Online gamers may have more to fear than the reaper when it comes to hardcore gamer and rock-and-roll legend Eric Bloom.  The lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult has seen his share of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as Star Wars: Galaxies, World of Warcraft and, most recently, Warhammer Online.  USA TODAY talked with Bloom about his video game experiences.  Question: Do you have a particular faction you like to play, whether its the perceived good guys or bad guys in an MMORPG?  Bloom: Not really. I don’t know if I am average -- I can only speak for myself -- I play both sides, but not on the same server because you can't. But I just like seeing the different kind of quests, the different kinds of areas. So, I don’t really feel like a huge allegiance to one side or the other.  Q: What sort of character classes do you like to play?  Bloom: I tend to play a caster in most games I play, so long distance DPS (Damage Per Second) kind of thing. I also play a Bright Wizard, who is a caster, but I play it like an AoE (Area of Effect) kind of player. So, I seem to like that best.  Q: What playing style do you enjoy most: questing, raiding, instances or player vs. player?  Bloom: All of the above. I like questing, but of course you get to level 40 in Warhammer and unless there is certain kind of gear you want, you sort of do other kinds of quests, a lot of RvR (Realm vs Realm), a lot of scenarios and you are always striving for renown.  Q: Is there any aspect of the older, Multi-User Dungeon (MUDs) games that you miss?  Bloom: I miss those, and there are plenty of people that I know who left the MUDs to go to the graphic games, but wound up coming back because they missed it. But that hasn't quite happened to me.  My analogy has always been that MUDs versus graphic games -- MUDs are actually like listening to a radio drama rather than watching television. It's where the action happens in your head. I know it works that way because I played Gemstone III and IV for many, many years.  Even though it would be a paragraph describing the inside of the forest, and you can go north, east, south and west, you actually begin to get some sort of visualization of what the forest is like by reading the paragraph. It's very engrossing and a lot of fun for some people.  Q: When you are playing a MMORPG, do you like to keep your celebrity status to yourself?  Bloom: There are, sometimes. In this game, I think I have a couple of guildies that know who I am because I got to be friendly with them and I sort of filled them in, but in general most people don't know. I'd say only three or four people might know on my server.  By Robert AhrensPhoto: Bloom at Mythic Entertainment's studios (Mythic)
Celebrity gamer: Blue Oyster Cult's Eric Bloom - Game Hunters: In search of video games and interactive awesomeness - USATODAY.com - Game Hunters: In search of video games and interactive awesomeness