It's probably pretty easy to guess what my guilty pleasure is. From the time I was in sixth grade and discovered Bard's Tale on my Apple II e, I've been hooked on computer games. (I seem to recall I had an ancient version of The Hobbit as well...truly horrible on the monochromatic green screen.)
From there things moved on as the computers got better - King's Quest, Zork, Death Knights of Krynn, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Masters of Magic, Dungeon Keeper, Dungeon Keeper 2, Ravenloft, Elder Scrolls,IceWind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Heroes of Might & Magic I, II, III, IV, V, Civ I, II, III, IV, V, Caesar I, II, III, Grim Fandango, Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle,The Sims, Sims 2, Sims 3, SimCity, Baldur's Gate I & II, Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon Age, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Fable, Fable 2, Ultima, Ultima Underworld, Spore, Syberia, Syberia II, The Longest Journey 1 and 2, Vampire: The Masquerade, Myst, and a crapload more.
And yes. World of Warcraft.
I don't know how many hours I've spent wasting time on building virtual cities or conquering hordes of advancing orc armies and that's okay. I did try the pencil and paper type of D&D when I was younger - but I was the only girl in 6th grade who wanted to play and the boys weren't overly interested in helping out the n00b. I tried again in college, but unfortunately I discovered I really didn't like having to watch the guys roll for how long their male character's penis was or how many inches my female character could "take". I gave up when the one guy made his pet wolverine have sex with a tavern wench and never returned. *ahem*
Bad luck on my part, I suppose. Computer games at least gave me the dignity of being able to play at my own pace and use my own logic to solve puzzles or take down a dragon. Or romance a pixel hottie. Or cut a swath through ravening hordes of daemons. Whatever flavor I'm in the mood for, I can find it.
Gaming is the one thing that I really do enjoy and rarely have the time for these days. In fact, when I'm under any sort of writing deadline I don't really even load anything up, because it's far too easy for a simple five minutes at the auction house to become a case of "just one more quest" or "just a few more mobs to kill and then I'll go up a level" and the next thing I know it's 2 in the morning and I haven't done anything productive at all.
So these days I play in binges. When I finish a project, I'll do a weekend bender here or there, but overall, it's definitely not as much as like.
From there things moved on as the computers got better - King's Quest, Zork, Death Knights of Krynn, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Masters of Magic, Dungeon Keeper, Dungeon Keeper 2, Ravenloft, Elder Scrolls,IceWind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Heroes of Might & Magic I, II, III, IV, V, Civ I, II, III, IV, V, Caesar I, II, III, Grim Fandango, Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle,The Sims, Sims 2, Sims 3, SimCity, Baldur's Gate I & II, Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon Age, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Fable, Fable 2, Ultima, Ultima Underworld, Spore, Syberia, Syberia II, The Longest Journey 1 and 2, Vampire: The Masquerade, Myst, and a crapload more.
And yes. World of Warcraft.
I don't know how many hours I've spent wasting time on building virtual cities or conquering hordes of advancing orc armies and that's okay. I did try the pencil and paper type of D&D when I was younger - but I was the only girl in 6th grade who wanted to play and the boys weren't overly interested in helping out the n00b. I tried again in college, but unfortunately I discovered I really didn't like having to watch the guys roll for how long their male character's penis was or how many inches my female character could "take". I gave up when the one guy made his pet wolverine have sex with a tavern wench and never returned. *ahem*
Bad luck on my part, I suppose. Computer games at least gave me the dignity of being able to play at my own pace and use my own logic to solve puzzles or take down a dragon. Or romance a pixel hottie. Or cut a swath through ravening hordes of daemons. Whatever flavor I'm in the mood for, I can find it.
Gaming is the one thing that I really do enjoy and rarely have the time for these days. In fact, when I'm under any sort of writing deadline I don't really even load anything up, because it's far too easy for a simple five minutes at the auction house to become a case of "just one more quest" or "just a few more mobs to kill and then I'll go up a level" and the next thing I know it's 2 in the morning and I haven't done anything productive at all.
So these days I play in binges. When I finish a project, I'll do a weekend bender here or there, but overall, it's definitely not as much as like.
