L4D / TF2
I have been playing WoW (World of Warcraft) on and off for a good 4 years now. To me the game has always lacked a lot of actual gameplay quality and has been more of a social game. Having run a few guilds, I fulfiled my social needs in WoW by being socially active in the guilds I ran. I enjoyed it and I was apparently pretty good at guild management, so they tell me. The problem was that I really hate the game itself. Compared to other games, WoW is very old and clunky. I also dislike the fact that for a casual gamer like myself, one has to work hard to be able to play with friends at the same level they are. Now sure these friends will offer to help you level and such, and that is all well and good. However the second the next expansion comes out, its just restarting the cycle. WoW is a great place to waste hours of time, playing for very little reward. And in the end, any in game rewards you do get, are worthless, even in game. Problem for me is that I have come to realise that, and I have absolutely no interest in the game anymore. Now I am not saying by any means that WoW is a waste of time, surely it was able to hold me somewhat interested for 4 years, so I suppose its got something good going for it. So I can easily see how people can get hooked on it. Now, these days I am enjoying Team Fortress 2 and Left4Dead. As well as occassionally Company of Heroes, and Civilization 4. Each game has its aspects which appeal to myself, and while they may not always appeal to everyone, I think that Team Fortress 2 and/or Left4Dead are both games which would easily get a first time FPS player hooked on that style of gameplay. The attraction to both those games is the fact that they have built in voice communication, which makes playing a game with friends much more interesting. To me, Left4Dead (a 4 player co-op game) is equilivant to watching a scary movie with your friends. Except you are all in control of what happens, and heck, you can start fooling around and acting silly. Team Fortress 2 can be a blast with a good group of people on the server who are having fun. My clan doesn't take the game seriously so our server really lacks any of that competetive name calling or spirit of other clan servers. We are very laid back, and that makes the game fun to a casual player. My girlfriend plays WoW quite often, as does my wife. But since I no longer play WoW I rarely get a chance to spend time with the girlfriend unless we meet eachother in real life, or during conversations in Yahoo! chat (in which she is usually distracted by WoW). I have suggested that she get Left4Dead and/or Team Fortress 2 so we could play together and chat over voice a few times a week, but she refuses. I know that if she did play either game, she would enjoy it atleast enough to keep playing with it, if I am there to play with her. I have been pressing on this issue for quite some time, and its at the point that it actually makes me cry sometimes when I want to spend some time with her, and she wants to spend time with me, but refuses to even try a game. I suppose it could be a tactic to get me to come back into WoW... and granted I thought of returning just to talk to her. But again, she has her friends in WoW who she plays with, and thats cool... And I will just feel like the lost puppy. I have no intention of trying to advance my characters on my own in WoW, so I would just be either following her around if shes online, or sitting there in a city waiting for her to come online pretending to be AFK. Does that sound fun to me? No. For one, I don't want to be a lost puppy... It wouldn't be as bad if we were seeing eachother weekly or living with eachother obviously, because we would be able to chat while we each played our prespective video games, or atleast fulfil our quota of socializing with eachother weekly. But being apart for so long, and being generally so cut off from eachother, I long for the day when we can enjoy ourselves in a game we both enjoy. Laughing and talking over voice, and generally having a fun time together. Sure, I have a clan for TF2 and L4D... Sure my wife plays those games with me... and Sure I also know a few of those guild members on WoW who my girlfriend quests with often. But I do not imagine that hanging out in game with any of those people (I see my wife every day... it is fun to play with her in those games, but its not like the only time I would hear her voice or get to socialize with her) will be quite as rewarding as playing in a 2 player game of L4D with my girlfriend. Perhaps I am just being Emo tonight, and making this out to be a big deal when it really shouldnt be. But I do miss her... and it does hurt sometimes. She says she misses me... But if she missed me as much as I missed her, would she not make an effort to be able to play with me atleast once every few days? I understand totally if she dislikes the games, but she has never really said that she dislikes them. She just doesn't want any more games at the moment. So I dunno, should I just suck it up... and get over it and realise that shes never gonna play anything I enjoy... and just settle witht he Yahoo Chats... or should I be a lost puppy and follow her around a game I do not enjoy at all... It just seems like such a tease. Like here I am in WoW.. come play... I almost think that Kelly thinks this is a joke, but it hits hard sometimes, and it does hurt. Perhaps I am not good at conveying that. Hopfully this post will convey that. Anyhow, these are just my thoughts on everything... I was kinda lonely tonight and was hoping to spend some time with Kelly... But that never really happened. Kelly... I don't want you to think you have to go out and buy those games... But atleast tell me either yes or no... and if no, then I would prefer if we set aside a night a week in order to watch movies and such. I do miss you a lot my love. Some days I need to hear your voice more then you can imagine. Just to hear you laugh would completely turn my world around.