Player Diary -- Dungeons & Dragons Online: A legend passes, an invitation accepted
posted:
3/10/2008 3:19:00 AM
On Tuesday, March 4, Gary Gygax died at the age of 69. As one of the seminal founders of pen-and-pad roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax defined "geek" for the whole of Generation X ... and with news of his passing, an entire swath of pre-teen and adolescent memories were tossed back out onto the tabletop for me.
It could've only been moments later when I received a second, related-only-through-sheer-coincidence email. The team at Turbine saw fit to give me a one-week, all-expenses-paid vacation back into the land of Dungeons & Dragons Online. This would actually be my third visit to the city of Stormreach, as I'd bought DDO out of the gate for its February 2006 launch, returned one year later (probably from a similarly-themed invitation) in 2007, and now I'd be back again on its two-year anniversary in 2008. Each of those times, as much as I wanted DDO to become The One for me when it came to finally settling down in an MMORPG, I'd always simply played for 30 days, then silently, humbly took my leave...
It could've only been moments later when I received a second, related-only-through-sheer-coincidence email. The team at Turbine saw fit to give me a one-week, all-expenses-paid vacation back into the land of Dungeons & Dragons Online. This would actually be my third visit to the city of Stormreach, as I'd bought DDO out of the gate for its February 2006 launch, returned one year later (probably from a similarly-themed invitation) in 2007, and now I'd be back again on its two-year anniversary in 2008. Each of those times, as much as I wanted DDO to become The One for me when it came to finally settling down in an MMORPG, I'd always simply played for 30 days, then silently, humbly took my leave...
.
Whereas some MMO players suffer from being an "alt-aholic" -- having the inability to stick with and advance any one character -- I have an inability to stick with and advance in any one virtual world. I savagely devour the initial 30-free days I'm given out of the box and, again, bow out before the developers leak another $14.95 out of my paycheck. Often I'm completely satisfied, thank you for asking. In a gaming genre that, by its very nature, cannot provide final closure, cannot provide a bona fide end game, cannot ever roll closing credits -- my condition is a blessing. My personal "goal" within an MMO is to often garner the very most enjoyment I can out of it for one month ... and then contentedly move on.
That same philosophy seemingly rang true of my D&D days during middle school and high school. AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) 2nd Edition was the latest iteration of the now-fabled franchise, and there was an explosion of worlds and boxed sets all over the hobby store shelves. Each one of my friends had a different world to be Dungeon Master over, and all of us rotated through one another's world's with a fantastic hunger to discover something new. Chris was DM over the parched, desperate Dark Sun. My best friend Travis unveiled his Goth tendencies with Ravenloft. I kept things high-fantasy in Dragonlance. And Scott, the veteran among us, had a complete library of Forgotten Realms. We'd play in one world, until we longed for some new scenery, and then we'd move on.
While I doubt we were the pariahs of society that Gary was made out to be during the rise of roleplaying games, I certainly weathered my fair share of cult-worshipping accusations from schoolmates, blacklistings from friends' parents, as well as being personally preached against in church (on more than at least two occasions I distinctly remember) in the small Baptist fellowship I attended at the time. Thankfully, the media has labeled video games as the New Devilry, so that D&D fans can finally be left to worship Beelzebub in peace.
So, without drawing upon too much coincidence in the matter, I've reactivated my DDO account for one more month, revisiting one of the latest iterations of Gary Gygax's empire, set in the newest world drawn up for d20 players, fairly whimpering along as far as numbers go in the bloody, subscriber-based massively-multiplayer landscape.
[Randy is playing as "Cohen the Written," ironically a barbarian, on the Sarlona server.]
That same philosophy seemingly rang true of my D&D days during middle school and high school. AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) 2nd Edition was the latest iteration of the now-fabled franchise, and there was an explosion of worlds and boxed sets all over the hobby store shelves. Each one of my friends had a different world to be Dungeon Master over, and all of us rotated through one another's world's with a fantastic hunger to discover something new. Chris was DM over the parched, desperate Dark Sun. My best friend Travis unveiled his Goth tendencies with Ravenloft. I kept things high-fantasy in Dragonlance. And Scott, the veteran among us, had a complete library of Forgotten Realms. We'd play in one world, until we longed for some new scenery, and then we'd move on.
While I doubt we were the pariahs of society that Gary was made out to be during the rise of roleplaying games, I certainly weathered my fair share of cult-worshipping accusations from schoolmates, blacklistings from friends' parents, as well as being personally preached against in church (on more than at least two occasions I distinctly remember) in the small Baptist fellowship I attended at the time. Thankfully, the media has labeled video games as the New Devilry, so that D&D fans can finally be left to worship Beelzebub in peace.
So, without drawing upon too much coincidence in the matter, I've reactivated my DDO account for one more month, revisiting one of the latest iterations of Gary Gygax's empire, set in the newest world drawn up for d20 players, fairly whimpering along as far as numbers go in the bloody, subscriber-based massively-multiplayer landscape.
[Randy is playing as "Cohen the Written," ironically a barbarian, on the Sarlona server.]
