Catching a Breather from the Virtual World

Time to catch a breather from the virtual world and take stock in the real world!

Check out the learning journeys of both Pascoaman and RotiAhcek!

Check this out! - Pascoaman's Maple Story

Check this out too! - RotiAhCek's Maple Story

18) Special Offers and Promotions

I got from level 31 to 33 in about 4 hours! That's pretty fast and efficient - thanks to the special offer by the game administrators.

Every minute I spend in MS from 1930hrs to 2030hrs in March is twice as efficient. I took leave these past 2 days and was able to arrange my time to take advantage of that offer.

Just when I thought that I really would have no more motivation to continue levelling up, this came along to prolong my involvement.

Will it last? I don't think it will work for me over the long haul. There is too much to do to continue in this world.

But in the meantime, I was just happy with my level 33 character. :p

In case I prove myself wrong, here are the residual motivations:

1. Go to Ossyria and see what it is all about
2. Cash in on that last chance to get those 20k exp CNY quests.
3. Just 1 more level (what's new?)
   

17) MMORPGs - Virtual "Drug"?

I had weaned myself off the crazy levelling up cycle in MapleStory for 1 week. Yet it was not without any struggle. Much as I "hated" the mindless hacking and slashing, I felt a little regret at having to give up such a "good" character that I've spent months building up.

Welcome to the world of MMORPGs, where it gets harder to quit by the day. Much like DRUGS!

The more I play, the more powerful I get, the more I will "lose" if I quit the game. In ordinary games, one starts from the same "level 0" everytime he plays the game, there is a starting and ending to the game.

For MMORPGs, the game never ends. One always carries his character and investment to the next time he plays the game - you don't "waste" your time.

Herein lies the biggest trap - in order not to waste his time, the gamer feels obliged to continue investing into the character.

Look at the the evidence - I am level 32 now. :p

16) Exploring the Virtual World

One of the attractions of MMORPGs is the chance to explore the virtual world. I finally got out of Victoria Island on the day I got to level 30. I visited Shanghai and Zipangu (Japan)!

Pretty kiddish I would think and nothing like the real Shanghai and Japan. However, "quests" built into these worlds promising unique rewards (such as equipment and virtual fashion items) and a structured experince for gamers. It's just like adults collecting "Hard Rock Cafe T-Shirts" from all around the world.

These are nothing near to what World of Warcraft offers, but it is interesting enough to keep the gamer coming back for more.

15) 2nd Job Advance - I'm a Spearman!

Look closely! I'm a Spearman now! :)



After 50 hours in 3 months, I finally reached this milestone! I'm officially out of the league of "noobs" (a rather derogatory term for beginner gamers). I got my second job advance.

Not exactly powerful or cool looking, but my "Janitor's Mop" weapon packs quite a powerful punch! And I have a cool looking full-helmet as well :)

And I'm getting out of Maple Story!

14) Virtual Trading in MapleStory

Look at the screenshot - a busy "markeplace" with more than 20 characters at any one time, trading and buying virtual items. I (LHS corner) got involved with this when I was got tired of slashing monsters to get the CNY items. I chose instead to trade for them.

Bargaining, cheating, scamming - all practices in the real world happens in MMORPGs too. I had kids (presumably) trying to sell me items at ridiculous items, and also encountered abusive ones when I tried to bargain.

In Maple Story, the power and freedom available to adults are made accessible to kids. There is definitely learning value in games, they become savvy in buying and selling, learn some limited negotiation skills, and get to decide which is the fastest way to attain their goals.

Of course these may not all be transferable to the real world. So don't be too quick to use this as an excuse to play games.

13) First Signs of Obsession?

I woke up 3 days ago and had an urge to turn on Maple Story!

Starting with just the necessity to research the game that has kept hundreds of thousands of kids glued to their computers, I reached the stage where I was really keen to finish off a quest that kept me up to 2am the previous night. In 1 week, I had put in about 10 hours in Maple Story and went from level 21 to 28! Really near my second job advance at level 30!

This also coincided with a relatively-lull period in my life, major projects were taken care of and I had quite good extended itme with my family over CNY (made me less guilty about playing MS).

It didn't matter that my eyes were heavy, my stomach was empty (no breakfast yet) - I really wanted to switch on that computer.

Relax (I did not do it)

I've practiced impulse-control on many other things in may life before and I manged to do it to Maple Story. Frequent periods of self-imposed abstinence from coffee made this feel normal. I'm not an animal without control over my senses and the fleshly desires.

