Tuesday’s Takes: The Boredom Busters

Have you ever reached that point where slaying the Big Named Dragon for the

quadrillionth time simply isn’t enough to hold your interest? How about the moment when you realize that you don’t really want to join a group and gain experience by smacking around some little rat-like people, some faeries, some ugly green things, or some evil crime bosses? Did you ever log in to an online world and decide that you’d rather not do the same thing, again? There’s a line that exists in any environment, between from comfortable routine to interminable boredom. When that line is finally crossed, it’s time to call in the Boredom Busters!

Who are the Boredom Busters? That’s for the Busters to know and the rest of us to find out, or, to use every cliché in the book (what book?), if they told you they would have to kill you. Still, despite their super-duper secret identities, the Busters have been kind enough to help answer the age-old question: “What can I do to prevent the overwhelming feeling of needing toothpicks to keep my eyes open?”

There are no less than three types of circumstances where routine can become boredom. Thankfully, there are simple and creative solutions for all of these situations. Boredom Busters would like to take a moment to remind you, however, that they are not the Martha Stewarts of the MMORPG world: not every solution will be tailored to fit your yawn-inducing rut perfectly.

The first level of boredom is Battle Fatigue: this type of boredom is perhaps the easiest to fix. You’ve been hunting in the same area for days? Ask around, find somewhere new to hunt. Changing your location just isn’t going to help, you say: your arms hurt from swinging that great sword for six hours a night, even if, in reality, you’re simply clicking the mouse. Well, have you tried crafting? There’s nothing to revitalize the average Barbarian warrior like baking a tasty pie or sewing some comfortable robes.

If these suggestions still aren’t quite your speed, have you talked to your guild leaders about organizing a social event in a city zone or some organized contest for members of your guild? Brew some beer, gather a bard or two for entertainment, and hold an Oktoberfest in the fields outside of Qeynos. Help your fellow guild members finish all sorts of little quests, or get started on an epic-scale quest that you’ve been meaning to begin for a while. Are you living on Rubi-Ka? Have a Babyface Shower, where you ask attendees to bring along every kind of bought or dropped item a Babyface might need: the most creative gift gets a prize, and the items are randomly redistributed to the attendees.

When I was the co-leader of a guild, I organized a scavenger hunt. I took one of my lowest-level characters and I killed her in creative ways all over Norrath. I left one semi-precious object on each corpse, and then I gave clues to guild members who raced off to find Search’s corpses. The first person to reach each poor, mutilated body shouted out their name, their zone, and the corpse location in guildchat and I gave consent, which, at the time, allowed the lucky individual to loot the corpse.

The second, and slightly more serious, level of boredom is Character Burnout. The Boredom Busters understand that Character Burnout can happen, particularly when realms exist where classes are unbalanced, or become unbalanced after significant changes. Also, if Battle Fatigue isn’t countered, Character Burnout becomes far more likely. So, what do the Boredom Busters recommend to combat Character Burnout? Most obvious, one would hope, is a change of character. No, this does not require surgery, reprogramming, or a tedious wait for GM assistance. It does require the creative use of one of your other character slots, however.

If you presently play an ogre warrior, why not try a gnome wizard? Don’t like caster classes, you say? Just try it for a few levels, you’ll either surprise yourself or you’ll find that you have become more appreciative of the positive traits of your main character. The point is to move as far away from your familiar skills and abilities as possible. I’ve recently gone back to playing EverQuest 2, and while my High-Elf Templar currently languishes at level 60, I’ve become thoroughly absorbed in a Shadowknight, growing out of her little baby Ratonga teeth at level 15.

The Boredom Busters believe in being outlandish and flamboyant! If you’re a strict, play-by-the-naming-rules conformist, push the envelope and try a cute name, or a name with more than one meaning, particularly in conjunction with any future surname. My cleric in the original EverQuest is Find: Find A`Helar. A`Helar, of course, was an old family name, one passed down from mother to daughter over many generations. At least, that’s how I role-played my Dark Elf healer, who carried an evil legacy and good intentions.

If you’ve reached the third level of boredom, you may have discovered Possibility Exhaustion. You might be diagnosed with Possibility Exhaustion if you have accomplished your most important goals, reached your maximum level, or attained items and experience to the point that you no longer have a reason to spend hours at a time in-game. It is more likely that you might reach Possibility Exhaustion if you haven’t treated your Battle Fatigue or your Character Burnout appropriately.

It’s harder for the Boredom Busters to recommend any solutions to Possibility Exhaustion, but more radical problems may call for more radical treatments. It is recommended that you log in, occasionally, just to talk to your friends, or, even better, set up contests or giveaways to assist lower-level characters. Think of it as MMORPG philanthropy. Make new friends: start up new characters or sit in newbie areas to offer advice. Don’t forget where you came from, though. Play your main character, but give him or her new purpose. Are they choosing to help others? Are they choosing to help only those of certain alignments?

The very heart, the basis of any boredom solution, at least according to the Boredom Busters, is a simple phrase: Remember to have fun. Sometimes, when I lose sight of this axiom, I remind myself of a very simple pastime that I enjoyed with my friends and guild-mates in EverQuest: limericks. Yes, the little poems of no particular importance, limericks. The limericks, as they evolved, went something like this:

There once was a gnomeling named Nikki
Who had a knack for situations sticky.
She went swimming in Kedge Keep,
But somehow forgot to breathe:
Poor gnome, she expired so quickly!
Or this:

There once was a lively young bard
Who found following others too hard.
Poor Lyra lost sight,
And invis in mid-flight
Her rapid descent was unmarred.

The Boredom Busters may offer up many possibilities, but my advice is to keep a limerick in your emergency boredom preparedness kit!