Perfect World Zero

I have never played an MMORPG before (that’s short for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, dearie, and its pronounced as spelled; try not to read it as a word). But I have played. Oh have I played. I have been playing Role-Playing Games since I was 12. On this, my 20th year as a gamer, I have finally decided to cross the final threshold, to finally drop the proverbial final fig leaf.

I installed into my computer the latest MMORPG to hit the sunny shores of my country. Perfect World. A game created by a Chinese company, and marketed here in the Philippines by Level Up! Games. Of course when I installed this, and played for the first ten days, I didn’t know that it was new. I thought it was around for a while now. That was the Closed Beta, when only a few select players were allowed to test the game. When I joined, the Open Beta (anybody who wants to get on) had just been activated.

This was at the goading of my long time friend, Joel, who has been a serious MMORPG player for a while now because he doesn’t have a life. So when he saw that I had also lost my life, he suggested I try what was doing. So I decided, why not? What have I got to lose? A few hundred pesos? I don’t have a life so why not get one online? That’s okay I guess.

So there I was, ignorant of how these things went. Naturally I was tentative when I took the first few steps. Luckily, being a veteran hardcore gamer and alpha chatter, I was quick to realize that this is what the game was. Fantasy RPG with a chat function and a thriving community. I just had to get used to it all. Being a Tomb Head, I am used to the spanning vistas, heights and killer 3D effects of the game. What blew my mind was the expanse of it all. How you could really go anywhere you want, game physics permitting.

While I was still marveling at it all, someone struck up a conversation with me, she said hello. I said hello back.

Then she said: “Kuya, tabi. (Brother, you’re in the way.)”

That’s when it hit me. It’s a brave new world. I am not alone.