My Alter-Ego

One of the things that takes up a lot of my time is working on my alter-egos. When you mention on-line gaming to most people their eyes glaze over and they take a step backwards thinking that you most likely smell like spent semen and body odor. Most people have no concept of the involvement, sophistication and dedication it takes to participate successfully in an on-line gaming community. They associate them with the likes of a sniffling thirty-something basement-dweller - you know - their mother brings down their dinner and they take masturbation breaks between online gaming sessions - their weekly outing a visit to the comic store.

Primarily the attraction lies in the mystique of experimenting with alter egos. When you are inside an active on-line gaming environment things work pretty much the way they do in the real world but there are a few fantastic twists that make things far more interesting than real life. First off you can cheat death. This means that your alter-ego can take far more risks that one might in the real world. Most of the other inhabitants of the online gaming realms contain a multitude of other live players that you can interact with in many different ways.

This provides a series of varied fascinations that can easily become obsessions. There are obsessions for power, obsessions for wealth, obsessions for talents, obsessions for notoriety, obsessions for the concept of breathing life into a character that you control and can experiment with in limitless ways.

I feel that the likes of Warcraft, Everquest and The Matrix Online exemplify the infancy of a new world or frontier. These distant dimensions that many have become inhabitants of allow a place for regular people to become things they never dreamed of. The worlds are an illustrious tapestry of visual imagination and technology. They provide a kaleidoscope of compelling surroundings that never get tired.

The anticipation of an upcoming session of online gaming sends endorphens of pleasure through my body just thinking about it. It is a drug of sensory and imaginative nature. One can literally jack out of one's reality and go into another.

Headphones are the key to immersion, as well as darkening your surroundings. The best way to describe the experience is to imagine yourself at the movies and when the action gets going and things start to really heat up you get up out of your seat and walk up to the screen and right into the world in front of you.

There is nothing like it this side of freebasing crack cocaine.

From a creative standpoint I think that gaming in general trains the brain to see things differently and opens up the walls of ones own perceptive imaginative capacity - to be able to think, problem-solve, and allow oneself to behave instinctually in a variety of obtuse environments can only open the imagination.

Yes - the alter-ego is a great place to spend the day. When I think of my characters I see true extensions of myself. The avatars lay in waiting until I log on and take them back into their worlds. I can fight other players or creatures, go shopping, make something, hunt, put things up for auction, go fishing, cook food, make potions and machines, train pets, and travel to distant lands with complete ecosystems and geographical details. The games even have their own economies and you can literally pay Canadian currency for virtual currency if you are too lazy to try to earn your way inside the virtual worlds.

The stigma attached to such things is like any other stigmatism - people don't fully understand the concept and pass judgments with their uneducated conclusions. Sure these games are not for everyone - including children, but they serve as an excellent form of escapism and entertainment. The best part is that there is no advertising - it is a crystal clear medium so far - one that is pure and unencumbered by commercial motives.

My current MMORPG of choice is Warcraft (I have played most of them). Warcraft has over four million active users. This in itself proves that online gaming is here to stay and frankly I am sure that it will become THE primary medium for human entertainment. It may take a decade or two - but the concept of the alter-ego is something that we obsess over at childhood (Dolls, Heros, Idols) and carry the fantasy right through to our adult lives.

How would you like to live the life of your role model?
How would you like to change yourself?
How would you like to be in complete control of everything?
How would you like to cheat death?
How would you like to play by your own rules?

The fantasy can be yours for about 20 bucks a month and a 1200.00 computer.