Cat_Spaseman

You're not improving yourself, you're improving a pixelated useless character, and in my opinion you have issues with yourself to make this topic, and should aim to fix yourself/improve yourself in real life and not in a game. Happily from the final paragraph I see you are kind of planning to do so by 'creating' things. Either way, the only valid point you made is the last one about the ability to create in Runescape, so I accept that, but I still think skilling's a load of crap. However if I go into that on here I'll get flamed and people will try and justify the hours of their life wasted on skilling, so yeah. Ad Hominem, to a degree - Don't try and say I'm not right in the head because my opinion differs from yours. It's not like I 'waste' my time playing this game - generally I play when I have barely anything I feel worth doing otherwise (eg: writing, playing music, 'socializing', working, going to school). To say I have issues, someone you know only through one work, is to make some really blind leaps in judgment that would seem to discredit your logic altogether. Not everyone's so damn selfish with what they do - seeing the people who agree with me only validates that this topic has value.

Every facet of character is pretense to the existentialist.

Well, I'd like to thank those with the praise and appreciation to admire something I enjoy doing even more so than that clickfest. I used to be real pessimistic about my use of language because I thought people were stupid, but I think I got over that when I realized that not utilizing a full vocabulary would be like painting exclusively with primary colors. You might be able to make other colors, but you waste a lot of time getting where you want. Of course, if it weren't for the arguments I could not defend my statements. They deserve thanks as well. It's interesting how people feel what I write is fake - can anyone articulate how it appears? I can write like a normal person if I wanted, but what's the fun in that? You take the fun out of communication when you get rid of big words. Honestly, if I was trying to reach the masses, I would be more in tune to working with people than ideas. I work with ideas first, and then apply them to people through my own translation. In an interview, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of The Mars Volta was questioned about if the fans played a role in his music (the audience.) Rather cockily, he defined what exactly he was - a 'creator person' and not an 'entertainer person.' These could be compared to the difference between the idea man, the thinker; and the man's man, the entertainer. While I will appreciate your critiques of my style, there is no guarantee I will make changes.

Einstein did not daydream, he reasoned logically on such a high level that only a handful of individuals could even understand his special theory of relativity when he proposed it. Just because a guy is a genius, not needing to write things down, does not mean his mind is daydreaming. Newton did not daydream, he used his eyes, then his mind to logically explain the phenomenon. Da Vinci did not daydream when painting, he saw and depicted. Shakespeare did not daydream, he read and was inspired. Marie and Pierre Curie did no daydream, they experimented and interperated. Watson and Crick did not daydream, they modeled and x-ray cromatographed. Mozart did not daydream when composing: he entertained, creating pop music. Bach did not daydream, he praised God the best way he could. experiencing the real world leads to creation; runescape is for fun This is where the division between arguments is not so much a stratified difference in magnatude of validity, but two equal paths that diverge. Daydreaming does NOT work for everyone; only those willing to let it. When that phrase is used in the discussion of some physical power, it is a placebo effect of wishful thinking. When the realm in question is the mind; any positive shift, even imaginary, has the capacity to elicit benefices. Daydreaming is an exploration of the potentials of the mind, the instrument through which all outward work is routed. To say no to daydreaming, and by sticking to the books of trail and formulaic work, you limit the ability to create ideas without the pressure of the performance or construction. You couldn't explain benzene rings without a dream, and I couldn't have come up with most of my lyrics and music if I didn't daydream during work.

Rejecting the reality of the current time and substituting one's own ideas in the great mass of extant concepts - that is creation. I don't see the difference, really. You still create new rules, and the whole experience may be a creation in itself - memories by that definition, daydreaming is also creation: the creation of nothing. Note; i play runescape, i substitute reality with imagination willingly. It serves purpose, but creates only the fleetingly ephemeral. creation must be meaningful to serve purpose: my purpose in playing runescape is relaxation and enjoyment. I acknowledge that, not a surrogate argument of "creation" of "learning" of "social interaction" or otherwise. I play for fun. Were i to write, to draw, to paint, to play music, i would create something lasting. By playing runescape i create nothing. "only the memory remains". Daydreaming is creation, and sure as hell serves a purpose. Just because the gain isn't concrete does not mean it is not there - planets keep from being thrown off into space by invisible powers. I believe daydreaming exercises the mind, to make it either more apt to react to creation, or to create itself. If we spent more time letting children daydream as opposed to placing them into already planned-out activities, we'd have much more talented kids who know what it is to be creative. Take it from someone who didn't accept his creativity as anything more than 'fun' for years. It's just as good as a good physique or a solid bank account, the ability to daydream and have a healthy, strong mind.

Rejecting the reality of the current time and substituting one's own ideas in the great mass of extant concepts - that is creation. I don't see the difference, really. You still create new rules, and the whole experience may be a creation in itself - memories

I treat what I do, this pointless pomp of words, as an art. I'm sorry if it seems fake and unnecessary to you, but then again those to which I worship were considered pointless wastes of flesh by people, or worse. It's a game I cannot win.

