Delimer waved his staff in front of him in a threateningly. A sickly green aura swirled around the skull shaped head of the staff. His posturing inspired little fear in his foe, perhaps because his foe has three times his size, or perhaps because he straddled a fierce blue dragon. It quickly dawned on Scott Anderson the he might have gotten Delimer a little over his head. This realization came too late as a man-sized fireball crashed into Delimer. He died on that blasted plain underneath a sheet of swirling black clouds.
Delimer’s ghost began the trek back to his corpse to regain his possessions and, with any luck, avenge himself.
On the other side of the computer screen Anderson peers at the monitor, frustrated at how difficult a simple task had gotten. The objective had been to capture the soul of an enemy in a stone for use in his magical incantations. The individual on the dragon had not been part of the plan. Now that dragon-riding son-of-a-gun had to go.
Given time to properly prepare for combat Delimer made quick work of the dragon rider.
Anderson created Delimer more than a year ago and has played him and other characters he has created on World of Warcraft for more than 68 days in that time. That equates to approximately 1,600 hours of Anderson’s very real life spent in the virtual world of Azeroth.
Anderson is a product of new strategies the US Army has employed in recent years to gain recruits. The Army has gone to great lengths to appeal to the computer enthusiasts and gamers of America’s youth.
In 2002 the Army commissioned a video game for use in recruitment. The resulting game, America’s Army, put the player through a virtualized basic training and culminated in battles only after the player graduated from the training. The Army distributed the shooter through recruiters and the Internet for free. The latest iteration of the game was released in September and has been downloaded more than 2.2 million times from the Fileplanet website, a popular source for video game downloads. The Army plans to bring the title from its PC roots to the Xbox 360 before the end of the year.
After graduating from high school Anderson joined the Army. Immediately after receiving his signing bonus he blew a good chunk of it on a state of the art laptop. In the month before he shipped out for basic training Anderson and his friends went on a gaming binge that should earn them a place in the halls of nerd legend, and the unemployment line.
Ultima Online was the game and there was no room in life for anything else. They stopped to sleep, but made sure to time their rest with maintenance times for the game servers, so that no valuable play time would be lost. So from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. every day they rested, then woke in time for the servers to re-launch.
When Anderson left for basic training in July of 2000 he took a short hiatus from the digital world. Just as soon as he graduated from basic training and arrived at his first duty station he resumed his digital life.
Even the work the Army set on him could not keep him from his gaming. As soon as his duties ended he rushed back to his room to play his newest diversion, Everquest.
“I played eight hours a night, every night,” said Anderson. “Sometimes I didn’t change out of my uniform.”
The game provided a link to home. Online he could see his friends from Kansas and enjoy doing quests with them even though he was in Seattle.
In 2003, more than halfway through Anderson’s tour in the Army, the United States crossed the Kuwaiti desert and invaded Iraq. He went with his unit into the sand and took with him a few essentials. Among these items were his laptop and a shiny Playstation 2.
Anderson’s job was in Iraq included writing security briefs for his unit.
“I’d like to say they made their way up to the President,” said Anderson.
Additionally, he went on patrols and confiscated weapons as well as handled the detainment of combatants. Confiscating weapons produced some interesting diversion from the boredom that stalked the soldiers.
“We kept all the good ones so we could shoot them.” Anderson said of the weapons his unit confiscated.
The part about the Iraqi part of his tour that he most likes discussing is the gaming. The Internet connection at the base he was located was not reliable. The signal his unit received originated on the eastern coast of the United States and bounced of satellites until it arrived at his computer. The end product was not at all suited to his needs. After many desperate attempts Anderson realized that his affair with online gaming would have to end.
His understanding mother sent him a portable screen for his Playstation 2 so that he could play it instead. The Playstation 2 returned with him from Iraq caked in a fine yellow dust that has never washed off.
“You just learn to accept it, because no matter what, it doesn’t come off.” said Anderson.
A few months after returning from Iraq, Anderson met Kim Riffel while in Wichita. The couple is now engaged and both are attending the University of Kansas where Anderson is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. While Anderson was willing to tell Riffel anything she asked, especially after the engagement, he had not gotten around to telling her how often he played his games.
“I didn’t even know how big a nerd he was until I heard the stories.” said Riffel.
Riffel has forgiven Anderson for his nerdy shortcomings and the two intend to marry in 2009.