Leveling Up in the Game "Real Life"

The gameplay itself is extremely open-ended, though it's structured in such a way that you'll have a fairly clear path to follow when you're just starting out. Real life features a great system whereby newbie players will automatically be guided along through the early levels by one or more "parent" characters who elect to take newbie characters under their wing. This is a great system, as these older, more-experienced characters reap their own benefits from doing a good job of guiding the newbie character along. The system does have some problems, though--sometimes you'll encounter "griefer" parents who shirk their responsibilities or, even worse, seem content to harass newbie players. Such a situation could, in theory, irreparably damage your experience in real life. Fortunately, chances of this are relatively slim, as a harsh punitive system is in place to prevent the vast majority of players from experiencing or engaging in this sort of behavior.

Starting out in real life can admittedly be boring, but the experience becomes much more interesting and open-ended once you get past the learning curve.

Typically, a character will learn of the numerous viable career paths available by undergoing schooling. This can be a long and tedious process, equivalent to the sort of "level treadmill" monotony that characterizes almost all MMORPGs. Nevertheless, many players do manage to enjoy themselves in this phase, especially if they band together--real life definitely rewards players who join groups, though soloing is certainly an option as well. At any rate, through the schooling process, as you engage in various activities, you eventually settle on a career path, and this is when you can start making a good amount of money and really taking matters into your own hands.

[...]

One issue with real life is that it gives you very little specific feedback on character advancement. To give a couple of examples, a highly proficient player might receive a sudden pay raise or might become a champion boxer, but there's no clear way to tell exactly how smart or how strong you really are. Cleverly, there are in-game ways of at least getting a sense of these and other key attributes. You may attempt to lift weights to roughly determine how your strength compares with that of other characters. Various tests are available to gauge your overall intellect and expertise and knowledge in a variety of fields, though annoyingly, you need to pay a considerable fee to take some of these--and if you fail, often you aren't allowed to retake the exam for a while, or sometimes at all.

Notes:

Open-ended, a grind, but ultimately very rewarding.

Folksonomies: education meaning life video game

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Concepts:
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Internet slang (0.854267): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Learning curve (0.845198): dbpedia | freebase
Real life (0.747600): dbpedia | freebase
Learning (0.730801): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Experience point (0.688467): dbpedia | freebase
Social constructionism (0.684566): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Meatspace (0.680400): dbpedia | yago

 New game review - REAL LIFE
Electronic/World Wide Web>Message Posted to Online Forum/Discussion Group:  lizwool, (12/03/2005), New game review - REAL LIFE, olganon.org, Retrieved on 2013-11-16
  • Source Material [www.olganon.org]
  • Folksonomies: metaphor meaning life


    Schemas

    16 NOV 2013

     Real Life as a Video Game

    A common meme in many forums and blog posts is to review real life as a video game and the insights about the human condition this reveals.
     11