Why I Lost a Summer to Rift

When it comes to gaming and the current social standing of college males, I am woefully unskilled. While I wish I could be good at FPSs and spend my free time yelling at my television screen or laptop “DIE YOU BITCH! MOTHERFUCKER! IMMA TEABAG YOU! THAT’S RIGHT BITCH! N***A!” as thirteen year olds make more racial slurs in the background, I lack that capability. As far as gaming goes, I’m casual at best. That is until the summer of 2011 when Rift and the world of MMOs came into my life. I began Rift more or less as a way to keep in contact with some friends in school who played and also because it looked pretty awesome as far as games go. I figured it would be a way to keep in contact and to waste the hours until my closer friends got off of work. And waste the hours I did. Followed by the days, the weeks, and pathetically the months. There is a lot more psychology when it comes to MMOs and that I hadn’t realized before, and addictive nature I didn’t think would affect me based on my inability to game in the first place. This is how I lost a summer to Rift.

 

1. The Diversity in Skill in MMOs

As I said before- I suck at FPS shooters, except for Left 4 Dead 2- but those are zombies that all I have to do is shoot and swing wildly at until I reach the next safehouse. Something tells me I may not be doing it right. But in any case, what MMOs provide is the ability to be skilled in multiple aspects of a game- crafting, PvP, raids, dungeons, there are more aspects to be good at than just swords. There is not such a narrow scope as FPSs and for the most part there are no thirteen year olds shouting in your ear about how they can “beat yo ass” as their Jewish mother calls them to dinner. As said before, I was never good at Halo, or Call of Duty or anything with one on one fight, just myself and a gun. However, in Rift and other MMOs, PvP and whether you win or not is about having the right mix of roles with right people- teamwork as opposed to who can shoot better. There is also teamwork in FPSs, but at the same time it still requires a level of hand-controller-eye-camera-aim coordination I am surprisingly bad at. Rift is just a simple fantasy game.

 

2. MMOs Create an Emotional Investment

Unlike most other games, MMOs in general require a certain level of emotional, investment because you are the one making the character. In Rift I chose what race, how tall, what abilities I wanted to learn and train. The characters, not to be overly philosophical/metaphorical are an extension of the people who create them. It is not a premade game, with a premade ability or character you may or may not like.  You model the character how you want them to be seen, what you want them capable of doing…what you wished you were capable of doing. This is why though people can create characters, raise them to extremely high levels and sell them to interested parties; it really is not as fun because in that leveling process you get to know your character, you understand how to play them better. However not only is there choice in MMOs, but there is an element of creating who you want to be. Which is why…

3. Role Reversals Are Common

In these virtual worlds where a person can be an elf or a dwarf, they can also be a woman, black, Asian, fat thin, tattooed – it is the anonymity of the internet coming into play as the same way with forums and 4Chan.  It gives people a better opportunity to change who they are in a way that is not trolling.  Assertive army officers become more “introspective and sensitive of other people’s feelings” and women who play as men are taken more seriously and not made fun of as much. Chuck Norris and Vin Diesel and Mr. T can shed their appearance as the big hulking men they are and play as women, or dwarves, or dwarven women to let their feminine sides out… It could happen.  In these virtual worlds people become something they want. For instance, I have a level 50 Rogue that shoots arrows from atop a cliff during PvP and sends their pet wolf to go and attack people. I can’t do this in real life because of my lack of both hand-eye coordination and a pet wolf. Also, laws, but people generally don’t follow those anyway. So what I am not in real life, I can bring into a virtual world. It’s a combination of changing who we are and a quite literal pretend play that keeps our inner child alive.

 

 

These are all aspects that led me to spend nonstop hours playing a video game the entire summer, but the more you look at MMOs as a whole- they tend to be just  what they say an online, virtual world. There are groups of people, friends, jobs, currencies…It is what is leading psychologists to look into MMOs as more than just games and what exactly their effects are on people. And I am not just trying to justify an addiction. Look, there have been studies.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have some PvPing to get to.

 

 

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