Gamer’s Guild
I’m not a gamer. Unless you count the primitive years that followed the release of the original PlayStation, where Barbie Explorer became my end all and be all for the entirety of two years. However, I was recently forced into downloading a computer game, to observe the relationship between social justice and the virtual world of gaming. Enter Guild Wars II: a fantasy game that consists of my purple, Beyoncé-looking avatar strutting around a village killing creatures and burning their corpses. For three months, I played this game and I could not venture past the likes of level three.
This is how, on a particularly dreadful day, I found myself in the chatroom of Guild Wars. My emotions were high after spending three hours walking aimlessly through my game landscape, progressing no further while the clock mocked me. It was on this day, I found myself in an online chatroom. The chatroom is something I found to be very a confusing function to navigate. Firstly, I hadn’t even realized there was an option to mingle with other players until my hand violently smacked all the buttons on my keyboard out of frustration, resulting in a little chat bubble to pop up. Of course, I know this is very common within the gaming world. After all, the online sex-athons are quite famous, even in the non-gaming community. However, I assumed the chat function was only accessible to those who had reached some ridiculously high level, were allotted access to the secret and exclusive club. Alas, I was incorrect. They’ll let any old rif-raf in there.
I was tempted to just exit the function, and instead pay a visit to the leftover KD in my fridge. However, the possibility of being chatted up by some mysterious gamer in attempt to collude in cyber sex was an offer too tempting to refuse. Not for personal gratification you sickos, but for research. Although, it was a Friday night and I was stuck in my apartment playing a computer game. So perhaps, a little sexual attention wouldn’t be the worst thing. After a second of deliberation, into the void I typed: “Is there anyone alive out there?” A Titanic reference, of course, that I thought would win me a bevy of instant online friendships. However, when no one responded, I continued with a more specific concern of mine: “How do I get passed this level?” In which someone very helpfully responded [insert sarcastic emoji here]: “Eat a horse!”
Of course, immediately I assumed this was a snide comment made by some sophisticated gamer who was probably whizzing passed my meek level three status. However, as I continued to wander mindlessly through the landscape, I started to wonder if eating a horse was actually what I was supposed to do. Honestly, I still don’t know the answer. I asked for further clarification on where I should go to find this horse and – assuming I find it – what key should I press to activate my avatars eating function.
Following this, I accidentally pressed something that messed with my settings and sadly, I never got the answer to my questions. Since then, my questions have fallen into one of the two categories:
A. I pressed something that inadvertently blocked my access to communicate with other players (very possible)
B. My questions are dumb and are being ignored (sadly quite probable).
Throughout this whole mess of an experiment however, my opinions on the whole online-gaming-mingle-society has remained mainly unaltered. I went in expecting someone to try to sext with me but came out confused, searching the landscape for an edible horse. Truth is, I experience more harassment standing on the bus than I do on any social platform. Some think the anonymity of the Internet gives a person more power and could make for a more threatening experience. But personally, I rather a virtual penis being thrust against my back than the stinky man’s on the bus.