The Two Daves

I've been in the Online Gaming realm for nearly four years now and I've been through a lot of things - both thick and thin. Through sickness and in health, through the joys and the woes of each online game I've seriously delved into, I've nearly seen and been through them all. But never - never did this coming tale happen to me before that got me so seriously - as the great Montoya of pROSE and HOL says - SABAW.

As everyone well knew, I'm currently engaged to the realm of Perfect World, where I am living a life anew as my Fa Shih, DaveTNova, after suffering a most saddening demise of my characters in pROSE. As it is, I was determined to rebuild from the dregs and remains of my shattered online life and resolved to finally - get this to the max level (something I have never accomplished yet).

So there. My character's name is DaveTNova, patterned after my character in the novel "Terra Nova", a fantasy story I wrote myself. My clanmates in HOL frequently call me Dave, which has incidentally stuck to me as my online nickname, and even sometimes IRL.

As it turns out, there was this character (a Yao Shou) from the clan Zodiac that has the name dave, and it is between the two of us that a most hilarious series of events has passed. This started as early as my lowbie days in Dragon City. Whenever I go to a certain portion of the city, most often I come across this guy. Call it weird, call it coincidental, but hey my eyes can't deceive me. I definitely see him!

What's even more weird than this is that wherever I teleport (most commonly at Dragon City and Beast City), I come across him at the teleporter's location as well! I started to wonder if we're somehow bound in thought or something!

The amusingly hilarious part came during my later points in the game, when I'm already in faraway Dream Village. By a sheer stroke of luck (or maybe lady luck's really just fond of playing tricks at us), I came across him again at the monster fields there, although we were a bit separate. Out of the blue a character that I knew as a friend suddenly shouts in common chat the following:

[Player:] dave

Naturally the first instinct was to respond, but due to my occupation with the enemy I had to postpone replying lest I die, and lucky I did! Seconds after that, the other dave answered her and it turned out that it was actually him that the player was talking to!

This unnaturally queer event did not pass once, for it happened again after a few days, and this time (unknowing as I was that dave was in the area), I slipped out a response to a call to my name, and it turned out that I wasn't the one called!

I'll tell you all this: If character's online can blush in embarrassment, then I'd definitely be as red as my You Xia Outfit!

Lessons learned here: Make sure that you are the one being addressed to before you answer!

That wraps it up for GM Tristan's Group Writing Activity for the third week. I hope you all enjoyed reading!

Five Online Gaming Blends

Many people play online games for various reasons. Some wish to make new friends online and explore new, boundless worlds that cannot be ordinarily traversed in our day-to-day lifestyle. Others play for fame, fortune, and glory. Domination of everything else, attainment of the ultimate goals of the game. There are even people who play just to escape the reality that they are in and with high hopes that in playing online, they would find solace and contentment to compensate for the harsh storms plaguing their real lives.

But what pulls them to playing games such as these? What drives these people - whose age ranges can be as low as toddlers of five to seven years old to married, working, career people that have already surpassed 40 or even 50 years? What is the driving factor - or factors, for that matter - that brings them all together on this world of online gaming?

Nay, even I cannot answer that completely, but for me, these are the five "blends" of online gaming that simply pulls me into it:

1. A Community - Living, Breathing, Lashing - I've detailed in my previous post the fine links binding the online fantasies to the reality that we are in, and that's one essential blend that makes an online game tasty enough for the senses of the typical gamer. No other thing could be more enjoyable than spending online time not just in engaging into fights with monsters or bosses, but also in interacting with other players, bonding with guildmates - doing screenshots of group gatherings online or even spending hours just in chit-chatting with one another.

