Gamer Girl Read Free Page B

be—what?  A mage?  A warrior? A rogue?” 
    “I love playing a rogue archer or a controller mage. I live to hold the enemy helpless with my gravity spell and paralysis glyphs while my tank and damage dealer destroy the enemy mightily!”
    “I, on the other hand, prefer to be the tank or a nuker mage. Heavy armor or really badass fire spells are my preference. We’d be a good team in an MMORPG.”
    “N ow you know my secret. I am a Gamer Girl.  I should stand up at GA and say, Hello, my name is Sarah and I am a gamer!”
    Eamon’s eyes lit up with appreciation . “Hello Sarah, my name is Eamon, and I am a gamer, though not as much of one as I used to be. Too busy with business these days to play much.”
    Eamon ’s delight in her video game interests put Sarah at ease. People expected kids to play video games, not adults. When she worked at a regular law firm, she let it slip that she played video games. From then on, she was teased about it by others at the law firm. Sarah took this in good grace; it was her experience that good people usually teased people they liked, but it was a little wearing.
    “So are you eagerly awaiting the sequel?”
    “I’ve preordered.”
    Eamon laughed hard. “You do have it bad, don’t you!”
    “I do.”
    “What are you playing while you wait for our sequel to come out?”
    “ Wickerworld. ” Sarah handed him the game box.
    Eamon studied the cover . “I’ve seen bits and pieces of this and saw the demo, but I haven’t had a chance to sit and play through it yet. What do you think of it?”
    “The game play is fun and easy to learn. The world is beautiful but believable, and the character models are nice with a lot of modifications possible. And you have a lot of choices. You can be a man or a woman, elf or dwarf, whatever.”
    “What about ownership? Do your choices matter?”
    “Not really, and there’s no real ongoing development of non-player characters. NPCs are very one-dimensional.”
    Eamon handed Sarah the box. “Well, this I have to see. Do you mind?”
    Sarah fired up her console and put the game in. “Do you want to see my current char acter, or do you want to create a new one?”
    Eamon took the controller. “Let’s start from scratch.”
    He began building his character. “Wow, I see what you mean about the models being nice. Man, I like the hair. Hair is really difficult to get right. Their game engine is fantastic. No wonder the models work.”
    Sarah watched, bemused, as E amon played.  Clearly he had been at this a long time for he figured out the combat moves very quickly. As he played, he commented on the game mechanics, what worked and what needed improvement. Sarah sat beside him, amazed, as he went through the tutorial and through one of the quests finding things on his first run that she hadn’t realized were there. Suddenly, he put the controller down.
    “ Wow. Their game engine is a beast!” He looked at his watch. “Damn, I’m sorry, Sarah. I promised you a night out and here I am caught up in the game.”
    “It’s all right. You saw things your first time through I haven’t found yet and I’m on my second character.”
    “That’s because you don’t build games for a living. I just know where to look and I do this every day, most of the day—did do this for most of the day. My crew gets to build the hands-on stuff now.” 
    He stood up and took her hand. “Come on. Let’s go grab some food.”
    “Let’s call for a pizza,” Sarah suggested. “We’ve got really good local delivery nearby.”
    “You sure?” Eamon asked.
    Sarah laughed. “I’m sure. What kind of pizza do you like?”
    Eamon gave her what Sarah thought of as a guy look that said, What? You have to ask? Sarah took pity on him. “They have a sausage, pepperoni and hamburger combo.”
    “Sounds great, but you don’t look like a meat lover girl. Let’s get a veggie pizza as well,” Eamon told her. “You got wine? Or beer?”
    “No beer, just a bo