Hello this is my first blog ever so to just give you a quick run down I will tell you a bit about my mmorpg history. I started playing text based muds in 1994 which quickly led into playing everquest, mythic-realms, gamestorm, daoc, on up to almost every f2p and p2p game on the market. I was also a home-schooled child, that didn't have many friends during my youth.
Here is just a quicklist of 5 random things that I have learned from gaming that I use or have used in real life.
#1 TRUST: I learned quickly in online gaming that you should never trust anyone. Playing a game such as darkness falls the crusade, working your character up for two years. Gathering rare loot that no longer even dropped in the game just to have a friend for two years steal it from you.
So I learning rather quickly in life to make better judgement in choosing friends. This is a positive thing I learned from gaming.
#2 STEAL: While I look back at this now, I do regret doing it but I did what had to be done. As a teen coming into the gaming scene in the 90's wasn't cheap. For one I couldn't get a full-time or part-time job, I did manage to mow some neighbors yards for little to nothing, 10$ if I was lucky.
So what else would a home-schooled kid that didn't get out of the house much do? I stole... while it wasnt like I was stealing from some small family business that could barely afford to stay running, I was stealing from the big dog coorperations. But computer games was the only thing I have ever stole in my life, not even a piece of candy from the store. Ive matured alot in life now and regret ever stealing a computer game, but I did and I cannot change that.
#3 NAVIGATION: Remember playing everquest before maps? Ever tried playing a text based mud without maps? I have and I have learned so much, specially with me growing up playing text based mud and remember my way around by picture memory. Such as, run down the road until you see a small hut on left side of the road, turn right, and stay straight until you find a huge tree with no branches then jump down and so forth. I got so used to finding my way around new game that you could take me to a huge city and drop me off and I would remember the way out by remembering things I saw on the way in.
#4 AWARENESS: From watching every single car around me on the road and knowing where they are at all times to catching that baseball after a pitch thrown in the dirt and gunning out a man trying to steal to second base. Online games have helped better myself at being very aware to my surroundings at all times. While im sure its partly natural, I know games have helped.
#5 COMMUNICATION: I will admit my grammar is still pretty rough but I try. Every since my first online game I have been interacting with other people all over the world. Over that time period I have learned to make friends with just about anyone.
If you would take some redneck from the deep south and put him in a bar in new york city, I highly doubt he will make it through the night without getting beat up. But if you put me in a bar in new york city, even though I am a redneck from the deep south. I guarentee I would make some friends. If you take away all my years of gaming I wouldn't stand a chance.
This was just a few things that came off the top of my head, I hope you enjoyed reading about my 1st blog ever! I would also really enjoy reading some of the things you have learned from Online gaming, please lets keep this civil and friendly.
What have I learned from Online Gaming.....good question....never really thought about that one. I mean, my reflexes got much better since I started playing FPS (Call of Duty for exemple).
Fri Feb 13 2009 9:01PMBut as for what I learned from Online Games....to me....making friend in real life and making friends online are 2 completly diferent things. The way to make friends is completly different but it's possible to find someone online and become friend in real life after (or vice-versa). That's all I can think of.
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Also, concerning your blog, you seem to be mixing real life and video games a lot. Take "Steal" for exemple, it doesn't really have any relationship with MMOs except the fact that you stole games. You can also "steal" things in video games so technically it should have the opposite effect.
As for "Navigation" and "Awareness" they're both the same things and are natural to some human beings. We usually call this (bad translation) as "visual type". Meaning that you can easily recreate an image in your head from everything you've seen and can remember it for future usage.
As for "Trust": The way people act in real life and the way they act in-game are usually different. The fact remains that someone can lie in both realm (Reality vs. Virtual) and you won't even know it was a lie. Of course some people do means things on the internet but do not take them as a majority. I've met a lot of people online for years and it never happened to me. I'd simply suggest you trust them to some extent and use good judgement when you receive unusual request.
Hum...concerning this last paragraph....I guess I really did learn something from MMOs.....meh...once you're used to something I suppose it's hard to think about it. Still....don't mix Reality and Virtual too much or you'll end up making a lot of mistakes in both "realms".
Take a redneck and put him in the bar in New York and I say you will have 50 New Yorkers with broke noses screaming mommy. Don't bash Red Necks. Yankee.
Trust everyone until they screw you over. Otherwise you will never develope friends.
People think that because they play games they are better at sports and other things. That's all a lie. Your hands might be quick but your legs are not. Your arms are not fast. Playing sports and other activities are what make you fast. You might think quicker but your mind is not trained for the action at hand.
I don't think navigation and awareness are what you think. It's more that games help develope the memory since alot of what we used to play required memory.
You've done a decent first blog and have good grammer. Personally I find your fonts to be hard to read but I am used to the current font provided by mmorpg. Nice blog.
Fri Feb 13 2009 10:47PMComic sans fail! Seriously such font shouldnt be used for screen reading.
Good job for the first blog. And i entirely disagree on the Trust paragraph. That is what makes 85% of MMO players hostile.
"Hi, can you help me?"
"wtf you want, get lost nub"
Fri Feb 13 2009 11:04PMThanks for the comments, as you know this was my first blog ever. So Im still trying to better myself at making my blogs as user friendly as possible.
Great comment MadnessRealm, I feel like I just increased my intelligence point by 1, thats no joke! The part about stealing, sorry if I didn't get my point out in the blog. Was that if I never got hooked on Mmorpgs I could probablly say to this day that I have never stole anything in real life or in the virtual world.
As someone mentioned earlier the font is terrible, I say its terrible to, but from the fonts they I got to choose from was just 5 :( and honestly I didn't like any of them.
But thanks again for reading, Hopefully I will learn enough from this blog to make my next blog better.
Sat Feb 14 2009 10:02AMYeah also @sargoth: The reason I used redneck is well, because im a redneck hehe. Not because I wanted to bash on anyone.
Sat Feb 14 2009 10:08AMI've learned that mmorpg's are as addictive as Jolly rancher jelly beans. If I had a son/daughter I would do everything in my power to keep them from ever being sucked into any mmorpgs. At the very least I would limit thier play time (the whole time they'd be beating on my door whilst I leveled my character).
Sat Feb 14 2009 2:07PMMMORPG.com writes:
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