For fun and
relaxation some people enjoy a five-hour long golf match, or perhaps a
four-hour football game. There are some who spend hours upon hours shopping for
socks or antique hunting or any number of other leisure activities. All of
these are legitimate pastimes, but they are not generally how I prefer to spend
my off-hours—I am much more of a geek than that.

I play
games—specifically I play computer games. I have been playing games on a PC for
20 years now (well, if you consider a Commodore 64 a PC) and I’ve played just
about every genre of PC game there is at one time or another. I even got paid
to review the games I played for a few years (darn bursting dot-com bubble).

I don’t
think I’m going too far out on a limb when I make the assumption that many
TechRepublic members are avid gamers themselves. I would suspect that for some
members’, knowledge of the inner workings of PCs and information technology
actually stemmed from the knowledge one had to have to get computer games to
work in those early years. In many ways, the satisfaction of getting a PC game
to work back then was almost as gratifying as actually playing the game.

The MMO

In recent
years, one genre of PC game has dominated my play—the massively multiplayer
online role playing game (MMORPG). My experience follows a familiar path; one
that other MMORPG players will probably recognize or at least appreciate. First
there was EverQuest, then a brief foray into Anarchy
Online, then a few years with Dark Age of Camelot, which lead to my current
obsession with World of Warcraft. Being the gaming
geek that I am, I also beta tested several other games, but it was nothing
serious.

One aspect
of the MMORPG genre that separates it from other game types is the requirement
that you take on a role. In most cases, a role requires the choosing of an
avatar, a class and a profession. This combination, along with other attributes
acquired during your character’s development, will uniquely identify your
character within the massively multiplayer community. Your character will
actually establish a reputation with all of the other game players. This makes
your avatar a very personal creation and is often a source of pride for the
player.

It is with
this concept in mind that TechRepublic is asking members who play MMORPGs to submit
a screenshot of your game avatar for publication in our photo gallery. I
have posted several screenshots of my avatars to get the gallery started. The
characters depicted are from the World of Warcraft,
but we will accept avatar shots from any MMORPG. Along with each screenshot
we’d like a short description that includes the game, name of the character,
and the profession or class. A brief history of your character’s exploits would
also be welcome.

There is one caveat; you must be a TechRepublic member in order to have your submitted photo accepted. Just include a link to your profile page along with your photo.

View the
current game avatar photo gallery to get an idea of what we are looking for and
then send us your
avatar screenshots.