Breakfast Topic: When your gaming gets emotionally charged
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It was going to be a regular Tuesday night for me: Get home from work, have dinner, lounge around on the couch with my hubby before bed. I didn't even really want to log into WoW that night, but I logged in just out of habit. Once there I thought, "Ah, I'll just queue a random and get my two frosts; hopefully it's a quick run." And then, almost half-heartedly, just because I had to find something to do during the 20-minute DPS wait, I hopped on a flight path to my favorite fishing ground, the lake next to Camp Winterhoof.
Exactly four casts later, I'm whooping at the top of my lungs like I had just won a million dollars. I hadn't just won a million dollars -- I just happened to fish up the Dark Herring, an achievement that had been evading me for the better part of a year. I look over at my spouse, eager to share the fantastic news. I can't blame him, the poor guy is looking at me like I just lost my mind. ... At which point I more or less simmered down, got a grip and proceeded to my dungeon. I was still ecstatic, mind you. Days later, I was still ecstatic. I would be sitting on the couch with my hubby, calmly watching TV, and all of a sudden I'd burst out giggling, "Can you believe I caught that fish? I can't believe I caught that fish! Heehee."
If that's not having an emotional stake in this game, I don't know what is.
Another example: I had only been playing WoW for a few weeks, after my spouse finally got me to try out the game. I was only level 20 or so, questing in Ashenvale, when I got a random group invite -- my first ever. I figure, "Why not? He wants help on the same quest I'm doing; it can only go faster." Being new to the game, I hadn't quite grasped the concept of rez sickness ... Two minutes and five mobs later, my new-found friend and I were both dead. Two seconds after that, my new-found friend dropped group without saying anything (probably for the best, given the choice words he could have had for me if he'd wanted). I was devastated. I felt like I had let this person down. I started bawling -- tears, sobs, the whole bit. I turned to my hubby for comfort and he immediately burst out laughing. (OK, right now I'm laughing, too, but at the time it was very distressing.)
My point is, I often find myself emotionally invested in this game. And while my husband can laugh and raise eyebrows and roll his eyes, he's felt it too; he rerolled on a PvE server two weeks after Wrath of the Lich King came out because leveling in a PvP environment was stressing him out too much.
How about it, fellow gamers? When has this game had you jumping for joy, crying in sadness, seething with anger or wringing your hands in desperation?
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