ID:181230
 
Sooo .... I started a course at college called "honors". If you have read this far then, I'm about to describe what to me now is known as an 'artificial intelligence network' (this term is from a mythological website known as the Wingmakers).

I gave a presentation on 'how games have affected society' focused on MMORPGS such as Runescape.

In summary, I started with the idea of story-telling from the age of antiquity, then quickly moved in depth to MUD's and games and cognitive performance (how our minds perform in everyday speak). I continued with and concluded with Richard Bartle's paper describing the four main types of IgAmErS. (http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm)

At the end, the professor asked me to define reality as not being a game. I immediately thought of what I have heard in hindheard: The pageant theory.

THE PAGEANT THEORY
Take a drama performance, or a short play. Then stripped of all pretence, this can become as a reality. the Opera that is happening all around us. ^o^

So, having dropped the honors class (way to much stress taking five courses in the same semster), please share yur say...
*brainfucked*

While I will try and discuss this, if you're looking for a real discussion about this, I would not have posted on a website where the average age is twelve and the average maturity age is six.


I assume, after reading, you want to talk about why people play MMORPGs and how it affects daily social life? I didn't really understand what you want to discuss, you went from one stream of thought to the other and then just said share your say...

But anyway, it is evidently clear why people play MMORPGs. Generally, life is boring. You spend at least thirteen years in school, over three years in college/university depending on the course and then on average get a 9-5 job, get married, have children etc go through the motions of life. This is also a reason for the popularity of drugs and alcohol.

Then fantasy comes along. It sweeps you from the day-to-day life and puts you in the place of a ruthless soldier, a knight in shining armour, a mage wielding the powers of the elements. It's exciting, it's different, it allows you to go to an alternate reality. I could spend hours describing why people play games, but what I've said is enough for the average gamer.

How does it affect society? Let's take World of Warcraft for example. Everyone in civilized society has heard of this game. Either through South Park, maybe a friend or just through browsing the internet. Everyone has gained this image that any person who plays this game has no social life, and that there is something wrong with said person.

It amuses me to no end that people have this image. The same person who will call a casual WoW player a huge nerd and bait them about it, can go home and play something like CoD for hours on end and still have more of a "life" than the WoW player who went home and played for twenty minutes.

Of course there are WoW addicts whom sit at home in the dark, unemployed, pouring soft drinks and unhealthy food down their throats as they raid continuously until they sleep for a couple of hours then resume playing. But this is an extreme, extreme minority and it is unfair that everyone else has to take the hit for this image.

There is a negativity surrounding gaming, a lot of games tell a story, immerse you in the world. In my opinion, playing a devout RPG such as TES Oblivion or Mass Effect should have the same social value as reading a book, it tells you a glorious, interesting story while allowing you to take the role of the character, make decisions, contort it into a reality for whatever amount of time you want.

Anyway, I'm done ranting. :3 Damn you, that wasted ten minutes of my life... xD
In response to Zidantas
If you are wanting to know why people play it, Zidantas is completely right, However if you want how it affects society, Zidantas is right again. Generally people who play CoD for hours are people who others should praise, and people who play WoW, or Guild wars, or RS, Ect. Are people to pick on and say are nerds with no lives or anything like that.

Society shuns people who play that stuff because they believe that others will look down on them, BECAUSE they probably have played it once or twice. It all is due to peer pressure, if people hear that someone is playing something they think that if they don't pick on that person they will get picked on themselves... For a better use of words, survival of the A**iest.

Generally games help people with no self-esteem have some fun, or have good "Alternate" Lives, it's an escape from reality. Which most people nowadays play something online, whether it be an MMORPG, a FPS, ect, everyone plays something, and people who play the MMORPG's are almost always looked down on.

Heres two examples, I have a friend who plays Varsity Football, he used to play D&D, now he plays WoW, D&D online, And CoD. He's someone who people still say, "You don't have a life." He goes out to places a lot, has a girlfriend, has a job, He gets called crap because he plays them.

Now theres a guy who plays CoD and Halo all through the day, he goes out every once in awhile, but he's one of the people who doesn't get called crap.

I'd go into this more but I don't have time.
In response to Thelavaking
Your opinions are a lot more coherent than mine. o_o

My reality is college reality. No girl-friend, but trying to get into University, and no job as of yet.

The one game I'm playing? Treasure Isle on Facebook. I spend roughly an hour each day I play this. The bulk of my time is empty.

-_-
The term "alternate reality" can be slightly misleading because people tend to think of putting on cool shades and jumping into an artificial universe that stimulates your senses, making your subconscious believe what you are perceiving in the synthetic world is real. At least, that's what I first thought when I read the title!
In response to Xacma
I'm playing the Zelda creepy-pasta.

:ben.wmv: :evilface:

Edit: As an off-topic discussion. This is annoying me. Is anyone else getting this error?

There was an error generating the requested page.
BYOND developers have been notified.

It's annoying me.