Tweet
I've been thinking alot about tradeskilling and sex lately. If you check my Google you won't find anything terribly scandalous except a quote by Moliere, the French writer and thinker, that said:
“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”
Were Moliere alive today and playing Everquest I am almost morally certain that he would have said the same about tradeskilling.
The line becomes so blurred sometimes between them it can be difficult to determine where we are speaking of one and not of the other.
Think of your first time, the giddy high of success or the ease of finding what you need. The simplicity of making things work, providing pleasure to others, no strain or hassle, a quick combination and even if you fizzle you can do it again and again till you get what you need.
After some time you find you've reached a certain level of competency. Your needs become more complex to achieve the desired outcome. perhaps you need the help of a different partner (or in certain cases, multiple partners at the same time though it rarely requires a raid force these days). New thresholds are harder to achieve and now it seems like it has become less about enjoyment and almost like work. You spend time on the internet and in clandestine forums talking about secret techniques and forbidden places that only the desperate go. You mention devices, masks, belts, geerloks, potions and creams to make your skills more potent. You become despondent one day when you fizzle 10 times in a row, lamenting for the old days when you could combine all day till your finger hurt and your mouse was broken. People seek you out for your special skills and are sometimes even willing to pay for them. (You accept it, sometimes grudgingly, but after all you have children to feed, alts to twink and acrylia to buy.) You become a tragic, quixotic and misunderstood creature like a stripper or a really hot nun. People call you things like Honey or Master Baker or Whore.
Finally you become jaded by the whole prospect. You swear off the entire concept. I'll never do that again! I've done my last combine! You withdraw from the whole scene, you get rid of the internet bookmarks, you disassociate yourself with those that drew you into this addiction, this intaglio of lies and half-truths. You go about your day job, back to work, back to the grind, back to being a paladin, a paralegal, a paramedic, an enchanter, an accountant.
For a week you are strong. "Look ma! Over a week and not one combine, you can check my logs!" But late one night you get a booty call. Just once for old times sake, just a quick one...I'll even come to you. All you needed was an excuse and, for your sins, now you've got one. And when you fall, this time you fall all the way.
Your addiction burns. Its no longer even about skilling up or titles its just the addiction feeding on itself. Its an empty high but a high nonetheless. So one night you leave the safety of the guildhall (stealing the last gems from the guild bank) and slink through the mean streets of PoK to that glory-hole of a zone....the Bazaar. Now your wares are on sale for everyone to see. The Bazaar is nothing but filthy lucre, tantilizing offers, bizarre trades and people hiding behind fake names to entice you to ply your trade for them. Now and then you leave this 24 hour sin-fest and when you do you are sticky, broke and confused (but certain that you have found a new home).
I've resigned myself to the fact that now and then I'll need to combine but I try to make sure that its on my own terms and that I truly need the combine. Like a retired whore that has turned madam I leave the farming, the plying, the dirty work to the youngsters. I take a little of their earnings and in return teach them a trick or two. When the /tells come late at night and I am sitting by the keyboard I ignore them (for the most part).
But I look back with a certain nostalgia on those whose lives I've touched, even for a moment and wonder if they remember when we stood in the shadows behind the library, briefly grouped then combined....
“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”
Were Moliere alive today and playing Everquest I am almost morally certain that he would have said the same about tradeskilling.
The line becomes so blurred sometimes between them it can be difficult to determine where we are speaking of one and not of the other.
Think of your first time, the giddy high of success or the ease of finding what you need. The simplicity of making things work, providing pleasure to others, no strain or hassle, a quick combination and even if you fizzle you can do it again and again till you get what you need.
After some time you find you've reached a certain level of competency. Your needs become more complex to achieve the desired outcome. perhaps you need the help of a different partner (or in certain cases, multiple partners at the same time though it rarely requires a raid force these days). New thresholds are harder to achieve and now it seems like it has become less about enjoyment and almost like work. You spend time on the internet and in clandestine forums talking about secret techniques and forbidden places that only the desperate go. You mention devices, masks, belts, geerloks, potions and creams to make your skills more potent. You become despondent one day when you fizzle 10 times in a row, lamenting for the old days when you could combine all day till your finger hurt and your mouse was broken. People seek you out for your special skills and are sometimes even willing to pay for them. (You accept it, sometimes grudgingly, but after all you have children to feed, alts to twink and acrylia to buy.) You become a tragic, quixotic and misunderstood creature like a stripper or a really hot nun. People call you things like Honey or Master Baker or Whore.
Finally you become jaded by the whole prospect. You swear off the entire concept. I'll never do that again! I've done my last combine! You withdraw from the whole scene, you get rid of the internet bookmarks, you disassociate yourself with those that drew you into this addiction, this intaglio of lies and half-truths. You go about your day job, back to work, back to the grind, back to being a paladin, a paralegal, a paramedic, an enchanter, an accountant.
For a week you are strong. "Look ma! Over a week and not one combine, you can check my logs!" But late one night you get a booty call. Just once for old times sake, just a quick one...I'll even come to you. All you needed was an excuse and, for your sins, now you've got one. And when you fall, this time you fall all the way.
Your addiction burns. Its no longer even about skilling up or titles its just the addiction feeding on itself. Its an empty high but a high nonetheless. So one night you leave the safety of the guildhall (stealing the last gems from the guild bank) and slink through the mean streets of PoK to that glory-hole of a zone....the Bazaar. Now your wares are on sale for everyone to see. The Bazaar is nothing but filthy lucre, tantilizing offers, bizarre trades and people hiding behind fake names to entice you to ply your trade for them. Now and then you leave this 24 hour sin-fest and when you do you are sticky, broke and confused (but certain that you have found a new home).
I've resigned myself to the fact that now and then I'll need to combine but I try to make sure that its on my own terms and that I truly need the combine. Like a retired whore that has turned madam I leave the farming, the plying, the dirty work to the youngsters. I take a little of their earnings and in return teach them a trick or two. When the /tells come late at night and I am sitting by the keyboard I ignore them (for the most part).
But I look back with a certain nostalgia on those whose lives I've touched, even for a moment and wonder if they remember when we stood in the shadows behind the library, briefly grouped then combined....
Comment