Dungeons and mouse-draggin'

Hardcore gamers have trouble unplugging selves from medieval Matrix

By Andrew Kiraly

From up here, the view of Kalimdor is pretty damn breathtaking. Rugged, tree-dotted mountains open to sweeping valleys that host streams and sprawling grasslands. The idyllic countryside soon gives way to the Barrens, a forbidding heath of dun desert peaks. Astride a wyvern--imagine a leopard with wings, the public transport of this magical land--we're on our way to the Wailing Caverns, where we'll venture into its creepy subterranean maze and, hopefully, complete our quest of killing off members of an evil cult.

Of course, we're not really there at all. We're in the cramped bedroom of B.J. Kourik, hemmed in front of his computer desk by a bed and a baby crib complete with cooing infant. We're staring into his computer monitor--with a concentration usually required of final exams and figuring out taxes--where the story unfolds.

On the screen, the half-man, half-bull creature named Sphinktor--Kourik's alter ego in this painstakingly detailed alternate universe--dismounts the wyvern and scratches his head.

"All right. Let's go on a quest," Kourik says, and Sphinktor is off to the Wailing Caverns.

B.J. Kourik, 35, leads two lives. By day, he's an electrician, married father of two beautiful daughters, all-around nice guy. But on nights and weekends, Kourik becomes Sphinktor, a 28th level Tauren hunter. Sphinktor is a snorting, barrel-muscled brute, a Minotaur-like monster with arms thick as tree trunks and cloven feet that thunder the ground when he walks. In his right hand, he wields a Decapitating Sword of the Monkey--a serrated ass-kicker used to chop up virtual baddies--and a nasty-looking hand-axe in his left. For those harder-to-reach foes, Sphinktor can also deploy his blunderbuss, a BKP 2700 Enforcer, and even his pet wind serpent named WLB2 (stands for "Whiny Little Bitch 2").

Sphinktor is a hero. Kourik is a guy in jeans, sweatshirt and socks.

Sphinktor requires such a lengthy introduction because he's almost as much a part of Kourik's family as his 8-month-old daughter Katrina or his wife. Technically, Sphinktor is Kourik's character in the recently released online role-playing game World of Warcraft, but he's much more than that. He's Kourik's alter ego, his friend, repository of his sword-and-sorcery fantasies. Kourik spends more than 25 hours a week as Sphinktor in World of Warcraft, slaying dragons and evil sorcerers with a one-two punch delivered by "immolation bombs" and swipes from his Decapitating Sword.

"This game is about running around, acting out what your innermost fantasies are," he says. "I'm pretty sure everybody would like to do something they can't do in real life. Some people like to go mountaineering, or some would like to go into outer space. Some people like to enter a fantasy world. This game appeals to those things inside you that make you wanna do it. It's not real. It's not like I get so engrossed in it and start thinking I'm my character online. But I do realize that what I do by controlling the mouse and the keyboard inside that world affects everybody in that world as well."

Not a day goes by that he doesn't play.

"I'm hooked," he says.

Kourik's not alone. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG in gamer parlance) is host to wizards, warriors, elves and orcs who take up spells and swords daily with the zeal of addicts. Since World of Warcraft's North American launch Nov. 23, more than 600,000 players have signed up, paying a monthly fee to venture into the virtual world, meet up with comrades and kick ass on quests.

A longtime game enthusiast, Kourik says he's never been so hooked on a game. Now his average day sees him logging three to four hours a night in World of Warcraft after he gets home from work on weekday afternoons--slipping away here and there to take care of the kids, saying hi to the wife. Weekends? It's not uncommon for Kourik to put in a full eight hours at the keyboard, killing monsters and scoring treasures to sell for virtual gold. Little wonder Kourik has a handy wooden massager at the ready--extensive questing can be murder on the neck and back.

And maybe it's taken a personal toll. Let it be said here that Kourik is, by all appearances, a loving father; his daughter Sandra, 8, regularly makes honor roll at school (she saunters in while he's playing to show off her certificate) and his other daughter Katrina is a ga-gaing delight. But his life betrays hints that his World of Warcraft is perhaps excessive.

He often considers leaving work early to log on. He thinks about Sphinktor while away from the computer. "I'll be thinking, what quests do I need to do today? How am I going to get some advancement?" he says. Currently on his mind is the guild tabard he's saving up for--think of it as a team logo that his close-knit clan of players can wear. Sometimes he plugs in and World of Warcraft seems less like a game than a habit crying out for maintenance.

"You actually have to work sometimes [in the game world] in order to make money," he says. "Sometimes I'll just run around, looking for something to do. Other times, I'll actually have to go look for materials [to fashion weapons and equipment.]"

His wife can't stand World of Warcraft. "My wife thinks I play too much," Kourik admits. "It's not like she thinks it's a serious addiction or anything, but she wishes I'd play a lot less." When I ask if she'd like to comment for this story, Kourik leaves the room to see. He comes back, shaking his head. "She's too embarrassed." He clicks back into the game world and becomes Sphinktor once again.

No wonder Kourik and friends call this game World of Warcrack.

