This morning I find myself both abashed and pissed off. Prepare yourself, you are about to read a post full of petulant whining about something really dumb. If this does not interest you, stop reading now. You have been warned.
Josh and Randi made a point to me last night. It took me a full night and a morning to realize it, but when I was told last night, "Sure, Jason, we'll play City of Heroes with you! You pay for our accounts and we'll commit to a couple nights a week," that they were making fun of me. I'd made a similar offer a couple months ago regarding EverQuest. So, point taken, having it fired back at me in this manner does make it sound like a decidedly stupid thing to say. I concede that, and I apologize.
Since we're slinging mud here, though, I would like to take this opportunity to at least attempt to defend myself.
People (not just J & R, but a lot of people I still talk to from back in the day) think that I'm unnecessarily hard on EverQuest. While it's true that I rant about them, really the outdated graphics and sound don't bother me in the slightest. The somewhat repetitive gameplay is expected and embraced by me. A guy I used to play with and now work with, James, was the first person to call it. He guessed I just had sour grapes because I wasn't able to keep up, because I just didn't have it in me to put in ten hours a night. He's right. Oh MAN is he right.
I have absolutely nothing but poor memories of EverQuest. Everyone else I knew had a great time with it, but I never did. It caused friendships to turn rocky and girlfriends to leave. It caused me depression. It caused me to, when I tried to catch up with the people around me who were also playing, to go for long stretches (I think the longest one was a week) without a shower or sleep. It caused my parents to send me to counseling because they were certain I was about to kill myself at one point. (I wasn't.) I seriously can't think of a single time I ever had fun playing it. It caused me nothing but grief.
The fun of that game was supposed to be playing with your friends, either the ones you had in real life or the ones you made in the game. That's what I wanted out of it. Play with my friends. Except, I never got that. As I said, I didn't have the stamina to devote every ounce of my free time to the game. Everyone I knew who played outpaced me in a hurry and I couldn't play with them anymore. *They* all could play with one another, of course, and I'm sure had a million laughs in the process. I got invariably left behind. I was told they didn't mean for it to work out that way. The prevailing theory the whole time I guess was, "Well, we can keep playing. Jason'll catch up." But of course I couldn't. Catching up implies leveling at a faster speed. How in the hell was I supposed to do that?! Put in more time than them? They were already playing ten hours a night and every single available minute of every weekend! How do you top that?
I remember this vididly: At one point, this problem was realized and everybody was really sorry. "OK, here's what we'll do. We'll make a set of characters and only ever play them together. If someone can't play that night, we won't play those characters. We'll go back to our mains." Great. Perfect plan and I was overjoyed to hear it. Finally I'd get to play the game with my friends and have fun. Imagine my surprise when, after logging off one night and skipping a night to do something else (I think my family was having a cookout or something, I can't remember), I logged back on the following day to find everybody fifteen levels higher than me.
What the hell? And what was more, nobody could really offer an explanation on that. It was like, "Well, what were we supposed to do, wait on you?" YES, DAMNIT! YES! THAT WAS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT! I would have waited on any of them if they'd been gone that day, so why am I denied the same courtesy?
So, after a couple more attempts at that plan with the same thing happening, I gave up on it. Instead I started asking to be powerleveled. By now, the game was well and truly dead for me, but I thought I'd at least strangle all my options before giving up the ghost permanently. Leveling was slower in the high end. I thought maybe if I could just get there, I'd be able to play enough to keep up. And, hey! At least I'd be playing with my friends again, if only as a miserable toadie. That was better than nothing.
The trouble was, by the time I started asking for this powerleveling, everyone else was unbelievably high level. So I needed a lot. This is where my reputation as an EQ moocher arose. Pretty soon people were putting me on ignore lists and making up excuses when I hit them on AIM asking about it.
In the background of all this, by the way, I had about four girlfriends, all of which dumped me primarily because I was an EQ nerd. The friendships I had (ok, to be fair, they were more like acquaintances; I never have had many real friends) that didn't involve the game had long since whithered away. And, as I mentioned, I'd slipped into a severe depression and my parents were sending me to counseling and considering more penetrating therapy.
Finally, I decided I'd had enough and hung EverQuest up for good. I moved on to other games, tasting of many different flavors, trying to find one I fit in on. A few have been close. I actually managed to max out on Star Wars Galaxies, for instance. Only took three years. (For reference, most people could accomplish it in a couple of weeks. Don't ask me how, I have no idea.) Shame I'm married and have a life now, it might have been worth it to see what it was all about. Hang out with my guild, do the high-end content, all that stuff. See what I missed in other words.
