1 6 1 3

“I got my black war bear!” she sings proudly with a smile, almost dancing with excitement in her ‘For The Horde’ hoody. “It was so much fun! We all planned to meet at 8pm to start the raid because we knew it was going to take a couple of hours. We were really sly about it though so no one knew we were coming! We managed to get Darnassus no problem because hardly anyone was there at the time. It was so funny though because we’re on Sha’tar everyone was getting really into it, it was brilliant!”

I took another sip of my coke and stared at our Mum over the café table. I could tell by the look on her face that I wasn’t the only one perplexed by Sarah’s topic of conversation. For a year or so now my sister, bless her soul, has seemed to have found a passion for World of Warcraft, a game which had already grasped her fiancé James just as much some time before.

Naturally, like myself, she is an avid gamer of sorts, albeit far choosier in her pick of titles, but in all our gaming years growing up together and beyond I’ve never known her to be as passionate and, dare I say addicted to, a game such as she is now. Hell, she even challenges my obsession with zombie horrors, and that is some feat as those who know me will tell you!

But it seems that she’s not alone in this games conquest over my family members, it’s even gripped my cousin Lisa, and one of my close friends Dan. They too are compelled by what this game has to offer, and there are even streaks of rivalry between both pairings over something to do with Alliances and Hordes. The final details bemuse me, in fact pretty much my only ‘Craft knowledge up until this point had been gathered from the themed episode of South Park or the Ozzy Osborne advert, even the Prince of Darkness isn’t sacred anymore!

Be sure to cast Arcane Brilliance on my Hunter to increase my attack power by 10% of my total intellect

Dwarves, Trolls, Night and Blood Elves, cities, sanctuaries, something called a Murloc… this game seems to have more depth than The Architect’s speech from The Matrix and Tolstoy’s War and Peace combined. The one thing I could gather from the complex conversations of their raiding escapades is that people take this game seriously: very seriously. Aside from the fact that Sarah was interviewed to join her guild, there were talks of companies set up to mine in-game gold and sell it for real money, although illegal there is obviously a market for it.

So after some persuasion during a Chinese dinner and a wine spritzer, she finally convinced me to watch her boot the thing up and show me what it was all about.

I admit it. I was impressed. The graphics, the characters, the challenges… it sent a shiver down my geeky spine.

It’s no secret that I love RPG’s, but I’ve always played on a solo basis. Even my love for the Final Fantasy series hasn’t been enough for me to crawl my way into the eleventh title as I very much enjoy my lone efforts to get through a game. I’m also very fond of endings, and the one down side for my personal tastes with MMORPGs is their lack of such finishes. They just go on and on, expansion pack after expansion pack.

So now I face a question that has been on my mind since this taster of Azeroth and beyond. To play or not to play? Considering my PC has officially died, I know a shiny new computer is just around the corner with enough HDD space and processor power to run all 13gb worth of the Warcraft world.

I just don’t know if I should.

Seeing how much it’s consumed the gaming habits of those dearest to me I know my life will be over with so many quests and no ending in sight. I will write a blog on the outcome… but it might take a while if I take the plunge.