2/13/10
As this is my last tour of duty with Katsucon, I must admit that I was not expecting to attend what has probably been one of the coolest and most meaningful panels that I have ever attended at this particular function. Perhaps it is due to my latest addiction, but the WoW-centric “MMOs Unite: WOW: Wrath Edition” panel was a highly entertaining panel if not very informative on a personal level. In fact I believe that I have made quite a few self- discoveries, in that I will never ever be a championship-level MMO player.
The panel speaker, Manny Camacho showed his obvious love for warlocks and disdain of the warrior-class aside, yet was still brilliant! The CEO and founder of GPX gaming Inc approached the game from a mathematics standpoint that had me wanting to break out a pen and paper for a few equations. He spoke of the various class damage scales in ways that would make school kids madly enthusiastic about math and PVP encounters. And while he didn’t apply that higher level of math to the economy of the AH and WoW universe, it was still blatantly obvious that gaming encompasses so much more than sole entertainment.
But the brilliance didn’t end there! Oh no. While Manny didn’t touch upon the crippling damage done by gaming obsessions, or the sociological damage done by hours spent hooked into the game, I believe he illustrated it damn well.
He showed this video (Funeral in WoW) and while the room lit up with laughter, mine too…I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and how I might have been the one to have done something so crass in my obsession.
You see, apparently a young woman died in real life and her friends decided to have an in-game funeral for her in a neutral contested area, which the Horde(an opposing faction) proceeded to attack as if they were raiding a low-level dungeon (ahem, Deadmines). While I laughed and cried during this the showing of this video, the main thing on my mind was that if that were my friends funeral I would make sure that payback ensued…in game and like a mad mutharfucka!
I don’t have to go into details about addiction, there are others with worse sob stories than mine, but for some reasons this was the point when I had to leave. Why? Because it can’t be that serious and yet it is at times… Am I getting help for my addiction? No but realizing the problem is a quarter of the battle.
Alas, as I prepare to do my last all-nighter for Katsucon at the Gaylord Hotel (a very swank establishment I might add) I will miss all the anime kids, the platform gamers (there is no love for the PCers in the game room)and the nights of consuming mass quantities of sugar and caffeine while. But I will be attending Balticon…and at one point perhaps Blizzcon, who reeeeaaally needs to have an event on the North East Coast.
