So today is the day that (hopefully) Collector’s Edition pre-orders get to start playing Warhammer Online. Originally the servers were going to open at 7 am, but that’s already been delayed once to 1 pm. Five hours to transition from Open Beta to Launch? I’m anticipating another delay personally.
But WAR *is* coming, and I’ve waited for this day, in a sense, since last February. And now it is here and…
…I’m feeling rather apathetic.
And I’m not sure why. I’ve been playing a lot of LOTRO lately and it could be I’ve just burned out my MMORPG desire. It could be that playing Spore has reminded me of how enjoyable it is to play a game where I can just start up the game and *play* without spending a lot of time traveling or looking for a group. It could be the emphasis on voice chat with my new guild, Casualties of War (and my LOTRO guild). Neither requires voice chat, but both strongly recommend it. Which means most people will use it, which means written chat will be silent. I dislike voice chat in my games, but that’s a topic for another post. But I spent a lot of time yesterday screwing around with various microphone set-ups and Ventrillo options and thinking “This is not fun. This is another hassle to add to my life. Why the hell am I doing this to myself?”
Anyway the one reason I know isn’t true is the game itself. I haven’t played WAR in about a month now and I left it ‘hungry for more’ and the anticipation has been building since. Maybe it’s been building too much. Maybe I short-circuited my internal hype-ometer. But I remember the first Christmas when my mother had to come and get me out of bed because I was more interested in sleeping more than opening a bunch of presents, and this morning feels a bit the same way…
Guild chat will NOT be silent in WAR if I have anything to do with it. Vent is all well and good, and it’s not the great satan I used to think it was, but it’s not guild chat. Never will be. Guild chat will live if I’m the only person wittering on there.
I think this lassitude you’re feeling (and you’re not alone) is beta fatigue, or that’s what I call it. Our social-group hype has been so strong, and we’ve spent so many hours blogging and forum-posting and whatnot, now that it’s here it feels sort of like an anticlimax. Familiarity breeds contempt. Familiarity + hype + wait breeds exhaustion.
I’m rather glad in a way that I’m NOT a CE and can’t start today. Let other stuff reassert itself a little in my consciousness. I’ve got work to do in the next couple of days, so maybe that’ll keep me from obsessively panning about the internets to see what’s going on.
I don’t mind voice chat in games but I prefer doing my talking with my fingers on a keyboard. My guild I2I have requested, where possible, voice chat to be used(teamspeak) but on a day to day basis I think guild chat(typing) will still be used – I have enough voices in my head already!
Voices in my head is a good way to describe it. I honestly don’t mind voice chat in a group where we’re all focused on one goal, but when I’m playing these games I’m “role playing” at least inside my own head, and listening to random chatter isn’t conducive to that.
Ysharros, beta fatigue might be a big part of it, honestly. As well as general fatigue… heh. The think I’m looking forward to most about WAR now is the fact I took a couple of vacation days bracketing next weekend, so I have a 4-day weekend. Woot! Looking forward to a break, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with War itself. But who wants to talk about sucky jobs in their blog? 🙂