New Year's Eve is always a bit of a weird day for me because I kind of grew up with the expectation that you should go out and party or otherwise celebrate it in some fashion, but in practice I've never been able to develop any kind of tradition as for what to do. Some years I go out and do something social, others I stay home and do nothing. This year was an example of the latter, though I happened to be logged into SWTOR when the clock ticked over.
Admittedly I wasn't paying a lot of attention as I was alt-tabbing in and out of the game, throwing snowballs at people for my last couple of parcels for the achievement, until I got bored and needed a break. When the clock approached midnight however, I noticed that it got quite busy in the GTN area of the fleet.
Mind you, it had already been busy there for a while, with people using the terminals of course, but also players just loitering to throw snowballs at each other (like me). However, as the clock approached midnight, the crowd started to come alive, with party bombs being thrown around and fireworks being set off over and over again. It felt very cheerful and made me smile.
There is a strange juxtaposition between people spending a special occasion at their computers, presumably somewhat isolated, and all those players then coming together in an MMO and having a big party. But why not, I say? It's still social, just in a different way, and the language of party bombs and virtual snowflakes is probably a lot easier to handle than having to make small talk with the friend of a friend at a real life party.
I suppose this is a bit of a "to each their own"-situation. My new years eve was spent at a concert, and fireworks afterwards, downtown Lisbon. Had I not gone there, I likely would have been there with the rest of you, perhaps not all the way until midnight, but at least a good way there. (there's nothing like the countdown on TV, and the subsequent TV images of the fireworks)
ReplyDeleteStill I do agree. Just because you're not interacting face to face doesn't mean your a-social when spending your time online. This is especially true in SWTOR, which from what I have heard in the past tends to be towards the more positive side of the social spectrum in the MMO genre. My own experience in MMOs is limited to SWTOR, STO and the early levels of Neverwinter and LotRO.