The Call of World Gone By

Today, for the first time in a long time, I caught a glimpse of Azeroth, World of Warcraft, and I was heartsick. I doubt you are able to understand, but I'm writing for myself, not for you.

To me, Warcraft meant community more than anything else. It was undeniably a game, and I enjoyed that aspect of it. However, not a single game exists which doesn't depend on the players to make it worthwhile. It's never the rules you follow which make a game. it's the people you strive against and the people you work alongside. To me, a person with very few friends, none of whom I could truly relate, Azeroth was a place to belong.

I guess it comes down to this: I felt needed. In Azeroth people depended on me and I delivered. One night, our guild wiped in molten core. It was a total wipe with no soulstones (translation: we'd played towards a goal for hours only to lose all hope of achieving it). I was the only member left alive, and as luck would have it I was carrying a rather uncommon item, albeit with a low success rate, that held the potential to reverse the situation. And it did. They were all so surprised when, as everyone pissed and moaned, we all started coming back to life. It may sound sad to you, but to me the gratitude and elation of those 39 gamers was the best thing I'd ever felt.

Anonymous people, some would say counter-intuitively, can be more sincere than close friends. Talking with my allies about their real life issues paved to way to some of the more adult relationships I've experienced, and that remains true today. We weren't afraid of one another, and that meant everything. I felt safe in imagination land: clever, strong, respected, and in good company.

But, while I loved my time there, it undeniably weakened my ties to the "real" world. Outsiders call Warcraft pointless. "The game never ends!," they'd say, "all you do is chase the best gear, compete with the other players, then, when you've got it all, new gear shows up and the whole thing starts over again, there's no point!"

And I wanted, so badly to scream back, "that's life! don't you see!? Should I work harder for material gear, to compete in the physical world? So I can be outdone here? Chase after the new stuff, again, here, with you? It's all pointless! Don't Fuck with me!" Yes, I was angry, and not just with them. I could feel my immersion slipping away, and I was afraid.

Ideal as it was Azeroth, the world without need, poverty, or true hate, has a glaring flaw, we can not actually live there. We hunger, we get cold, our goods can not be generated by code, and, so, we tear one another apart. Day by day, in one way or another.

I was right you know. "Real" life is just as pointless as Warcraft. They're pointless together, and what makes any of bearable are the people you're with, and how you play the game. Don't play to win, you can't win, it never ends. But, I could not return to Azeroth even if I tried. Azeroth is just the form of the apparition, the identity of the thing I miss so dearly is childhood.