The following is a blog post I originally wrote on March 15th, 2006 while working at an MMORPG game development company. I thought you might enjoy the story behind how Pinkeytoes became a PC gaming goddess. (Please excuse the amateur writing/formatting/typos. I'd like to think my writing has improved over the years.)
How did the dread of returning a $50 game turn into the building of a $800 gaming rig for my wife?
Read on to find out.
So I got all excited wanting to play Dungeons & Dragons Online with some of the other employees here. I went online and pre-ordered it so that I could play with them during the head start period. The funny part about that night was by the time i was up and running to play everyone else had gome home. One reason for the pre-order other than getting to play 5 days earlier than others was to get the “Necklace of Natural Armor”. Eventually my head-start ran out and I still hadn’t received my game in the mail. I was dying. I needed to play. Then I heard the special edition of the game gave you “Boots of Running”! Well I called around and drove 1/2 hour to Fry’s to get my special edition. “I’ll just send the EB Games one back.” I thought and proceeded to play (with my boots of running which by the way combined with my elf barbarian’s 10% class speed boost and with her barbarian speed feat, well, she runs freaking fast!). A few days went by. The thought of sending the unopened EBGames.com package and figuring out how the refund will work was nagging in the back of my mind. I even made a half-hearted attempt to look up the return policy on their site. I was not too jazzed about actually having to deal with it, (I’ve got a rough life don’t I!). Well on the way home from work the thought occured to me, “Why send it back when instead I could help my wife build her own gaming PC and we could play DDO together?” Selfish? Maybe just a bit, but she loves games as much as I do.
The Tram Rats Podcast - A Couple's Adventures In World of Warcraft.
