FALLING OUT OF LOVE

I’ll just come out and say it: I’ve fallen out of love with World of Warcraft. It was bound to happen at some point. Things change, expansions shake things up, and it’s just lost its appeal. It’s now slower than ever; I’m sure that’s fine for some folk, but the complexity and fluidity of the gameplay was what kept me coming back.

The reason it’s such a big deal for me is that without that game, it’s unlikely I’d be here. From graphic design skills I developed while working on custom UIs that saved my degree, to leadership abilities generated through raid leading, to touch typing, system tweaking, and overclocking to get a higher frame rate, it’s been a pivotal part of my technological journey.

It’s also been a massive time sink. I dread to think how many hours I’ve spent on it. And although I still play games, the amount of time I spend on them is fractional in comparison. So, what have I been doing with all this extra time? Learning another language. Norwegian, in fact, or Bokmål to be more precise, using a nifty little website called Duolingo. Instead of spending hours playing games, I’m trying to do something more productive, and as I’m part Norwegian, I figured it’d be a good crack to learn the language. It’s a completely different experience, yet the way Duolingo’s set up makes it feel like a game, and as a completionist, it’s absolutely appealing to me.