As part of my work, I discovered Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). Yeah, it's a mouthful, and even the acronym is hard to pronounce. Through my friend Crystal, I had the misfortune of stumbling across World of Warcraft (WoW) which was developed by Blizzard (now owned by Vivendi). I still remember the first time I saw it. I made a point to check it out at E3 back in 2004 because Crystal had asked me to take a look and report back. It looked like a colossal waste of time. Turns out, it's a phenomenal game which is easy to play and highly engaging.
I stopped playing at the beginning of this year. Not that I didn't like the game anymore. On the contrary, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but found myself spending way too much time on it, and it started interfering with real life. My instincts were right: it was a colossal waste of time (albeit highly enjoyable)! So I went cold turkey and switched off. Now that I've stopped playing, I have time for other things, e.g., reading, blogging (not quite switching off, but higher in the food chain than playing computer games), and talking to D (who is relieved that his wife has become a more productive member of society).
On the blogging front, I wanted to document the useful Warcraft resources I've found in case I return to the game at some point, mostly likely when the Burning Crusade launches.
- Allakhazam and Tthottbot: general all-purpose WoW databases
- Community forums
- WorldofWar.net: maps
- List of profession trainers
- WoW Rankings: guild and character rankings
- PlayOn: Discusses the social dimensions of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and virtual worlds
- MMORPG.com: Extensive news coverage, features and community for the MMORPG genre
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