2. A Storyline - Rich, Creative, Compelling - Games revolve around a story, save for those known casual games both online and offline. Whatever you play, no matter how boring, how difficult or whatnot, there's always a story element behind it and for me, that formulates the second blend. A storyline keeps players in line with the game's canon and theme. It keeps them motivated to learn what is behind the stuff that they are doing online - what the place actually serves to the game, what a particular boss does to the current world, how a certain quest can affect your overall achievement of the game. I've seen many online games with good stories within them and many gamers have even taken to the point of extending those stories beyond what the publishers had originally planned.

3. The Theme - Colorful, Cultural, Unique - coinciding with the storyline blend comes the theme, for which one cannot exist without the other, making them complimentary blends to a "delicious" online game. Themes can vary in any game - there can be those alluding to the cultural scenarios of civilizations past such as the Norse myths of Ragnarok Online and the Chinese myths of Perfect World Online. There are some attuned to High School gangwar themes such as Ran Online. Others have even taken to the futuristic themes such as RF Online. And the Renaissance-like theme of Granado Espada, who could possibly not admire those luscious themes of that era?

4. The Game Experience - Enjoyable, Exciting, Thrilling - game experience is a blend that many try to achieve with the most perfect ingredients as much as possible - a well-built character with perfect stats and max level, godlike equipments, well-built skill trees, stuff like those. It is nearly every hardcore gamer's goal to be the best when it comes to the blend of Game Experience - to have the most enjoyment out of the game that they are playing. Honestly, don't we all strive to be like that? Even casual gamers, slow as they are in their progress in leveling, still strive for those levels. Although there are some content with being with other people and enjoying the game interface and graphics as the fulfillment of their game experience.

5. Life's Lessons - Education, Experience, Useful - many believed that online games are not to be valued for they are just a waste of time. They're just consuming your time that could have been used for more fruitful things. I say otherwise, but not for extreme cases of being online and almost forgetting stuff such as studies or work.
Online Games teach people a lot of lessons in life that - although they fail to see it - actually come from their unfortunate ingame experiences. Charging against a boss head-on without analyzing its capabilities teaches players to be careful with what they are pushing into - perhaps it might lead to danger or failure. Refining equipments to dangerous levels teaches them to be risk-takers - to accept challenges and take the consequences as a man. Being scammed by others gives us the insight of never trusting strangers too much.
In my gameplay experience at Perfect World I have learned quite a lot of lessons as well, particularly that of organization. Being an organized character means that you are mapping out your quest itinerary (that is, the easiest travel path to accomplish all quests at the shortest possible time) and even organizing the guild's time to execute dungeon raids. These are little lessons of life that may seem worthless to the ordinary gamer or non-gamer, but for some they realize the insight that it brings.

Now I've laid the five essential blends that pulled me to the world of online gaming. Maybe next time you could share yours as well!

This is my second entry for GM-Tristan's Group Writing Project. Hope you enjoyed it! :D

Reality Online

Day after day my life has been the same - doing my daily stuff with school and my OJT and finding something new in store for myself. As I look around, the community has always been the same, people walking around busy streets, all with some business in their mind, cars rushing past the crowded roads, everyone's up and about.

But when I sit down at home and log on to the gaming server - which in this case, is Perfect World Online - I cannot help but get that feeling that in doing so, I have not sundered my time to several hours of plain gaming and enjoyment. In selecting my character to play in the game, it's like I've geared myself up for "yet another day".

Most people would think that a lot of fanatics frequent the online gaming world just for the sole purpose of playing through the game, achieving quests, slaying bosses, and obtaining rare items and stuff. Many would believe that it's just a simple adventure that one has to undertake from the beginning and finish up to the very end, which would be the time for them to quit and move to another game. True, that psychology from video games has etched itself into the minds of many and whenever they see an Online Game being played by someone in the computer, they get the prejudice that it is just the same essence.

But they fail to see beyond that barrier. Unlike the video gaming world whose largest coverage might just be a multiplayer game of eight players on a console machine, the online gaming world encompasses an even larger scale, from a coverage as low as twenty to thirty players for a simple networking game up to a number that can span thousands just for players logging in on a single gaming server! And along with this number comes a delicate touch of magic that a lot of non-gamers have failed to see - the formation of a community.

