MMO Raw: Virtual Stupidity

I play a lot of MMOs, I admit. At any given point in time I have at least two subscriptions running; that's not counting any F2P-games I might have installed, any press accounts that might still be active or semi-MMOs like Guild Wars. I'm often made fun of by my co-workers, especially on GRTV, because of that hobby - in jest, of course, but hardly unwarranted. It's simply a hobby I enjoy; I like playing them, socializing in them, reading about them, writing about them...

There are times, though, when I just have to stop and think about what the hell I'm actually doing. Activities that we MMO-players tend to do over and over again, without realizing that other gamers are laughing behind our backs. We don't do it in just one game either, we do it in many.

Yesterday I was running around in the Great Divide in Everquest II, farming Tokens of Greater Teleportation for an event running in the Destiny of Velious expansion. These tokens spawn on the ground as small, purple, glowing things and you simply pick them up by clicking on them. These tokens spawn in a very small area, around and inside the remains of a ruined tower, and I was not alone - at one point there were three of us riding circles around the tower, trying to find purple shinies on the ground.

And I didn't simply pick up 10 and call it a day. By the time I finished, I had collected around 200 of them. During this time I was either chatting with a guild member about what to buy for the tokens, or talking on the phone. During the phone call, I completely blanked out and didn't even think about what I was doing in the game - I probably picked up around 50 tokens during the time that the call lasted.

I've done this before, for sure. During various events in Star Wars Galaxies I've ran around Mos Eisley or Theed, pulling down Rebel posters during Empire Day or trying to scare up the populace during The Moon Festival (SWG's answer to Halloween). There's no challenge to speak of; just run up to the thing you need to interact with, click on it, repeat. Whatever you do, don't take a step back and think about what you're actually doing. If you do, you're out of the zone.

Why do we do this? I did it because I wanted a new fancy mount, a title ("of the Dragonring", booyah!) and some new appearance armour for my illusionist in Everquest 2. In Star Wars Galaxies I wanted, for example, an AT-ST to ride around in and a backpack for my smuggler. That's it. I've spent hours in these games, doing repetitive and non-challenging tasks for pixels. And I keep going back; I know that during the next event, I'll be there again. Picking up shinies from the ground, or traveling around Azeroth to find hidden eggs, or pulling down Rebel posters in Star Wars Galaxies.

Another recent event that had me questioning my own sanity happened in EVE Online the other week. I logged in to change a skill (skills are trained in real time in EVE - they take minutes, hours or even weeks depending on what level you're training a skill to) and perhaps do some (virtual) shopping for new skill books I needed. In my inbox I found a mail saying that there was a call to arms that evening, that the DRF (Drone Russian Federation) was invading a solar system belonging to one of our allies* and that every ship we could muster would help. So I decided to stay online, get into one of my battle cruisers and join up with my friends to go do some righteous fighting for our common cause.

It sounds awesome on paper, but in reality the ensuing battle was everything except epic. In fact, the only thing "epic" about the fight was the lag. 1400 players were in the same solar system at the peak of the battle and most of the time I wasn't sure if I was alive, dead or if I was firing at my targets or not. My missile launchers kept cycling, but no missiles were fired - at one point, I was simply moving away from the battle without being able to do anything about it. The screenshot I took all look great, I think, but it was incredibly frustrating at the time. Reading up on our forums later, many of my fellow pilots were ranting and raving about how great the experience had been. On news posts about the battle, some players lamented about not having been there.

"I was there," as the pilot says in the latest EVE Online trailer and all I got from it was an incredible headache. At one point I became the Muad'dib, hanging both at a nearby space structure and somehow being deep inside the battle at the same time - taking damage from a pesky Megathron's railguns. How that happened, I don't know. But the server and what was happening on my screen did not agree on what was going on, that's for sure.

The question, of course, is why I didn't simply throw down my headphones and logged off in disgust. If a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2-player had seen me cursing more at the lag at what was actually going on in the game, he/she would certainly have laughed at me. I spent four hours that night getting to the fight, getting ready for the fight and in the insane lag and all I got to show for it was a hideous headache that almost blossomed into an actual migraine.

The day after, I was happy to see that my name was actually on a Titan-kill, amongst others (including a Nyx supercarrier). My alliance forum was filled with "great job, guys!"-posts. I complained a bit about the lag, but it's slowly becoming one of those tales you usually bring home from a music festival. "Do you remember when our tent flooded because of the rain?" we say and laugh, somehow forgetting what a terrible experience that actually was and how many times we vowed never to return again. Next time I log in and find a call to arms in my mailbox and I got the night free, I am sure that I will forget everything about lag and jump back into that battle cruiser...

So why do we do it? Why do we do these stupid things? Sometimes it's about the social aspect - clearly, helping our allies against their (and by extension, our) enemy is a sign of good will. Hanging out with my Alliance-friends on Teamspeak is fun. Running around picking up shinies in Everquest 2 gives me a certain feeling of accomplishment, some odd chemical in my brain went "weeee!" every time I found one. A friend says that "you get to bounce around, and it's relaxing" and he does have a point. The title gives my Ratonga (i.e. rat-person) a certain dramatic flair and the teleportation gizmos I also bought will help me out in the future. But it's still virtual stuff that I spent a long, long time on getting my hands on - with Star Wars Galaxies shutting down in December, I will never see that AT-ST I was so happy about (and have used twice and then only to pose in screenshots) again.

I guess I will chalk it down to the same itch that makes people go for achievements or trophies in console games - even when they are more tedious than fun or challenging (something I do as well from time to time, it should be said). I also guess it's a sign of health that I can actually see how stupid I am being, because if I didn't I would definitely have a problem...

...What? Stop looking at me like that. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

* For the record, EVE players: Yes, we are Against All Authorities pets.