This Is My Brain On Leveling

My name is Narraptor and I am a level addict. I have a myriad of vices, but in terms of hours logged and opportunities for social interaction wasted, I've spent more time sitting in front of a computer screen playing with myself than sitting in front of computer playing with myself.

The last 20 years are lost in a haze of disposable party members and experience points, 50+ hour orgies of monsters dying that invariably ended in hasty anti-climaxes, abrupt conclusions always leaving me craving that next fix. I can't remember exactly how it started, but my sponsor Wikipedia helped me piece together a likely progression of events.

Although I was first exposed to leveling in Telengard, given the randomness of the encounters and the lack of a quicksave, the concept that there were character levels and attribute improvements waiting beyond level one never connected until years later. I vaguely recall that my interest in the Advanced Heroquest board game, a curiosity eagerly encouraged by overly-permissive family members and elementary school enablers, lead me to my first epiphany that characters could improve as a result of their exploits, as opposed to just bumping their heads on platforms, robots, light fixtures, or falling down holes. But it was probably my impulse purchase of the D&D Basic Box set that started my addiction.

(Impulse purchase, indeed. Games Workshop and Waldenbooks knew what they were doing, with the former's cheap, entry-level plastic minis and the latter's fantasy sections filled with stories about Angst Elves who no one understood but their magical cat familiar and trusty scimitars...and maybe their best friend's girlfriend, who might realize one day that the guy who she goes to with all her problems is really the man for her.)

Might and Magic III, Ultima VI, Eye of the Beholder, and Bane of the Cosmic Forge--I played them all in a two-year period, xp'ing out on weekends and school vacations while listening to the best of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. I was so high on level advancement that Peter Cetera seemed cool, and probably was compared to me. I not only played through several Gold Box games, I played silver box games like Hillsfar. I struggled through the broken Worlds of Ultima, the bugs of Space 1889, and Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace just to get a fix.

Of course, with prolonged abuse came greater tolerance. After high school I needed a more potent product, and I found it in Fallout and its sequel, Planescape, and Baldur's Gate II. So many party members! So many opportunities for micro-management! So much leveling! I did dozens of "one more turns", collecting every resource and throwaway magic item and all the gold xp Heroes of Might and Magic II and III had to offer, even when my level cap was met. What started as an addiction became certifiable OCD--Obsessive Completist Disorder. I found myself psychologically incapable of completing a game without clearing every zone of fog of war, calculating maximum experience points and skill bonuses for greater leveling efficiency, and completing every side quest.

Thanks to the crackdown of the Console Enforcement Agency, the hardcore RPG is a thing of the past. Whether imported or grown domestically, the product available is either embarrassingly incomplete or cut with real-time combat. I've tried permutations of the genre, but because of OCD, I can't enjoy them. Leveling is just a $14 a month prelude to actual content in World of Warcraft. The character options in Fire Emblem and Disgaea are so close to infinite that leveling would be rendered meaningless even if the reward wasn't to click through a thousand ellipses. And as much as I've tried to have "fun" playing Oblivion, it's the first game I've ever played where character advancement is punished.

I am Narraptor, and this is my brain on leveling.