Hey all, my name is Robert Jerry, but I usually go by Bob. I’m from a town called Ardsley which is located in
In my opinion, one of the most fascinating online phenomena in recent years has been the growing popularity of the MMORPG. Is this acronym familiar to you? If not, it stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. This is a type of video game where most characters are controlled by players interacting with each other in order to complete quests in a computer-generated virtual world. Two of the most popular MMORPGs are World of Warcraft and Everquest. Warcraft alone currently has over 9 million players who each pay a monthly subscription fee.
My personal experience with MMORPGs was short lived. I tried playing one called Final Fantasy XI for two months but I found that in order to progress in the game, I had to spend exorbitant amounts of time playing. I purely could not sacrifice large portions of my real life in order to excel in my virtual one. However, many people are willing to make this commitment. The fascinating aspect of these games is that in spending hours upon hours as a virtual avatar (the character that represents themselves in the game), such as a warrior or a wizard who walks through a digital landscape with fellow elves, dwarves, orcs, or whatever, users get to experience a new virtual identity.
Users have the privilege of choosing the appearance, gender, race, and clothing of their virtual selves. Male gamers can create a female avatar and experience life as a woman, and vice-versa, a female gamer could choose to be a masculine warrior, commanding fear from those who see him (or her?). But besides playing around with gender, friendships are born, social networks are formed, and even economies are shaped. To some people the line between reality and the MMORPG is so blurred, that real world currency is often traded for the virtual tender of the game to help the gamer buy progress in the form of more powerful equipment or magical elixirs.
The MMORPG is certainly an evolved version of the MUD (multiuser dungeon) that Wallace describes, and she touches on possibly an early MMORPG with her mention of metaworlds. MMORPGs can be a fun daily escape or a dangerously addictive trap, and I find it so interesting that so many people spend so much time in these rich virtual worlds.
1 comment:
I have never quite understood the obsession people have for gaming. I find it fascinating how people spend hours and hours playing games like Warcraft and Everquest. At my previous residential hall, a group of guys used to stay up the entire night to play these games, and then continue playing during the day as well, skipping classes and meetings. What I find most curious, as you eloquently stated, is how willingly these players "sacrifice large portions of their real life in order to excel in their virtual one." While I can understand the satisfaction of perhaps accomplishing a hard goal or reaching a new level, I would much rather do so in the real world with real human beings than in a virtual one with made up characters.
Through this new virtual identity created however, people are provided with the ability to "be" whoever they want to be and change characteristics about themselves they are unable to change in real life (gender, race, height, strength, beauty, etc.) Perhaps this gaming phenomenon provides an escape into a safer world for players.
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