these days i am busy riding my road bike and thus i am only online in the evenings. it wasn’t an easy decision to quit WoW since the virtual world the game presents is quite seducing. whereas we are experiencing a loss of faith in the social order in RL the game confronts the players with a strong yet easily understandable social order and creates a whole new culture envolving around it. part of that culture is the development of a sort of unique language with new terms like “pulling”, “tanking”, “zerging”, “ganking”, “respeccing”, “procs”, “…ftw (for the win)” and so on. i could possibly write a research paper about the language used in MMORPGs like WoW… playing the game was an experience which i am glad i could made. however, now it is time to move on… i found a great community there but at the end of the day i am still all alone here. this leaves me with an empty feeling because all that i accomplished in the game does not matter in RL. yet, if i feel some kind of anger because the game crashed when my raid group slayed the final boss in Upper Blackrock Spire… that means it still affects RL, although we claim it does not because it is “just a game”. i drew the same conclusion in my PhD thesis when discussing another MMORPG (Neocron).
so i feel way better at the end of the day when i made an hourlong bike ride. i achieved something, i conquered that climb, i rode faster than the last time. somehow the physical pain of riding adds to the pleasure you feel afterwards. you can’t have those experiences when slacking in front of your computer.
