Project Lore

Not the actual occurrence.

I have touched on this subject before, but I never truly broke it down for you. I have been dating a lovely lady for almost eight months now and we have enjoyed our time together thoroughly. Heck, those vacations I took, the ski trip and holiday break, were with her. Needless to say, we fancy each other quite a bit, and yet she has managed to avoid a large facet of my life, video games.

She knows that I enjoy them and write about them frequently, but she hardly ever sees me play them. Unlike some gamers, I am not ashamed of my hobby. In fact, I tend to glorify it in my clothing, my home's decorations and even the name of one of my ferrets, Cloud. Lesley just happens to miss most of my playtime due to work hours. So the issue of games didn't really come up for awhile.

When I discovered that my fair lady still thought of video games as Tetris, I knew I had a job on my hands. I introduced her slowly to the newer games, mainly focusing on lighthearted, easy to grasp Wii titles before handing her the axe for Guitar Hero III. Then one night, I handed her the controller during a mission in Grand Theft Auto IV. Hilarity ensued.

Ms. iTZKooPA turned the game into “Grand Civilian Auto,” slowly driving through traffic as if she were in the South. After waiting at lights, allowing other automobiles to have the right of way, and extending the crosswalk to pedestrians, her vehicle strayed into a barrier into a Toll Booth. It caught fire. Panic quickly consumed the rookie gamer behind the controller.

Lesley spammed buttons on the controller until Niko fled the burning car. Once she swiveled the camera around, a horrible realization struck her, half a dozen cars were piled up behind hers trashed vehicle, blocking the exit she was planning on taking. As the fire roared louder and pedestrians begin fleeing, Niko turned...and got back in the car seconds before it exploded.

Our friends who were there upon the fiery demise of Niko have never forgotten the episode. Nor will they let Lesley, but I didn't recant the tale to make fun. No, no, I simply wanted to give everyone a feel for what kind of gamer is finally going to make the leap into Azeroth.

Just to be clear, I am not forcing her to do this, nor is she going the “if you can't beat them, join them” route. We both believe that the experiment will be a fun endeavor and something new to do with each other. So this weekend, Lesley will subscribe to her first MMOG and make her first character. While I will be by her side on a new alt, SolidPumice a soon-to-be Prot Warrior, I will not be helping her too much. The discoveries and designs MMOs have to offer are half the fun.  Wonder if Recruit-A-Friend still works...

Who knows, you may see some Horde-based coverage on ProjectLore as I won't restrict her faction choice!  Any one who has done the same have any tips?

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Like 95 percent of the eyes on this page right now, I play World of Warcraft.  I am not one to shy away from the subject that I play WoW, unlike some people.  To top it off, I am actually proud of my nerdiness, displaying the titles I am playing in my living room as if they are trophies from the local bowling league.  This brings me to my point, I am a gamer - console, PC, handhelds, IRL sports, you name it. For nearly the past 20 years, the holiday season has become a video gamer's time to shine.  By that, I mean their time to get a handful of games, and lock themselves in a room in a vain attempt to finish all those news titles.  In recent years the holiday window has been extended further and further into the summer, with some analysts claiming that the new rush begins as early as September.  With all these triple A titles hitting the market, how is one supposed to find the time for them, as well as World of Warcraft? When I first started playing WoW, all other video games fell off the radar.  I let titles like Oblivion, Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, Company of Heroes, Neverwinter Nights 2, even Half-Life 2 slip by me.  Sadly, Resident Evil 4 (one of the best titles ever, in my humble opinion) and F.E.A.R. are the only titles released in that timeframe that I played and are worth noting - looking at you, Halo 2. Earlier this year I started a new regiment of gaming to compensate for all the missed material.  First and foremost, I cut back my World of Warcraft play time as a whole, and now play about half as much as I did during my high-end raiding days.  To accommodate this, I joined a raiding guild that was a close group of friends (I am not one of them) rather than a hardcore PvE guild.  Another simple change was to schedule things ahead of time and stick to it.  Basically, I only raid when I allocate the time a week or so in advance, as you would for any other activity that may take more than 30 minutes. Since implementing my new "life strat," I have been able to play dozens of other games, for better or for worse.  No longer am I missing as many big titles as I was before.  Portal, Team Fortress 2, Dead Rising, Halo 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mass Effect, all defeated.  I even found the time to go back and play the amazing Half-Life 2.  With titles like Fallout 3, Red Alert 3, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, Street Fighter IV, etc. coming or here, I am glad I made the new strategy.  Then of course, there is Wrath of the Lich King.  That may change things for awhile... Are you guys content with just World of Warcraft and everything it has to offer?  Or do you fruitlessly strive to digest everything the wonderful video game industry has to offer as I do?  If so, what is your strategy? For those who may be wondering, I am currently playing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, Red Alert 3, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, The Incredible Maze (WiiWare - oh god, what a piece of trash), and still wrapping up Grand Theft Auto IV.  Fallout 3 is still in its shrink wrap, waiting for me to finish The Witcher.

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