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.

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!

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?

7) Kill Stealing

Kill stealing is a frequently-encountered behaviour in Maple Story.

Someone is busy slashing a particular monster (until they are almost done) and another person comes along the way and deals the finishing blow.

He who deals the finishing blow gets all the experience points (EXP) and the reward ($$) that comes with it. In a nutshell, "kill stealing" is simply profiteering from another person's hard work, "stealing credit", whatever else you may call it.

I experienced it first hand when I was bullied by a stronger Maple Story character. I was level 19 and he was level 27. In fact, he had a party that was hunting with him.

"ks warrior ok?" - Read Kill-Steal warrior (me) - he was beckoning to his party member.

Whenever I started on a monster, he would follow behind me and cast a spell from a distance and claim all the spoils of war! What lousy behaviour!

And what could I do about it? Absolutely nothing! Unless I come back stronger and bully him in return.

Whoever said you'll be free from bullies if you do not go out?

Comment
Questionable behaviour exist online and offline, in fact with the nature of the internet, bad behaviour can be multiplied many ways. What I just described was provocation, bullying and taunting all rolled into one.

6) Milestones - Lvl 20

Milestones are great motivators in life. It gives people something to focus on in the short to medium term. So it is with Maple Story. Someone guru (teenager of course) told me to level up to 20 and then ask him for the next step.

So I did, putting in an average of about an hour a day, always mindful not to get addicted (why, it would be a disaster if me, of all people, got hooked!) Yet I threw myself to the task, realising that this may well be the research material that I need to amass for the next module in our training curriculum.

I now sport an american football helmet, an awesome mace that delivers great damage when I hit the monsters, an of course some decent armour.

Check out my statistics too. My strength is now 58 (after some mistakes in allocation initially). My dexterity is 24.

I've acquired some awesome warrior skills and can take on stronger monsters. I'll show 9another day) you the irritating tree stumps that I used to fear. Now I "own them"!

Take a look at the chart. A total of 22 hours played to reach level 20. (I have no idea whether that's fast or slow, but it certainly could have been a few hours shorter had I not gone on the quests).

So it's back to blogging about some of the experiences for now. I'll be writing about "scamming", and "kill stealing", also about the "trading fame" syndrome.

For now, it's back to bed!

5) Multitasking

This chair is one of the most useful things in Maple Story if anyone wants to multi-task. It basically allows a person to recover Health Points (HP) at a faster rate.

This is how it works. Every character has a certain number of HP and this will deteriorate when enemies hits you. If the HP goes down to zero, then a character will die (temporarily) and lose some time (and points) in the game.

Yet of I go rest somewhere before I run out of HP, I will automatically gain back HP with time. When I sit on the chair however, the rate of restoration increases (in this case, I recover 50HP every 30 sec).

Implication: I could play Maple Story and other things at the same time. Whenever I needed to recover some HP, I would sit on the chair (in game) and go off to do some of my other real-life tasks while the HP recovers. In fact, I got to do some serious laundry in between my "rests" while levelling up.

So this allows a person to "economise" on his time. While outwardly a person may seem to be doing worthwhile work (e.g. homework), in reality his main attention could really be levelling up his character.

Remark

1. For me to research MS while keeping up with my real life, this is pretty useful.
2. Yet for the kids to be keeping up with real life while focusing on MS, this is really useful too.
3. The difference is, which is the priority in life. Is one more obsessed with the game character or his real-life self?

4) Becoming a Stronger Warrior

Look at me! Cool helmet. Nice armour and pants. A wooden shield and a double axe!

A cool level 14 character.

Off I went to take a second round around Victoria Island.

I learnt how to use my warrior skills - throwing snail shells at people and also to do power slashes. This was fun, I felt I've improved in the game and have become more powerful.

My teenage friend who frequents the cyber wellness centre gave me a few tips about the game. I learnt how to:

1. Form a party with other gamers to share experience points from our kills.
2. Assign skill and ability points to the categories that make my levelling up more efficient.
3. Buy the correct weapons and equipment in a way that makes use of my mesos the best.
   

With that, I began to "farm" - another term for repeatedly slashing at a "lucrative" spot in Victoria Island. I found this place in the tree trunk which had an endless stream of green slimy blobs converging on me. Look at the picture! All those easy prey around me!

With almost half an hour of hacking and slashing, I went from level 14 to level 15! Yeah!

Analysis
The desire in this phase of the game was to become powerful in a more efficient form - by farming some spots in Victoria Island. I felt that I had found an "secret" and just could not pass up the opportunity to milk it fully. It was non-stop slashing for half an hour!

