Explorer Archetype

Stupid noobs can't even spell noobs

Mrs Bhagpuss and I are just back from yet another trip to Spain. Spain and France, in fact, since we flew to Bordeaux and drove down into Northern Spain through Aquitaine, the flattest place I have ever seen.

We did a lot of driving, as we always do. Well, I did a lot of driving and Mrs Bhagpuss did a lot of looking out the window. Sometimes when we go traveling we don't talk about gaming at all, but this time it came up quite a lot. After more than a decade of MMOs it seems we're still both pretty keen on them, still ready for more.

That's gnomish technology or I'm a dutchman

We observed once again how blurred the line is between what we do in MMOs and "real" life. When we go away we find it very hard to go to one place and stay there. We're always moving on, looking to see what's over the next hill, what the next town has to show us. It's quite astonishing how radically landscape and environment can change in just a few miles, a few minutes. Almost as though you crossed a zone line.

Three hour quest to find this place half an hour from where we started

Then there are the repeatable quests. We don't kill ten goats (although when you're stuck behind a herd of them meandering along the road for half an hour it's a quest you might willingly accept) but since we rarely book any accommodation in advance every day ends in a quest to find somewhere to stay. Occasionally that turns into an epic.

We see plenty of evidence of non-human races, too.

There's trolls in them thar hills

Parts of Aquitaine were clearly settled by halflings although the endless forests suggest the continuing, elusive presence of elves.

Who might live in a castle like this?

And then there are the castles. So many castles.







I subscribe strongly to the philosophy that we only have one life and all of it is real. I try not to differentiate qualitatively between virtual and physical experiences. In the end, they all happen inside my head. If I had the time and the resources to travel all the time, I'd travel all the time. Wait a moment...that's what I do!