2019-09-03 - Feeling down, RPG's and memories of virtual worlds 
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Today i felt a bit down and poorly while having a cold and so on. 
So i took half of the day off from work, and spend a part of the 
afternoon playing (and learning) Dungeon Crawl. I'm still new to 
this game, so i played in 'hints mode', as a Minotaur called Cuut 
the Chopper. This character was quite strong, and allowed me to 
descend some dungeon levels in good comfort, while chopping up any 
bad-guys who came at me. On the first couple of levels the kobolds 
and goblins could not do anything against me.

Further down, i walked into some named characters, which did a bit 
more damage, using magic and whatnot. But my character, Cuut the 
Minotaur was able to slay them quite effectively, by going into 
Beserk mode, and getting a bit of help of the god Throg.

Somewhere i found a whole bunch of throwable tomahawks, which i 
gladly used to throw at any moving thing in the dungeon. Poor 
goblins, getting axes thrown at their faces. :)

Also somewhere on the 2nd level, i already found a pretty good 
plate armour set. Which seems to help pretty well protecting Cuut. 
But when fighting small monsters (such as bats), the plate armour 
gets a bit in the way of moving around, causing some swings to miss 
here and there. Ah well... 

To learn about potions and scrolls i pretty much drinking and 
reading all the potions and scrolls i find. Which is a bit of a 
gamble i guess, because i don't think all scrolls or potions are 
good for you.

Anyhow, i'm enjoying this. Still getting a bit used to all the 
different keyboard commands, but enjoying. I'm curious to see what 
the different character classes and races can do. I'm sure playing 
around as a rogue or a mage will be a whole different experience, 
than a melee character such as Cuut.

Nevertheless, in RPG's i typically always use melee fighters as my 
first characters, as they tend to be easiest to play and explore 
and learn the game. Though, later they tend to be a bit more 
boring than mages and such.

I remember something like 10 years ago... uh wait.. no it must have 
been more like 15 years ago (uff), i played a game called Lineage 
2, a Korean MMORPG game. The game was released in the EU, and it 
was really my first MMORPG experience ever. 

Even though the game was a total grind fest, i absolutely loved 
playing it. The fact you could play among many other players was 
great, but even on my own i loved fighting Keltirs (little wolves), 
orcs and stone golumns on Talking Island. In fact, progress was so 
slow, that i wouldn't have minded staying on this Talking Island 
(the starter island for humans) altogether. 

When thinking about this, it is really weird to notice, that even 
after all these years, if i would play the game again, i would 
still be able to navigate quite a large part of the Lineage game 
world without any problems.

I mean, i could probably draw you a pretty accurate map of the 
starting island. And also in the main world, i would be able to 
walk from Gludin to Gludio. From there hop in and out to Cruma 
tower, and walk further towards Dion and onto Giran to sit on the 
market square and to set up shop and sell my weapons.

If you think about it, it is quite amazing that the mind can make 
such a lively map of a virtual world. Or more correctly, even 
multiple virtual worlds;

For example, the same goes for The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. I 
could almost blindly navigate from Seyda Neen to Balmora. Pick up a 
ring here, and some sword there. In Balmora I would know exactly 
where the fighters guild, or the general shop or the cloth shop 
would be located. I would know my way to Vivec, and navigate around 
the different temples to move towards the god Vivec's place to 
punch him in the face (you'd need good lockpicking skills and a 
good helmet for that though)

Even for the vanilla World of Warcraft, i would know my way around 
Elwynn forest, and know where to find places in the dwarfen 
district in Stormwind, or be able to take the tram to Ironforge, 
and walk around in Dun Morogh. 

You know, and while knowing to move around in all these virtual 
worlds with ease.. I don't know my way in some real-life areas in 
my direct surroundings (within 1km)... Hehe...  I guess, maybe i 
should get out more.

But then again, walking around in a virtual world, slaying baddies 
while having a real-world cup of tea, is quite nice in itself.

I'm wondering if there are any roguelike games like Crawl, which 
feature a bit more overworld experience. So where you can explore 
the outsides, and occasionally, go into a cave or dungeon or so and 
clear this one out. If you have any tips, let me know.