* * *

The Wailing Caverns are a brawlfest--in every cranny and corner, players are whaling on serpentine Deviate Coilers and blobby Devouring Ectoplasms, but there's plenty of monster ass left for Sphinktor to kick. He's hacking away with sword and axe--the hit points floating up and away with each slash and bash--when his pet WLB2 flies off on a solo mission and promptly gets ripped apart by a Deviate Slayer in a dank corner of the caves. But never fear--magic is here. Sphinktor casts a reviving spell, his hand glowing green with magical powers. WLB2 reappears. Then Kourik clicks into a submenu of windows, explaining, "If I feed my pet, it keeps it happy, which in turn makes it fight better. Now I'm going to give it some moist cornbread." After a quick bite, WLB2 is once again ready for battle.

Yes, you even have to feed your pets in this game.

* * *

The ironic thing about these online funfests is they're social experiences, but in a physically isolated setting. Alone in his room, Kourik hangs with friends. For his part, Kourik heads up a guild of adventurers who often set out for a little group slay 'n' pay, destroying monsters and sharing loot. The mouse-clicking is made more fun by the fact that it's a team effort. The social aspect--knowing there's a human to chat with behind that knight or wizard avatar--is one of the big draws, says Elliott Chin, Blizzard Entertainment's associate public relations manager.

"A lot of the appeal to this game is social," he says. "If people want to play a single-player game, they can play Halo. Here, in addition to the fantasy aspect, you can come in and see people, interact with people. I hear a lot of anecdotal stuff from players. Sometimes, for instance, people can't devote much more than half an hour, so they'll come on just to talk with friends, and log off without having killed much. They come on just to keep in contact with their friends." (For his part, Chin's alter ego is a Tauren shaman named Thundermane, a level 46 baddie that has benefitted from Chin's regular attention. How many hours a week does he play? "I don't want to know," he says.)

The social factor is key to Zap Riecken, a 29-year-old techie for IGT. When he sits at the keyboard and becomes Zelma, a level 28 dwarf priest, what's important to him isn't smashing zombies so much as reaching out and touching someone--in this case, college buddies who are part of his crew.

"The game allows me to stay in contact with friends I've known for years and years," he says. "If I didn't have an activity like this, our friendships would only extend to occasional phone calls and e-mails."

Plus, somehow embarking on a hair-raising dungeon-crawl with college pals is more compelling than a conference call. "The game is most definitely addictive," says Riecken, who devotes about four hours a day to the game, often indulging in eight-hour slashfests on weekends. "It's just that aspect of getting new and better things for your character."

It doesn't matter that these things aren't real? Not at all.

"It's the same commercial drive that the average commercial puts into us," he explains. "You always want the next thing, the better thing."

Even Riecken's wife, Amy, got hooked. In a gaming subculture where it's common for wives to grieve over husbands getting sucked into the medieval Matrix, the Rieckens prove that the couple that slays together, stays together. Like a good husband, Riecken has his dwarf Zelma heal his wife's paladin Malica's wounds whenever the going gets rough.

* * *

Hulking, heaving Sphinktor is getting his ass kicked by an elf.

It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. The plan was to burn off a little steam around Lake Falathim by slapping around another player, but it looks like Sphinktor might have misjudged the competition--in this case, a dainty level 24 night elf rogue named Elisae. After a few promising swipes with his Decapitating Sword of the Monkey, Sphinktor sees the tables turn, as Elisae--zip!--suddenly goes invisible and starts puncturing Sphinktor like a wineskin, dishing out some serious pixilated pain.

It's not long before Kourik's towering man-bull is dead, a ghost. "Ah, she used a bunch of backstabbing maneuvers and finishing moves to score all these critical hits on me," Kourik says. Fortunately, death in World of Warcraft isn't a very serious matter. All you have to do is return your ghost to your body and, after a few penalty minutes of diminished abilities--voila--you're good as new.

However, resurrection does have its complications. When Sphinktor's ghost returns to his body, he discovers that Elisae has rounded up a posse and is busting a stakeout on Sphinktor's corpus, waiting for him to resurrect. "They're trying to camp on my body," Kourik says. "Rogues are tricky."

Sphinktor returns to his corpse, upon which an ass-kicking at the elfin hands of Elisae begins anew.

* * *

"I am addicted to this game," Kourik admits, "but I think I'm addicted in a good way. For example, I really go out of my way to help people in this game. Since my character's an engineer, I can make things for people. So if someone needs a deadly blunderbuss, I can make it for them. 'How much do you want for that?' 'Nothing, take it.' My friends say I'm the most generous person they know. I try to lead by example."

By the end of this three-hour gaming stretch, Kourik has given Sphinktor a pretty good workout--a few victories, a few defeats, some decent loot, including a prospector's cloak he thinks might fetch a good price. The night's tally: 23,234 experience points, putting the 41,400 needed to level up that much more within reach.

Kourik logs off, and the desktop picture is of his 8-month-old daughter.

Does he play World of Warcraft too much?

"I don't play enough," he says and laughs. "I'm only level 28. There are level 60 characters running around out there! But it's not like I don't have my priorities in place. I know family and work come first. There's a fine line between reality and fantasy, and without the reality, we can't have the fantasy."

And now, with Kalimdor vanished and this bedroom, these daughters, this domestic life returned, a new adventure awaits. "I probably won't log on again tonight," Kourik says, stretching his neck. "I've got to cook dinner tonight. Have to appease the wife."