MBP tagged me for another meme thingy, this one to post the sixth screenshot of any game of my choosing.
I take a lot of screenshots in any game I play. I suspect it’s the camera buff in me. I’m aware that at some point the game will go away (either I’ll leave or the game will shut down) and all that will be left are my screenshots of the people I met, the places I’ve explored and the adventures I had.
I printed a screenshot I took in City of Heroes back when I was playing it (I was trying out a new color printer and wanted to see what it could really do). The shot was of a friend and me standing on the roof of a building high above Paragon City overlooking the statue of Atlas in the courtyard. We had just gotten our travel powers (super jump for me and teleport for her) and we were excited to see the world from a perspective which had been previously unavailable to us.
On a recent return to City of Heroes, I visited the same building and leapt across rooftops just to take in the views. My character had changed since the screenshot – I’m a lot more glowy now and my outfits include capes instead of the simple ensemble I used to wear. More importantly, my friend is gone. Gone to where, I do not know. Given what she was like when I knew her, it’s likely she’s playing another game. My other friends in CoH are all gone too. I remember our supergroup outings to crush Clockwork or the Fifth Column goons. I still have the screenshots of when we formed our supergroup (a shot of us standing around the registrar all doing the /newspaper emote). We were quite the crew. Time and changes in gaming interests pulled us apart. On my return, I noticed they weren’t around anymore – but I still have my screenshots.
In the ephemeral world of MMOs, screenshots are a way to pretend that something which doesn’t exist, in-fact never really existed, is in some way real. They help maintain the illusion of the worlds we inhabit and our place in it. Though these digital worlds move on and my online friends fade as they discard one digital shell to, perhaps, pick up another shell in another world, I still have my screenshots of the way things used to be.
(Screenshot and further blathering below the fold.)
Fighting Drakes in the Rift
Anyway, without further ado, here’s my screenshot. It’s a picture of my kinship and I taking down the dragons before one of the bosses in the Rift. My wee hobbit burg has his Rift chest and legs on and is wielding a mace and dagger. Since the fight is ranged at this point, my only job is to round up any drakes that are attacking the minstrels (the drakes appear to be dead already).
