#evalavida

It's my secret ambition to go to space, but I'm just too lazy to go through the training

I think reading this in chapter 13 made me have a flashback to WoW, which was at first was far from a relaxing experience. Almost every time I played it I was on edge. The concept of a Zen game is weird to me, but I think the point is that any game can transcend that of a plaything to a sort of therapy depending on the person. For example, I must admit that I’m a pretty big fan of the Wii – mostly because of Michael Jackson: The Experience. Even though the game requires me to move and interact, I’m usually pretty chill when I play. It’s like a stress reliever. This might not be the case for someone else who’s uncomfortable dancing or claims to not know how to. Additionally, it’s important to remember that playing a videogame is a learning process. In order to be able to do it in a relaxed state, you must be fairly advanced. It’s the equivalent of reading. At first a child may not do it for fun because it’s “too hard” or “boring”, but once they get the hang of it, they’ll realize the places it can take them.

Think about it like a glass of 2% percent milk. Let the milk represent the truth. Now add a drop of chocolate syrup and stir it. Let the chocolate represent the untruth. After stirring it, perhaps the milk still retains its white color because of the small amount of chocolate added, and maybe you can’t tell difference between the regular milk and altered one.  Regardless, the milk can’t be both pure 2% milk and chocolate milk at the same time, even if you can only recognize the pure 2% milk. It is not both chocolate and regular milk. It is really just chocolate milk because of the presence of chocolate, no matter how miniscule. I believe this same concept applies when dealing with truth.

I must say that my friends are probably more  excited than I am that this week was the last week for WoW. Between me kidnapping my friend's computer to play, them helping me look up stuff on WoWwiki's, and them having to repeat themselves multiple times because of my inability to focus on the game and them at the same time, I'm sure they've had enough. However, I think it's funny now that references to WoW comes up in our conversations. Many of my friends (even the girls) now know what a dungeon is, what achievement points are, and that dying doesn't necessarily mean game over. For whatever reason one of my friends likes to bring up my attempt at getting the achievement for surviving the 65 foot jump...which was a fail. interesting It's that the realities have in some ways become interchangeable. WoW uses examples from the real word that contribute to the humor and understanding of the game, but now my friends and I have inside from WoW. Kinda funny. Since I paid for another subscription I just might play again for kicks and giggles...or that'll be my excuse to play again ^_^ 

I believe the motivation of gamers to succeed in the game can mirror the levels of motivation of people to succeed in the real word. For example, you have the people who are okay with doing the minimum they need to do to pass, and then you have the extremists who have the Pokémon attitude. They have to have it all: the degrees, the money, fame, power etc, and they will stop at nothing to reach their goal, at which point they make a new goal. We usually like to call them workaholics, or better said, achievement whores.

            As it relates to WoW I think it is interesting that (in my case) whenever I am playing the game I can’t help but become somewhat invested on an emotional level. I know whenever I am being killed (or about to be killed) my pulse quickens, I’m on the edge of my seat, and my face is probably five inches from the computer screen. I didn’t even notice I was doing that until one of my friends pointed out that I looked like a legit computer nerd. For me dying means wasting precious time finding my corpse that I could be using to reach the required level for this class.  That is my reality, or part of it. I’m not sure I can quite draw the line between where the reality for my own world ends and WoW begins. I don’t think it’s simply when I turn off the game because throughout the day I’m still thinking about what I have to do next when I play again, where I need to go, etc. This isn’t much different than having to make a checklist of errands you need to run in the real world. Perhaps it could be better described as an extension of reality. I’m starting to see how there are several rehab facilities for WoW addicts because the line for what is real versus what isn’t real is very blurred. I would assume that the more engrossed you are in the game, the more blurred the reality is.

I suppose that I should begin by confessing that before I actually started playing WoW I’d grossly misunderestimated the magnitude of the game itself as a world of its own and its ability to hold my attention.  At the beginning (before I realized I was even in the wrong realm), I quickly became frustrated because I didn't know how to do anything…literally…I had to google what controls would make my character move, much less use a sword. So needless to say I was easy prey, and spent much time looking for my corpse (before I realized you I couldn't immediately retrieve it in the lower levels). The concept of “quests” was foreign. Half the time I wasn't sure what I was looking for, and once I found it I was usually killed before actually retrieving it. However, once I was finally able to complete a quest, I felt a great sense of satisfaction. Then I caught myself and remembered I was playing one of the nerdiest games ever. I believe that’s when it hit me on how people become entranced in the game. Regardless of the fact that I’m playing because I need to for a class, I can’t help but feel kind of awesome or that my time wasn't completely wasted once I complete a quest. It gives a sense of self-affirmation, which isn't always easy to get in the real world.

The concept of race in video games and the way it affects me have never really crossed my mind. The times when I have played a game involving me to create an online character, I would choose someone who had darker skin and black hair (also curly if I was lucky). It was second nature that the online persona of me should in some way reflect my own appearance. It's not that the game wouldn't have been as much fun if I played as someone of a different nationality but on some level it's like pretending to be something completely different than who I am, which wasn't something I grew up wanting to do. Race is such a big factor in how we view not only ourselves but those around us. Leaving race out of a game in a fantasy world would give the illusion that in a perfect world race would not exist and would probably be confusing for young players. As it relates to World of Warcraft, the fact that there are so many different "races" simply provides us gamers with a sense of familiarity. However, that race isn't that important to the way the game is played and the abilities one has moves to break racial disparities first in a fantasy world, and then maybe our own.