Burned out

When I'm done writing this review of Jade Dynasty for my Writing About the Arts class, I don't think I'll ever play it again.

Back to gender studies.

I know I promised this post would be another review. There are two reasons it's not.

The first reason is that I'm still working on the reviews. One of them actually turned into a class project.

The other reason is that I'm afraid I'll get away from the original purpose of this blog, which is not to talk about actual gameplay as it is to talk about game players and their interactions with each other--focusing particularly on how girl gamers are treated.

I've found that people usually assume players are the same gender as their characters, and it's often--not always--true. It's also easier to find help and friends when you're playing as a girl.

The other night I was playing Jade Dynasty (as Merisu, the scary broad in the picture) and befriended Jack (not his full name). Jack and I chatted, killed monsters, and compared silly outfits together and eventually wound up exchanging AIM screennames. It wasn't until the next day, when I mentioned my boyfriend, that he realized I was a girl.

Maybe at one point I may have been offended at this, but now I feel gratified.

WoW fails to wow me.

I haven't gotten back into my Perfect World routine after this summer's hiatus, so I figured this would be a good time to branch out and give some other games a shot. I think being familiar with other MMORPGs would give me better perspective when I'm writing about games.

So far, I've tried three other games. I haven't played any of them long enough to write a book about them, but I'll give you my impressions of each: World of Warcraft in this post, and Guild Wars and Jade Dynasty in future posts.

How could I honestly call myself a gamer if I've never played WoW? It's probably the best-known online RPG, associated with the stereotypical nerdy, anti-social, micro-managing, unhygienic, acne-prone men living in their mother's basement. (This is unfair and untrue.)

Downloading and installing the 10-day trial was pretty quick and easy. Dialog boxes were helpful and friendly but never condescending. I was feeling pretty good about it when I actually fired up the game.

I only played the game for about 15 minutes. I spent 10 minutes of that in character creation trying to make a night elf pretty.

Other people have done it. I've seen the screenshots. But I'm not sure how they managed it with the rather limited options. There's was no way to make her not purple, not have creepy blank eyes, and not built like a rap star's girlfriend. Honestly, I never really thought of elves as being chunky, but even her ears were fat. I checked to make sure the window's resolution was correct for my wide-screen computer--yeah, I had it set correctly. The models are just on the thick side.

Obviously there's a different aesthetic in WoW than what I'm used to, but that's O.K. Lots of people still like it.

I gave up and entered the game. The first thing I noticed was PURPLE. Well, I guess it makes sense that purple elves should live in a purple forest. I looked up some screenshots of other areas, and not everything is purple--there's a lot of variety in the terrain and environments. I rather like that. Very majestic. I just wish I didn't have to start off swimming in purple.

The interface was honestly a bit overwhelming. There were zillions of toolbars right away--most of them were empty, waiting to be filled up with skills, but they still intimidated me. I found the chat system cumbersome, probably just because I was used to different controls.

Speaking of chat, half of my chat window was filled with gibberish. Excuse me, orcish.

Then there's the combat. Instead of double-clicking on things to attack, use, or talk to, you left-click to select and then right-click to activate. This strikes me as counter-intuitive, but again, I'm just used to something different.

I think I killed one wild boar, or whatever it was, before I decided that WoW wasn't for me. I wasn't a fan of the way it looked or handled.

In retrospect, I think I just didn't give it enough time. Unfortunately my 10-day free trial is up. But it's not too late for you. Don't write off something that so many people love just because I fussed about the chunky night elves. You might join the legions of diehard WoW addicts, even if I don't.

Starting afresh

What do I do when the going gets tough?

I freak out and start over from scratch.

Rather than trying to make new friends and find a new faction for Meirizhu and Siloam, I just made a new character: Idumea the Blademaster, a cliche feisty redhead.

I've been enjoying playing as Idumea so far. Already made a couple of friends. Joined a faction, which died the next day.

I had expected people to shorten the name, but I wasn't expecting meadea, which is what one guy calls me. It's kind of adorable, though.

By no means am I going to retire Meiri and Sil. I'm too attached to them. But they're probably going to be on the bench for a little while.

Fears: confirmed.

My faction is dead. Utterly moribund. Over the summer it went from around 60 members to around 8. Of those, 4 are either my characters or characters I was building for a friend.

I don't know what happened. There wasn't a change of leadership. Maybe there was just a mass migration to another faction. I don't know.

All I know is that I'm sad.

My triumphant return

Well, I'm back in Savannah, typing this from my awesomely fast computer on my awesomely fast internet. Life is good.

I think I've already established that I'm super weird, but here's even more evidence:

All this summer I've been looking forward to being able to play Perfect World again. Well, I've been in Savannah three days and I still haven't touched the PWI icon on my desktop.

It's not that I haven't thought about it or don't want to. I'm just... scared. I don't know why. Maybe I'm afraid everything will be different, or my faction will have kicked me out, or everyone will be 60 levels higher than me and not want anything to do with me.

I'm being silly. I can make new friends. I can figure this out.

Being shy and paranoid in real life is bad enough... being shy and paranoid in a game is worse.

Extreme Makeover: Armor Edition!

Ok, ok, so today's title is super corny, but deal with it. Gosh, now I feel like even more of a nerd than I did when I realized I was designing clothes for my Perfect World character.

I'm sorry, but the people who designed the women's armor in Perfect World were definitely men. Bra, miniskirt, and stiletto-heeled hooker boots are not sensible battle attire.

The boots probably bother me more than anything else, mostly because I hate running in heels so much that I project my own pain onto the sprites.

My alternate character, Siloam, can probably get away with the heels. Since she's a cleric, she spends most of her time hovering benevolently over the field of battle dispensing healing spells. Meirizhu, however, is an archer, and archers do a lot of running away from werewolves.

So I took the heels off the boots, covered up most of the vital organs with metal or leather, and gave her pants. I won't try to fool myself or anyone else into thinking that this new armor is 100% practical, but I think it makes a little more sense.

The color scheme is still up for debate. I have six prepared at the moment. You can find all six here if you're interested. The one shown here is my favorite, but I'd like to hear any suggestions.

Siloam's next. She's going to get a pretty new robe.