I was once a full time gamer playing MU Online 16 fucking hours a day. That was when everyone was looking for a job whilst waiting for polytechnic, and there I was slacking at home playing MMORPG. You can just imagine, I wake up and play game, skip meals, skip baths, play all the way till the wee hours of morning, sleep and the cycle continues. I can stay in my room for 7 days without ever leaving the house. But what nobody will ever understand is how I felt, how a hardcore gamer's point of view is like. Now if I look back at myself, I would probably think I was not mentally stable. I was in too deep, couldn't get out of the game addiction.
I was a wizard with wings in MU Online named KELVIN (fuck u don't laugh) which I presume was quite "well known" in the community for abit of time. Joined a respectable guild called Infinite which had players from Singapore, Philippines and USA. What sustained my interest was never the game, I mean what can be so bloody interesting about levelling a character? What kept me addicted? Or rather let me rephrase to better describe my mentality back then, I couldn't abandon my online persona after living my life 24/7 in the game. And that ladies and gentleman, is the main reason why many of us gamers can't quit the game just *snap* like that. You might not think it can be that extreme but I can't describe it any better, the virtual wizard is already my life. That pixelated guy on the screen is me from 12pm to 6am everyday, that was my spirit. If you take that away from me, I would be lost and wouldn't know what to do in real life.
In the game I made friends, I socialise with them everyday so that was also a big part of the addiction. If I left the game, will I ever see them again? My friends all over the world have their own lives as well. There is Sandee who is a Australian mother of 8 children (not lying!! I've got her picture), and her entire family plays MU. Lorddess is a 24 year old designer in Singapore whom I still talk to online on rare occasions. Warstrike is a student in Philippines with mattrock long hair who claims girls love to receive vibrators as presents. Colosis is a Canadian trying his best to focus on his university studies whilst gaming. ElfLuv is a quiet office girl in Singapore who's online boyfriend is Warstrike. Dominator is an anaemic American woman in her 30s who has an abusive brother, and is jealous of ElfLuv being too close to Warstrike. And there's KELVIN the friendly wizard who...has no life.
I trust that everyone knows that gamers are not just school kids, if not then...WHERE THE FUCK WERE U? OUTERSPACE? The above paragraph is nuff said. There are people from all walks of life, the housewife who is bored at home, the student that is struggling with his studies, and the slugs at home doing nothing while waiting for polytechnic. But what bonded everyone together was not the game, it was the friendship they found online. Of course I'm not trying to say LPU were not my friends that time la, but everyone was busy with their JC and I'm the only poly guy!! So I felt lonely, and going online to catch up with that random bunch of people filled that void in my heart, that was enough. We logged in from different parts of the world to meet up and fight monsters together, but what everyone really was doing was having a great time chatting with each other. Which was why its not easy to just leave the game like that, we were all close together as a guild as we shared our problems.
I'm not sure about other virtual worlds, but in MU Global there were a few factions. The Singaporeans whom everyone couldn't understand why they always add "lah" at the back of every sentence. The Vietnamese who bleddy dominated the entire game by using hacks and laughs in this manner, "HUHUHUHU!!!!". The Brazilians who always beg for items and laughed in this phonetically impossible manner " HUOAHUOAHUOAHUOA!!!!!" The Americans who think everyone who doesn't speak english is a Hacker. The filipinos who always go around asking "pinoy??" to find fellow countrymen, and god forbid they find one or else endless tagalog conversations will proceed to flood your screen. But as you can see, two obvious factions in this game would be the Hackers and the Legits.
Hackers use programs they find online to cheat in the game. For example a hacker might use a program that allows him to do 1000 punches when he enters the map which renders him Godlike and unbeatable, in the process lagging the server and disconnecting everyone from the game. BUT LIDAT FUN MEH?? PLAY FOR FUCK!!!!! That's the thing, they don't hack to play the game. They hack to become Godlike, kill God level monsters, get God level items from the monsters, become God level players with those items, and than they sell the character for real minty cash, OR they can act like nothing happened. In other words they act as though they played the legit way to get to such high levels and expects everyone to respect them (Yes respect exists in the community). And the Vietnamese clans were famous for doing these, which got the legit clans like mine to roar in objection.
Anyway when you are high level, all those noobs tend to follow you around in game and praise you like a king, hoping you will throw them some spare change. Ahem I must say I was one of them high levels and being young at that time, this kind of feeling was sibeh high HAHA!! So there was this very serious issue with the hackers spoiling the game for players at that time, and the game developer company Webzen was having a hard time trying to wipe them out. So the Mu Global community bonded together regardless of race, different clans came together to form alliances to fight the hackers. The hackers will snatch our hunting grounds to KS ( Kill Steal is a gaming term), and there was nothing we could do to fight back as they were too godly. Usually a noob will cry for help in the guild channel, and KELVIN the wizard will fly down and display his star quality to the hackers. But on unfortunate cases, the entire guild can reach there and still lose to the hacker, which is why Alliances come into handy. We activate allies and they come to our help, vice versa, this was how the Mu Community bonded together and fought against the hackers.
But you think a game is just like that? Let's say a popular global MMORPG like Cabal Online has 300,000 players from different countries, what do you think will happen with all the interaction? MASS ORGIES! No. Try and think back to when you were in Secondary or Polytechnic days, or if you are working now, what had always been existant with big groups of people? Yes. Politics. Don't you just love politics, it's fucking everywhere you go. You can't escape it even in virtual reality, it's like an integral part of humans. Politics was what made the game extremely exciting.