Now how could that be, some might ask. Some would say that "You're just playing there all day, how could you have friends?" or "Why are you just sitting there, doing nothing at all?". The community is the life of every online game. It forms and changes according to those who belong in it, the people who share experience with others and make new friends and companions online. Some of these online relationships even develop to real life friendships, and even marriages for that matter.

The link between the reality of life and the online gaming life grows stronger the longer the game stays in effect and the more players participate in the community. Sometimes one would find the trends of reality binding itself into the online game lifestyle such as catchphrases, music trends, even famous personalities! Take Perfect World for example - a lot of players have taken to the challenge of immortalizing famous personalities of the world into the visage of their characters!

There are several points that intertwine the real world with the online gaming world, and I'll list them out so they can be detailed well:

• Market Rules - The conventional laws of supply and demand have applied itself well with the online world, for there had been long cases on many online games that an influx of one type of item has caused its price to drastically decrease and a shortage has yielded an unbelievable increase. True enough, Philippine economics applies itself very well here since whenever we find a shortage of products in the country, expect no less that the prices would skyrocket.
  One negative issue about the market of online games, which mirror a strong link between the reality and the online is the case of carrying on trades from the online world to the real world and vice versa. Unethical an issue as it may seem for some practical minds, a lot of people had really taken into the marketing of the game to even use it as a tool for conducting real-life businesses.
  
• Friendships, Love Lives, Groups - From simple parties of players banding together to annihilate a boss to large scale clans, factions, or guilds all rallying for the purpose of obtaining the ultimate glory, a lot of players have found solace and friendship among these gatherings, both online and in real life. As a lot of people say, it all begins with a simple "Hi" or "Hello" and that could spark a friendship that may last for eternity.
  These online friendships and groups carry themselves on to the real life through guild meets known as EB's where the friendship online is being strengthened further by meeting together and hanging out with each other.
  
• Politics - There could never be a more bothersome issue than the politics that we have in our country. There had been news of corruption, squabbles among the officials, and an abuse of power to some extent, and sadly, the attitude has carried on to the online world. Guilds and factions clash together just because of petty arguments of who gets the better spot and nearly every clan bands together for the sole purpose of dominating over everything else - of ruling over the entire server, lording over all the other players. Some light gamers might not appreciate these factors in effect but only those who look through the game's community boards can learn of these activities online. Game issues have even escalated to the point of conducting an online rally, much like what they do in Mendiola or in EDSA XD.

Those were some of the points that really underline the connection between reality and online gaming - points that prove that what the online game you are playing, whatever genre, developer, or promoter it might belong to, all have the same essence. There is always the aura of the community and the spirit of the real world blending in with it as the players inside participate, and magically enough, it grows with the real world. The next time you would see an online game, take several seconds of contemplation and ask yourself, "Can I extend my lifestyle to this world too?"

I am posting this as part of an entry to GM Tristan's Group Writing Project for the first week and I'm really looking forward to where this endeavor will eventually lead to :D. Hope you enjoyed reading, all!

~DaveTNova

Perfect World Online Philippines

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I'm not exactly a connoisseur of Ancient History, but there is something within their colorful backgrounds that simply give me that pull to discover what they really are all about - from the ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, down to the glorious Ascent of the Greco-Roman Empires, and even the turn of the centuries in the Medieval and Dark Ages, all of these historical remnants of human society have taken me with quite a huge interest.

Ordinarily one can learn history through books and reference materials from the Internet or from actual records of ancient artifacts, but the modern technology of today has now provided an even better means by which anyone could learn and appreciate ancient history - that is, through games.

