Everything You Know Is About To Change

Well, at least about Warhammer Online. I don't know about your personal life; at least, not until the private detective agency ponies up some new info.

Warhammer Alliance forums has had a long-standing quote at the top of their page: "The suspense is horrible. I hope it will last." Maybe they meant it in a different way, but I always took that for a bittersweet love of the prelaunch period -- how anticipation and hype of a great game yet to come is something to be savored, in its own way, before it is gone forever. Depending on who you are, you might have been anticipating WAR for a very long time at this point. The thought of another month or two of waiting could be unbearable (if so, we'll send you over some bears, stat). The eagerness for launch, for the starting pistol to go off and hundreds of thousands of fans to race brashly into hearty conflict is almost palpable. We want it. We think we need it.

And yet, when it comes, there will be a twinge of regret, I think. Nostalgia, waving bye-bye as we "graduate" the pre-launch period and into the "real world" of WAR. Okay, I've officially murdered that metaphor, but you get the point. When I graduated high school, there was a kid named James who was the kind of guy who could barely stand being there -- he kept talking about college, about how much he wanted to get out of school, etc etc. Yet, on the day we threw up our caps and then respectfully combed through the crowd to find them again, James was the guy with tears streaming down his face. "I love you guys!" he'd say, trying to hug which ever one of us he could latch on to, like a weepy Venus fly trap of naked emotion. I think he realized, right then, that he'd crossed the point of no return, and that there was good in the pre-graduation era... he just didn't see it then.

It's just a game, I know, but I can't help but look at where we're at now with a twinge of regret that it'll soon be over. Don't get me wrong -- I can't wait for launch, and when it arrives, you'll see me in game with no regrets, jumping off cliffs just to see if there's a suicidal Tome unlock. But this? Right here? I'll miss it. I'll miss the community being small(ish) and pretty united and positive, before the intentional conflict of the game pits us against each other. I'll miss the upbeat attitude that most WAR fans have. I'll miss the delightful agony of waiting for drips and crumbs of new information to devour. I'll miss the days when the number of WAR blogs could be counted on one hand, and every new site seemed like a pioneer in the wilderness (not that I'm not looking forward to new blogs and sites in the future!). I'll miss the waiting and Paul talking about the game like it was a newborn baby that he knew was destined to be King Tut.

So yeah. Everything's about to change. I'm cool with that. How about you?