Digital Tales

I'm constantly asked what my favourite game of all time is. I think about it for a bit, memories of Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII and the like swirling in my head. But I always come back to World of Warcraft. And it's because of things like this that it is, and probably always will be, my favourite game of all time.

I'm an ex-addict. Now I can dip in and out casually, but for a while, well, for most of 2005, I was addicted. I quit my job, scrounged off my girlfriend and lived off my overdraft and credit card. I stopped washing, stopped eating and generally stopped living in the real world. Azeroth, my in-game friends, my guild (Double Dragon), my level 60 priest Wyp and daily 40-man raids were all I could think about, day and night. But I didn't have it bad. Oh no. My Irish mate George (not his real name - he'd kill me!) had it bad. He had it real bad.

He already had a few level 60 characters by the time I went to visit him at his house in Dublin. I've known George for years, he's one of my best mates. He's a proper hardcore gamer - lives and breathes games. He got the WoW bug hard. I thought I was bad - bringing the WoW strategy guide with me to read on the plane as I left London for Dublin - but he was worse.

Anyway, I'm staying at his house - we're playing WoW in his (tiny) room. Me, with my laptop leeching off his internet connection, him, with his PC, monitor, mouse and keyboard. Let me explain a little about George's room.

Tiny isn't the word. Cupboard would be better. One single bunk bed, a wardrobe, filth everywhere, crap dripping off of the walls, that sort of thing. George used a deck chair instead of a desk chair to sit in front of his PC. He used a pillow to lay the keyboard on his lap, laid the mouse on top of the PC tower and had a headset held together with masking tape. Have I mentioned the poking stick? George would use it (a gold club) to switch the light on and off in his room from his seating position in the deck chair. With the curtains closed, we would spend whole weeks holed up in that room, playing games, living off of take away curry, bottles of Pepsi and packets of crisps. Ahh how I miss it.

So, at the height of our WoW addiction, I visit George. It's late, about four in the morning or something. George has been sitting in the deck chair playing WoW for about 40 hours straight I'd say. I was beginning to wonder when he would need to go to the toilet but quickly dozed off on the top bunk. Then, after what could only have been a few hours sleep, George woke me up. And I couldn't believe what I saw.

George's foot had swelled up. It was like a balloon - and reminded me of that scene in wicked 80s Kurt Russell film Big Trouble in Little China where the last of the Three Storms kills himself by blowing himself up. It looked sick - all veiny and throbbing. George was genuinely concerned. I was still half a sleep, and muttered something about him crunching his toes, like you're told to do on long flights. I said: "You might have deep vein thrombosis or something because you've been in that deck chair too long." I told him to go to bed, lie down and try to relax.

George didn't relax. I didn't blame him. Secretly I thought his leg might go all rotten and we'd have to amputate with the golf club. He said he was getting pain all over his body. But then I just sort of fell asleep, whispering my best wishes and hoping he would make it through the night.

I woke at some ridiculous time in the afternoon. George hadn't slept. His foot had gone down a bit, but it was still pretty bad. He told me he had been pacing up and down the room all night to try and get the blood flowing. I said that probably saved his life. I told him he should probably give WoW break for a bit. We ventured downstairs, to the kitchen, made some breakfast, then returned to WoW. He slumped in his deck chair, turned the light off with his poking stick, put on his head set and logged on. We never spoke of his foot again.

Have you got any Digital Tales from World of Warcraft? Let us know in the comments section below.