Perfect World Online is no exception to this coverage. Set in the colorful setting of Ancient China, one of the most intricate and most moving cultural nations of the Ancient World, the historical essence imbued within the graphics and design of this game simply pull me towards it the moment that I laid eyes on it. It may have that "fantasy" effect with the presence of magic and superhuman creatures but altogether it is the storyline within that I am interested, much as I was also hooked by the rich storyline of its brother MMORPG, ROSE Online.

Another thing that took me completely by sheer amazement is its powerful graphics rendition of the world where the characters move into - it's like almost a near-realistic view of the outside world and really gives players that "naturalistic" feel of the environment - and not just an ordinary environment, but one conducive not only to fighting and leveling, but to socializing as well.

Connected to the rich environment and the extensive storyline above, what interests me with this game is its innumerable quests that await your character when it begins its life there. For me nothing could be more fulfilling in any game than being a completist and attaining the goals by which your character is built for, one of which would be the quests. Adventuring is not just all about slaying countless monsters of varying difficulties, but rather it is about the renown you achieve as a player, as an adventurer, and one measure of which is how far you have delved into the storyline of the game itself, in turn broken up by the many quests.

Moving away from the ingame aspect, one important factor that made me hook up with its brother, ROSE Online, is because of its rich community aspect. Even with a simple message boards, ROSE did manage to survive on its many trials and tribulations. Here in Perfect World I see a similar community attempting to bloom, powered more by its features that encourage more of the community side of any MMORPG rather than the gameplay side of it, since it also has an interface that even allows chatting from outside the game!

Society-wise as well, the powerful engine capability of the game to create homes and entire villages at the customization of the players themselves is really one moving factor for me to gear up and start trying out this game - for one thing this absolutely unique feature - one I have been looking for from almost every game - literally transforms the essence of "online communities" into reality - giving characters and players a chance to replay, remake, or restart their lives anew, live a life like no other ordinary man would within the infinite ranges of the Chinese storyline of Perfect World.

Worries

Well today things aren't looking up for me because of several nasty things... I can narrate them all to you one by one if you'd pay attention and not press the Back Button or any other tab thingie in your browser...

I've just been through my classmate's house today, having gone and done some work with out Systems Development Class. We're actuall working on an Information System with the Department of Education and sad to say, things aren't looking our way this time - I guess we'll have to scrape everything we've got in order to get through this ordealing midterms.

The bad mood sunk in at that aspect of my IRL persona when the burden of having the entire program done fell on our side because the other side didn't quite manage to get through the necessities of the other side of the system. The alternative was, therefore, to place it on the original side of the system - the web-based one. While it may seem easy enough to do, we're quite lagging behind on the schedule already and it pains my ass to even find out that such a change would have to be applied NOW. Really, it pains me to find out about that because theres been a lot of time for changes, and now as we near the last minute everything shifts back to the old terms. It irritates me, although I do my best not to let it get over myself.

That one's for my IRL persona. Things aren't looking up for me in ROSE either, since powerleveling has taken its drastic toll and now we're inching in levels slower than what a turtle is capable of, no, seriously. It appears that the new terms I had in gaming, which is to play every weekends and holidays, isn't fast enough for me to obtain competitive levels in the community. But what the heck, we've got worse things to worry about, and one thing I'm looking forward to with ROSE one day is to join the ranks of the ROSE Gamemasters and sell my gaming soul to the MMORPG that has captivated it :D

Done away with Dave, my OL Persona, and it appears that Lance also has his own share of problems. Right now he's experiencing a serious case of Writer's Block. There's this plot that I would like to string together with the existing plot but the worrisome aspect of it is the link between them, which I cannot seem to finish well. It appears that my weaknesses lie on narrating or better yet, vividly describing battle scenes in such a way that the reader will be able to visualize clearly what the writer intends to relay in the action-packed scenes (supposedly).

Well, tonight's blog for me is a little tad too fragmented, since there's a lot of emotions mixing in my head right now - anger, worry, frustration, problems, the negative stuff. I hope this all clears up pretty soon...

Like what my classmate had said - wish it was January already *sigh*