Monday, April 13, 2009

A Prestigious Undertaking

This ought to sound familiar. As with any online games, I set up small little goals. I've been doing that since Battlefield 2. And when 2142 rolled around, I laid out some goals and awards to achieve. It helps keep me focused and it helps me to continue on playing. Then again, other factors that keeps me playing is the fact that there are friends around to play with. After all, it's a bit lonely playing an online shooting game by youself with nobody else around to trust and rely on.

Call of Duty: World at War introduces PC players the grindfest of Prestige mode for the first time. This particular mode enables people who have made it to the top to simply start over again. But starting over again does not mean that one would simply start from scratch. Prestige has its own share of benefits, usually in the form of a fancier badge icon next to your name and unlocking additional custom class slots.

Some people took the liberty of going Prestige, either out of curiosity or out of boredom. Some do it for a goal. And others do it simply because they can. The latter, however, is due to a configuration exploit. But I won't delve into that. In any case, those who took the time and effort to go slow are the ones who have earned it. And out of all of the Prestige badges out there, only one remains the most interesting and fancy: 5. It's not about getting to the top. That can be done at any time. To me, it was about what looked the most different and distinguished from the norm. I have seen many different players. And Prestige 5 appears to be the most different yet not overly common amongst the general public. It was there that I set my goal to achieve this.

With over 270 hours logged into that particular profile, I have finally arrived at the final stretch. All it takes is racking up the points in order to earn the next level/rank and unlock various attachments for my weapons. But that final bump on the road is now gone. And I am on my way to finally getting as much as I can done with a variety of challenges. But there is one particular challenge that I know will never be completed: Martyrdom. I refuse to complete it, knowing that this is the one challenge and perk that I despise the most. I shall never degrade myself to using it... unless it just happens to be on a distant public free-for-all server.

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