Back in those days, I left Sandee's clan because I felt it was getting boring and I wanted a guild with more Singaporeans. WOW the bitch got FIRED UP!!! She started badmouthing me to other clans, spreading word that I was a hacker in forums and websites. Don't ask me why that mother of 8 was so drama, either shes having menopause, or she liked me too much to leave. But anyway I joined a new clan with great people, and tadah the political plates in the community started shifting. Sandee's alliance of clans decided to piss my clan off whenever they see us, you might laugh but I would call this Cyber Bullying (which is a very real case amongst teens now).
It was my first case of Cyber Bullies, they were hunting me down wherever I went!!! I had no peace of mind!!! My "real" life was inside virtual reality 24/7, and now my persona is being harrassed, can u imagine how I feel!!!! You might not understand how it feels to live a life like that, but the bullying felt very real to me back then (told you I was mentally unstable). Looking back, on how affected I felt, only proved that I was having a serious case of game addiction. Anyway our two clans were fighting each other for months and I'm proud to say we won them because we were more hardworking, we outgrew them to be one of the strongest and more famous clans in the community. I'm not proud because I'm still secretly an addict, but I'm proud because together we slapped that LaoCheebye with 8 kids 100 times across her face with our victory.
How should I face this addiction from now on especially after being a victim of it. Wait, am I really a victim? Issit even really a mental disability? The only things that I feel can affect an addict is his studies and social life, other than that I find it just another normal way to live your life. I remember back then when I was playing Fungwan Online (omg John!!!! the memories!!), my sister will rush me for the computer, I would be like,
Kerubin: I can't leave now I got a war to fight
Bitch: What you mean you can't leave, just save game and quit!! (bitch obviously don't understand MMORPGs)
Kerubin: If I just leave like that who's going to help them in the war, I have over a hundred people in Singapore and Malaysia relying on me as their Clan Leader to lead them in this 24 hour war, I have responsibilities.
*Bitch is stunned and utterly dumbfounded at what I just said*
Yea she doesn't understand, and you probably wouldn't either coz you're not a hardcore MMORPG gamer. The game might be dispensable brainless fun, but this connection of players all over the world is real. It is also the reason why I'm not addicted to fields other than MMORPG, like my PSP games. There is no connection to the game as there is nobody I can socialise with, so for me to just quit a PSP game is so easy. In a MMORPG, people from Korea are waiting for you to play, for all you know you might be the key player in this virtual world and without you, the others all around the globe can't survive. There is Respect and Responsibilities in MMORPG games. It's that serious to a gamer.
Of course I've changed over the years, I haven't touched an MMORPG for half a decade. But to me that gamer portion of my life, was a real eye opener to wad addiction was. I don't like to use the word Addiction as it has a very negative undertone to things. My experience as a gamer was innocent, healthy and most importantly, I was definitely in control of things. I know there are reports of some people who stay at home to game, until their hair grow all the way down their backs. I would think they are extreme too, but being a supposed "victim" as well, I will want to begin by thinking that I don't understand how he really feels about gaming.
People always like to use the phrase "in your own world", yes that term is very true, and how their world is like is none of our fucking business. Gamers are misfits of the society, abit too much to describe them like that but it's true. What other misfits we have? Self-mutilators who substitute the pain inside for physical hurt, People engaging in casual sex to find happiness, Nerds who are extremely passionate about certain areas, the Artist who creates Abstract Art that nobody even understands. What do all of them have in common? They are all in their own world, and nobody has the right to comment about each and everyone of them because they simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND. (That excludes me because there is a law somewhere out there that allows me to bitch about everyone in my blog)
Lest we forget how we even brought up the game addiction topic, I was actually commenting on the government's decision to tax Gold Farmers. In developing nations like Vietnam and China, people are making a living by selling virtual goods like godlike MMORPG weapons, and gold farming. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people living their life like that to support their daily meals. In Vietnam, such gamers earn even more than teachers!!! Plus there is also a virtual world of underground criminals dealing with trades like scamming, hacking and cheating which indirectly affects these people. They could be the ones doing it, or they could be victims of such criminal acts. What the government is trying to do is to control this Virtual World. And with people like Anshe Chung, why wouldn't they?
You can read more about Anshe Chung here, I wouldn't elaborate as this post is too long (if you are still reading, thank you.) Her achievements are nothing short of remarkable. This woman invests in building her virtual empire in a game called Second Life which made her a MILLIONAIRE when she converts everything to real cash. Her story is really worth a read.
So basically what the government is trying to tell me is, when I sign up and play games online for free, I actually get free assets?? When I progress in a game and get a super duper powerful weapon, I can sell it for a hundred bucks to real life people who play the same game?? Yes that is layman terms which actually all gamers already knew, but the government was the last guy to catch on it. But what disturbs me is that the government is trying to fucking tax this? I'm sorry but this is like a case of the government being more updated in their mentality than I am. Eventhough I know selling of virtual items already existed years ago, this taxing of virtual goods thing is just too mindboggling and unacceptable for me. Perhaps I'm too outdated in my thinking this time.
So! You thought gamers and their communities, were "just like that" ? You're sadly mistaken, and contrary to what people always say to us, it's our turn to tell u to open your eyes and see the world. There is this virtual world that exist, and with how its expanding at such an enormous way and integrated in many of our lives, we just have to face it,
There is no Virtual Reality.
I hope someday you will understand too.
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