Just recently, as my current friends know, Sony offered me some free EQ time to come back and try the game out. Sweet of Sony to do that to me, make all that mud in my head resurface. But, you know? I'm older and wiser, and the friends I have that still play have more structured lives. I figured maybe it would be different this time. So I reinstalled it, made a character, and once again Josh and Randi made new characters. The agreement was once again struck. "Ok, we're only going to play these together. We'll level up at roughly the same rate and have good times and be friends and it'll be fun." Superb. Except... when I logged on for the first time, there they were, one of them already ten levels over me. What was more, they were all twinked out in high level gear that they'd gotten from their other characters. Wow, guess *I'll* be useful in this group, huh?
We played one session. I got to level 8. I had fun but I got the distinct impression that they didn't, which bore out because I was never asked to play again. A few days later Josh mentions it in passing, saying something to the order of, "Yeah... your guy's still level 8 or so, huh?" That was all I needed to hear. I'd been left in the dust once again, even though we'd agreed to try and stay roughly the same level to start.
(I heard later that they were waiting for *me* to invite myself into their playtime, which tastes like pure bullshit to me. HELLO!? You two have a slew of max level characters to play, you have a guild to look after, you have other time commitments I don't have. EverQuest is your house now and you wanted me to invite myself in?! Yeah right, I don't buy it.)
So, when I said I'd play if you guys were footing the bill, I was only being half-serious. Half, because the only way I'd ever let someone push that shit down my throat again is if they were paying or if I was somehow otherwise getting it for free. That game has done nothing but abuse me and it's left some serious scars. I will never again spend another fucking dime on it.
Rant over.
5 comments:
I never realized how deeply this particular trench ran. I'm sorry to hear your bad memories have been stirred up in such a manner, inadvertent as they might have been.
I don't know what the motivation was there. I thought the goal of playing MMO's was to have fun too, not to engage in some kind of quasi-contractual character progression plan. The "formal" invitation coupled with the demand that we pay mixed poorly. One would think that being invited to play weekly implied a self-motivated interest in the game.
It isn't polite, friendly, or mature to reciprocate an asinine request, especially when said request was rejected by the party currently asking. In the least, it's cheekily dismissive; at worst, it's arrogantly "just". I have no idea where along the line this particular reply falls.
Matters not. You'll always have me and I'll always at least try these silly games with you. I know I didn't stick with Pirates, but I'll be more interested after that "co-op boats" patch hits. I did like the ship battles. And His Spanish-Arabic Hawtness. ;)
Lies, lies, tell me sweet little lies.
I'll skip the more asinine and irrelevant fibs and just focus on the “doozies”
1. "The agreement was once again struck. "Ok, we're only going to play these together. We'll level up at roughly the same rate and have good times and be friends and it'll be fun." Superb. Except... when I logged on for the first time, there they were, one of them already ten levels over me."
- Those characters are still your level. My shaman has not much of anything on him.
2. Well, what were we supposed to do, wait on you?" YES, DAMNIT! YES! THAT WAS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT! I would have waited on any of them if they'd been gone that day, so why am I denied the same courtesy?
- What level are your current CoH characters?
3. I seriously can't think of a single time I ever had fun playing it. It caused me nothing but grief.
This is where my reputation as an EQ moocher arose.
Finally, I decided I'd had enough and hung EverQuest up for good. I moved on to other games, tasting of many different flavors, trying to find one I fit in on.
- Thought I'd sum these up together. If you never had fun you wouldn't have gotten me started playing. You never had a reputation as an EQ moocher, you didn't play enough to have any reputation. You never "Quit EverQuest for good" you've played off and on in between the myriad of other mmos you have bounced around to.
To address your post and Jess's comment. You asked me to pay for your Everquest account. The request was not made in jest, you pursued it for more than a few days. You had the gull to expect to me to pay for it even knowing that my wife had recently been laid off. If you cling to “jest” now it is only because it serves as a convenient cover. And "Dear" Jessica if had been in jest as an asinine request why should he feel the need to apologize?
Jess, although I do so love your witty remarks and banter, and even chuckle at the underlying hypocrisy and self righteousness of their delivery. The novelty of your blatant disregard and verbal sparring is just that a novelty. I have often refrained in the interests of politeness and friendship from addressing them. Patience is a finite however, please keep that in mind.
Jason, you can paint the picture of your life as a sad tragedy in which you have fought insurmountable odds to just barely overcome if you want but don’t pawn it off as an authentic photograph. Most of this is greatly exaggerated or didn’t happen at all. Your comment about when you were high level made me chuckle.
