I’ve had Grand Theft Auto IV for a week now, and I have yet to murder anyone in real life. Needless to say, I’m very disappointed. When I purchase a “murder simulator” I damn well expect to learn how to murder, yet, to this point, I wouldn’t feel confident applying the skills I’ve acquired in the game to real life.

Just this morning, while driving to work, some guy totally cut me off and despite playing video games my entire life, including all the GTA games, I still failed to generate the burning rage within me that would propel me to murder the dude. I didn’t even ram his car for crying out loud! I just forgot about it and kept going.

I have never “been with” a prostitute, but then again, GTA is a murder simulator, not a sex simulator. I think I need Mass Effect for that.

Is it just me? Is there something wrong with me, that all these “murder simulators” I’ve been playing have failed to compel me to kill? I checked some forums to see if anyone else is experiencing a lack of real life murdering but can’t find any direct reference to it, so at this point, I’m guessing my copy of GTA:IV is defective.

Of course, there is the very slim possibility that I’m not psychotic, and can distinguish between right and wrong.  Or maybe it’s my parents fault for teaching me that murder is bad.  Huh.  Who knows?

After much debate my wife and I have quit our raiding guild. We have been thinking of doing this for a long time but it had come time for us to leave. One of the reasons was that raiding was becoming another job for us. We had a boss getting on our cases; raid leader, and had a time table to follow and evenings to commit. When we realized that we just weren’t enjoying it anymore we decided to give our 1 week notice, LOL, and leave. We also found that we had no desire to log in to play just by our selves or do grouping. We hadn’t even thought about finishing our epic weapon quests or many of the other quest lines.

To tell the truth it was quite hard leaving. We had unspent DKP, just wanted that one last piece of loot that would set us up, just wanted one more boss kill to finish a quest. It was like quitting a drug habit. The hardest part was the friends we left. After we left the raiding guild we went down into the alt guild. Everyone was still there most of the time but when raid time came everyone cleared out and there we were alone with nothing to do. At least that’s how it felt the first week. I believe that was our detox period. Can you tell I’ve been watching Celebrity Rehab?

My first order of business was to get my wife’s Defiler her epic. In one day we got pick up groups from guidies and whoever could help out. Mainly we duod most of the quest line, realizing the difference raid gear made in everyday questing, things came to us quite easy. We finished the majority of the quest and left Maiden’s Chamber to return to the next day. We logged in the next evening to find that a guild group was about to kill the last boss. After much eyelash batting on my wife’s part she was swapped in and easily got the quest update.

All that remained was the final psychedelic portion where we entered a dream world. This was the most unique instance I have so far done in EQ2. Basically it was a small instance based off the Shard of Fear, except everything was in a sick shade of yellow and swooped and swerved. Using 4 people in the group we easily defeated the encounter and we got the epic weapon, Dream Scorcher.

My second order of business is to get Warghoul’s Shadow Knight Epic. Yesterday I assembled a group and quickly dispatched Karnor’s Castle. Our group got some nice loot, Drolvarg Lore & Legend book, 2 got their level up to 76, and finished by completing the ring event to kill Xalgoz in the basement. I then dragged my group to Teren’s Grasp to kill a named and then convinced our group to head to The Shard of Fear. After quickly burning though the instance my guildies were called to raid and my wife and I logged out of the game to enjoy the rest of our evening out of game. I have 2 instances to complete and 1 named to kill in Neriak.

It seems leaving the raiding guild has been quite productive for us. I can totally see us leaving the alt guild due to the temptation to ask to come back into raiding. That coupled with the fact that the alt guild is quite lonely at times. Maybe I think it’s lonely because I wasn’t hearing people being berated in Ventrillo during a raid, or being the center of some server drama caused by over zealous guildmates. I can definatly say though that EQ2’s volume has been significantly turned down. We are also thinking checking out some different games. Age of Conan looks kind of cool. At least now I don’t feel I’m letting others down for not showing up to play.

