Anyone who has been reading my blog for any length of time probably knows that I’m kind of a big nerd who comes up with stories and backgrounds and personalities for each of her WoW characters. That’s just how I’ve always been, and in fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s often one of the major things that keeps me playing a game. Perhaps even the #1 thing.
Yes, it’s true! Oftentimes long after I’ve found a certain game satisfying from a gameplay standpoint I’ll continue to return to it, again and again, because there’s something nice about seeing a character again. It’s like seeing an old friend. Like going back to a book that you’re emotionally invested in. Without that connection to a character, I’m usually not inspired to play said character – or game – very often.
I frequently hear people talk about how they’re in WoW because of their friends. I’m in WoW because of my friends, too. My friends are polygons, though. And I love ’em.
Haha. It is the same for me! Well, it’s a combination of polygon and non-polygon friends, to be completely honest. ^^
That is pretty much the reason why I stuck around in WoW even though I didn’t have any fun playing the game anymore. The thought of never being able to play the characters that had become almost like real personalities in my mind kept me from unsubbing. It happened eventually, though. I do feel tempted to buy a month’s worth of sub-time to see what my chars are up to but never go through with it. Maybe I would if you could buy a week-long sub.
Haha, well I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way! 😀
Yeah, wanting to see my polygon friends again makes me want to return to games, but what keeps me in games are my real life ones. (I really do miss my WoW toons, though. So much time and imagined back-story…)
Getting overattached to characters is how I ended up doing so much grinding of mounts and archaeology and stuff; I just wanted to “spend time with” my wow characters doing something meaningful; it didn’t matter that the activity itself was kind of boring.
Those long-form gameplay experiences like searching for Loque’nahak or the Time-Lost Drake feel so much more meaningful with a strong character bond to maintain interest… I have an incredible nostalgia for accompanying my various characters on those truly epic-feeling quests. It was a shared trial of determination, as we endlessly traversed those bleak but beautiful landscapes of Northrend, until the the inevitable euphoric victory. BRULLIENT! Also, dwarfs are the most underrated race in the game.
Recently though I’m a bit pissed off that so many of my hard-won drakes are doomed to wander the earth as flightless abominations, their only means of forward momentum an awkward waddling shuffle that looks like it takes the poor animal three times the effort of just flapping its wings.
This is my number one reason I go back to older games. If I don’t have a bit of backstory for my character, I just can’t connect with them.
I’m really glad to see so many people identify with this post 😀