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[Column] General: LIFE The MMO
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
MMOs are a great training ground for this weird thing we call Life. Really. No, really. If you don't believe, you need to read our latest Fair Game column to find out how the games we play can teach us about Life and, just maybe, vice versa. Read on and then head to the comments.
Anyway, the idea this week is that I would love to see an MMO or two that teaches basic life skills, for example:
1. Finding a Job
Look, we have flight simulators to train pilots and patient simulators to train surgeons, but why not a simulator to train potential job seekers how to apply and interview for jobs? Sure, there are thousands of articles out there about what to do and what not to do, (most of them contradictory) but no bit of text is going to prepare you like simulation and role play. And just think of the PVP possibilities!
Read more of Lisa Jonte's Fair Game: LIFE The MMO.
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Comments
Remember, when your cat brings you a dead animal, he's trying to show you that at any time he wants, you are next.
Good stuff on how to tell your cat is trying to kill you.
http://theoatmeal.com/misc/frame/cat_kill
As for MMO's helping players to deal better with real life issues, maybe, if done right, and perhaps would work well in a title such as Sim City Online (RIP) and heck, look at EVE, really helps you bone up on your spreadsheet skills right?"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Did I miss something or did we not touch on aggro at all here? I think that's a critical life lesson. So many real world applications
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Well lets just ditch parents altogether, hook up the kids to the internet from birth and let the Nanny state dictate how we are to lead our lives.
Lets be sensible shall we, games are not there to give us life lessons, they are their to give us a break from life, they are not there to hold our hands when we are in a mid life crisis, they allow us to relax for an hr or 2 and thats about it.
I certainly would not want any game taking over my duty of care to my children for me, children are easily manipulated at a young age, do we really want games to teach them life lessons, before you know it you've got a classroom full of pre-teens who all think GTA5 is a good example of how to lead your life. NO THANKYOU.
An MMO based on Life would make for some interesting forum complaints, though I'm dubious as to the success of the game itself. Can you imagine the first time player A sees that player B has a job that pays more?
NERF PLAYER B's JOB OMFG <game vendor> U SUCK THIS IS THE WORST GAME EVER IT IS SO BROKEN ALL YOU DO IS LIE NOTHING WORKS IT IS SO UNFAIR
It wouldn't matter if player B spent months, in-game, preparing for interviews, and brushing up on specific skillsets, to land that virtual "Job" where they work some in-game equivalent of 40 hours a week. Player A's job as a Wal-Mart door-greeter 1x / week entitles them to the same paycheck.
One "lesson" I'd like to see in games that you did not mention is:
"How to get along with others."
So many players act like terrible human beings and games give them no consequences for their actions. NPCs do not react negatively in any way.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Well I am a solo player in life and don't mind at all telling you where it got me..
1. A complication free life
2. No moaning wife
3. No arsehole in-laws
4. Great job with great pay
5. Every penny after tax I earn is all mine to piss about with
6. I answer to me and me alone
7. No kids
8. An extremely active and varied sex life without cheating on anyone
9. An appreciation of my 44 years on this planet and loving points 1 to 8
/'WTF did the Romans ever do for us?
Wolfhammer is stoned -- he is not a solo player.
He has a job, and someone pays him, and one assumes he isn't masturbating for all that sex. Someone grows the food he eats, built his house and such, maintains his community he lives in, and eventually, somone will have to change his bedpan, and he probably hopes they are a nice kid that someone else raised to be a better person than he is.
Among other things, the Romans invented plumbing, asshole.
(sorry, I know it sounds ad hominem, but it's for the sake of the play on words, it was irresistable...)
That he assumes that all those people out there are nonplayers just means he is in very bad need of counseling. (and that's compassionate -- I really do think it's advisable... He is likely headed for a major mid-life crisis, or a worse end-of-life one).
If he were literate, he might understand the phrase, "no man is an island."
Good line of thought, Ms. Jonte. The "real life" MMO could indeed start another niche of gaming. But, I just wonder how much of it should be single-player and how much of it should be in MMO form.
Waiting for: Citadel of Sorcery. Along the way, The Elder Scrolls Online (when it is F2P).
Keeping an eye on: www.play2crush.com (whatever is going on here).
A writer and gamer from the Philippines. Loves his mom dearly.
Can also be found on http://www.gamesandgeekery.com