The fact is just like most games, and to your own admission, you don’t stick with anything. I told you up front the first 10 to 20 levels hold very little interest for me. They take all of an hour or so to get through normally and running around with a rusty dagger looking for a crap and admiring your new 5 hp heal holds very little for me. Am I speaking of Power Leveling to 60? No. The game doesn’t really come together until mid level when characters are somewhat established. It takes you forever to do anything because you want to set up an epic raid level experience for yard trash! I’m sorry but I don’t need a “puller” for “a spiderling”. However those characters still sit there… waiting. You have been invited, several times by both of us.
I really don’t care if you play or not, but I won’t shoulder the responsibility for your experience.
It’s your piciture so you paint it any way you want but I’ll not stand by with and play make-believe that it’s the real thing.
I'll start with the last point first:
"You have been invited, several times by both of us."
I haven't. I keep my chat logs, I fully intend to go through them when I get home to verify this, but I can tell you now without looking at them precisely how many times I was invited to come play directly. Directly as in, "Hey, wanna play EQ?" If there were any veiled invitations in your words I missed them. One. I have received one invitation, just a few days ago when Randi sent the invite via GMail's calendar system. By that time my free time had run itself dry and, as this blog entry cites, I have my reasons for not wanting to pay my way back in.
Ticking down the responses:
"Those characters are still your level. My shaman has not much of anything on him."
I wouldn't know that. As I said, I've received no invitations and very little conversation about those characters. Before you retort on this point, keep in mind that I keep my chat logs and can easily back this statement up. All I ever got was the mentioned, "Your character is probably still level 8, huh?" which implied you'd moved on. Since that assumption turned out to be false, I shall flag it as moot and move on.
"What level are your current CoH characters?"
Eight. We were level 7 when we stopped, with like one or two pez to go to 8. We accidentally tripped over it getting our raptor packs. It'd take all of five minutes for the two of you to catch us. We have stayed well and easily within your range.
"If you never had fun you wouldn't have gotten me started playing. You never had a reputation as an EQ moocher, you didn't play enough to have any reputation. You never "Quit EverQuest for good" you've played off and on in between the myriad of other mmos you have bounced around to."
I seem to get the feeling that you operate under the assumption that you and Randi were the only ones I played EQ with. I did have other people I knew in the game, you know. You knew a few of them. I'd also been in a few different guilds and had a pretty good-sized friends list. My life does not begin and end with you and Randi. As for my not playing enough, I played plenty. Enough to where my parents were stealing the power cord to my computer at times. As for playing off and on, that did go on for a while, yes. Quitting EverQuest for good occured a few years back when I definitively swore off it, and until this most recent return on SOE's dime, I've kept to that oath.
I got you on it because I was under the assumption we'd be playing it together and having a good time. I never figured in a million years you two would get so unbelievably hardcore on it. And you know? I'll conceide the point. The times when we played together were fun, at least for me. They are rather badly tainted and hard to remember, though, considering how infrequent they were.
For the rest of your response, I never claimed my request for you to pay for my account was in jest. I said I was only half-serious, which is true. I did honestly make the request, but I did not honestly expect you to agree to it. I also was honestly considering paying your guys's way into CoH (until I realized you weren't making an honest request and just cramming my own words back down my throat). Footing the occasional bill for a friend, especially one centered on entertainment, something we'd be doing together, isn't something I blanch at. I didn't figure it'd be that big of a deal. Apparently I was mistaken.
Oh, by the way, since you decided to open up on my wife here, I will instruct you to shut the hell up about her. She has done nothing to either of you. Again, chat logs. I've been over them. She's said nothing that could even be remotely construed as hurtful to either of you in months, maybe years. She's been doing a rather delicate eggshell balance for the both of you for a long time now and if you're *still* being made upset by her, you both need to have your heads examined. A few weeks ago Randi said something about feeling like she was "under attack" talking to Jess. I went over her logs then in detail, going back two months, and I found nothing offensive. If you doubt me, again, feel free to review your own logs. I'm sure you have them.
Most of this blog entry is ancient history and I don't remember it well, but the things I did cite were not exaggerations or lies. There were times I went a week without a shower, doing nothing but play EQ trying to keep up with you guys. Any member of my family can verify that. They can also verify my depression, sending me to counciling, and the rest.
I expected negative reaction from you over this post. I was ready for that. However, coming into my blog, verbally bashing my wife, and calling me a liar is over the line.
As to Jess I will say to you exactly what I said to my wife.
