What's the point of playing mmorpgs?
For a long time I've been playing mmorpgs. I've played City of Heroes and WoW, Flyff, Maplestory, Rose Online, Ragnarok Online and many, many more. My topic title says exactly the question that I've begun to ask myself as I've grown up: What's the point of playing mmorpgs?
To make friends ingame? Make friends in real life, it's 10 times as rewarding and unlike mmorpgs that you quit eventually you will theoretically have those friends you make for life. Of course, some people may make friends in games and actually meet them in real life, but those occurrences are few and far between. Just from being ingame and seeing how many people play what you do shows the amount of people with your same interests that you could befriend in real life.
To escape from a harsh reality? Nothing will ever, ever change for you until you get off the computer and change it for yourself. In trying to escape life through games you only deny yourself a chance at a better life outside said games. No epic loot you get in game will ever change the fact that you have problems talking to a crowd and no level up will ever teach you a new language or how to play an instrument. You have to do these things for yourself.
If you play mmo's to pass the time, as a time of relaxation in a stress free enviroment than it's likely you didn't read this far regardless. Even then, though, unlike console games mmorpgs are never entirely stress free. You meet people there and feel you must keep up with them in levels, in gear, what have you; when you reach the endgame what was the point? Regardless of how much you enjoyed the game you will eventually leave it and have nothing to show for it but wasted time, time that could have been better spent learning, reading, writing.
You may tell yourself that it was time well spent, that playing these games was without a doubt how you wanted to spend your time. When the day comes that your asked to go abroad, will you not regret having spent that time to learn another language? Or when a girl you like owns a guitar, will you not regret having never learned to play so you could impress her?
If you don't want to read this wall of text read this:
Play games, if that's what truly makes you happy. Just play in moderation; on the side learn a skill, be it an instrument or how to draw, write, act or sing. Living life to it's fullest and experiencing as much as you can is hard to do when you spend hours playing games online.
I've just recently been very inspired to accomplish as much as I could in this short life, and I wanted to share how I felt, regardless of the reception it receives. Cheers.
What's the point of playing MMO's for me...?
I do it the same reason I do anything else I like to do; it's fun and it keeps my mind off the fact I have to work to pay bills. I don't play mmo's to be any particular level or compete with anyone. To me what's fun is exploring worlds I could never imagine myself ganking monsters along the way.
I've been moving around the US and visiting other countries all my life (I went to a different high school every year) so by the OP's logic, would me spending time forming social bonds with people I can't keep in touch with be a waste of time because I don't have anything to show from past friendships? Gaming is a hobby that has kept millions connected for years, and you don't even really have to speak a lick of another language to enjoy playing a game in one with other players. Since a lot of things in gaming revolve around math and math is universally understood concept, pretty much all of us that do play games already have access to a community where the operator's skill is respected more than the operator themselves even if we can't understand the operator at all.
I think about all the times I've played with people who can barely speak english and yet they can grasp the same concepts that I can (and sometimes better just from a few simple explanations. I've seen communities of Spanish or Portuguese RO players for example and even though I don't know either language, I could follow what they were doing in game just by watching a video. Hell I've browsed various foreign forums look for info on games, and even though I don't know the language, I've been able to always tell when someone was talking about a stat build. The languages we use to understand mmos/games may be different but the the basics never change. A monster vulnerable to fire for an english player is still vulnerable to a Japanese player in the same game.
Am I the only one who find it interesting that we all can play the same game and be in a party with a player with doesn't speak a lick of english and he or she can still be a valuable asset to the team because they learned how to play thousands of miles away in another country? It's no different with music or sports, people can pick out when someone has hit a bad note or a ref has made a bad call no matter what language they speak. The very same applies to video games/mmos.
Don't get me wrong though, I've made friends everywhere I went, but the majority of them were due to video games/mmos so I not like I'm anti social or anything because of them. It's also one of the few things I can enjoy by myself that isn't self destructive. OF course I could be out drinking, getting high and having sex because that's what people my age do but that isn't as fun and carefree as TV makes it out to be to me. Plus, I have to work for a living so if I'm going to choose some form of entertainment it's going to be something that is going to keep my attention for more than a few hours. I've had a bunch of fun playing games by myself or with others, helping people out, etc. The friends I've made in real life have changed over the years and the majority I no longer keep in contact with or just have nothing in common, but ever since I started really getting into mmo's 4 or 5 years ago, i have more of the same friends now than compared to my RL ones and none of them live anywhere near me.
I have better memory, hand eye coordination, and reflexes from them (consoles more so than mmo's) and hopefully one day when I have kids, it'll be something I can use to stay connected to them. Those are the reasons I play games in general, which of course applies to mmos. there may very well come a time when we can play MMO's with people all over the world and language won't be a barrier between players because it's not needed to play. hell some games are already like that.