FFXI Disclaimer

Exploring Vanadiel is a thrilling experience. During your time here, you will be able to talk, join and adventure with many other individuals in an experience that is unique to online games.That being said, we have no desire to see your real life suffer as a consequence.Do not forget your family, your friends, your school, or your work.

The focus here is primarily on MMORPGs and the impact they have on our lives. The addiction that arises from the frequent playing of such masterpieces can prove fatal to the people around you that care, and although many argue that it is simply a matter of exercising self control, I have rarely seen it in practice. Digging in 18 hours a day at the expense of neglecting your family, friends and quite possibly, even your job is beyond most of us, but is yet quite a common occurrence among MMORPGers. Listed below are my thoughts and opinions on why a large majority of players become attracted to this particular genre of games.

Unlike single player and/or limited multiplayer games, MMOGs offer the gamer a sense of -realistic- accomplishment when a goal is met, a mission accomplished, or when a dragon is slayed. The rewards are simple, you gain experience, money or possession of a long lost artifact; your guild members then walk up to you, cheer for you and hug you, and you see multiple lines popping up within your chat log with the words *congratulations* in them. You gain recognition because of your achievement, and you feel good because of your accomplishment(s). This feeling then becomes motivation, and spurs the individual on to scale greater heights.

The main driver for the equation is the simplicity of the reward structure. The ends are clearly defined in an MMORPG, and by simply putting in X amount of effort/time, you are likely to obtain Y rewards; which, more often then not, is not the case in real life. Goals are harder to define in real life, you will not find an NPC telling you when or how you should go about in pursuing your career as a doctor; and even If you do graduate from medical school, there is no guarantee that you will eventually reach your goal(to become a well-respected surgeon making gazillions of dollars a year). In an MMORPG, goals are usually clearly defined with well laid out rewards that associate them; think about it, if it were hard to know what you needed to progress, you would give up. Hence in an MMORPG, you can become rich, powerful and respected if you put in enough effort.

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If I ruled the world

Sometimes I think the world be far better off if more people thought like me. Then I get to fantasizing on a larger scale, and I begin to think that the world would surely harmonize if only everybody thought the way I did. But that kind of reasoning can get pretty dangerous. Only despots and high-powered zealots would dare to make attempts in fulfilling that kind of goal. Unfortunately, there actually are despots and zealots in the world today that are doing just that. If only more people thought like me, we wouldn't have that problem. If only I could make the world to see things the way that I do, they'd see just how wrong they've been all this time.

Wait a minute, I'm back to where I started. I don't seem to be getting anywhere, do I?

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The Kiasu Singaporean
The story begins with me standing at the MRT station waiting for the train to arrive. The time is now 1730 and the station we're talking about here is Somerset. I look at the LCD display hanging above and make note of the train that should be arriving in 2 minutes; then lazily drag myself to the train doors.
So I'm now in front of the doors, with approximately 7-8 people surrounding me, an amount that's normal for rush hour. I can see it on their faces; everyone's looking forward to a nice, warm bath and a relaxing evening on their couch after a hectic day's work. So we quietly, and peacefully, wait for the train to arrive. Life was good.
Suddenly this auntie in her mid-forties appears from behind and, like the green tree snake she is, slithers to the front; her 150cm height and small build making it easy for her to duck under our armpits and slide along the marble floor. She only stops when she's right infront of the carriage doors, leaving a gap no bigger than 5cm between the doors and the tip of her nose. I swear she could have touched the doors with her forked tongue had she stuck it out.
Obviously displeased by this, I expressed my distaste for the matter by letting out a loud "Tsk" and showing her my "buay song" looks in the reflection of the polished carriage doors. As if responding to my actions, she gave a smug look(think pitbull) and rolled her eyes up.
WTF!%#$^?

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What happened to Haloscan?
I come back 1 week later hoping to blog, only to realise that haloscan, the service that provides the commentary service for my blog, is down. As if that weren't bad enough, some pro-independence party just burned my state flag yesterday. crud.

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