...But I'm still going to kill you all

Alternative titles: But I slept with your sister, But I'll invite you next time I promise.

Today I helped a friend with a project by starring in a fake (but professionally made) radio show. Hilarity ensued, naturally - as you won't be able to tell by the meme-licious "lyrics" above. Unfortunately, due to the time it was scheduled for, I am now so tired that I've forgotten how tired I am. It's been a while since I was at this point, but it's a fun place to be: I've actually become almost drunk upon tiredness.

I played in a Naruto game earlier tonight. To clarify on that point, this game is set in the same universe as the Naruto manga, but uses the system from Exalted, a truly epic game. It approaches Scion in terms of power level of PCs, and in this setting we're all ninja. It works quite well, but I think I'll save details for a future post (when I can think about it more).

Instead, I'm going to talk about WoW. I've played the game, with a few gaps of varying size, since its launch 4 years ago, and have passed through a few characters. My current, and longest-lasting character is my level 80 Mage, a lovely female Draenei (for the blissfully untouched, think sexy mind flayers with tails) who specialises in pure arcane magic. She's decked out in a decent set of gear, and joins 10-man raids every week for small upgrades to it. I love the playstyle of the arcane mage - a flexible system of being able to trade efficiency of mana for speed of damage at the drop of a cowl.

However, I'm also working on a couple of secondary characters. Both are the same race and gender (so that they can support and be supported by each other and the mage - gender isn't necessary for that, but male draenei are fugly), one is a mighty level 70 Death Knight while the other is a fledgling level 21 Shaman. The DK is being levelled slowly alongside my brother's healer, a priest. The Shaman is levelling alone.

WoW gets mixed reviews. Most people who play it love it to bits, most people who don't hate it more than Jews hate Hitler (or vice versa, whichever you feel is stronger). Myself, I think it's the best MMO game I've encountered for one reason only. This is that any MMO rises or falls based on the strength of the social ties between its players. What has always brought me back to WoW is the fact that my friends and family (well, my brother and father anyway - Mum's as technophobic as she can afford to be) play it, and it's a game that I can play with them. And of course, with a playerbase of over 11 million if you believe their statistics, WoW has that much more sticking power. If it weren't for my guild, my brother, my friends, or so on, I doubt I'd give it a second glance - It's not a good enough game to play for this long, by anyone's stretch of imagination.

So yeah, it's like alchohol or saturated fats. I know I shouldn't, but dammit I just can't stop.

P.S. Extremists (read: idiots) claim that MMOs are addictive. They are, but only because socialisation is the primary motivation of the human race as a whole - it is just as viable to say that MSN, phone lines or the pub are addictive. I know I'd be lost without the ability to IM people or go for drinks with them.