Two Quests Before Breakfast

I'm playing World of Warcraft on my new desktop system, and it goes without saying that it's a lot of fun. It's pretty, it's complex, it's difficult and against all predictions, I've not been inundated by idiots. The wandering Horde stalwarts I've encountered have been decent, polite killing machines, all generally encouraging, cheery and helpful. The worst of them are a little brusque, which is actually a good thing since it's likely that they're actually all ten year old boys.

It also goes without saying that it's addictive, like injecting crack cocaine directly into your brainstem. There's always just another quest, another skill, another level, another area or another item just over the horizon, keeping you logged in and rambling about for another twenty minutes. And another. And another. And then it's 3am on a work night with your rent three weeks late and your garbage bin resembling a tumbling barrow to the ancient kings of plastic wrappers. Whoops.

My favourite part of the game is grouping up with friends to smite the forces of evil, and so far I've done a bit of that with Exile. He's a tad too far ahead of me to make the whole experience work though, as the game seems to calculate experience for killing creatures by factoring in the amount of damage each character does, not just their attendence record. Since I'm only an 11th level Orcish Hunter, I'm about as deadly as a slightly damp tissue when facing the 20th level nasties Exile hacks down. This means that even though I risk being shredded like a piece of parsley in a blender, I only win a few xp per battle. It's only a little disappointing, since removes a shortcut that is regularly exploited, but it means I'll have to work damn hard to catch up to him before he becomes partially fused with infinity.