Thursday, October 19, 2006

My Solution to yesterdays E-Mystery

Thanks to everyone who tried, and a special thanks to those who posted their answers.  Let's compare!

It is true that I read the original story, so there is a lot more to it than I posted, as Aravind pointed out.  I tried to turn the real story into a mystery, since it seemed to be a mystery to the person who was living it.  With the facts presented in my version, here is what I would say are some of the solutions to the mysteries.

The WoW dude (let's call him Bob, since that makes it easier, and Bob's your uncle) was upset that no one contacted him after he left the game, so he thought that those bastards weren't really his friends after all.  But Bob's Real World friends were still there for him after he left.  Actually, it is Bob who is the bastard.  See, he snubbed his Real World friends and they waited for him.  But, what did he do to this WoW friends?  He isn't playing the game, so his WoW friends are like he used to be (not talking to people in the Real World), and he is now in the role of his Real World friends.  Did Bob say, "I was addicted to the game, but now I am done with it.  And I will wait for my WoW friends until they can leave the addictive game, as my Real World friends waited for me."?  No, he thought of himself, as he did while in the game.  Bob is just a self-centered bastard who didn't realize what he put his Real World friends through, and once he was in the same situation, he didn't recognize it and instead blamed the addicts for his feelings of abandonment.

For the second part:  Bob thought that the WoW world was unlike his Real World.  He had achieved much in WoW, but was he happy?  No.  He wanted it to be all fun and games, he wanted the riches without the work that goes along with them.  He didn't make the connection that the Wow world and his Real World are very similar - the WoW world is just a sped up version.  In the Real World, someone can work very hard and rise to the top, like he did in WoW.  But, it is hard work, takes a lot of time to get there, and a lot of time to maintain it.  He just wanted the playboy lifestyle, the cool parts that they show on TV, not all of the actual behind the scenes stuff that goes along with that success.  He seems to think that his life will be more rewarding in the Real World, when there really isn't one.  What are dollars, but other people ideas of wealth?  How can you "own" land in the Real World any more than in a virtual one?  It is all group consensus.  If all of the people vanished from both of the worlds, he would see that they are both the same, WoW mirrors life, because it is populated by Humans and designed by Humans to be a mirror.  If the rules of WoW were very far from Reality, the game wouldn't have sucked him in.  With the advanced pacing in WoW, he was able to experience a rise to the top that would take many, many years in the Real World - and he found it not to his liking.  He is no Bill Gates.

So, how did you do?  Based on my understand of what people posted, I would have to say madpuppy got pretty close to my answer for the second part.  Congratulations!

It is still up in the air whether I will do this again, but I believe I had fun with it.

The Edward

1 comment:

Madpuppy said...

You might want to check this article out, too- another person for whom the on-line world was more real than the "real" world. It's an interesting exploration of the inner workings of a geek:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050321083944/http://static.circa1984.com/the-big-scam.html