Your Hobby Sucks... but then again, so does mine

Everyone has a hobby, or at least something they enjoy doing when they are not working or sleeping. What is a hobby or pastime if not just a big time sink? I mean, let's think about this for a moment. There are twenty-four hours in day. Most of us work six to eight of those hours and sleep six-to-eight as well (for the sake of argument, we will go with the “normal” eight hour work day and eight hours of sleep per day). That leaves an extra eight hours to kill everyday. You have to fill that time with something (hopefully, bathing and eating are amongst those activities). So, the question remains, what to do with all that free time? Housework? Yardwork? Sure, those are things that need to be done, and on days that one doesn't have to be at work, there are even eight extra hours to be filled beyond the normal eight the other five days. So, people find ways to keep themselves busy or entertained to fill the void, right? The point is, no one really has the correct answer to this equation, but I would be willing to bet they think they do. Why? Because so many of us love to put down or criticize others who fill their free time with activities that we would not or do not enjoy, so therefore, their hobby must suck.

As a lifelong gaming geek who has enjoyed playing role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons and the like for over twenty years, I have always had to catch hell from others who do not understand why I play/played such games. Now that we have moved into the age of the Internet and World Wide Web, those interests in RPGs has moved to into the realm of playing MMORGPs such as World of Warcraft and D&D Online. Now, I freely admit that I am a bit OCD at times and when I take up a hobby, be it a game or other activity, I tend to become immersed in it to the point of being almost evangelistic when speaking of it. So, I can kind of see where I would get on someone's nerves who is not interested in those activities. However, that does not mean that I am wrong for enjoying them does it? I ask because sometimes I find people that seem to think I am. I hear questions all the time like, “Why do you play [insert name of game here]? That game is stupid!” or “That is such a waste of time.” To the first statement I'll say, it is a free country and your are entitled to you opinion. To the second statement, yes, it is a waste of time; that's the point! I have eight extra hours to fill everyday, and anything I do outside of work or sleep can be categorized as a waste of time (you know, except for household chores and the aforementioned bathing and eating). I want to be clear on this so I'll use all caps, ALL HOBBIES ARE A WASTE OF TIME! Yep, I said it. I don't care what you choose as a hobby, it is nothing but a waste of time. That's the point. If we aren't working, sleeping or doing chores, we want, (dare I say, need) our other time to be wasted doing something other than staring at a wall being bored.

I guess what I'm getting at is this. In the gaming world, geeks can become quite vicious when talking about or defending their particular game. People who play WoW think that people who play other MMORPGs are stupid. People who used to play WoW and quit talk trash to and put down those who still play, and it goes on and on an on; just find any message board on gaming if you don't believe me. But even outside of the gaming community people can become quite petty about things. Persons A and B both like to read, for example. Person A likes to read trashy romance novels, while Person B prefers Science-Fiction. Now, neither of these genres serve any purpose other than to be entertaining. They aren't scholarly books that might teach the reader something about history or politics or science or any of hundreds of other topics. So they both want to know why the other one reads “that crap.” And of course, Person C comes along and wants to know why either of them waste their time reading “that crap” since he “doesn't waste my time reading fiction.” Then there are the people who do not even enjoy reading at all and wonder why all the “nerds” are reading when they could just be watching TV or going to a movie instead.

Maybe I'm just over sensitive because it seems that gaming geeks like me seem to catch the most shit from people who don't get why we play games. But the real point to this whole diatribe is, no one truly has the right to question anyone else's hobby or pastime. Just because you don't enjoy, doesn't make it invalid and just because you do enjoy it doesn't make it “better” than mine or anyone else's. So, STFU and go play your games, read your trashy romance novel, watch you reality TV shows, pimp your rides, or whatever else cremes your Twinkie. Just remember to eat and bathe (especially bathe; that one is a non-negotiable).

~ JC

D&D Online - 1st Impressions

As everyone who knows me or regularly checks out my blog knows, I'm a World of Warcraft fanatic. I've been playing it since August of 2008, I've gotten two characters to the level of cap (currently 80) and I still play almost everyday (the number of hours per day varies based on what's on TV that night or if I have other real life things to do). Lately, however, the game has become, well, a bit tedious and even frustrating. Once a “toon” hits 80 in WoW, there's little else to do except run the same daily quests (everyday – hence the “daily” part) to make gold and grind out reputation with different factions and try to earn or find the best gear available in the game. All this is done in order to experience the “end game” content – this is content meant for max level characters wearing the best gear. But what happens when there is no one on to play that content with? Raids require either 10 or 25 toons in the party to even have a chance of completing, so when there's only eight guildmates online, and half of those either aren't level 80 or or just turned 80 and don't have the gear to survive the end game raids yet, what is one to do? Hmmm.... level up an “alt” or go do more dailies? Ok, but even that gets boring after awhile – I mean, leveling an alternate character means going back and doing all the same quests you did with your main character months ago and gets really bland really fast. So, in order to keep things fresh, a couple of us have decided that when we're feeling burned out on WoW we'd try something different lest we end up quitting WoW entirely to keep from going mad. That something, for now anyway, is Dungeons & Dragons Online.

