Who Am I?

Describing yourself when talking about games can be a little tricky. MMO players have many aspects. For instance, do you talk about who you are in real life? Or do you talk about the games you play? Perhaps you identify yourself by naming the avatars you play. Or maybe you describe yourself by describing your playstyle. All of the above put together makes up today’s gamers.

So who am I? In real life, I’m a guy in my mid-40s named Tom who lives in the suburbs of Chicago. I served in the Army a lifetime ago and used the benefits to get through college. Unlike the stereotypes of gamers, I own my own home and play on the second floor instead of in the basement I don’t have. But like a lot of gamers, I’m a bit of a computer geek and work in a computer-related field. Unlike a lot of gamers (and all the characters in EQ2) though, I can dance. Well, I am a bit rusty, and I can only dance to country music, but I can dance.

If talking about the games I play, I’m a pretty monogamous gamer. When I played World of Warcraft, that was the only game I played. Over the last 2 ½ years I’ve played EverQuest II, I’ve only dabbled in a couple of games. I’ve stepped into the free trial of Vanguard and reached level 8 as a ranger and made it up to level 12 as a shadow warrior in Warhammer Online. But I love EQ2.

If you wanted to find me in EQ2 who am I? In the game I’m usually called Rose, after my main, a max level wood elf ranger/master alchemist/transmuter named Rosemarie. For those of you who do not play EQ2, that means she is a level 80 ranger, level 80 alchemist who has completed the epic crafting quest, and has a skill level of 400 (unmodified) as a transmuter. I also have a female gnome necromancer/sage/tinkerer I wander about on named Fallenrose. I don’t just play female characters. I spend a lot of time on Yonger, a male wood elf level 80 master woodworker. I’m usually at the woodworking station outside the bank in North Qeynos making ammunition and totems for sale and have been known to make the occasional AA mirror, mannequin, and bow. In total, I play 8 toons, 4 of whom are master craftsmen. I hope to have the other 4 up there before the next expansion comes out.

Another way to label gamers in MMOs is by their play style. Gamers often describe themselves as “hard core” or “raiders”. I guess you can call me a semi-hard core crafter/soloist. I adventure way too much to be a seriously hard core crafter and I just don’t go looking for groups, much less raids. It isn’t that I hate groups, but I always seem to need to make one or two more items to sell to put in my sales crates.

And now, to make the picture complete, I'm now also a blogger.