Mythical!

Last night was a big night for me! I know how silly it sounds to be excited about a game and to consider it a part of your life, but anyone who plays WoW or EQ2 or any other MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) understands that online gaming is more than just a game. It's a community. There is an economy, a social structure, goal-setting, teamwork, and so much more.

When most people turn to TV at night, sitting in front of the tube like a vegetable, stuffing their face with potato chips or soda, I turn to my computer and to Everquest 2. It's not something my parents did, because games like this simply didn't exist back when they were younger. And because of its new-ness, some people want to judge it or laugh at gaming. They don't understand it or consider it important.

But the way I see it is this. It's almost like belonging to a club. Let's say you joined a scrapbooking club with 23 other people from around the country, promising to get together on a nightly or weekly basis to put together photographs. Over the course of time, you would develop goals as a group, get to know and love each other, and you would look forward to going there to be with these people and do something you enjoy doing every night. Gaming online is like that, only in a virtual world.

Anyway, in Everquest 2, there is a long and difficult questline for a weapon that is "Mythical". Each class (guardian, templar, monk, swashbuckler,etc.) has their own Mythical weapon, and it is by far, the best weapon for you in the game. Mythical weapons were first introduced into the game with an expansion called Ruins of Kunark, that came out November of 2007. After all this time, I still haven't been able to get mine. Since then, I have changed servers, brought up a completely new character named "Fiahla" on the Crushbone server (she's a brigand). Last night, however, I finally got my mythical weapon!

What's so exciting about it for me is that 24 of us had to work really hard to get the update for me. It's taken weeks for us to work our way through these mobs in order to update the quest. It's simply not something you can do on your own, it takes teamwork. And while some of the people there last night were not the best players in the game, I think G and I have found a good core of people to play with in our newest guild.

THe other fun part was seeing my name go up across the screen. When someone gets their mythical weapon, a message goes up in orange across everyone's screen across the world who is logged in to that server saying "Norrath is still for a moment, as Fiahla of
is granted the mythical Havoc, Blade of Treachery." As soon as that went up, I started getting private messages and it was really exciting. That's what this picture is of, my chat window with everyone saying grats and way to go! I wasn't the only one getting my mythical, but most of these messages right here were for me.

I can't wait to get on later tonight and try out my new weapon in another raid or group. I know it will make my character even better, making the game more fun in the long run. :)