VS

The first thing of note about Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) is that it's advertised as Free to Play. This sounds like a great thing since I'm already paying $15 per month to play WoW; I can play DDO for free and not have to maintain subscriptions to two different games. The problem with the Free to Play concept, however, is the limitation of only being allowed a maximum of two characters in contrast to the up to fifty I could have on WoW. It is the Free to Play option of DDO that made me willing to give it a try though, so I'll gladly deal with the limitations in race and class selections that are also imposed for free players. The game client itself for DDO is also a free download and generally takes only a few mintues to download and setup (I had some issues that caused it to take over an hour, but the two friends who are trying this out with me said it only took them about five minutes). WoW's client is technically a free download, but the license keys to actually get beyond the 10-day trial do have costs ($19.99 for the Basic Game, plus $29.99 for the “Burning Crusade” expansion and another $39.99 for the “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion – the expansions aren't necessary to play the game, but they are necessary if you want to advance beyond level 60, but I digress). WoW's client typically takes up to two hours to completely install regardless of using the download option or actually obtaining the DVD discs due to all of the patches and updates that will have to download (WoW is currently on version 3.2 with 3.3 due out soon, so even if you're only planning on doing the basic game, you still have to get all the patches). So, as far as the client and costs are concerned, DDO gets the advantage (at least at first glance; however, DDO can cost real life money if you want to do anything beyond the basics).

My initial reaction to DDO's user interface was that it was just plain bad in my opinion. It's was confusing. Most other MMORPGs use similar controls such as right clicking to attack a target while using left click to simply target something without necessarily attacking it. Now that I've spent some time playing (I've made it to level 2 *grin*) and gotten used to it, it's not so bad. It is more interactive in combat than WoW's UI. In WoW, a target is picked, and buttons are pushed depending on which ability you wish to attack with. In DDO, you keep left clicking on your target, which may or may not move around, to keep attacking and your hits and damage are determined by a d20 die roll just like in the table top version of D&D. There are special abilities in DDO as in WoW, and the player still activates those abilities the same way, by clicking them on their action bar, but in DDO there are no macros to string abilities into a single button push. So, I like DDO's combat a little better than WoW's since in WoW it's not very engaging to simply click buttons over and over. In DDO I have to pay attention to the fight, move around, and try to keep clicking my target(s).

Game play in DDO seems to be a lot less grind oriented than does WoW. There is no race to get better gear, no mindless running around on quests that require you to kill 50 of something or collect 25 this-or-that. DDO is all quest and dungeon crawl driven in it's leveling methods. You get the quest from the quest giver, you find the entrance to the dungeon (usually not far from the quest giver), you go inside the dungeon, you complete the quest-line (complete with a check list on screen to help guide you) and then turn in the quest at the end for your reward – VOILA! In WoW, you pick up the quest, run around trying to find whatever/whoever/whichever it is you need to kill/gather, usually well away from the quest giver, and grind until you get bored or complete the quest. Assuming you diddn't give up and abandon the quest, you go turn it in for a reward that you may or may not be able to use. Which brings up another point – quest rewards. DDO has a feature built in that causes all quest reward selections from the quest giver to be class appropriate. I like that. In WoW, playing a leather armor wearing rogue, it was very frustrating for the quest rewards to be selections of caster-class cloth, or plate armor for the warriors and paladins – all I could do was select the most expensive one, and sell it. In DDO, my Dwarf Barbarian is given a selection of items, all of which he could use, it's just a matter of deciding, based on how I want to play him, which one would be the most useful. Oh, and all the dungeons in DDO have the option to do them on normal mode, hard mode, epic mode or simply solo mode, so you don't have to go hunting for a group or waiting for guildies to log on if you don't want to.

In terms of content, the content in DDO hasn't really drawn me in yet. There doesn't seem to be much of a storyline, but truthfully, very few people who play MMORPG's even pay attention to that anyway; they read enough of the quest text to know what they need to do to complete it, and that's it. So as far as that goes, WoW may appear to have a more detailed and elaborate back-story than DDO, but in the end, that doesn't really matter. I'm playing the game, if I really want to become that immersed in a great story, I'll turn off the computer and go read a book.

Now, let's bear in mind here that I've only been playing DDO for a few hours total since I downloaded it on Friday night and I've been playing WoW for over a year. I'm certainly not saying that I'm about to quit WoW (for which my subscription is paid for through mid-January) and start playing a free MMO entirely. There are things that I think DDO does better than WoW such as better graphics, a better questing system, and more interactive combat, but there are things that they fall short on as well, such a UI that may be almost to simplistic and doesn't allow for much customization (WoW allows others to write addons so players can fully customize the UI if they want to). All I'm saying is, I love gaming, and I want to continue to play an MMO (let's face it, there's nothing on TV worth watching anymore), so DDO is a nice substitute for when WoW starts getting boring because I've done it over and over to many times.

