real-life vs. RuneScape fame and achievements

One of the major differences between real life and a game like RuneScape is the fame and competition.

My parents have told me that "virtual" fame doesn't help in the real world - it's mostly true. (Unless you're a good merchant and do real-world trading, but that's illegal in most online games.) True, being ranked among the top 50 in RuneScape won't help on your resume.

Since there are over 6 billion living people on Earth (compared to about, say, 3 million active players on RuneScape), there is far more competition, and harder to get fame.

We'll use a high-level RS player who is pretty involved in the community - let's use Yogosun, currently ranked #3 in terms of skill total, as an example.

Although Yogosun doesn't talk in public in RS very much, he's pretty active on Youtube (as Yogosun2), and he often answers questions from players. In one video, he turns private chat to "on" an receives several messages from players each second!

Let's look at a real-life equivalent. A reasonable "high-level achievement" in real-life would be, say, getting #3 in terms of GPA in a top university, such as Stanford University.

However, the 3rd top student, even if he gives out his AIM and MSN names, probably wouldn't receive 2-3 IMs/phone calls each second.

This is due to several differences.

1. Schools usually do not have a "high score table" for GPAs

2. Even if they did, the contact information wouldn't be readily available

3. Many people who message top RS players are actually noobs who just want to bug them; in real life, most students of good universities are much more mature than that

4. In RS, being a top player usually involves getting 99 everything, but students aren't required to take every single class (that would take centuries!). Therefore, the top student might not know about a particular subject, etc.

5. A MMORPG may have millions of players; a large university may only have 40,000 students.

However, if you were a real-life celebrity and gave out your AIM screenname or whatever, then it's a whole different story.

Anyways, I have a question for those of you who have real-life achievements that you consider major, such as being on TV, or getting a difficult school award:

Do you get a lot of attention from your peers because of this? Do you get flooded with phone calls and IMs, etc?

edit: forgot #5

Wrong forums, no one cares about runescape here. :wink:

edit: but as far as the topic goes the reason why fame seems better online is because there are more people. There are 'millions' of people who play runescape but probaly only a couple thousand at most at a school.

On the 'net, there are kids, and really immature ones. But as for your example, people at major colleges would have the maturity not to spam someone on AIM, etc.

Whenever I do something great, such as achieving my black belt a couple years back (took 5 years), a lot of people at my Tang Soo Do studio congratulated me :) And also football, both times getting Defensive Player of the Year I got the same treatment, it feels good to have some people say "nice job" every once and a while.

Yeah, I've noticed that people do get recognized at shcool for major achievements.

For example, in March 2004, I got accepted by UC Berkeley. I didn't want vanity to get the best of me, so I tried to keep a low profile and only told people who asked what college I was going to.

However, someone must have let the cat out of the bag because quite a few people who I didn't know congratulated me at school, LOL.

In real life, not only what you did, or how high you went into studies counts. It's not to be the most clever, or the most educated that will be remembered for thousands of years in history. Those who will be remembered are those who inspired people, those in which people believed and followed, those who made the masses move, those who people looked up to.

In Runescape, it's all about lvls, nothing else.

I can't believe you seriously just compared being ranked #3 on a computer game, to be essentially being the 3rd smartest person in one of the most prestigious schools in the nation. That's truly one of the worst comparisons I've ever heard of of.

Real life beats being 3rd in rs

Girls fall for you if you clever \

Wrong forums, no one cares about runescape here. :wink:

 

 

 

The only reason i come to tip.it off-topic + gallery

I can't believe you seriously just compared being ranked #3 on a computer game, to be essentially being the 3rd smartest person in one of the most prestigious schools in the nation. That's truly one of the worst comparisons I've ever heard of of.

That wasn't really the point of my post, LOL. I just came up with it as an example, although I could probably have used a much better one. :P

Well you could be well known if u win a lot of video game tournaments like fatality/lil poison etc.

Distinction Between Real Life And Runescape #1:

-A high score at Runescape will not get you the ladies. A high score at life will. :wink:

I'd have to dispute that.

Being good at games => Respect from fellow gamers => Respect manifests in real life => Girls notice it.

I'm not saying that happens all the time, but something those lines happened to me before. Sort of like what someone else mentioned earlier - word gets around pretty quickly. It's not so much being the great gamer, but more of the palpable sense of respect [guys at least] give you when they're around you.

Anyone catching what I'm trying to say, or am I rabbling meaninglessly? :P

I can see where you're coming from, but I know I and I think a few people, would prefer to have respect from people as a person, not so much a gamer.

However, if you're life is gaming, well, it would be good for you!