dragon age: now that it's over

so i just finished playing the expansion, and... i'm left with nothing to do. and that's kindof my feeling on this game as a whole. it was a fun ride, granted, with neat graphics and cool abilities, decent storyline and interesting cinematics and dialogue, but it's over. far sooner than i wanted it to be. there's just hardly any game there really, just skin and bones, no meat to it really. i mean i literally bought this xpac earlier in the week. now granted its nice for my social life, all those things that get affected by massive game-play time. but i don't want the length of the game to dictate how long i play. call me spoiled from MMO's but they had it right if you ask me to give you more content than you'd ever want. it happens all the time, anytime you stick a "main story" into a game, you create a finish point, after which there's either no reason to play (ex. oblivion, fable 2) or you are hardcoded from ever playing again (dragon age, viking) and neither of these are satisfactory endings to the veteran MMO player. i've done my share, warhammer, guildwars, EQ2, a few WoW stints, and a longterm EQ career. and lets just say these console games hardly measure up. that's right, i'm taking the entire game-platform on. give me something with meat!

now lets perhaps discuss why i even bought one in the first place. my aging laptop, a wheezing fan and broken plastic grill, heavy as fuck and outdated while being hard to upgrade, was just not cutting it for dragon age, the most recent one i'd picked up. not to be one to take that lying down, i immediately decided something had to be done. however... the actual do-ing took a bit longer. months later, i found myself with an xbox. 360 to be exact, i'd had the original years earlier, and it mysteriously ended up at my sister's... anyhow, i pulled it out, got some games, and eagerly played away, having been on a self-imposed game sabbatical for a few months prior. so, game after game was played, beaten, or set aside for lack of interest. and over time i made my way through five games. mosts as it turned out were fantasy themed, most were spell and sword, and all were good fun. although, i did stop to wonder at times, given certain aspects. such as the feeling one has after the game is over, where you feel strangely robbed, of all that time you plunked down into that game, that useless game, one that just leaves you with nothing to show for your efforts but an xbox "achievement". call me crazy but im used to my dwarf paladin, with gear from '07 likely still banked.

when you play an mmo, you're investing alot of time into one character, and the bank, as well as your inventory, reflects that. here and there are relics of adventures had last fall, or earlier. perhaps even an old crap weapon that you picked up way back in '03. mmo's are games for longtime gamers. when you've been around long enough, you're not so much interested in a new game so much as continued adventures and as you build your pack of padre's to adventure through the landscape you then have bonds built and roles established, erecting orders of gamers with leadership and rule, enforcement and outcast, and all the many social cracks to slip through. you can pause, take it all in, or seize the reigns, go full force. but MMO's, most importantly, bring gamers together, make it a group experience, and give you a chance to revel in the achievement of a win won hard with group effort. it means so much more to get an event down when you've worked with twenty to fourty some others, all who've gotten their chars where they need to be, put in the time, effort, and shed blood, pixelated and real. you're teammates, compatriots, and the labor of love you share becomes something you can really put your soul into (heart and soul that is). in the end, you have something much more than just a game. you have a place to honor it.

these new-fangled games, much like those old-fangled games, give you short bursts of goodness, punctuated by long breaks of nothing, nothing because you've done it all, and don't care to do it again. most people don't, not those whom i've come across anyhow. there's a need to keep it fresh, make the pursuit of the day somewhat challenging and stimulating. if you for instance aren't tackling infinite variety then what's the point? there needs to be something to test you and make you able not to see through the code and just find yourself doing the same old thing endlessly. everquest 2 did it wrong when they made everything easy, and world of warcraft more or less had the same mantra. make it challengeless so that the masses can have their fun with about the amount of work that the average non-interested joe would be willing to put forth, and we'll hook 'em that way. games like EQ, whether they meant to be or not, are such creations of dnd shutterboard sessions that there just is this clubbish vibe to it you can't shake. you really are in "their world" now, and there's a challenge to that world, one that you can honestly spent a god awful amount of time in, without being bored. it becomes a habit, a game tradition, something you go out and do with the "guys". you and your group, they'll go and adventure regularly.

and to me, there's something to that, getting folks together, having a shared experience, in a world that likes to seperate us. they say the internet has us all indoors and that as we fatten up our bodies, ruin our eyes and wrists, and lose our ability to communicate, we regress into something lesser, something worse, than what we were. the truth is there's alot of growth to be had from MMO gaming. there's an immediacy to it, a reward that comes usually in life restricted to the few, but the game, the pixel, the great equalizer, makes it all better. for us poorly adjusted social folk, and there's quite a few, at least for parts of lives, these games are an unbarricaded place for us to flex our social selves all the while doing something we enjoy with people who like it just the same. it's a fraternity of gamers, all pointed in the same direction, and sets folks up for friendship, as well as enhanced adventure. throwing in the element of kinship into an adventure-esque game is always a plus, and often the joy shared amongst many is far greater than the instant thrill of the item grab by a solitary gamer. its funny, as looking back it was the social entanglement that forced me away, but the heart of the joy of MMO-gaming is the pack itself, that social tangle that finds its way into every aspect of MMO gaming.

so... what now? do i fire up the PC and install the latest MMO? do i go down to the store and buy another xbox game? i think neither. for now, my journey takes me away from gaming, and straight to the books. financial independence, a degree to put beside by name, a scholarly accomplishment. these are the fixations of the moment in my mind and while gaming is fun its just too much committment for me, a guy with too many committments as is. so while the MMO days were great, the console just a teaser of what once was, i just can't take the challenge on of being apart of a competent and competative gaming organization any longer, and there's some sadness in that. many fond memories were forged in front of the computer screen, but those days are now behind me, and i'll enjoy them for what they were, both a separate and wonderful part of my life as well as an escape from many of the darker sides of my mostly negative circumstances circa subscription. nowadays im better off, girlfriended and apartmented out in a college town with much to do and good weather due for outdoor stuff. another pastime of mine has been sports and having someone to play with is nice, plus the chance to join various campus orgs and the like. life'll be busy, from the looks, and though the values and concepts learned from gaming stay, the sub can't