It’s been a little over a month and I had finally reached level 80.  Now what am I supposed to do?

I’m talking about the latest expansion to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.  From the the month of July to the present I’ve been playing online at least three sessions a night and a little bit more on the weekend.  I got sucked into questing and grinding to get that one more level but I always wondered, what happens when you hit the level cap?  Did everything come to an end?  Not by a long shot.

The beauty of World of Warcraft and in this case Wrath of the Lich King and perhaps the genius behind Blizzard is that it’s never over.  There is always something to do.  Now I’m doing daily quests and trying to save up for a faster flying mount.  But doing the same quest gets old and fast so you have to be creative and imaginative.  So today I decided to help fellow gamers and it was one of the best gaming sessions I ever had.  I traveled from city to village from the shores of the Howling Fjord to the mountains of Storm Peaks finding other players who were being attacked and I lent a helping hand.  If I saw they were in trouble, I swooped down and hit the enemies with a barrage of virtual sword swipes and shot many arrows from my mythical bow and then I would sit back and see what kind of responses I got.  Most people said thank you and some didn’t say anything.  Some players even accused me of stealing their kill.  But what happened nearly all the time was that no one wanted help after the fact.  I found it odd that most players would say thanks and move on even after I asked if they needed help any where else.  Perhaps even in a virtual world full of millions and millions of gamers from all over the world, some people just want their piece and quiet.  Although not scientific, it was a fun social experiment regardless. 

This brings up an interesting question: Do we play games to escape reality just to re-create a symbol of our own reality virtually?  Did that sentence even make sense?  I hope so.  But in a strange way it does.  Now I’m not a doctor of anything but for myself, in reality, I like to help people and I find myself to be a social person.  And looking at how I play games online and off, my gameplay seems to reflect how I act in real life-even when I’m an Undead Warrior member of the Horde or a space marine in the future killing Locusts who burst through the ground with unrelenting aggression.  So next time you play any game rather it be Solitaire or Gears of War 2 or even Wrath of the Lich King, take a step back and ask yourself how close to reality do you make your games out to be.  Do you play to escape reality?  Or do you in fact try to re-create your own reality in game.  But above all, have fun and play safe and remember: It’s just a game.