To Be Honest, I may not be very new at all. I'll keep that ambiguous in case that's breaking a rule, but I am playing a different account with a name exactly similar to the name of this forum account. As for Jagex's intentions, they most definitely have shifted; as is the case with any corporate entity (the non-locality of the corporate 'face' makes empathy take a back-seat to efficiency of profit, to some probability-value at least). However, I believe Runescape still retains vestiges of its original intent, even through its manipulation over the years. The basic concepts still exist as reminders of a less profit-oriented day. Until those depart, which would make the game impossibly different, we still have the soul of old Runescape, no matter what the people around us claim to be true.

Why on Earth would I waste my precious time playing a game in a virtual reality? Whenever I mention Runescape in physical conversation, for those who actually know what I'm talking about, often I am asked why I'd play the game. It doesn't make sense, to the 'rational' minds of my peers, to do tasks in a virtual world for no 'real' gain. I don't sell gold so I will not profit monetarily from my work, and I am not sponsored or funded by my playing. If simply for fun, couldn't I play something like Modern Warfare 2? If I'm not going to fill my time with production or partying, there must be games with a lot of activity that would surely be more interesting. What's the allure of a game focused entirely around clicking? Maybe there are higher dimensions that banal enjoyment. Maybe the fact that the entirety of the Runescape Universe occurs isolated from the real world. Maybe the sheer obscurity and esoterism make it worthwhile. This whole separate universe follows a different set of rules; new things to learn and comprehend. The Ethos of Runescape intrigued me from the get-go, more so than any other MMO. Why that is I cannot fully articulate, but my most poignant Runescape memories were of Rimmington, Bronze Scimitars, mining copper and tin, and that stack of 1k coins that amounted my bank in the Very Beginning. Those impressionistic recollections would stir in my head faintly with every mined iron or completed quest, as I built; created something - my Runescape character. But, does the character really exist? He is only pixels, no doubt. Pixels have no value save their amount of luminescence and wavelength. The pixel cannot move a car or build a house or save a life. To quote an old Buddhist saying, 'do not confuse the finger pointing toward the moon, for the moon itself.' The pixels are not what I value, but what they point to. Human beings are one of the few living species with an ability to have symbolic thought (if not the only one), and what those pixels symbolize, the direction in which they lead the mind, is to an imagination exercise. When I play Runescape, I am letting my mind stretch its mental muscles, holding my glowing screen as an alternate existence. If anything, to claim this game as being 'just pixels' is to say you renounce your amazing ability to have symbolism. The saying illustrates the fallacy of so-called 'objective' thinking that relies on very subjective givens; even the quest for a profitable life hinges around the ethereal thing we call credit. All money is, that super-powerful driving force behind almost everything humanity does, is a thought that people hold. The thought that at one point a work or service was rendered to be 'worth' another work or service unrelated. Money bridges the locality of our actions and creates a transcendent net on which humanity's efforts flow. Without our concept of money, we would not be able to work together; but there is absolutely nothing physical about it... except those pointing fingers, the sweat on our brow and the calluses on our hands. While this game most certainly is not just 'pixels', other games have greater intricacies and better gameplay, graphics, and action. Of those MMOs and other popular games (namely FPSes), the focus is on combat. The normal human might be drawn to the safe vent of their primal urge for dominance; but I am by no means normal. I have never had an urge to fight. By the will of my psyche, I am a man of non-competition most especially in violent matters. When I was younger I had those lusts for power and brute superiority, but they fell by the wayside as I learned about my world and how unnecessary those survival-oriented impulses are. In Runescape, I do not have to fight anyone. I may not experience the full game should I choose that path, but that is surely the same in Real Life (I'll never join the military). While I do combat in Runescape, the focus is rarely on being 'better' than others; usually it is merely creating a better character - self improvement I enjoy. Runescape's skill-centric gameplay is far more broad than any other MMO (World of Warcraft's profession system feels only an enhancement to combat, not a path all itself). The most profound reason I play Runescape, at which I'm sure those without an open mind will scoff, is the creation. Runescape offers the ability to create; something almost forgotten in our consumerist age. While it is always easier to buy your way to greatness, in Runescape it is fully possible to create what you need. Not only that, but the creation of a character with attributes and a history activates an impulse buried in my genes - that impulse to form. So often our activities in video games surround around destorying; those with a focus on creating like Runescape or Civilization feel almost euphoric to me. Those games are essentially test runs for what I plan to do with my life - create. When I am graduated from college I plan to create whole existences of my own with their stories and intricacies. I plan to create ideas from raw thoughts, and movements from raw impulses. All that mystical transformation, that metaphysical alchemy that I perform in my craft of writing, stems originally from the seed within my brain that all humans have. What watered that seed during my creative drought (my adolescence) was Runescape, as even when I felt there was nothing in the real world to create, there was always some more pixels to spring into existence in that universe that doesn't exist. Of course, you might think I'm full of crap. In which case, the only answer that should ever be required of me for why I play Runescape I will deliver to you: I play it because I want to, and I can make up all the insane reasons I want.