Gridlock: Every MMO Player's Nightmare

While I consider myself as a dedicated and devout player to the Online Game that I bind myself into (I find addict as an inadequate term to describe my condition XD), my online lifestyle is not always a life of easy-going, progressing character in terms of level, skills, equipments, and build. I'm sure that the challenge I am often met with every MMORPG is also prevalent among my peers in the industry as well - I call it Gridlock.

Mr. Google defines Gridlock as the inability to move through a transport network, in other words, traffic jam! In the realm of online gaming, whenever I find myself (and my character) struck with Gridlock, I am always unable to level-up, often getting killed by the simplest of mobs and sometimes not managing to attain the levels I had expected I would attain.

What normally causes Gridlock? For me, here are some nasty symptoms that it's about to come my way:

• When I find another game that merits my attention (Or if an old interest to an old PC game suddenly awakens deep in my subconscious. Lately my attention in Perfect World has been slightly marred by the revival of my Civilization III: Conquests mania LOL)
• When monsters kill me often. This normally happens when I am on a point in my leveling when the monsters that I must kill are my absolute nightmares (physical hitters are a magic-user's worst enemy). Normally I find myself swearing to myself when a monster kills me for the nth time. Experience lost is time lost as well.
• When the clan or party I am in are starting to get... well, irritating. I don't normally engage into arguments online since it counters my personality so much, but when I find my companions being - forgive the profanity - assholes ingame, I tend to lie back a bit and let myself cool down.
• Worst of all, when I am overtaken in levels. Competition seemed to be an aspect that has embedded itself in my bloodstream and I cannot detach it no matter what therapies and brainwashings I do to myself. When I find myself lagging behind in levels, I tend to get depressed and level slower (instead of typically working doubly hard to get even)

Normally Gridlock brings me to my knees for about a month at the worst (especially when i get addicted to other games too - attention is severely divided), but thankfully I have several cures to this queer disease of mine:

• Whenever I find games starting to distract me from the online game I play, I normally log in to the Online Game for at least once a week. Eventually the thrill of getting new achievements ingame, new levels and quests, those stuff normally get me back on track and before I know it, the other games have already been forgotten XD
• Whenever monsters kill me often, I normally ask help from my clanmates or friends. Most often they are more than willing to help, especially my close friends in the Holy Order. They're always there for someone in need *winks*
• Normally arguments within the clan do not last long so thankfully the symptom of having a rowdy clan never shakes me much. We try to listen to problems as openly as possible and try to arrive at a just settlement of the issues.
• When I am overtaken, I just continuously convince myself that eventually I will reach max level... I can do it this time... thankfully that mantra works for me lol.

Thus defines my greatest challenge in every MMORPG I play: Gridlock, and how I bested it with my own and my friends' aid. Remember, no man is an island, seek out friends and companions ingame so you don't get too bored of it easily.

This wraps it up as my sixth and final entry for GM Tristan's Group Writing Contest. Judgment day is here! LOL.

To Live in a Real Perfect World...

Let's face it: I'm a guy dwelling deep in the fantasy realms than in the reality that I move into. I don't know why I am born with this affliction, but I feel much at home when I sit back and imagine stuff that I wished I was able to do - cast magic, explore dungeons, destroy monsters, fantasy stuff like those. That's one factor that pulled me into the realm of video gaming since the ability to role-play a character (from the epics of Final Fantasy to simple adventures like Mario and the other fantasy games) brings me even at least inches closer to a world that I wished I would have existed instead (although I do not regret being me, don't get me wrong, hahaha).

Currently the game that has me tied, bound, and trussed up, is, as we all know, Perfect World! I won't highlight anymore why I got engrossed in this new MMORPG, you know the idea; I'm hooked into it!

Sometimes I went in my subconscious ramblings as to imagine myself in the shoes of my avatar, DaveTNova. He's a Fashi, you see, and a magic user at heart, bringing me even closer to the aspect of living a real fantasy world where magic and steel run free and clash among each other. Sometimes I even wonder - what if it really happened, what if, through a hitherto seemingly-impossible series of events, the world of Pangu suddenly replaced our Earth, and everyone ingame would have themselves turned into living, breathing Path-seekers?

If that were to happen to me, I'd definitely know what to do: live through the experience as best as I can. I'd go out on dungeon explorations personally (with my guildmates or partymates) and relish the thrill of being in the dungeon myself (since it must of course not be the same feeling as controlling your character from behind a screen while it does the fighting for you!). I'd live the life of an explorer, a life I've never enjoyed with my current lifestyle, and go to the far reaches of Pangu's Perfect World with my flying sword. Oh, the limitless bounds we can all go!

But of course, even with these things happening, I won't set aside the fact that I am still human at heart and I'd of course retain the compassion I have for other people, friends or not. Being in the game itself would be a different scenario now and it won't just be about grinding or powerleveling anymore (I wonder how one can track levels when he himself is on the game! XD), but on building up on the world's story, how your character can make that difference.

I know it's too much to ask for Existence to happen, but hey, there's always the power of imagination to help us reach those impassable terrain. And there's still the computer to aid us in building up our imagination!

Posted as the second-to-the-last entry for GM Tristan's Group Writing Contest, we're almost closing in on the moment of truth! Hope everyone enjoyed reading!

Shall We Play?

My typical day is never complete without me being online even for at least an hour, and during my earlier days of gaming I can be online from the last few hours of the evening until the first few hours of the morning - not that I don't do it anymore, though, of course I still do ^_^

During those times as well my life was always on the warpath as far as the field of online gaming is concerned. My parents, particularly my dad, was my number one enemy when it comes to this industry, since he has everyone else's mindset that gaming is not a healthy habit for young teenagers and even adults to indulge into, and they should rather be putting their energies to more productive things such as work or education. Not that I neglect my studies due to gaming, since even my classmates are amazed that even a hardcore gamer such as myself can gain top marks in class! (/heh. LOL)

In fact, one can consider online gaming as my driving factor in my studies. I've often noticed that an absence in the online world renders me unable to focus on what I'm supposed to do at school. Call me weird, but that's what happened during my earlier days of study. Before I entered the world of online gaming, my life was like that of Mr. Clark (Richard Gere, from the movie Shall We Dance) whose life was entirely monotonous with work and family until he discovered the world of dancing.

Back to the online gaming then. During my earlier days of gaming I was a proud participant of the Honor Roll Program for Ragnarok Online and got a lot of incentives from submitting my grades and marks in the program. Heck, I even got an interview in Massive! for that program!

What a lot of people do not realize about online gaming is that it's not just a game. I've endlessly highlighted in my previous posts that online gaming has a lot of hidden benefits and treasures that are worth keeping for the rest of your life - from friends and relationships to values and ethics. I can say for myself that these factors have greatly changed my life and has made me into a more mature and responsible person. I learned the value of putting work priorities and managing my schedule to accommodate my gaming with the ever-increasing burden of studies.

Right now my parents had taken quite a docile manner with regards to my gaming. Perhaps the alternate side of online gaming has finally touched and opened their minds that it's really not just a game that is played and finished and discarded in time. So if you think your life is headed to boredom when your day-to-day tasks are revolving around the same things, why not try online gaming, and make some difference?

For GM Tristan's Group Writing Project, I commend my thoughts for everyone to read. Thank you for your time, I hope I've made my impression :)

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