The feeling of accomplishment, every single human being gets it from somewhere. It might be gardening, racing, painting, debating, competitions, getting a killer job from that local business giant, but one thing is in common. Everyone needs it to feel fulfilled and happy.
For some time now there has been a relatively easy way to achieve this "high" to be exact 14 years. And yes i am talking about MMORPG´s(Massive multiplayer online roleplaying game) which started innocently enough with Ultima online back in 1997 and later on got popularized by Everquest which in a short time led to a myriad of new ones spawning all over the internet. The World of warcraft(WoW) taking the lead as the most successful one by far. What these games give you as a human being is a virtual world bursting with ways to activate the brains pleasure system. These games are made easy to approach and learn so that anyone can play them and get relatively good. It starts up as you as a player being a lowly ranked (level 1) internet avatar with basic skills and poor equipment. The main goal is to rank up (level up) your avatar while gathering new equipment for him/her to wear. The way you can do this is represented in different forms, you might do quests where you go on hunting for certain monsters/items or bigger challenges where you co-op for bigger and better rewards. One thing though is always in common with these games, only a very small portion of the players at any time get to the point where the game cant offer anymore rewards. Mostly this is due to the constant updating of the virtual world with new "better" rewards. The reason for this is to create an infinite loop of you as a player giving the game developers money while they supply you with a relatively cheap "drug".
I myself have played couple of MMORPG´s during my gaming career with most of the time spent into WoW. I started playing the game in 2007 when the first expansion pack came out. The game offered all the stimulation for my brain I had gotten from other video games and it was giving it with a constant feed. No more need for new games all you needed to do was pay 12€ each month and you were good to go. I was enthralled by this games "cheap" novelty (because lets face it that´s what it pretty much is in the end). The years went by and I was giving less and less time for the console games I had loved so much before and found myself playing WoW for all the time I had for my hobbies. Why you ask? because it was easy, I always had the computer on anyway so it was just as easy to boot it up as it was to start any console game I had. The deciding factor which always led me to play this games was its lack of need for excessive brain usage. Now don´t get me wrong I by no means imply that the games end content is something that doesn´t require brains, but what I am saying is that the things you find yourself doing the most in this game (Gathering resources, reputation, gold, gear) are in the end so repetitive you could do them with your mind drifting to a zombie like state. Not to mention there are no save points while doing these daily routines, you can just drop it when ever you like and come back to continue where you left off.
So now you might ask yourself, what is this guy trying to point out? That i shouldn´t play MMORPG`s anymore? No that is definitely not the point i am going for here. My own honest opinion regarding MMO´s is actually positive. The purpose of this entry is to make you think as a player, are you missing out on games that could give you more satisfaction or perhaps another "high" entirely different from games altogether. Go experiment and don´t let yourself get way to immersed into the loop hole that is MMO gaming.
For some time now there has been a relatively easy way to achieve this "high" to be exact 14 years. And yes i am talking about MMORPG´s(Massive multiplayer online roleplaying game) which started innocently enough with Ultima online back in 1997 and later on got popularized by Everquest which in a short time led to a myriad of new ones spawning all over the internet. The World of warcraft(WoW) taking the lead as the most successful one by far. What these games give you as a human being is a virtual world bursting with ways to activate the brains pleasure system. These games are made easy to approach and learn so that anyone can play them and get relatively good. It starts up as you as a player being a lowly ranked (level 1) internet avatar with basic skills and poor equipment. The main goal is to rank up (level up) your avatar while gathering new equipment for him/her to wear. The way you can do this is represented in different forms, you might do quests where you go on hunting for certain monsters/items or bigger challenges where you co-op for bigger and better rewards. One thing though is always in common with these games, only a very small portion of the players at any time get to the point where the game cant offer anymore rewards. Mostly this is due to the constant updating of the virtual world with new "better" rewards. The reason for this is to create an infinite loop of you as a player giving the game developers money while they supply you with a relatively cheap "drug".
I myself have played couple of MMORPG´s during my gaming career with most of the time spent into WoW. I started playing the game in 2007 when the first expansion pack came out. The game offered all the stimulation for my brain I had gotten from other video games and it was giving it with a constant feed. No more need for new games all you needed to do was pay 12€ each month and you were good to go. I was enthralled by this games "cheap" novelty (because lets face it that´s what it pretty much is in the end). The years went by and I was giving less and less time for the console games I had loved so much before and found myself playing WoW for all the time I had for my hobbies. Why you ask? because it was easy, I always had the computer on anyway so it was just as easy to boot it up as it was to start any console game I had. The deciding factor which always led me to play this games was its lack of need for excessive brain usage. Now don´t get me wrong I by no means imply that the games end content is something that doesn´t require brains, but what I am saying is that the things you find yourself doing the most in this game (Gathering resources, reputation, gold, gear) are in the end so repetitive you could do them with your mind drifting to a zombie like state. Not to mention there are no save points while doing these daily routines, you can just drop it when ever you like and come back to continue where you left off.
So now you might ask yourself, what is this guy trying to point out? That i shouldn´t play MMORPG`s anymore? No that is definitely not the point i am going for here. My own honest opinion regarding MMO´s is actually positive. The purpose of this entry is to make you think as a player, are you missing out on games that could give you more satisfaction or perhaps another "high" entirely different from games altogether. Go experiment and don´t let yourself get way to immersed into the loop hole that is MMO gaming.
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