But what about the kids? Would they have practiced self-control when they are left unsupervised and unrestrained on their terminals?

What would happen to them if they do not learn these skills early in life?

Food for thought.

12) Milestone - Lvl 25

Level 25 was a particularly sweet milestone for my character. 5 more levels to my 2nd job advance, and I was able to equip myself with cool weapons and armours. Check me out!

Noteworthy point in how I got to level 25 in a relatively short time: there were "CNY quests" during the festive period, and huge rewards associated with these quests that made playing time "efficient" and "worthwhile" during the festive season.

Each quest involved collection of chickens, fa cai moss, radish & fresh fish to make CNY dishes. And the rewards made levelling up very easy indeed.

Now you wonder why your kids gave up angpow collection opportunities to raid the virtual world!

11) Achievement: Game Guides

I went back to Maple Story for 3 hours while doing all the CNY spring cleaning. Finally levelled up from 21 to 22.

It was then I began to ask around, "how do I get my second job advance?"

I wasted a bit of time asking around but (should have done it earlier) finally consulted one of the "Game Guides" in the MAPLESEA forums. Here we come to one of the most amazing signs of Youth DEDICATION to gaming.

Youths who have spent hundreds of hours playing the games themselves, playing and replaying the same scenes to refine their approach so that they become ruthlessly efficient, playing the game to PERFECTION.

After attaining the ultimate, they come back to SHARE THEIR EXPERTISE - via game guides!

Check out this website, this is simply amazing, how much effort people put into acquiring knowledge about a game that is created by humans.

• It's not like guides developed to help mankind tackle real life issues like overcoming physical obstacles (like mountain climbing)
• It's guides developed on how to scale that virtual mountain in the virtual creation of the game developer.

The process of gaining and documenting knowledge is useful and executed to perfection. But the actual value of that knowledge has virtually no INTRINSIC value.

Perfected Means but Confused Ends?

10) Opportunity Cost

I've played 15 min in 20 days.

Unmotivated, busy - but simply too engaged in REAL LIFE to afford too much of VIRTUAL WORLD ventures.

Adults fret getting hooked on games themselves, however as long as one is already purposefully engaged in life, it is highly unlikely that they will go overboard with MMORPGs.

Contrast that with young people, and you get a different story. Youths are in the phase of life where they DISCOVER THEIR PURPOSE in life. Philosophical as it may sound, they are looking for SOMETHING TO DIE FOR.

And they have time. In the phase where they have much time at their disposal, extra gaming hours seem easy to spare.

So the combination of spare time and easy gratification (fulfilment of achievement needs), no wonder kids get hooked. And at hight cost.

An adult gives up spare time, a child gives up CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT time. Same hours, different opportunity cost.

Even that, I am not going for it anyway. Until the next window of spare-spare time.

10) Somebody Vs. Nobody

Dream unaccomplished in the real world, but achieved in the virtual world

Due to an accident in Army where I had a crack fracture in my wrist, I was left with less than steady hands after that. Since then, any thing which required delicate minor movements of hand actions, I was not able to be up to it. Sad to say, archery was something I could not master because I cannot withstand holding the bow steady for long. It was a dream unaccomplished.. I can never be like my hero Legolas.. I feel like a nobody.

However in Maple Story, I finally found my significance! I have revived my dream of becoming a good archer! Without the need of steady hands, I can become SOMEBODY here, as long as I train hard, spend long hours in the game and spend more money (both virtual and real) to get the rare items!

Comments:

1. Many youths grow up feeling like underachievers in school, family and amongst their friends. They are scolded, ridiculed, overpowered in many ways and there was only one way to make their presence felt and be heard - in the virtual world! Just by investing time and punching away at the keyboard, the child can become someone powerful in the game!
2. Dreams unachieved, suppressed or lost can be resurrected in MMORPGs. One doesn't need to dream of becoming exactly like the game character, but the fact that the child has control and can determine his destiny step by step makes it enticing for him to stay in the virtual world and refuses to come out.
3. Life is no longer an uncertainty.. Destiny is in the hands of the gamer!

9) A-CASH

I should have done this earlier. After reaching level 20, I finally bought my first A-Cash card.

(Now before you think I've gone bonkers, I'm only doing this on company account because I was researching for my work. I'll be pretty crazy to spend my own money just for play. For research - it was ok.)

Kids buy these cards 10 at a time! That's $105.00 ($10.50 each)!

Each card allows you to get 10,000 in-game cash. This is different from MESOS, the currency you earn from playing the game. Kind of like the difference between local currency and internationally-accepted currency.

