MMO GurL

On Sunday, I decided that I was going to spend the day leveling my Defiant rogue in Rift. She was level 29 to start and I didn’t get her too far into 30 before I decided to shut the client down. Why? Because I was nerd raging.

To start with, I’m leveling in a zone called Scarlet Gorge and whoever designed this zone is a masochistic bastard (sorry, but it’s true). The zone is an absolute nightmare as most of the quests I have done so far involve killing mobs that are jam packed on top of each other.

In recent zones, like Stonefield, you may have had to kill a couple at a time, but in Scarlet Gorge, you are stuck with 3 most of the time and then will most likely get a patrol that you weren’t accounting for. As a rogue, I do have a crowd control mechanism (sap) to take care of one mob, but that still leaves two which can sometimes be tricky unless I use a cool-down or a potion. If I get an extra mob into the equation, I’m screwed, and will have to run or I’ll die; in fact, even if I run, I still may die.

On top of dealing with that for about 2 hours, a major invasion occurred and the boss Gnar King (I think that was it – don’t hold me to it) showed up. I ran half way across the map for the chance to participate and after missing the big fight I ran in to help clear up the trash. I used an AOE and next thing I know I’m flagged and I see what seemed to magically appear out of nowhere: a ton of Guardians all flagged.

They chased me down all the while I was just hoping to get far enough away to stealth out. What crap!! I had to nerd rage to Twitter and then had to log out. I was just too pissed off.

It made me think, “Why do things like that get me so upset? Why do people have to nerd rage?”

I think a lot of it is because we like to think that we are all awesome in our game world and that we can’t die. Dying by a mob is annoying, but dying from another character outside of a Warfront (Instanced PVP game) is just unacceptable. Why?

Perhaps because we feel that we’ve been out-witted. That someone by default of killing us is better than us. When the reality of it is that these people are usually using sneaky methods to get us in the first place. A huge group going to a major rift invasion flagged is of course looking for trouble. It’s almost as bad as those people that would flag themselves and sit on top of your mobs just hoping that you would accidentally hit them and get flagged so they could kill you?

That is also a part of why it’s so irritating to be tricked. A player figures that they know all the tricks and when they get out-smarted it’s enough to set them off into nerd rage city.

Another thing that always gets me is that I don’t like to deal with jerks in a game that is supposed to be some kind of happy go lucky virtual world. When I first started playing MMORPGs, there were never any negative people around. Maybe 1 out of 100 would be a jerk and everyone would talk about how awful they were and why they would do such a thing.

Now it’s just a fact of MMORPG life and it’s something I still haven’t come to fully accept. It annoys me that people really do think that they aren’t dealing with real people on the other end of the line. Worst yet is that most of the time griefing is done out of boredom; I say find these people something to do!

The main reason that I have never enjoyed a PVP server is because I have two separate mindsets when I play a MMORPG: PVE AND PVP. When I’m trying to level, I don’t think about the possibility of a player ganking me and I don’t even want to. I have played multiple games on a PVP server and in the end, it just gets old! Sure you can kill people whenever you want to, but you also have to worry about them killing you – whether you feel like fighting or not.

When I go into a battleground or warfront, I’m expecting to fight! I’m ready to go and I know that it’s kill or be killed, so I don’t hesitate. That also means that obviously if I’m there, I’m in the mood to fight and am perfectly fine with dying. But, I can’t stand getting caught off guard when I’m not actually wanting to PVP.

Ultimately, the nerd rage is not cool. I’m sitting there all upset like my street credits have been ruined as a decent PVPer, when in reality, it just doesn’t matter. It’s still just a game and it can be shut off at any time. I won’t deny that it’s very hard to avoid spazzing out when frustration gets heavy. I have no problem admitting that I nerd rage. It might even be because I drink too much coffee. Still, it’s best to just try to stay calm because those little jack asses just love it when you get mad.

WHY U MAD, BRO?

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I read an interesting blog recently that I found through Twitter. I’m not going to mention any specific names here because it is not my intention to be menacing towards the person. But I do have some valid concerns with the message they are spreading with the blog.

The theme of the blog was basically stating that you shouldn’t bother with a fake life in an online game such as MMORPGs, but instead should improve your real life. This is a great thought and all, but what does that say to the many people who play games every day? To me, it says, “Hey you’re a loser and you’re not doing what you could be doing with your life because you waste all of your time playing Rift or WoW and that’s not productive!” Sorry! Long winded, I know!

So, the point still stands; is it really that horrible for you to play MMORPGs? In order to answer this question honestly you have to be prepared to answer a few other questions first.

1. Are you neglecting something or someone to play your MMORPG?

This is usually the first sign of abuse. Most good mothers will tell their children that everything is alright in moderation. So as long as you’re not going over-board, there’s not much to worry about. If you start neglecting your hygiene, your spouse, your children, your chores, and responsibilities, than you probably do have a problem and should reevaluate your situation.

2. If you had absolutely nothing to do – No games – what would you do?

This is a big indicator here. I have been playing MMORPGs for a long, long time and don’t think I have never sat down and thought to myself what a waste of time it all was. I have stopped many times for quite long chunks of time and you know what? I never really did anything that amazing with my free time. I watched TV and movies a lot. I will say that I was a lot better with cleaning the house, but I recall after awhile I got sick of the prospect of being some neat-freak housewife that just cleaned all day! So like that mother said, “Everything in moderation,” even productive things.

3. What can you change in your life that you haven’t changed because of your preoccupation with games?

A lot of people play games because they can’t do anything about their current situation in life. Maybe they have a horrible job, maybe they’re stuck in a house that’s worth less than the mortgage out on it; there can be any number of problems in a person’s life that can’t be instantly resolved. Sure that person who has a bad job can put out applications all day, but in this economy they’d be lucky to get a call back for 1 out of every 30 applications they submit.

But what about what CAN be changed? Can you honestly say that you are doing everything that you want to be doing? At least with the things you can do something about? Think about that and it will help you to determine if you’re too focused on gaming.

4. Are you gaining something positive from playing your game?

I gain many things from playing MMORPGs: I get better at writing, I get better at socializing (I’m actually really anti-social in real life) and meeting new people, I make friends that I probably wouldn’t make in real life. I’m also gaining the potential to make some money with my time. Articles do sell and whenever I want to take the step into writing full time I will have more than enough of a resume with my contributions to other sites (like Rift Junkies) as well as my own.

So yes, gaming is not just about self indulgence for me. It is a lot more and I gain a lot from it. This alone outweighs any worries I have about whether or not gaming is productive enough for me. Even if you don’t write, make sure the game is giving you something back besides just the game.

Since I’ve come back to my MMO GurL persona I’ve fought with whether or not it was the right thing to do. I stopped playing for almost a year and tried to get my art career afloat. In the end I found that art was way too consuming a thing for me to do while trying to raise a child and keep my marriage together. Some things just take up FAR too much of your time and it’s not just games that can do it.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that anyone who plays games as a hobby is wasting their time though. I think that the person who’s doing the gaming needs to make the decision for themselves. I have been playing video games since the Atari and so for me, as far as hobbies go, games are far more ME than art is. Why is that such a horrible thing?

I’m not hiding in a fake world; I just like to visit it sometimes. How do we even know that the world we think is real is real (Matrix anyone?)? And I don’t know about you, but I can’t shoot fireballs in the “real” world, so I’m going to go do it in the virtual one!

Obviously if you’re here you have some interest in MMORPGs – so tell me – Do you think that playing such games is an innately bad thing? Why or why not?

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Photo taken from: Make Love, Not Warcraft – South Park Episode