3) First Job Advance

After landing on Victoria Island, I went about discovering this new place. I felt thrilled about this challenge and again the desire to become competent kicked in. As I moved from place to place, I finally began to level up till I was 10.

Here's the big milestone in my "career" - I could choose my vocation!

One gets to choose from 4 possible vocations:

1. Thief
2. Magician
3. Warrior
4. Bowman

I chose warrior. Somehow, perhaps due to my sporting nature, I seem to have a preference for characters with strength. I just like them. I was thrilled - now I can start my journey to discover the special skills available to warriors.

Unfortunately, the "city" where I was made a warrior was also contained some of the more depressing landscape in Victoria Island - lot's of brownish hills and totem poles. And awful looking tree stumps enemies to go along. This was so different from the common enemies in the other towns offering job advances in the other categories.

Anyhow, I managed to level up a little bit more till level 11 and I had made enough mesos to buy some cool warrior weapons and armour.

Analysis
This phase was driven by my desire to attain the "specialist skills" of a warrior. Probably the innate desire to be strong also drove my effort. Of course I was also carried along by the desire to explore more places. However, to get through some places, I just had to become stronger.

2) Initial Levelling Up Thrill

I logged on for 12 hours!

No no, before you get worried that the cyber wellness champion is getting hooked on MS, fret now. I was only on it for about 5 hours and it was on the day when I was on leave. I managed to take care of the kids, send them to school, take care of their meals and all of that.

But what was not so good was that I finally quit at 5am in the morning!!!!

Yes the thrill of MS is real, even for an adult. It was just fortunate that I already have most of my life settled in order, and I simply could not afford to let the game take over my life. Not so for most kids though!

I got from level 1 to 5 in just half and hour. It's bascially driven by the feeling of getting competent at something. It was not hard, and that was exactly the point, I felt I was becoming competent and that kept me going for half an hour.

Beyond the half hour, what kept me going were the quests. I started to find out more about the game. Plenty of them in the game and it als interested me to explore Maple Island, how to get around and how to find places. Getting acquainted with the neighbourhood, I would call it.

From then, it thrilled me to head towards getting out of Maple Island. Because it wwas to be on Victoria Island that I will finally find my first job at level 10. That would be so cool, because I will get to acquire powerfukl specialist skills!. I worked hard to prepare myself for the treacherous world beyond the safe confines of Maple Island. Finally at level 8, I was ready to strike out.

I paid some money (MS "mesos") to baord a ship to roam the new world out there. Never again will I return to Maple Island again....

1) Downloading, Installing & Registering Maple Story

I started downloading Maple Story (http://www.maplesea.com/) overnight on 6 Dec - I was to be on leave the following day.

It's a huge download! 600+ MB! (I later tried to do it on my office Wireless LAN and it bombed out after a while). Yet downloading it overnight on my notebook at home was a breeze. I did not even have to bother with it.

Installation was easy too! So parents out there, know that it's not hard for ANY child to get started on MS at all!

Registration was a little bit more difficult and complex even for a seasoned user like me. I had to mess around with 2 registrations:

1. Asiasoft Passport
2. Maple Story Registration

The first required my NRIC, presumably for administrative purposes, to enable Asiasoft to track down any offenders and also to maintain some leads for security issues. It also becomes a gamer database for Asiasoft, to launch and gamers to access all the rest of their games (mind you, they are doing very well)

The second registration is for Maple Story proper, nothing difficult with that. My confusion was more with mixing up the 2 of them.

Yet after messing around with a few authentication emails, I was ready to go! Maple Story here I come!


Comments

1) I would think this process is easy for any child to complete on their own, they are tech savvy enough. Yet it will probably pose a problem for some parents who are not as familiar with the gaming world.

2) The NRIC part is a little of concern - giving up the NRIC can open up a host of security issues on the internet. Yet it is exactly for the same reason that Asiasoft needs this NRIC, it is a powerful piece of information if they want to do anything with the gamers.

Why this blog?

The maple story of a 38 year old father of 2 kids!

Why? Because this helps all of us adults out there to understand the world of our kids better.

1. Why are they so hooked on games?
2. Why are they so upset and violent when I stop them from playing?
3. Don't they have better things to do than to hack and slash in that childish environment?
4. Why will they prefer real life to the virtual world?

Come walk with me through MY own journey in Maple Story. I'm going to lead you through my own journey in it so that you don've have to spend hours finding out for yourself. (But wait, I'm not going to level up with all the rest of the young people. I'm going to do it with their help. I do have kids to play with you know...)

So what are you waiting for. Bookmark this blog and.....

"Come Slash With Me...."