One can do different things with the A-cash. People get married, buy pets, specialty items, powerful weapons, customise their characters with different hairdos, complexion etc. I used my moeny for more practical purposes:

1. Bought a Glove - just trying out, I thought gloves make me more powerful, unfortunately it did not.
2. Bought Guchapon coupons - these are like "tee-kum" tickets that allow me to get special stuff if I go to the Guchapon man. I bought 3 of these!

I would have bought a special scroll that gave me double experience points for 24 hours if I did not blow my budget. That would have been a nice time-saver indeed! Unfortunately I should have done that right from the time I started playing the game, it would have saved me many hours!

9) A-Cash - 2X EXP

Having learnt from Pascoaman's lesson on using the A-Cash, I decided to not beat around the bush and go for the kill. With the virtual cash that I had, I purchased the coupon which allowed me to gain double experience points from each monster that I slash! However, this coupon would only last for 24 hours. Literally it means that I could level up in double quick time within that 24 hours!

The reason why I was able to climb up to Level 21 within 6 days was also because I had used this 2X EXP coupon... twice. Couple this effect with partying, I was on a fast and furious track of gaining experience points!

Moments with 2X EXP was fun and exciting, and very motivating to stay in the game without stopping. Moments without 2X EXP was dull, slow and boring.

Comments:

1. "With great power comes great responsibilty". Once the 2X EXP is activated, I felt the sense of urgency and responsibility to fully utilize its effect and mustn't let it go to waste. That was what kept me going on and on for 6 hours once until I had to shut down because my eyes were getting painful!
2. "With great power also comes great IRresponsibility". Having only slept 3 hours and going to work the next day, I was super ineffective at work. Most of the time I felt really tired and slow in getting things done. Similarly for youths, enhancement in the virtual world results in the imbalance of the real world. Messy rooms not tidied up, dark eye rings going to school, homework not done...etc These are gaming addiction indicators!

8) Partying

It's been 2 weeks since I last blogged. Pretty tough going to even continue playing the game. But I still managed to do enough to get to level 21. I really have no idea how I am going to "motivate" myself to continue playing.

Today I cover "PARTYING", one of the small motivations that kept me going for 1 hour yesterday. Someone asked me to join their party (usually they just type "pt?"). I checked out their statistics and I agreed. Check out the picture of me resting together with my party (those with the red HP bars on top of the character)

People usually party with someone of the similar strength or someone stronger. This is because experience points (EXP) and money (MESOS) gets shared among the party whenever anyone kills a monster.

A weaker character actually gets to benefit in a stronger party because the others gain EXP and MESOS faster than himself and as a result, he progresses faster than if he does it alone. (The party I joined had 2 stronger and 1 weaker character but the weaker one soon got expelled by the party leader)

Partying also introduces a communal element into the game and makes everyone more motivated. I did not want to let down my party members or be seen as slacking in playing (that explains my 1-hr play). As such, I work harder and this makes play feel "more purposeful"

Add to both these benefits, partying together gives people strength in unity. Members are not as concerned about individual achievements or kill stealing. Instead, they jump into the fray together and this often helps the party deal with bigger monsters which may also yield greater efficiency in levelling up.

So there you go, in a week where I averaged 5 min per day of motivation for MS, I did 1 hour because of partying. Not bad eh?

8) Quests - New Way to Level Up

Having been slogging to level up for almost 4 hours, I decided to pause and take a break to explore other areas. I heard from some youths about this thing called "QUEST" - similar to running errands and getting rewarded for it. Rewards can come in terms of experience points (EXP) which helps in levelling up, or mesos ($$) or even rare items.

My first try and guess what I got? 20,000 EXP!!!!! I was shocked and stunned! That practically helped me level up one and a half times! This was a special quest set up only during this Chinese New Year season. And this high rewarding quest can be repeated at intervals of 12 hours. Gosh! Suddenly I was demotivated to go around slashing monsters to level up - time wasting! I just wanted to slash monsters, get those items required for the quest and at every 12 hour interval, I can get those much needed EXP to level up!

I did three seperate quests within 1 hour and levelled up from 21 to 23!

Comment:

1. Instant gratification. In real life, we always like to take the easy way out. And now in the virtual world, we stop doing the "hard work" of slashing around, but just do quests to level up! So much about efficiency!
2. Just when the motivation to continue the game dies down, this revelation spurs me on to keep gaming once again and maximise full usage of the CNY quest to level up!