This South Park episode about World of Warcraft has to be my most favorite episode ever.

This past weekend, I bit the bed-rail and picked up a copy of World of WarCraft. Having been a moderate EverQuest and EQ2 junkie, I’d thought I quit the MMORPG habit cold, but after seeing some statistics stating that over fifty percent of the MMORPG players worldwide are on WoW, I decided to give it a try. It seems the numerous weekends spent chained to a computer, fingers nervously twitching from an overdose of caffeine, nicotine and sleep deprivation while farming beasts to improve my leather-working skills was just not enough for me.

As with EQ, the install and initial update took well over an hour to finish and the monthly account fee is the same fifteen bucks I could be donating to save some village of crippled, blind children in Africa, but hey…I’m already going to Hell anyway.

In EQ, my main was a Wood-Elf Druid and I really got to liking the soloing capabilities of that class, so in keeping with tradition, I chose a Night-Elf Druid to be my first character. The huge Minotaur-like Tauren, Trolls, Orcs and Undead were really appealing since I generally like to keep it evil, but I decided to stick with what I know, at least for now. I’ve played Druids for about two years and I know that class’s place, alone or in groups pretty down-pat. Tree-hugger, I am not, but I know what I know.

I was very surprised to see how very similar WoW is to EQ2. The gameplay and mechanics are in many ways nearly the same. You’d think someone at Sony would’ve sued by now. Maybe they have or perhaps Sony ripped off someone else first—I’ve no idea, but the similarities had me up and running right away, killing and running all over the place.

The only real differences I see—aside from the basic stuff like graphics, races and zones is that questing seems to be better set up in WoW. I rarely finished any quests in EQ, but over the course of the weekend, I’d managed to get something over twenty complete quests under my belt in WoW. In a matter of a few hours (I did get some sleep), I managed to work my way up to level 12.

I missed MMORPGs. There’s a reason EQ was dubbed EverCrack. I’m not sure what the slang for WoW would be…”WarCrack”? I’m not sure how long I’m willing to invest in playing WoW, but for now, I’m all about it. If you’re in the neighborhood, drop me a /tell. My main’s name is Abbath (ripped straight from the Norwegian Black Metal gods, Immortal) on the Anvilmar server.

After playing off and on for over two years, last winter I finally decided to wean myself away from EverQuest 1, also aptly known as EverCrack.

For those of you not in the know, EverQuest is a MMORPG, or an Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game a.k.a. HFNWC or Heroin for Nerds With Computers. There’s no shame here, daveb waves his freak flag high and mighty. Admittedly, it’s not the best conversation opener if you’re looking to get laid later in the evening. “I have a level 36 Mage and last week, my guild killed two dragons” just really doesn’t do much for girls. But hey, what’s a sex life compared compared to slaying a mythical winged beast?

On Friday, I finally bit the bullet and picked up a copy of EverQuest 2 at a store near my office. No big deal, I thought. I’ll head home, install it, futz with it for a couple hours and then walk away having spent an appropriate amount of time playing and go do something wholesome like ramming splinters under my fingernails or writing angry, illucid emails to the Pope.

The next thing I knew, it was Sunday night and I’d once again joined the ranks of EQ crackheads. I was virtually running all over the place, grouping with other people and slaying all manner of minor creatures. I was working on making potions, scribing spells, making tea, earning money, paying rent on an apartment and all sorts of mundane things, only these things weren’t real outside of the confines of a game server. I’d slept a total of no more than six or eight hours the whole weekend and on upon hitting the street this morning to catch the subway to work, I was taken aback by reality. Shit, I’m thirty, human and I live in the ghetto and cannot grow thistle-like spiked armor out of my skin using arcane means…right.

Fucking EverCrack. At least it’s not like I don’t know a shitload of other thirty-somethings who are completely addicted. Still, being a fan of online RPGs sort of entails you having to relinquish any plausible deniability over the fact that you are a hopeless, gibbering nerd. I feel myself just steps away from the pocket-protector and duct-taped glasses. I have EQ running on one computer and Linux on another with a KDE switch so I can bounce back and forth with ease. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, give yourself a hug and understand that you are indeed a fortunate human being. Just understand that in daveb’s Apartment of Doom, the geek meter registers pretty fucking high and that’s…okay.