Guest Post [Savvy Mark] Real life effects us all
Today I'm handing over the blog to one of my guildmates, Savvy Mark. I'll be back posting Soon(TM). Without further ado, here's Savvy!
Everyone's reasons for playing MMO's is different. What isn't always obvious when you start is the amount of time that you invest into it. Not sure how long you've been playing? Type /played on your "main" and you will find some disturbing information.
Now do that with all your toons on all your accounts. The total can be huge. But is this a waste of time? Unfortunately (or fortunately) we have no means of tracking time spent with our televisions in the "on" position. If you are like me, you turn the TV on when you are in the house (and some sleep with their TV's on).
A little about me, I am an avid gamer going back to the days of the Atari 2600 (1979). Adventure was my first foray into fantasy game land. My game console migration led me to the Colecovision, Nintendo Entertainment System, Tandy 1000SX (my first computer which ran at a then whopping 7 Megahertz with 640KB RAM and had two 5 1/4" floppy disk drives), Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Game Cube and finally a laptop and desktop which are both 4 and 8 years old respectively.
My wife and I get into it about my game time. She doesn't see playing an MMO as being the same as watching TV while texting friends/following Twitter or Facebook. She's even concerned that I am setting a poor example for my son (who plays PS4 and gets on voice chat with his friends). There are times when I've logged in to World of Warcraft simply to chat with friends or guildmates. Is that really playing games?
I bring this up because with 22 years of life in the Navy, playing games has been a great way to pass the time when away from home. The problem is that now I am in the house and I still have a burning desire to kill things online, and with friends. I quit WoW for over a year because I couldn't justify paying a subscription to go to an island in Pandaria and be bored. With no new content for over a year, I quit. Warlords of Draenor caught my attention and being guildless I almost quit again. I have Honor's to thank for his post announcing that his guild was recruiting. They were nice enough to allow me to raid with them across servers. I did so with a hunter with full arena gear (I was 660 I-level) and being competitive in the DPS meters (and not dying by standing in fire, etc).
When the time came to move to the server, I went to my "main", the enhancement/resto shaman: Savvymark. Savvy has been on both factions and has been every race (except Goblin). I have used her for over 8 years. Enhancement Shaman is one of the most underused class/specs in the game. To be a female Tauren makes it even rarer. But I like it that way. The enhancement shaman is the most unique class/spec in MMO's today. A combination melee/spell caster that provides utility to the party/raid from melee range. But I like it that way.
So what's with the title? Well, real life effects life in game. I have had to limit my playing time drastically. Raiding twice a week (sometimes 3 times) is viable and I don't have much time for anything else. Planning for an upcoming retirement, job searching, house hunting, etc. and I still want to kill things online with friends. This is a thank you to Honor's for finding me an online home for my favorite toon (I have since recruited a few real friends to this new home as well). It's a balance I'm going to have to maintain. I've met new friends and found a welcome place to kill things. I salute you Honor's for helping this guy.
Real life effects us all.
Everyone's reasons for playing MMO's is different. What isn't always obvious when you start is the amount of time that you invest into it. Not sure how long you've been playing? Type /played on your "main" and you will find some disturbing information.
Now do that with all your toons on all your accounts. The total can be huge. But is this a waste of time? Unfortunately (or fortunately) we have no means of tracking time spent with our televisions in the "on" position. If you are like me, you turn the TV on when you are in the house (and some sleep with their TV's on).
A little about me, I am an avid gamer going back to the days of the Atari 2600 (1979). Adventure was my first foray into fantasy game land. My game console migration led me to the Colecovision, Nintendo Entertainment System, Tandy 1000SX (my first computer which ran at a then whopping 7 Megahertz with 640KB RAM and had two 5 1/4" floppy disk drives), Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Game Cube and finally a laptop and desktop which are both 4 and 8 years old respectively.
My wife and I get into it about my game time. She doesn't see playing an MMO as being the same as watching TV while texting friends/following Twitter or Facebook. She's even concerned that I am setting a poor example for my son (who plays PS4 and gets on voice chat with his friends). There are times when I've logged in to World of Warcraft simply to chat with friends or guildmates. Is that really playing games?
I bring this up because with 22 years of life in the Navy, playing games has been a great way to pass the time when away from home. The problem is that now I am in the house and I still have a burning desire to kill things online, and with friends. I quit WoW for over a year because I couldn't justify paying a subscription to go to an island in Pandaria and be bored. With no new content for over a year, I quit. Warlords of Draenor caught my attention and being guildless I almost quit again. I have Honor's to thank for his post announcing that his guild was recruiting. They were nice enough to allow me to raid with them across servers. I did so with a hunter with full arena gear (I was 660 I-level) and being competitive in the DPS meters (and not dying by standing in fire, etc).
When the time came to move to the server, I went to my "main", the enhancement/resto shaman: Savvymark. Savvy has been on both factions and has been every race (except Goblin). I have used her for over 8 years. Enhancement Shaman is one of the most underused class/specs in the game. To be a female Tauren makes it even rarer. But I like it that way. The enhancement shaman is the most unique class/spec in MMO's today. A combination melee/spell caster that provides utility to the party/raid from melee range. But I like it that way.
So what's with the title? Well, real life effects life in game. I have had to limit my playing time drastically. Raiding twice a week (sometimes 3 times) is viable and I don't have much time for anything else. Planning for an upcoming retirement, job searching, house hunting, etc. and I still want to kill things online with friends. This is a thank you to Honor's for finding me an online home for my favorite toon (I have since recruited a few real friends to this new home as well). It's a balance I'm going to have to maintain. I've met new friends and found a welcome place to kill things. I salute you Honor's for helping this guy.
Thank you, Savvy. I'm glad I was able to help. Savvy has been a great addition to the Dirty Casuals. If you are looking for a new home in World of Warcraft, hit me up in the comments. You can also check the original post. We are 8/10 now and I think we could even use another tank in our rotation with a strong DPS offset.
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