Recent flooding of the river of my life has left me frantically paddling against a tide which takes me ever away from my small quiet pond of gaming solitude, which itself has begun to stagnate. I’ve had little time for gaming or blogging in recent weeks, and I have to confess, I don’t find myself missing either terribly much. Standing at the altar in the Church of MMO, I have found my lack of faith disturbing. It may seem to the contrary –based upon much of my writing here– but I did once believe in the MMO genre. I’ve stood for a long time on the beach of bloggers, watching the tide of new blogs crash and churn with each new wave, and although no two waves are ever the same, the outcome of their enthusiasm and energy often is: rolling and thundering at first, but becoming ever less sonorous as the passion wanes, indifference prevails, placidity thins, before slowly retreating down the beach. Every grain of sand deposited in this way a topic. Every grain of sand the same. The same topics, delivered time and time again onto the beach of blogging, which rests at the foot of the cliffs of the MMO genre. The cliffs remain unchanged, indifferent to the weight of sandy evidence presented at their base, where measuring the progress of the genre is to measure the progress of the sea against a coastline – a measurement of antediluvian span.
I hold an answer in my hand. The Grail to some, but to my faithless mind it appears as no more than an empty cup. I should be excited by Guild Wars 2, but I find myself more melancholy, for me this feels less the beginning of an adventure, more a last hurrah – a final farewell to the genre. I do not expect things to change with Guild Wars 2’s release; the tide will roll in once more with a new wave of enthusiasm, soon to be dashed against the unchanging countenance of the genre’s cliff face, leaving behind another sandy layer of blogging topics, every grain the same as those that came before. At which point I imagine I will take to the seas on a small raft built of apathy or antipathy and look for adventure in other lands, for, I will be forced to concede, I can no longer find it on this barren shore.
There is a beta for Guild Wars 2 this weekend, and I find myself with time to participate. One last hurrah, one last hope for redemption. And then, perhaps, `I will embark and I will lose myself, And in the great sea wash away my sin.’
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