I'm baaaaaaack!
Well, sort of. I'm back on a Scroll of Resurrection trying to rekindle an old flame, and I must say... so far so good!
World of Warcraft holds a lot of memories for me. Some of them epic, some fail, some even beyond words, but all of them fond and somehow priceless. Coming back to this game now after quitting just over 2 years ago feels a bit like returning to my high school after college, or my home town after living out of state for years. It's nostalgic and emotional and altogether wonderful... at least to start.
There's a saying my crazy uncle Bill was always fond of, and it goes "You can never go home again". And it implies that 'home' is not a place but instead is a place in time. We all know that no matter how much we may wish it, we can never go back to the old days. We can never revisit our youth or rewind the clocks to a happy time and relive it.
But is WoW different?
Possibly. If you love the characters, if you love the story, if you love your toon in a way that isn't exactly conducive to well adjusted behavior, then WoW is a home that remains EXACTLY how you leave it. Sure some new stuff has happened, some now places have popped up out of the nether, and yeah, the old vanilla content was revamped 3 years ago and is not what it once was. But, much like a strip mall that popped up in your home town where you used to ride bikes with friends, you're able to ignore it and focus on all the things that remain unchanged from how you remember them.
It's an amazing thing, being able to go home again. And I highly recommend it to all.
However. (There's always a but)
As great as it is to find my toon where I left him, unchanged by time... there truly is something missing. The same thing that is missing from the places of our past when we revisit them years later. The thing that makes our memories special, memorable, and yea even real.
That thing is people. (My head shrinker would have a field day with this sentence.)
The people I forged bonds with, friendships with, relationships with, they are all gone. They've moved on, they've grown, they've changed, pretty much all the crappy things time forces people from our pasts to do. And there is no undoing it.
So, ok, thank you crazy uncle Bill, you were right. You can NEVER go home again. Even in a virtual reality. But you can revisit, and you can remember, and you can, if you're lucky, find someone to go back with you. And that is still a wonderful thing... and always will be.
