One of my life-long friends is moving across the country soon. This last weekend we had a going-away party for him. Quite a few people there I had not seen in a long time, like since high school.
It turned out to be a blast because several of these are the ones that first introduced me to RPGs. We talked about gaming all night, even dipping into MMORPGs for a bit. It was strange for me to be able to talk openly with other people about MMORPGs because most people I mention them to stare at me with that “what the hell is he talking about?” blank face. They just don’t get it.
Mostly they are playing Neverwinter Nights on a private server and they invited me to join them. I’m sure I will at some point. They also talked a lot about City of Heroes. This is not suprising to me as a few of them got together and ran a comic book shop for several years right after high school graduation. World of Warcraft? Guild Wars? Everquest 2? They’ve heard of them, but have no interest in playing any of them. Dungeons & Dragons Online? Their eyes glossed over and they started drooling. Major excitement and interest in hearing more.
Really, I was just shocked to sit at a party of regular folks and discuss video games all night. Crazy.
– Ethic
Yea my best friend of some 17 years one day was asking me about that “crazy game” I play all the time, next thing you knew I had him hooked on EverQuest. We’d be talking about EQ at parties and everyone would say stuff like “What the HELL are you all talking about? Druids? Monks?”. Within 3-4 months the group of people who had no idea what we were talking about grew smaller and the ones playing the game with us got bigger. Before long we had Dean (mage) Butch (druid/enchanter) Jason (cleric/warrior) Matt (warrior) and myself (monk) grouping nearly every night in EQ. There were about 2 or 3 people left that would just get glazed over looks when the rest of us were talking about EQ. Think only 2 of them are still playing EQ, one got married and had a kid, another got shipped off to Iraq and I just lost interest in EQ.
Funny how that works. Most of my real-life gaming buddies came from the Pen and Paper world. We all still keep in touch but the distances between us are formidable and it’s just impossible to get together and play.
The game groups I hang with now are all virtual. Guilds in WOW and the like. I’ve never met them – and likely never will. Nothing like having RL friends in the game with you though.