The other night I came into a conversation in shout and someones statement
came up "I won't learn anything here. It's a damn game." He has
no idea how very wrong he is.The other night I came into a conversation in shout and someones statement
came up "I won't learn anything here. It's a damn game." He has
no idea how very wrong he is.
Play is the basis for all higher beings, and even I believe, quite a few lower, in all areas of the world, and in all societies. From the playgrounds at school in early childhood, to the kittens and puppies play fighting each other. Play is how you learn. Play is how you come to understand one another, your own and others sexuality, and how to interact in your society.
Let me expand on several concepts of how this particular game may teach you something, if your not careful ;> (listed alphabetically).
Ability to work in groups
This is emphasized in how we act when were in groups. By fear of not wanting
to die we are encouraged to work better in the groups we choose to join.
If we want to get the good experience or treasure, we must learn to either
get along with, or decide to leave, the other members of the group.
I don't know how others join groups, but I very rarely join groups where I don't know anyone. If I do it will usually be with one single female. I get along better with females. This is simply due to the way I feel when they are near, or how I treat / protect them. In groups with other males or strangers, I tend not to be so over protective, tend to be sometimes lacking in attentiveness to extreme detail.
Whatever the reason by grouping for whatever reason, this increases our skill to work as a team, on any level or situation.
Compassion / Understanding
By living the lives of different characters, we understand one another.
While it's impossible to live in different bodies and get different viewpoints
of your abilities and skills in the 'real' world, through our virtual lives
we can gain understanding of others. How they are treated by different people
(pc or npc) and how they view the world because of this.
As we gain in levels we also understand the difficulties and confusion
of being 'younger'.
I have lived approximately 12 lives, and have gained a reasonably detailed
understanding of how all the races or classes work, and I am thus a very
understanding and compassionate person when it comes to knowing others weaknesses
and compensating for them.
Comprehension
Learning the language, phrasing, etc.
Decision making / Problem solving
Will I solo today? Will I group? Will I move to this zone, that, or shop?
Am I getting good experience here or should I move on? So many things you
think about when your playing that are trivial things, but involve decision
making and balancing options.
For example - someone who has been hunting in my area lately was begging for an 'atm'. He apparently had somewhere close to 1200 in silver. His decision was to continue killing. However he failed to analyze that in this decision he was loosing agility, and movement speed for carrying this encumbrance, thus others would beat him to the spawn points.
Dealing with grief
The game also teaches us to deal with grief. As these are vastly accelerated
lives of our own we see several things happen. Sometimes we have a tough
time gaining level, we get stress and anguish from not achieving as much
as we perceived we should have. Sometimes we die and loose hours, or days
of experience. Bugs can wipe out items or entire inventories. Trades can
go bad and we wind up with something that wasn't what we expected. We can
outgrow, or others can outgrow us, and we loose contact with people we enjoyed
playing with. Players may leave the game entirely.
All these things teach us to deal with loss, accept it, and move on.
Economics and Savings
How to save up for those things they want, or trade items in an economic
structure.
Fear and Panic, how to deal with the unexpected
Hopefully over the course of our live(s) we will learn to defeat the fear
and panic reflex. I find, more often than not, this reflex is typically
not beaten back. The unexpected tends to surprise us, and cause panic. A
few of us can overcome that, stay cool, calm, give orders, and deal with
this unexpected occurrence. If you learn to defeat the fear and panic reflex
you will survive these unexpected mishaps (bad pulls) more often. There
really isn't too terrible a penalty for failing, so stand strong, learn
to beat that reflex, get a good rush and ride it out.
Honor, Personal and Group
Honor comes in a few forms; Personal honor, and Group honor. Personal honor
is what reflects upon you. Your own deeds and actions and who you associate
with. How you treat other players and even npcs. Group honor has to do with
how your group is acting. Do they hog all the spawn points? Do they say
noone else gets any because they were here first?
Honor is really the biggest issue that comes up as the world(s) get more crowded. It's hard to not be greedy, kill steal to get that exp or item. But it's those times that will gain you the most honor, when you don't give in to the greed, but instead show honor to others with your actions.
Leadership
Simple enough. Those who lead the group learn to coordinate the efforts
of others. Leadership really is just a combination of other aspects. However,
leadership is one of the most useful skills to carry over in all that you
do. Few people make good leaders. It takes a combination of quick thinking,
problem solving, negotiation, and interpersonal dynamics to run a group
efficiently.
Negotiation
You use skills of negotiation when attempting to join a group, selling or
buying that item you want from someone, suggesting a rotation to share a
spawn point. There are many levels negotiation happens. It can be as simple
as "can I join" or "can I take x here while you take y".
Still a very valuable skill to take with you anywhere you go.
Reading
Increased reading speed and comprehension.
Responsibility
Most importantly responsibility for your actions to yourself and others
and the consequences thereof. Do you train? Or do you take what you accidentally
pulled and die, thus preventing the accidental deaths of others? Do you
watch the lives of others and help those who need when in a group? Do you
follow the leaders will and orders or obey only your own priorities? Responsibility
really can't be explained, but can be learned.
Sexual identity, Gender, and Sexual norms
To discover more about who you are, what you like what you want. But more
importantly in a virtual environment, you can explore the "other"
side. Find out what it is like to be of the opposite sex. How they are treated
or mistreated. How it makes you feel to think and act as you believe they
would. To notice the subtle differences in how people talk to, and open
up their thoughts to you if your one sex or the other.
This I think would be the most advantageous of the virtual life. Freedom to explore sexuality without chastisement from others, as most don't know 'hey that woman is really a male player' or 'hey that guy is really a female player'.
Here, men are free to explore their softer side, a side which allows them to manipulate others with a wink, cute wiggle, or just being there female selves.
Here, women are free to hide in male bodies. Free from constant comments or sexual suggestiveness from men. Free from unwanted constant advances and implied payback.
Ah... which sex to be today, it's up to you.
But if your wondering, no in this game I have never been a female. probably never will, as I already have a very high understanding of both intellectual viewpoints. Now if you offered to change my body... well that would be a different story, one I would probably accept were it to be changed back, so I could get the complete understanding on all levels ;>. But I digress...
Social Norms
There are all kinds of social rules in EQ, all unwritten. From the first
day this world was born it was common understanding, a social norm if you
will, that if someone is at a campsite, you ask if you can share it. Granted
way back when, there were only a fraction of the people on (roughly 1/4
of what is on now), and if someone said no you could easily find another
good spot to camp. Now you no longer have that option. There are unwritten
rules of negotiation, sharing, rotation, that all revolve around spawn points.
And another set of rules and norms that apply if you break those rules.
Noone wrote these down, yet everyone understands them.
This is one of those that also weighs heavily in the 'real' world. There are all kinds of social norms wherever you go. You probably don't realize it, but you probably follow most of these already.
Typing
Increased typing speed.
Summary / Solution / Truth
Careful, you might learn something by playing.