A Massively Multiplayer Online Game also known as World of Warcrack for its addiction.


Timeline for Art of Adam Betts Weblog

Undeadbetts was my main character. Her class is Priest with the role of healing people and casting beneficial buffs . It took me more than one year and approximately $300 (not including game cost and monthly fee) to get top gears/weapons so I can stay competitive with other players.

Why did I play WoW for so long? Three reasons:

3. Guild and Friends


Group photo after killing a boss.


Random chatting in Guild Channel.


My priest friends.

WoW basically became my new AIM. I didn’t see the need to sign on AIM to talk to friends when half of my friends were playing WoW too and I can talk with them easily through guild, party and whisper channels.

My guilds were full of really great and mature people. They were very supportive of me when they found out that I’m deaf and couldn’t use Ventrilo (a voice communication software) which everyone use. Most big guilds required everyone to use them or you will be kicked out but they were very understanding. To show how unique those guilds were, they arranged a meetups with other guild members in Las Vegas and California which very few other guilds does too. I loved my guilds so much I decided to design a worthy websites for them (both Reservoir Dogcows and The Mafia, two of my former guilds):


Website for Reservoir Dogcows, a Mac guild.


Website for The Mafia. Reservoir Dogcows merged with them.

If it wasn’t for guild/friends, I’d be better off playing a single-player game.

2. Player vs Player (PvP)


5 vs. 5 Capture the Flag game.


Poor little Gnome. He underestimated my skills.


Battleground Scoreboard with stats of kill count, flag captured, etc.


Random encounters with other players in the world. You don’t want to leave your computer unattended while being in unsafe place, you’ll get killed by other sneaky players.

Capture the Flag, Resources Collecting and Massive Battleground are three major PvP in WoW. It’s like playing Quake 3 Arena, Warcraft III and Battlefield 1943 all in one game.

Nothing is more fun than fighting with real people from all over the world. PvP added a lot of life to WoW. Otherwise it’ll be a monotone world with monsters and bosses that does predictable attacks every time.

1. Interface Mods


Normal Interface.


Raid interface modified to match my play style as a healer. May look a little crowded but it worked the best for maximum healing.

I’m crazy over modifications. I’ve been modifying my OS since Mac OS 7 with cool themes, icons, desktop backgrounds, nifty extensions, etc. so naturally I got hooked on modifying WoW’s interface with tons of addons available.

If WoW wasn’t open to third-party addons, I would have not played this long. It’s worth half the fun for me.

—

Do I regret playing World of Warcraft for two years? Not really, I’m glad I got to experience the beautiful world and meeting some really great people. It was fun while it lasted :)

But I do admit I played way more than I should have. Averaging 6-8 hours of playtime everyday for two years. I really lost interest in many things including Mac news and graphics. What this displayed was my complete lack of time management. I originally planned to do graphic design part time but I failed at that. There’s too much you have to think about in-game: how to farm for more gold, which gears to get next, showing up on time for raid plans, helping other people get keys, finishing quests, farming PvP for higher rank, selling items on auction house, etc.

In a nutshell, WoW is a giant blackhole. It attracted you with fun then turned it into a job.


So long, World of Warcraft.