Why people are so attached to the virtual world?

Couple weeks ago, a “friend” of mine met me in a dungeon.  And the conversation was went like this:

H             : Hi…

L              : Hi, long time no c man…

H             : How r u?

L              : Fine man, how bout u?

H             : So so… hey btw, do u have a pistol for lv 44?

L              : Yeah, the one I’m using is lv 44.  It’s unique ^^.

H             : Aah, it’s shining!  Is it +5 or +6?

L              : It’s just +5.

H             : Can I borrow it?  I just need another pistol to kill that captain more quickly.

L              : Oh, sure.

And there goes the transaction with my “friend”.  And “he” went to kill the mini boss of that area… if what ‘he’ said was true,… which I doubt.  Because: half an hour later, the real friend of mine login, and whisp me telling me that his older account has been hacked (or keylogged, whatever the terms is), and warn me about it and also not to trust ‘him’.  And it was too late.  OMG, I’ve been hacked.  I repeteadly say to myself that I should have noticed it from the beginning.  Because ‘he’ spoke in English, while usually, we rather use our mother language.  But since we play in International server, we are sometimes using English too.  But anyway, the point is, we are being hacked (or scammed in my case to be more precisely)!

Note: I know that the term ‘hack’ is not always in a negative way, but from this point on I will use the term ‘hack’, as a black hat terms.  Please refer to computer literacy or wikipedia for this one.

Now, I was not being hacked directly in this case, but I am still a victim of a hacker.  Soon after this, my friend and I was having a “blue” moment and loosing all of our spirit to play the game again.  I am even nearly loosing my spirit for playing any MMORPG.  None of my guildmate know about this, and I don’t intend to tell them either.  My friend decide to quit the game, soon after he try with his new account.  I didn’t touch my PC for an online game for quite some time.  But Paradox gave me a comment on my blogsite about Mabinogi and although he never knew my condition, it gave me a little spirit to try a new game, and also remember that I still have friends in MMOSite.

At that time, one of my other friend saying that, “C’mon man, it’s just a game, besides you were just loosing something virtual.”  But I can’t still let it go!  I know that the advice is right.  It’s just something virtual, but something seems to be missing!  After I think a little bit of it, I started to realize the reason.  And these also might be the reasons of why people getting attached to the virtual world so much, that they unconciously started to loose their real life, marriage, or even die while playing.

Time

I’ve played this game, which adopting F2P subscription model, and although I play it for fun, I pay it with my time!  And I really loose my spirit to repeat my grinding just to find a unique items, or to collect money to buy it, because I will have to pay it again with another time!  As we might know that people sometimes consider that:

Time is Money

Time = Money

And considering that hacking my items mean hacking my time, I will have to say that:

Hacking = Stealing other’s time

Stealing other’s time = Stealing other’s money

People can have an argument that we are using our leisure time, which is not productive (not productive means not producing any money rite?), to play game.  But please consider the other way side.  Does any of you guys remember what wulligame describe about a guy who has to woke up early just to mine in the morning?  There are LOTs of people has that condition.  And I am one of them.  So, yes, for us time is money or for at least, it is precious!

If you guys loosing something precious, is it easy for you to let it go?  Sometimes, it is so hard to let your boyfriend or girlfriend go, because you have spent SO MUCH TIME together!  It is not easy to let something that you’ve spent time with.  You’ll need a lot of effort to do that, unless you are a really really easy going with anything that has happened in this world.  So yes, for me, game hackers and game scammers are criminals.  Because they took advantages by stealing other’s precious thing.

The more definite virtual life vs uncertainty in real life

In the world of MMORPG, the outcome is more definite compare to the real life.  Working so hard grinding and hunting WILL eventually lead you to a higher level, more money, and a greater chance of having a good items.  Now in the real life, you are sometimes working your ass up just to end up being nobody or even gain nothing.  I have seen in my life, how people working so hard but not getting richer or attain new level of life.  That’s why there are so many books out there, trying to give a clue about how to get rich or “gain level” in your life.

So yeah, I choose to spent my ‘leisure’ time in the virtual world of MMORPG because I know the definite result that I can get.  And after so much uncertainty in the real world, it is very refreshing to found something certain in my life.  Also the feeling of gain a new level gave me a certain satisfaction that I have achieved something.  More over, if I can get some items, it gave me another level of satisfaction too.  Some people are so getting into this “new” feeling that they decide to gave up their real life, which I thought is stupid, and we see the headline of how people getting divorced because of online game, people die because of online game, and etc.

However, when I got hacked, my alternative definite result has fly away with my definite hope.  That’s why it is very hard to let go something virtual!

This is mmoRPG, it’s a ROLE dude!

When you get into a role, at certain point, there will be attachment to your character.  Some people can choose their opposite sex for many reasons, but some part of them is also created in that character.  When people say noob to your character, we can’t just ignore it as an insult to our role, but it is directly insulting you!  Because the character is being controlled by you, expressing emoticon by you, saying your word, and dressing the way you like!  It representing you in the virtual world.  It is virtual but it’s you in there.

While you don’t want to get scammed in the real life, obviously you don’t want your character get scammed.  When you loose something precious in your real life you will need time to heal, that is also going to happened in the virtual world.

That’s my reasons on having a strong attachment to the virtual world of MMORPG.  I still consider my life as normal, because I still has healthy social life, I can still maintain my job, I spent some time with friends, family, and colleagues.  But hey, being hacked is sucks, even if it’s virtual!