Thankfully I was able to overcome it, and for a few years I was clean… I have fallen again, however, and this time I might be down for the count.

World of Warcraft is amazing. I am still not convinced about the art style they used, even though I understand fully why they used it. It’s in the openness that I find a lot of the freedom and it’s where I see the possibilities of Blizzard’s next MMO.

The HUD is a completely customizable element that you customize through Blizzard’s own API. In FFXI you would get banned if they caught you using any graphical enhancements. Doing anything automatically is still banned but I never wanted to cheat to begin with, I just wanted more information about what was going on.

Leveling is so easy. I got a lvl 12 Rouge without even trying. I was doing quests and running around aimlessly not really worrying about my levels at all, while in FFXI you have to decide what you are going to do, and you can’t level without having a party, you just can’t.

These things are amazing, and the rewards that you get in game like mounts and gear are perfectly designed to keep you wanting more. It’s the greatest example of the carrot on a stick. Just a little bit further, just a little bit more. Nobody will be able to copy WoW. Period. Activision will try, oh they will.

I took a random boat and ended up in Stormwind, the Alliance main city. I was able to outrun most things that aggroed me, and quests were getting harder. It is just a great game overall it has just the right learning curve and just the right difficulty level to get people who don’t play games to just spend a few hours on it and make them feel like they have accomplished something. There is no downside to this game you win or you win, and I think that is what people find appealing. If you die, you get to either be a little spirit and walk back to your body where you experience no penalty or resucitate in the nearest cementary with some damage to your armor but no loss in experience. I finished a quest by going in, killing the mobs around the one I had to, and running back fast enough to where I got to not have to fight them, rested my sickness, and killed the boss before the others re-spawned. That’s broken if you ask me.

So at the end I enjoyed the game enough to where I bought it but doubt Ill ever play it. I came to the realization that its too casual. Yes, I’m sure the real things start when you are 60, 70 but I know nothing about the story, the mindless quests did nothing to point me towards the next part of the story itself and I still the same thing I know about Warcraft as I did a few years ago when i finished Warcraft III: Frozen Throne. The quests are way too obvious so far and they have a little counter that says ‘oh, you got a pebble, you need 5 of these’. Additionally, while I enjoy being able to explore without having to deal with other people I would like to be able to be with other people if I so choose and nothing has made me need to do that. I have not talked to anybody in WoW who I did not already know. Yes people were playing around me, but I didn’t have to interact with them. In FFXI the first thing I recommend you do is find a linkshell, you’ll get nowhere without one and by the time you get to lvl 10, you are basically useless unless you party.

I know a few people will be dissapointed, but the only thing WoW achieved was prove that I need to return home to Vanadiel. As for WoW, long live the king!

In fact, that is the reason why I entered Vana’diel to begin with! To fight wyrms like Nidhogg and Fafnir with my friends, to go against monsters that are larger than life and do it with my friends. That I did. I never defeated any of the big important ones, but we fought them. That was enough for me. Then two things happened.

I was finally meeting resistance from my other friends. One of them started out with us and never got past level 4 BLM (Black Mage) because he could never figure out how to get his spells. So his ridicule was mostly because he was jealous of our levels, or because he was upset at his own failure. The other was from people who actually did matter. Specially from a certain woman.

I was also, kind of upset on where my life was going. I was working this dead-end job with the local news paper (El Nuevo Dia). They are going through rough times there. They kept switching around our times to save themselves from having to pay for work during holidays. Basically the only way I could advance in my line of work was if my superior either retired or died. I really couldn’t wait for that long.

So I decided to leave it. Final Fantasy XI is seriously for the hardcore. It is unforgiving to anybody who doesn’t really spend all of his/her time in it. That woman I was talking about that was preoccupied about my life because of my ‘addiction’ to FFXI, shes level 64+ in WoW. Obviously, thats a way more casual game. I would spend hours and hours farming just to be able to party to get Merit points.

I would spend hours and hours doing Sky runs and making our way through Chains of Promathia to access Sea. When this was not going on I’d be playing with my Mannequin with the new Puppetmaster job class and fending off hordes of enemies in Aht Urghan. It was time consuming. It was awesome. It was addictive. It was a problem.

The endgame kept getting bigger and further away. I was never going to be able to make it into the linkshell I needed to be in to be able to fight Jailer of Love and get subsequently owned by Absolute Virtue. I was never going to be able to figure out what was up with the mounted knight that would randomly appear through Bhaflau Thickets.

So in August 2006 I left.

Now the news that a new boss fight takes about 24 hours to finish does not surprise me in the least, it actually, makes me wish I still had that kind of time and could just spend countless hours without worrying about my job, girlfriend or future.

Until we meet again, Vana’diel. Farewell from Morouxshi (75RNG/37NIN) member of RagnarocK, and a proud Elvaan archer from the Republic of Bastok on Leviathan!