The world begins again

First day of class for the semester, and I've got mixed emotions. Sure on one side this means that its back to the ol' grind of class after class, dredging through the (not-so) cold and harsh weather to my 8 AMs. On the other hand I'm thankful that my awefully long break is finally over, and I can once again be productive.

My mind is once again at least slightly more pre-occupied with classwork, and less occupied with the thoughts that come from sitting around for literally a month, doing nothing but working. I spent two extra weeks in East Lansing, so my actual time spent at home was a little over a week and a half, but the two weeks I spent in Lansing I was working full time.

Some may call me crazy, as Lansing is as desolate as Kansas when school isn't in session, and next to none of the people I spend time around were in town, leaving me to fend for myself between work. It made me wonder as to if this is how it would be once I entered the real work force. What happens if I get a job and have to move to St. Louis? Will I be able to make friends fast enough to stave off mindless boredom and/or loneliness? Sure it's a big city and there is probably a lot to explore, but after like a week of sightseeing I'd settle into a routine, but would it be a routine by myself?

Lately I've found myself asking everyone I know how they spend their time by themselves. For me the answer would probably (and quite obviously) be with video games, but even that has begun to grate on my nerves, grinding away for more then two or so hours makes me antsy, and depressed that I had just wasted a few hours. I'm sure I could think of a handful of things people do while they're alone, but I really don't want to have to settle into a lifestyle where it's work, home, sleep, work, home, sleep, with very little human interaction outside of work.

How exactly are you supposed to meet people? And more specifically, people that you have a lot in common with? I've come to realize that the latter is something that is next to impossible to find (especially for me), and as a result you have to make due with what you have. That whole girl thing a while back, the only reason that was even a remotely big deal was because we had a lot in common. How often do you find that, let alone in someone of the opposite gender?

Back on topic though, frequently what I see happen is one person moves out to another city, and knows maybe one or two others, and has to branch out from there. I hope by the time I have to move out for real I'm that well connected/networked to be able to be that lucky, but as it stands right now I don't see that happening. Knowing "some people out there" makes things easier I'm sure.

I'm glad that classes are in session though, unlike every other person on campus. I've learned the horrible torture of sitting around with nothing to do, and never want to have to go through that again. I already feel myself being less moody, as I've got other things to worry about. I do however have a rather light load this semester, and as such I'll still probably have a decent amount of time on my hands, more then I'd like. We'll see how this semester treats me, what mysteries I unfurl. To new beginnings, I leave you with the words of the Goo Goo Dolls:

So take these words and sing out loud
'cause everyone is forgiven now
'cause tonight's the night the world begins again

The Time of Your Life

Last semester was probably one of the most eye-opening semesters I've had at MSU. Usually for the last two years I was confined to my computer room in my spare time, instead of going out to see what exactly was going on around me. I'm not quite sure what exactly that means to see what is going on around me, but I can definitely recall at least a handful of times when I could have done something maybe more socially beneficial for myself then playing whatever my latest MMORPG fling was.

Some people wonder how exactly a game can possibly take up that much time out of one's life. How can someone sit there from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. playing a single game, devoted to a single task, a feat that I've done more then a few times myself. Maybe if I explain a little bit about the type of games I play it'll help. My parents never really understood why the hell I spent so much time playing these games either, and that was about as far as my drama with them ever extended. "I want to play video games!" vs. "No, do your homework!"

The genre of games that holds my fancy more then any other is the MMORPG. Now though that acronym sounds like a mouthful, it all stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. An evolution of the Role Playing Game, the genre that previously held my interest more then any other. I never quite understood what specific aspect it was that drew me to RPGs so heavily, the strategy, the story, the scope, all that good stuff I guess, but the big one was that in a role playing game, it's a lot easier for you to see the progress you're making through the game. Your character(s) actually get stronger, get faster, get smarter, learn new abilities, and through that you actually felt like you were accomplishing something. Because of this dynamic character ability, something you didn't see in Mario Bros., you had something to look forward to. The next new ability, the next plateau, the next level.

Now what makes an MMORPG so great, is it takes all these aspects of a common RPG, complete with the immersive environment that accompanies such games, and then throws it all online. They create a persistent world, one that exists regardless of whether you're in the game or not. Then they add in a few thousand players (depends on the size of the game). What you now have is a very real virtual world, one that much more closely immitates the real world then any regular game could hope to do. The big difference here is the human element. You're no longer interacting with the computer A.I., now you're interacting with real people, creating your own groups, going on adventures, and anything that you can't actually do in the real world. You get your own character, similar to how you get your own identity on AIM. But here there are so many more possibilities. Thats a pretty good example actually, think AIM, or even Facebook, but with pictures, some kind of uniting purpose, and a team of game developers to provide the drama, in addition to the own drama between the human players.

This interaction is the key, and what kept a game that would otherwise become stale interesting. A regular offline game usually only has so much content, only so many lines of text, so many lines of programming, before you've exhausted the possibilities. With a truly human, interactive world though, the possibilities are endless. Such a simple, yet brilliant concept.

One thing I've noticed over the last year or so is the increasing difficulty games have holding my attention. Granted there were few PC games in 2005 that were worthy of my attention, and very few MMO games that caught my interest, and my access of other console systems is somewhat inhibited. It's good I guess that due to this sudden drought of games that are able to catch my interest, I've been at least aspiring to be more social.

To be honest though, that doesn't always work either, since my social life has been crippled by the rather large portion of time devoted to being in front of "The Screen". Hopefully I'll make up for that at some point, but as it stands right now, I only have 93 contacts on my AIM buddy list. I'd like to blame that on video games, and the excessive time I spent playing MMOs, trying to reach the next level, but in the end quitting said game. These MMOs are usually subscription based, as in you pay on a per month basis. Once you do eventually get bored of them, you "quit", like as if you were to stop signing on AIM.

I originally didn't even start off with the intention of talking about my MMO history, but this is my blog, and I get to say what I want :). This is (was?) a big part of my life for some years, and if you're interested in seeing exactly what kind of impact this game genre has had upon our society, wikipedia (as always) has a really good article explaining it a little better then I can. You can see that here. This genre of game is taking over the world, The current largest MMO on the market, World of Warcraft, has over ten million subscribers worldwide.

Through this cycle of joining a new game and quitting after a time I've met and lost contact with a lot of people over the years, a lot of amazing people. In the end it doesn't avail me much, as though I have my memories, I have my high points and low points, there really aren't many people around any more that I still keep in contact with that I can express these memories with. I'm sure theres someone that would consider me saying some of my best times were through said medium kind of wierd and/or sad, but my memories are my own, and I'm happy with them. I think I've done some pretty amazing things in these games, even if it was in a virtual world I no longer visit, and even if the number of people I can earnestly speak to these things about I can count on one hand. In the end, memories are memories, some are good, some are bad. I'd like to say more of my memories here are better then worse, and I'm happy with that.