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.
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.
posted by Tosif at
3:48 AM
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