Starting my MMORPG journey

If I were to post an entry during a weekend—like today—chances are that I penned my post on a break from a dungeon raid.  So yeah, weekends are my online gaming days, in the absence of any other more significant appointment.  Most of my week is allotted to the office, so the weekends go to unwinding either through hanging out with real-life friends, or playing my online self.

It all began one day—the details are quite clear, for reasons I personally don’t know—a hot day.  I was seventeen, I believe, in my second year in university, and I was lying in bed in the absence of anything to do.  It was one of those days when I actually hated having nothing to do, all because it reminded me of how boring the day was.  I decided that I wanted to give my life a little bit of “spice,” as I called it back then.

Now I was supposed to be a model student—this, of course, is not true, and never was—and extracurricular activities not remotely related to what I did at school were highly taboo.  This included online gaming.  To actually start playing online was the most rebellious thing I could manage at the time—I liked booze but I had no drinking buddies and drinking alone never appealed to me, and smoking made me cough a lot—and for me, it actually supplied the kick I meant to complement my boring life with.  And just like that, images of MMORPG posters paraded in my mind, and I tried to take my pick.  I decided I’d pay the nearest Internet shop—Toffee, my laptop, wasn’t mine yet at the time—a visit the next day.

Unfortunately, no game struck my fancy at the time.  The search went on until I came across Perfect World Online’s section in K-Zone.  I did further research, and I found the screenies and the concept attractive, and the back story simply fantastic—yes, the back story is one hell of a criterion for me.  I decided I wanted to be a Fa Shi—simply because I love being a mage and the name sounded cool.

One day, a friend told me she was playing PW, so I told her I wanted her to help me enter the game.  We set up to meet after class, went to an internet shop, and created my very first character, a male Fa Shi I named phoebus.  PW offers a very detailed customization feature, something I took full advantage of when I made my character—it took me an hour just making his face.  He is still my main and favorite character until now.

I entered the game’s world with a very quickly beating heart.  Everything seemed so nice and wonderful.  I actually felt like I was transported to some fantastical Chinese universe where people flew and threw brands of fire.  The feeling persisted even after I logged off.  For days and nights, I dreamt of nothing but PW.  I played when I could, leveled up, met people, and bought phoebus a lot of items.

Anyway, I have been playing MMORPGs for more than five years now, and I have tried playing almost every free-to-play online RPG that became available in the country.  I called it quits with PW months ago—for reasons I might discuss in another post—and am into Dragon Nest SEA.  This reminds me that Krouss, my priest, is waiting for me to go back and play.  So ciao for now, and thanks for reading.

 

Photo 1 is taken from Cubizone.com, while photo 3 is taken from Pinoypc.net, uploaded through Photobucket