{"id":56172,"date":"2023-09-25T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T04:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=56172"},"modified":"2023-09-27T18:50:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T22:50:12","slug":"mental-health-and-comfort-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=56172","title":{"rendered":"Mental Health and Comfort Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve done a lot of talking this week about mental health. I’m pretty sure everyone who contributes here has issues they can share and talk about, and thankfully we live in an era where that’s the norm instead of something unusual. I’ve been working on my own problems for a few years now, ever since my family finally convinced me to seek therapy in dealing with what turned out to be a decades-long battle with severe depression. After developing the tools that help me observe and detect my own problematic and triggering behaviors, I learned that it was very important to avoid any sequence of actions that, over the course of a few weeks, could lead to me engaging in repetitive actions and activities day after day. “Getting stuck in a rut,” as most of us would say. Months ago I had fenced off certain activities that might be problematic, one of those, as is pertinent to this story, being MMORPGs.<\/p>\n

However…a few months later I find myself dealing with a different set of difficulties. A major contributor to my depression is a driving desire to be accomplishing something. A lack of productive activity wears on my nerves until I essentially “lash out” and try to do whatever I perceive as the most beneficial thing that I can do RIGHT NOW…whether it’s actually useful or not. After a recent exercise in futility fueled by this manner of desperation, one of my kids pointed out that “accomplishing something” can mean a lot of things, like watching a television show you’ve been meaning to watch. To be fair, this is a point my spouse has tried to make many times, but for some reason it clicked this time. I started getting caught up on Star Trek<\/em>. Years ago I quit watching during the Deep Space Nine<\/em> era…something about the show just never jived with me. But I’ve always wanted to watch Voyager<\/em>, and even Enterprise<\/em>. While I’m still not too sure about Picard<\/em>, Discovery<\/em> seems fascinating…all the hate initially directed toward the show actually caused me to shun it for a while. Strange New Worlds<\/em> has piqued my interest since it was announced. And most importantly, I was convince to try Lower Decks<\/em>, and I absolutely love it. I just finished Series One. And as soon as I can find it, since Paramount Plus dropped it, I want to watch Prodigy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These are comfort TV shows, even considering I’m watching new content. I know Trek. I love Trek<\/em>. And the older I get, all the little things about what’s canon and what’s best…it just doesn’t seem nearly as important. (NOTE: does not include the Kelvin timeline, regardless of what I like {Karl Urban} and don’t like {J.J. Abrams is a bad movie maker don’t @ me}. And Star Wars<\/em> is a different matter entirely.)<\/p>\n

But apparently getting my comfort TV show itch scratched opened up a few doors, and a desire to play my favorite comfort video game rushed to the surface within a day or two:<\/p>\n

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Mental Health is a path, not a town. Some people might like the “journey\/destination” analogy better…”path\/town” is what works for me. Likewise, World of Warcraft<\/em> can be about the destination (completing current End Game content) or the journey (all the grinding, collectibles, interactions, in-game games, things to explore, etc.) I initially started playing right before the Cataclysm<\/em> expansion came out, but I doubt I logged in more than a couple of times before the update from 3.3.5. Honestly, I found the game a bit slow and tedious, although I liked the story and a lot of the gameplay elements. The most enduring thing I discovered (other than a love for WoW lore and music) was that my favorite class, although technically never my main, was Warlock. I never really played far enough into the game to develop a specialization preference…my Warlock kind of ground to a halt going through Burning Crusade<\/em>, so I created a Human Warrior named Chayarcy. Chayarcy would become my what-most-people-call-their “main”. Chayarcy would make it to Burning Crusade<\/em> and on to Northrend, and somewhere in here is when Mists of Pandaria<\/em> came out. I couldn’t tell you what all went into the mechanics changes, but I know they changed, and my level 80-ish Protection Warrior started dominating.<\/p>\n

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I never grouped, so when I reached the end of what I could do solo in Mists<\/em>, I dabbled in learning professions finally, and looking into collectibles…grinding mounts and such. I also started leveling alts so I could explore all the content available. It was during this era that I learned that the *rhythm* of World of Warcraft<\/em> sat in just the right place in my mind…it was comfortable. All of this extra stuff, that was the REAL game to me. Sure, I went back and soloed earlier End-Game content just to see the story parts, but I really didn’t care about BEING at the current End-Game. I also changed my Troll Warlock to a Shadow Priest, then transferred her to a different server…although I don’t remember why, honestly. Had to change her name, too; her original name was already taken on the new server. This was also when I developed the love for my favorite faction: The Forsaken. This came about from a blogging project, actually. I had given up my WoW subscription during a period of lean money. When they released Free Play to level 20, I started a blog series creating a new character for EVERY RACE, EVERY CLASS, and EVERY SPECIALIZATION. EVERY COMBINATION.<\/p>\n

I didn’t finish. I think I did around twenty – thirty? Anyway, the important part is that I got a lot of good characters from that experiment to keep in my pocket. The best one was a Forsaken Destruction Warlock named Cinderlynn (see what I did there?):<\/p>\n

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That’s the current incarnation of Cinderlynn. “Current” because, as I said, I just “went back” to World of Warcraft<\/em>. I had previously made the decision to forgo all MMORPGs as a danger to my mental health…AFTER testing whether this was the right decision I thought it was. After a long period of inactivity, I loaded up every MMORPG I had played and tried them out. Some of them, such as WoW, hadn’t been played in so long that I was immediately confronted with having to rebuild the characters because of game updates and free gifts…and so I just deleted everything. WoW, in particular, I knew had added a new starting area as part of the revamps for Battle for Azeroth <\/em>and Shadowlands<\/em>. I tried a few characters in the new starting area, then after a few weeks and no desire to return, I deleted those characters, recreated them in the classic starting zones, and tried leveling. Once again, after a few weeks, I quit. Deleted all my characters, deleted the game (again), and moved on from playing MMORPGs.<\/p>\n

