persons behind the avatars

warning, this could be long! proceed with care

before i stand to lose the last few remaining minuscule readers of this semi-stasis blog, i am going to submit a "properly" written entry. but what do i write about when all my life nowadays revolves on lastchaos? about the game, naturally.

and before you hit that 'x' mark thinking that this is about another video/ computer game review, don't! because this is not about a game review. it is the human side of the game and somehow, the wonders of human nature never fails to amaze me, more so when they are safely obscured behind the avatars of the game.

for the uninitiated, mmorpg games stands for multi-media multi-player online role playing game. while you could still play the lone ranger and be oblivious to your surroundings while playing the game, interactions between players are encouraged in the forms of added bonuses, complementary skills and powers between characters to coerce the players to play together. so, what do you get when you team up humans with superpowers to be playing together with practically nothing to lose (especially since it's a free-for-all kind of game?

the first interesting type are the ones whom have serious inferiority complex issues. i am talking about those higher level players that are virtually invincible to the much lower level players and just go around killing lower level players senselessly without any much logical reasons and nothing to gain except bad reputation. that's why the only reason i could think of is serious inferiority complex issues. when one person whom doesn't have anything to be proud of in real life are given powers beyond their imagination in the virtual world, what do they do with it? establish their superiority towards the lesser beings would be a logical step. imagine what would happen if those kind of people are given real responsibilities in real life?

as the cliche goes, there are these group of high-level, good samaritans as well to provide the check and balance. these defender of faiths are the ones that hunt for those inferiority-complexed scums and provide a carefree environment for those lower level players devoid of those void-in-the-donkey's-behind players, also with no apparent tangible gains except for goodwill. doesn't it say a lot about the player behind the avatars?

while theoretically avatars are supposed to provide a gender-free, race-free, age-free and discrimination-free environment, as you all know they don't. the game servers are located independently both in the you-es-ay and bolehland but i have found one s1ngaporean guy whom had relocated from the you-es-ay server to the one in bolehland just to feel closer to home. interactions play a vital role in the game and and when you have to communicate with other people, as always, language barrier notwithstanding, people tend to feel easier and be more open with their own kindred. even though he reaffirmed that the social network in the you-es-ay servers are a lot more helpful than the ones he found in bolehland where people there sometimes go to great lengths to helping him out instead of generally a more kiasu (selfish) crowd at home whom would just ignore him many times he was asking around. reminds me of that hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri malay proverb (sorry can't think of the equivalent one in english).

when you are dealing a lot with teenagers, those raging hormones definitely provide an interesting mix into play. despite being busy slaying monsters everywhere, believe it or not, you have some of these teenagers suggesting directly or indirectly of different kind of activities that would involve a different kind of excitement. usually, i would just dismiss all these as background chatter but there was this one time that it had became so unbearable that i had to make it stop. not that i'm completely sterilised and became oblivious to that kind of excitement but i was more interested in avoiding her to quit the game altogether and depriving me of the crucial support line that i have been enjoying in her company. oh no! now i beginning to sound like an old man.

i have a lot more pointers to say but i think this should be long enough. hopefully it's enough to keep my readers coming to this blog, or NOT!