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The Daily Grind: When has a game made you feel better?
Let's face it, real life has a tendency to throw some pretty nasty curveballs from time to time. Sometimes the negativity just keeps coming, and it feels like all you can do is struggle to keep your head above water for a few days. And then you log in to Guild Wars to find that your friend wants to give you a rare undedicated pet to help you feel better, or you finally reach the next ship tier in Star Trek Online, or you get a lucky night of Incarnate drops in City of Heroes. We talk a lot about the drama and friction in MMOs for understandable reasons, but every now and again the social side of the game is a boon and not a curse. It's not always enough, but a victory in a game can at least help dull the ache when things are going bad, and sometimes it's enough to make your day after all. So when has a game made you feel better? Was it your fellow players, lucky drops, or just a long-awaited milestone that perked you up? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: When has an MMO bolstered your spirits?
We've all had those days. You're sitting in traffic for hours on your way to work, you have a huge pile of things to do when you get there, you stub your toe and scrape up your arm. Even when you get home, the house is a mess and you're exhausted. Then you log in to your favorite game, and you agree to do something more or less out of a sense of boredom... and lo and behold, everything suddenly goes perfectly for you. Everything you want drops, you enjoy yourself, and you log off with a sense that the day wasn't all that bad after all. Right when you needed a shot of good luck, you get it. Many of us use MMOs as stress releases, but when has one actually helped turn what was a boring to bad day into a good one? When has playing the game made you feel happy, renewed, and inspired? Was it a series of lucky drops, or finally managing to finish a difficult quest, or even just getting sympathy from your fellow players when everything went wrong? What sticks out in your memory when you think of dark days a game has brightened?
24 hours of Tabula Rasa: Hour 8
Ding 3pm (grats!), and that means it's time for yet another launch day contest! This hour, we've got three prizes, one of which that may not seem spectacular at first, but listen, 3pm, don't be so hard on yourself -- you never know what uses people might come up with for an oversized game box.That's right -- this hour we're giving away not only a copy of the game to one person, and a shiny game poster to a second, but one person will receive an oversized game box (sans actual game). Sure, you won't be able to actually play Tabula Rasa, but maybe you can convince your friends that Garriott gave you a giant-sized copy by accident, and the reason you can't play online with them is because your computer's DVD slot is too small for the gargantuan game.Anyway, rules are as usual -- be in the US, over 18, and leave a comment (only one!) on this here post within an hour (that's by 4pm EST), and we'll pick three random winners to win one prize each. Maybe you'll get a game, or maybe you'll get an oversized copy of the game box without the game itself. That's the way life is!And stay tuned every hour on the hour for the rest of the day (and for the next two weeks after that, incidentally) for your chance at winning more cool stuff from our brand new site.
24 hours of Tabula Rasa: Hour 7
Our Tabula Rasa giveaways continue! It's every hour on the hour, man -- more faithful than Old Faithful, and a lot more often than Blizzard updates WoW.This hour, we're sending out a Tabula Rasa hat (valued at $10) and a game poster (retail value $5). You could be the first on your block to have a wearable ad for Lord British Garriott's brand new alien-shooting MMO! All you've got to do, as usual, is live in the US, be 18 or older (official rules here), and leave a comment (and only one comment) on this here blog post before 3pm EST. Oh, and the most important part: you've got to be one of our random winners. Some say that's the hard part, but really, it's the easiest, because we choose that one, and all you've got to do is type some stuff in and hit "Add your comments."So get commenting -- you've got an hour! And hey, if you don't win, don't worry -- you can also enter for that iPod, and we'll have contests every hour for the rest of the day, too.
Superstitions in WoW
The Daedelus project recently posted an article dealing with MMORPGs and the superstitions we build as we play the games. Seeing as how we as people love to finding meaning in seemingly random events, World of Warcraft has its fair share of superstitious players. I might even go so far as to say we all are superstitious about some things within the game. Despite the prevalence of superstitions in game, we always seem to see others' quirks as crazier than our own. Now we're not talking about religion or spirituality here, we are talking about how players create meaning where there is none. Here are just a few examples that Daedelus brought up: The spawn dance There are many players out there that subscribe to the particular belief *cough* Maelis *cough* that a special dance will help mobs spawn faster. I have never myself attempted to use a spawn dance, but I have found that I tend to run in a clockwise direction when I am farming because somehow the mobs seem to spawn faster. Or perhaps it's just because I can't turn left.
