions that I do.

So why then do forums not give people the same experience?  Everyone is there for the same reason.  Everyone has at least one thing in common.  It is because forum administrators, in the name of “giving everyone a voice” do not hold forum posters accountable for their words.  On my own forums, I am notorious for being quick with the “ban hammer”.  If a new poster comes around and starts flaming or trolling, I let the regulars have a little fun with him, then ban the new guy without a second thought.  Fair? No.  Free speech? Nope.  If you want to complain and be a pest, go do it somewhere else.

That said, I believe that everyone DOES have the right to make their opinions heard.  You have the right to say the most shocking and offensive things that pop into that little pea-sized brain of yours.  You just don’t have the right to say it on my server or by using my bandwidth.  Philosophically, it is a position that I wish more gaming websites would adopt.  Lock out the ‘tards.  Silence the morons.  Improve the signal-to-noise ratio of your forums and blogs until they again become useful repositories of information and commentary.

I honestly believe that communication in the Internet age has become unpersonal and almost psychopathic in it’s disregard for the sensibilities of the person on the other end.  As I said before, if you wouldn’t say it while standing in front of someone, don’t say it to them on the Internet.

As some of you may know, my “day job” as a writer is a column called Ask Massively over at Massively.com.  In it, I take questions from all comers about issues that matter to MMO players.  I have heard comments from some friends and family along the lines of “I don’t know what an MMORPG is and I don’t understand half of what you’re talking about, but I liked your column.”

Forgive me for laughing a little.  It’s hard to remember what it was like not being a gamer because I’ve been one for most of my life.

That brings me to the topic at hand.  I haven’t exactly been burning up the Internet lately with my game play.  I’m subscribed to 3 games, down from 6, but I haven’t had much time to play lately.  Part of the reason (ok, the biggest part, by far) is my new daughter Samantha.  The other major reason is the upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, which goes live on November 13.  I have been toying with the idea of picking up Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning but I don’t know if I will have time to give the game a fair shake once Lich King goes live.

Those of you who aren’t gamers, let me see if I can put this question in perspective for you.  If you are a sports fan who likes both hockey and football and your favorite out-of-town teams are both playing in your town on the same day.  Which game do you go see?   An MMORPG is an odd mix of entertainment concepts.  In one respect, a game is like an interactive television show or movie.  You tune in (or log on) and become the main character in your own story.  The other characters (players) are your co-stars, and nobody knows how the story ends.  In another way, playing an MMO is like going to a theme party.  Your friends are all there, you have a common task or goal, and there will be plenty of stories to tell afterwards.  The term virtual world is overused these days, but it really is the most accurate description of the genre.

So with a limited budget of available free time, how do you pick the virtual world that you want to inhabit?  Do you go with something new and exciting? Or do you stay where you are established and comfortable?