Recently, I have talked about my desire to return to “World of Warcraft”, despite all of my disdain for Blizzard and the game itself. I talked about “Addictive Nostalgia”, the recurring nature of cycling from one MMORPG to the next, and so on. In the end, I found it to be a near-certainty that I would be playing WoW again at any moment.
Nope.
In the wake of recent information regarding Blizzard’s “Frat Boy” culture, and their abusive treatment of female staff, I just can’t do it. I simply cannot give my money to a company like that.
Now I know, Blizzard is far from the only company that harbors a toxic culture like this. If anything, Blizzard is closer to the norm in the industry than an outlier. But here’s the difference: I know about Blizzard, just as I know about Riot Games, and Ubisoft. And just like Riot and Ubisoft, whose products I actively avoid like people wearing MAGA hats, the least I can do is avoid playing “World of Warcraft”.
So now what do I do?
That ol’ Addictive Nostalgia doesn’t just go away, after all. The nagging desire to play one of the old MMORPGs I used to grind on a daily basis hasn’t gone away. Worse yet, what game can truly match the combination of cartoony graphics and simple mechanics that WoW brings to the table?
Well, none do. Great.
So I decided to just burn out the Addictive Nostalgia through sheer pain. By this I mean I am goin to play something I used to love dearly, that holds great nostalgia for me, but that is nearly as painful to consider and toxic to play, as WoW can be.
I’m going back to “Lord of the Rings Online”, at least until I can’t stand it anymore. I mean, if any MMORPG is going to make me hate playing MMORPGs again, it is that broken, toxic mess!
So, yeah, I’m going to start up a new character soon. Probably a Minstrel or Rune-Keeper, or maybe a Beornling, because I can.