I was poking around the forums of my old guild where I read a post by one of the officers saying he is “frustrated and tired by the lack of recent raid progress”. There’s the usual talk of people not taking the raids seriously, not showing up on time, and not doing their “job” while on the raid. I honestly don’t think any of those issues are unique to just one guild. Any guild that I’ve been a part of that claimed to be “casual raiders” has gone through the very same issues. The parts of the post that really stuck out though, were quotes saying that being a guild officer “isn’t a fun job”, referring to many of the guild management duties as “all of this bullshit”, and finally, “We do not benefit one iota from being the guild leadership”. I don’t want to take these quotes out of context, they were written in an attempt to illustrate to the rest of the guild that being an officer is a lot of work, and if they were going to be successful, everyone in the guild would need to start taking their roles seriously. That said, it seemed to me like the officer hasn’t been having a whole lot of fun for the past while, which begs the question, why continue?

I’m not disputing that being an officer can be hard work, but if you’re not enjoying it, stop doing it. If playing a game stresses you out to the point where you’re constantly frustrated and not enjoying the experience, why are you paying $15 a month? Why are you paying money to be miserable? I was reading the WoW official forums the other day and one poster had written a massive post regarding the state of the game, how the current and perceived future PvP systems suck, PvE sucks, raiding sucks, and so forth. He also said he’s been playing since launch. If everything sucks as bad as you say it does, why are you paying money for such a sucky experience? Similarly, it kills me to see someone in out-of-character chat going on about how bored they are, how they have nothing to do… really? Have you tried logging out and doing something else?

I’ve certainly been guilty of a similar situation, having played EverQuest II three months beyond the point I realized I was no longer having fun. Now that I’ve changed games and am playing WoW, I’ve promised myself that the instant I’m no longer having fun, I’m quitting. It won’t matter if I haven’t achieved max-level, or gotten the Chestpiece of Uber-leetness; if I’m not enjoying the experience, I’ll be moving on to something else. So far I’m enjoying my WoW experience a lot, and I think a great deal of that is because I haven’t placed any pressure on myself, I don’t feel a need to play. This isn’t a job, it’s a hobby that I’m doing for fun, and that realization has been very liberating.

Reaching level 40 was somewhat of a significant milestone for my Shaman. It meant that I would now be able to wear chain mail amrour, which offers much greater protection than the leather I’m currently wearing. It also meant that I could now put talent points into dual-wielding in the Enhancement spec. The downside to those of course, is now I need to get some one-handed weapons and mail armour.

The thing I was most excited about with level 40 though, was getting my mount. It wasn’t just for the increased speed, because I don’t think it’s a whole lot faster than my Ghost Wolf form, but it’s sort of a status item. Ninety gold, the cost of the riding skill plus the mount, was a lot of money for a non-twink newb like myself. I was half-way through level 39 with just 40 gold to my name. I headed out to Arathi Highlands and began mining iron ore. After about two hours I had enough iron ore to smelt three stacks of iron bars which I put on the Auction House for 20 gold per stack.

The next day, I logged in and discovered that all three stacks had sold, along with a couple other items I put up, and I was now at 108 gold. I felt so rich. A quick bit of adventuring and a couple quest turn ins got me me my level 40 ding and I was off to Exodar to purchase my Elekk mount. I don’t think it’s the greatest looking mount, I’m kind of partial to the Dwarven Ram myself, but I wasn’t about to grind out a bunch of faction just so I could have a different looking mount. Not yet anyway, but I’m sure one day I’ll give in.

Other than that, I didn’t play a whole lot this weekend. I spent a little bit of time running around Stranglethorn Vale doing some miscellaneous quests. I was running into Horde players left and right, most of them a few levels below me. I left most of them alone, but did kill a few of them here and there for fun. Of course, it wouldn’t be a run through Stranglethorn Vale if I hadn’t gotten ganked myself, and in spectacular fashion to boot. I was cruising through the zone when I saw a zone-wide shout from an NPC named Short John Mithril that said, “Arrr, Me Hearties! I be havin’ some extra Treasure that I be givin’ away at the Gurubashi Arena! All ye need do to collect it is open the chest I leave on the arena floor!“. I had just passed by the arena a minute or two before, so I turned around and headed back with visions of free loot in my head. I had no idea what this was all about, and in hindsight, I was pretty naive to think no one else would be headed towards the arena as well, but as soon as I got there, some high-level Horde character’s pet came screaming towards me and killed me in one shot. I was killed two more times afterward as I tried to escape the arena. Lesson learned.

Good luck in your new office Marc, you’ll be missed.