But my recent bouts with Mental Health have led me back, feeling like I’m in a much better place…and actually WANTING to play. Specifically, World of Warcraft<\/em>. I did a little research before I re-installed the game (again), and watched a few videos about how “time-walking” works now. “Time-walking, ” under various names, has actually been a part of World of Warcraft<\/em> for years, but part of the revamped leveling experience has made time-walking an important (optional) component of the game. For those who don’t know, WoW leveling originally worked like this:<\/p>\n

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  1. Original Game release: 1-60<\/li>\n
  2. Burning Crusade<\/em>: 60-70<\/li>\n
  3. Wrath of the Lich King<\/em>: 70-80<\/li>\n
  4. Cataclysm<\/em>: 80-85<\/li>\n
  5. Mists of Pandaria<\/em>: 85-90<\/li>\n
  6. Warlords of Draenor<\/em>: 90-100<\/li>\n
  7. Legion<\/em>: 100-110<\/li>\n
  8. Battle for Azeroth<\/em>: 110-120<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For Shadowlands<\/em>, the expansion that followed Battle for Azeroth<\/em>, Blizzard introduced a level squish: if you were a level 120 character that had completed Battle for Azeroth<\/em>, you were reduced to level 50, then leveled to 60 over the course of Shadowlands<\/em>. As far as I understand it currently, if you create a NEW character at this point, you level from 1-60 in any of the 1-8 listed above, or Shadowlands<\/em>, and once you hit 60 (technically, as soon as level 48) You can go to the newest expansion, Dragonflight<\/em>. I’ll be sure to update everyone once I get there…right now I’m still playing around in the free level 1-20 grind.<\/p>\n

    Generally speaking, at least for me, you level your character to ten in whatever manner you wish. This doesn’t take long. At level ten, travel to the Alliance capital city of Stormwind or the Horde’s capital city of Orgrimmar; whichever is appropriate. Find Chromie, the gnome avatar of Chronormu, Emissary from the Bronze Dragonflight (the dragons that do time-related stuff):<\/p>\n

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    She will be sitting on a large hourglass. Talk to her and, basically, switch to whichever expansion you want to level in. You’ll be given the quest that kicks off that expansion…depending on the expansion travel requirements, you’ll be asked if you want all current quests in your quest log removed first. Then you follow the quest prompts and level from 10-60 in whichever expansion you want. I currently have Cinderlynn in Hellfire Peninsula in Outland, doing Burning Crusade<\/em> content. Well, technically, I hit level twenty on the free account, and so I’m setting up alts in the free account before I try subscribing again. At this moment, I actually have a Draenei Arms Warrior in Northrend, doing Wrath of the Lich King<\/em> leveling. I *intended* to re-create my former main, Chayarcy…but in tapping through character creation the auto-generation gave me a Draenei design that was irresistible. She is at level 17, so as soon as I ding 20 I’ll move on to creating a new alt…I’ve always had bad luck with Worgen, despite the Gilnean’s being one of my favorite factions. I’ve also never had a good Rogue, so maybe I can throw all the bad luck into one pot.<\/p>\n

    I’m feeling lucky. And happy…watching Star Trek<\/em> and playing WoW now that I’m enjoying it again has done a lot for my happiness and contentment. It *IS* important to point out, at this juncture, that a major design element of all successful MMORPG’s is triggering a regular release of dopamine. Literally, creating an addiction to playing the game. However, keep in mind this is also the same mechanism that creates the feeling of *ENJOYING* playing a game in general. If you have an addictive personality, and I do, you should certainly try to keep one detached eye on your behavior. Keep your time in-game limited and make sure you have some kind of outside reality check. Family members that can provide input on your behavior and notes that help you keep track of what is most important are good steps. I’ve only reached a harmful level of video game addiction once; for me this was paying money into a popular free-to-play MOBA-like game. It’s always better to recognize this before it gets started, rather than regretting the decisions you’ve made when you’re in the middle of it. Understanding your own behavior and questioning your decisions to make sure you understand why you chose to do what you did is, to me, the most fundamental part of managing your mental health and relationships.<\/p>\n

    Back on happy thoughts, this all brought up another content idea to float…there’s been some interest in the Arkham Asylum<\/em> longplay, and of course I mentioned re-visiting some of the other Batman games, as well as getting started on something like Dragon Quest<\/em> from the beginning. But playing WoW reminded me of Shamus’ series of articles commenting on that time he played World of Warcraft:<\/em> The adventures of THE MIGHTY DEATHBRINGER-ER and his summoned Imp. The series was originally published at The Escapist in 2011, and on Twenty Sided<\/a> in 2016. The game is…very different now, in many ways; although it’s best if you ignore that most of those starting quests Shamus did in this partial play-through are STILL part of the original human starting zone. So it occurs to me maybe that would be a lot of fun…start a new WoW character purely for the narrative content for Twenty Sided readers.<\/p>\n

    Anybody have thoughts or suggestions? I’m actually, for the first time ever, considering finding a guild to join…purely to FINALLY get my heirloom equipment. Yes…I’ve been playing the game off and on, including End-Game-ish content repeatedly, since 2010 and have NEVER obtained heirlooms. It’s easier than ever now, except some of it is still locked in the guild hall.<\/p>\n

    So let me know what y’all think about all this. And remember: Dark Lady Watch Over You.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We’ve done a lot of talking this week about mental health. I’m pretty sure everyone who contributes here has issues they can share and talk about, and thankfully we live in an era where that’s the norm instead of something unusual. I’ve been working on my own problems for a few years now, ever since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paige-writes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56172"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56229,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56172\/revisions\/56229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}