Depite your assumptions I am no fool. Your wife is well spoken, her words are chosen carefully and with intent. Years of written communication have assisted in her ability to apply tone without the use of inflection. She is condescending by nature as well design. The meaning is not lost on me.
More often than not I have stayed my tongue, and were she a different gender, the back of my hand. I stay my retorts in the interest of friendship and with the knowledge that while her offense is admirable, her defense is inadequate to the task of weathering a sharp and well deserved return. The reprecussion of my generousity is the perception that it is generally acceptable to continue, or that perhaps we are not clever enough to derive intent. I do not say this as threat, only that my leniency has limits in this regard and the time fast approaches when verbal jabs may be met and returned instead of quietly taken.
Our comment to you that we will play if you pay for it was actually nothing more than a lighthearted reference to exact same request you made of us, as well as similar statements made by Jess herself in the past. Nothing more, and no different than I would say to any of my other friends with a smile. I actually assumed the conversation would wrap up right there with a well placed "riiiiiight..." or similar witty remark. Instead you took it, tossed me small inadvertant insult on your part and continued playing your game. Only later after you had mulled it over and the moment had passed did you decide in reflection I think I'll address a comment in a chat from a day ago with a lengthy blog post on the wrongs done to you.
As to EQ, I'm not hardcore, lol. Do you know why I play as often as I do? Because we have other people to play with. You'd be surprised how the mechanics change as you approach your mid 20's and are no longer doing tutorial quests for "Rusty Long Sword +1". I'll forgo mentioning the WarCraft incident past this reference...
I didn't get my standing formal invitation to play CoH yesterday?
As to you being invited to play. We've had this conversation too many times in the very past you are referencing to revisit it again. The majority of the time you weren't around or available.
The problem is you got a little bit of "turn about" (in jest) and you didn't like it. Both of you have always had some underlying perception that I am swimming in some pool of undeserved money. I will not validate or justify your assumptions or my own financial decsions. You are both very quick to spend some of this limitless money you believe I possess.
I can only afford to subscribe to pretty much 1 MMO at a time (for 2 people). I didn't arrive at this because I hate you, its just the constraints in which I am under. Yesterdays jest aside we were actually looking at ways to make it feasible to play both games, for no other reason than to play with you and Jess.
Do you know the only reason I actually didn't float some money your way to play EQ when you asked?
Would you like to know?
You didn't ask me borrow, or even give you the money to play for a month or so. You told me you would play with us if we paid you, paid for your account and by proxy your time... to play with us. Jess's previous comments have been exactly the same, if we paid her to play with us she would.
My friends and the time I spend with them are not purchased sir. I pay employees for their time not friends. Had your request come in any other guise than the assuming air that because you preceive that I "have the means", I should give them to you I would most likely have never given it a second thought. I am not a Socialist, you are not Robin Hood.
As to being attacked on your "blog" as you put it. (Almost as though to bolster some defensive bonus contrived from protecting ones own castle) If you do not wish a public reply perhaps you should first consider the merits of a non-public conversation about the problem before hand...
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As for Jess, I need specific examples on your troubles. Seriously. What you two find offensive in the things she says, I just don't see.
Besides that, I think we've handled this poorly before now. I admit that a public locale such as this was probably not the best place to work it out. However, here is where we *will* work it out, because I want the record that we are both mature adults who can handle our issues as such to be public.
First, I want to just say this. I love both of you. You and Randi in equal measure. I'd gladly lay down my life for either one of you in a hearbeat. That's why these messes bother me, considering how petty they are.
The reason I asked whether you'd pay for EQ is not because I think you're rich and should share the wealth. I'm not envious of you (ok, maybe a *little*). The trouble is--and this is the real point of my blog here--EQ and I have an exceptionally troubled past. I couldn't stomach the idea of laying out cash for it. On the other hand, I love playing games with you two. You and Randi are what made the whole EQ experience great for me, when we had it. When I got outleveled I lost that and the game turned to crap for me. Make sense?
That's why I prefer when we play to be a little more coordinated. I don't mean setting up pull points or coordinating strategy to fight spiderlings... I just want to be in eyesight of one another so that it feels like we're playing together! That's what I missed.
Asking you to foot the bill was dumb. It wasn't because I wanted to be paid for my time playing with you two, it was because I wanted to play a game--*any game*-- with you guys. Like I said, I didn't seriously expect you to say yes, so after that whole thing happened I just completely forgot about it. Having completely forgotten about it, when it got fired back at me I didn't recognize it for what it was. That's how this whole thing started.
Looking forward to your response. I want to get this thing buried.
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