Good vs Evil

Ok, so I didn't buy it.

It was tempting, because the final cost from just getting the package from Wal-mart was not so very different from the cost of buying the code online, especially if you consider the free month of play and that it would save me from downloading five issues worth of data. But after finding out the nearest Wal-mart was one hour's bus ride away, I gave up.

People say online games don't consist of real social life. We've all heard that countless times. I guess to some people, real social lives mean taking bus rides for hours to Downtown LA, doing meaningless things like dance or barhop? They think playing a game is meaningless, I think dancing, shopping and watching movies is meaningless. The difference is when you play a game, you don't need to take that two hour busride downtown. ("So get a car" -- getting a car to do meaningless things is even more meaningless!)

Now when I say I missed CoH, it does not really mean missing pressing some buttons and beating up mobs. It means missing the interaction with my supergroup online, random socialising on pick-ups. Doing a taskforce is in a way similar to a hike organised by some community center, right?

Of course, having the game interesting really helps the social aspect. I logged on a few times to RoD and fooled around. It was nice being able to chat with old friends again, but at the same time, RoD-as-a-game held absolutely no interest for me. And since chatting requires some kind of information flow, or shared interest, there wasn't that much to talk about either.

Everyone was pretty much the same and also different. Some of the annoying people seem to have mellowed out. Some are just different personality-wise. I did mention that Ed has immed, didn't I? In some sense, I think this is proof of what we are afraid of. A person our age goes into a "responsible position", reflecting in real life getting a stable normal life/job/car/house, and slowly they just turn into a "the administration" type of person.

Reports have it that most of my GEP classmates in are now being civil servants doing things of great...er...national import(?). Money and position. I wonder how we'll all relate to each other if we actually met again. Would I actually recognise these people as people I used to go to school with, or will they look more like younger imprints of my parents?

Maybe that's why I like the online social life. Even when I know most people in my SG are in their 30s and 40s, they have a non-normative streak -- they are playing a "kiddie" MMO after all, and they can talk about their D&D or comic collecting past. (It's only when they talk about their toddler children and nieces that my head explodes.)