Until next time – PEACE!

~ JC

Nothing Worth Watching

Sunday morning and once again I found myself scrolling through the guide on the cable box searching in vain for something worth watching before finally settling on watching something that I had previously DVR'ed. (It's for this very reason that I don't automatically delete things after watching them). Now, weekend AM TV viewing is typically a crap shoot for finding anything to watch, but it seems as though even prime time television is getting that way as well. Is it just me, or is anyone else getting tired of the seeming onslaught of “Reality TV” crap that the so called major networks keep producing? I've found very few shows that I personally find worth watching and many of those are not on the networks, they're on cable. The Sci-Fi Channel's re-imagined “Battlestar Galactica” was quite well done and I was disappointed when it ended; but at least it ended well and wasn't dragged out ad nauseam like so many network sitcoms and dramas tend to be. The new show by Joss Whedon, “Dollhouse” is very good as most Whedon shows tend to be; I was glad to see Fox actually gave it a shot at a second season. “How I Met Your Mother” is another network show that is enjoyable and seems to break the old school sitcom model used for decades and I do enjoy “NCIS”. Beyond those I'd rather watch The Food Network or shows that are only available on HBO (“True Blood” and “Entourage”) or Showtime (“Penn & Teller's Bullshit!”).

What I'm saying is, it just seems like Hollywood has lost any creative spark. For example, “NCIS: Los Angeles” premiered last week, and while so far I find it to be a good show, it's still at its core a spinoff. Even beyond television is Hollywood's new trend toward making old 1980's TV programs, cartoons or video games into movies, usually badly. There have been exceptions, granted; “Transformers” was actually pretty good and I've heard that “G.I. Joe” wasn't that bad. I'm just tired of seeing things rehashed. Come up with something new already! And people wonder why I play “World of Warcraft” so much; really, what else is there to do?

~ JC

Reflections on the Future

So, I was reading a post by my buddy Jimmy over at the Jabberwocky Asylum called “My Life Changes: Everything Old is New Again!” this morning and it got me thinking and put me in a blogging mood. As you may have read in my last post, I was fired from my job at RadioShack. Day one afterwards was like having a day off. Day two was like a mini-vacation. By day four, I was about to go stir crazy from boredom despite having a couple dozen books to catch up on reading and my World of Warcraft addiction to keep my occupied. Thankfully, yesterday I got a call from my aunt's husband, who owns Wild Bill's Concealment, which makes holsters and belts and such for folks who are licensed for carry and concealment of handguns. In other words, he's a leather smith, and he offered me a job. Now, I know jack about leather working, but it seems like it'd be fun to learn a skill like that, plus it's an income while I decide what I want to be when I grow up (for the record, I'm 37). So, I'll enjoy the remainder of this week and I'll start working for Wild Bill on Monday.

Over this past week couple of weeks, both before and after my exodus from RadioShack, I've thought about a lot of things. I've watched my friend Rob go through the loss of his aunt to cancer. I've dealt with being unemployed (albeit for a very brief period) and what to do about finding an income and possibly returning to school in some capacity. Reading Jimmy's blog this morning was, well, eye opening to a degree. For starters, it made me realize that I'm not the only one who worries about what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, or if past choices were right or wrong. This whole past couple of weeks has made me rethink my beliefs, spiritually speaking, my mortality, my career (or rather, the lack thereof).

Truth be told told, I have no frakkin' idea what the future holds. Who does? I also have no plan (but, hey, it's only been a week since I lost my retail job). I do know, and still hold to my conviction that losing my job at RadioShack was decidedly not a bad thing. It needs to serve as a catalyst to propel me forward and light the proverbial fire under my ass to start living and seek my bliss and my true calling and career. And, no, I don't think my calling is to make leather holsters for the rest of my life (but, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be open to it if it turns out that I really love doing it). I've always toyed with the idea of working in the computer field in some way. Years ago I started a programming degree, but never finished it. I've attempted to start my own computer repair business with some friends, but we floundered on it shortly after. I've interviewed with a company in Atlanta to be an IT guy, but at the time lacked the necessary skills to get the job. I've researched various certification programs at local community colleges, but never had the balls to go for it. So now is the time. Get busy living or get busy dying, as Andy said to Red in “The Shawshank Redemption.” Either I'll end up loving leather working and use that as a catalyst to doing my own thing with a crafting skill, or I'll end up back in school for IT and/or networking certification and finally get that high paying gig in the computer industry that I say I've always wanted. One thing is for sure, I'm not even the least bit interested in ever working in retail again! I've had enough of having my soul drained by corporate greed and asshole customers.

Oh, and with so many things running through my head these days, this blog will probably be reborn as well. I've never had designs on writing professionally, but I do enjoy writing. So even if no one reads it, I'll still write it.

~ Carlisle