Why Life is the Worst MMORPG of all times.

A man's castle is his home...wait, is that right?

     (For those of you who have been living in caves for the past 10 years, MMORPG stands for Massive or Multi-Member Online Role Playing Game.  In it player generate characters and explore and adventure in computer generated worlds alongside other players.  You quest, adventure and play act for fun and excitement.  Dozens are available now including World of Warcraft, Rifts, Star Wars and Star Trek.  Got it, okay moving on.)
     As I was doing my morning rituals today, I thought of the old phrase, "Life is a game, but no one ever bothered to write down the rules."  Which got me thinking while I was making coffee.  I pondered the idea that life was really some sort of fantastical game and all the men and women merely players.  (Can't take credit for that one.  THANKS WILL!)  I was immediately struck with the thought ( I struck back and a merry tussle followed.) that if Life really is some MMORPG, it is easily the worst one ever.
    Why you may ask?  (At least I hope you ask or else I am talking to myself again.)  Well lets compare LIVING THE LIFE (LTL for short) with World of Warcraft (WOW). 

Hmm, Human Fighter or Elf Hunter?

Character Generation:

     In WOW, you can chose from many races starting out.  You can choose your Sex.  You can choose what profession you want to be for the rest of your life.  You can even customize your appearance.  When your character is created, you simply click a button and poof, you are all set to start your life.

     In LTL, you are stuck with whatever race your genetics hand you.  You cannot choose your sex and sometimes the sex that is chosen for you gets a little confuzzled.  Forget about choosing your life long profession completely AND you have absolutely no say over how you will look.  When your character enters the game it is an extremely loud, painful and messy experience that your mother reminds you about for the rest of your life.

Don't think I am ready for Dragons yet.

 Starting Out:

     In WOW, once you have gotten past the character generation part and actual enter the game, things are pretty awesome.  You start out with Armor and Weapons appropriate to your career. (admittedly they aren't the best, but still functional.)  You have an instinctive knowledge on how to use those items plus inherent skills that make you pretty darned badass.  You can immediate start practicing your career to earn better gear and money.
     In LTL, you start out naked without any weapons, armor or skills.  The only real skills you have are crying, pooping and peeing which really aren't much use except to occasionally disgust people and annoy the nurses.  You are pretty much stuck like this for the first few years at least.  Some people never really make it past this level.

Careers:

     In WOW, once you reach level five, you can choose some pretty exciting careers that can earn you lots of money and let you craft amazing items.  Some people chose a gathering profession and a production profession so that they can craft items to help them adventure and some just go for the money and choose two gathering professions.  You can also choose three secondary professions to help you out.  Properly played, the professions you choose can earn you a crap load of gold coins.

   In LTL, at level five you are still trying not to poop in your pants and learning how to use silverware properly.  Any chance at a profession and real money is still at least 13 levels in your future and the odds are better than not that when you do get a career, it will not earn you lots and lots of gold coins.  "Would you like fries with that," may well be your magical phrase.  

 

Transportation:

     In WOW, once you reach levels 20, 40 and 60, you can learn to ride and purchase amazing beasts and devices.  At 60, you can even purchase a mount that will allow you to fly!  You can tool around the world on a Griffin, Knight's Charger or even a Dragon!  

     This is the only area that LTL has a slight advantage over WOW.  In LTL, you can usually get a permit to drive at level 15 and an actual license at level 16.  That's where the advantage ends.  Unless you are very lucky, in LTL your fist mount is a badly dented, 20+ year old car owned by a friend of the family and very rarely do you ever get to own a mount that flies.

Ohh Don't fear the Reaper

 

 Lives:

     Finally, the big one.  In WOW, if your character meets an unfortunate end, its okay.  Your ghost materializes at the closest graveyard and you run back to where your corpse is and poof you are alive.  If you are in a party, someone can actually bring you back from the dead without the long run.  Hells, one class can even bring themselves back from the dead.  You have an unlimited number of rebirths for the entirety  of your game life.  Even better, if you get bored with your current life, you can simply exit the game and create a whole new life to start all over again.

     In LTL, you get one life.  That's it.  No resurrections, no "corpse runs" back to your body.  You die in LTL and (as far as we know) poof that is it.  You are gone.  Worse yet, you are stuck with that one character for your entire game career.  You can't say, "Man I have being a level 22 Accountant.  Think I will re-roll as a Level One Cowboy."  (Well technically I suppose you can, but it is a helluva lot more complicated than WOW Character Generation.)

Closing:  

     So you see, LTL really has some major drawbacks that other MMORPGs don't have.  Still, it does have killer graphics and a decent sound track.  Even better, it is Free To Play without the usual FTP restrictions.

Have a Cuppa on me and smile.