Trolling in WoW

Her name is Bunkins

Where have I been? It's a bit embarrassing actually, regardless of which audience in life I speak to. I'm playing video games, specifically World of Warcraft, and less enthusiastically some others. And I'm blogging about it at regardinggame.

To many "adults" I'm wasting time on a frivolous and potentially damaging (immoral etc.) game: it's violent, it's sometimes mean-spirited (sometimes not); it's big on racial (and to some racist) overtones and stereotypes. It's not so much about peace, love, and understanding -- at least from what I've seen as a Horde-sided Troll Hunter. There's lotsandlots of masculine posturing that both amuses and bothers me, but there's that anywhere boys gather.

On the other hand, there are the "kids" -- the gamers who may be shocked and surprised that an old timer like me is even trying to play video games. They wonder why it takes me so long to move in battle, why I don't intuitively "get" what to do next while they're zipping all over the place with a fully-developed sense of the genre.

And I'm in the middle, justifying it as a learning experience but having a great deal of fun doing it ("then it must not be learning," the old Puritan roots cry out).