8) Exploring a new territory

After one and a half weeks, playing an average of 2 hours daily, I am currently at Level 12, and have complete majority of the quests on this main island. Now it was time to venture further, explore new grounds and fight more challenging monsters!

Interesting parallelism with reality:

- When we begin to grow up, we want to travel out and see new places and environment. Similarly in the game, I yearn and crave to explore new grounds because I am getting bored in my 'hometown'.

- When we travel overseas, we have the option to take a plane or take a ferry/boat/ship. Similarly in WoW, I get the choice of travelling either by flight or by ferry too. And guess which one I chose?


Tada! Definitely not as high class as a Boeing A380, but this must be the first class seats in the game. Soaring sky high, this is a new experience which I have never felt even when I played MapleStory!

Just when I feel bored of the old territory I was in, now with this exciting flight adventure, I am perked up again and eagerly anticipating what lies ahead in the new grounds of Darkshores!

Thinker Thoughts

Game structure are crafted carefully to lured the gamers continuously. Just when one thinks that the kick/drive to play is running low, new virtual environments, quests, territories draw them back into the game again.

7) Sense of Belonging - Being part of a Guild

While venturing into one of the caves to complete a particular quest, I saw another virtual character being chased and attacked by three monsters simultaneously! Looking at the situation, there was no way she was going to survive and relentless onslaught. Being a hero to save the 'damsel' in distress, I jumped into action and fought off two of these monsters.

She thanked me a couple of times and subsequently invited me to quest together with her. Back in reality, I looked at my watch and had about an hour to spare before my next appointment, so I agreed to quest with her.

We fought side by side and after 30 minutes, finally completed the quest! (Sense of Achievement)

At that point, I received an invitation from this character to be part of her guild! I was tremendously honor and immediately accepted the invitation without much hesitation. I mean... I have only been playing WoW for less than a week and here's someone whom appreciates my work and invites me to be into her guild! Cool! (Sense of Immersion, Achievement)


How do I feel then?

1. Sense of pride and belonging
2. Appreciated for helping out in the game
3. Acceptance to be part of a bigger 'family' (guild)
4. Great opportunity to know more friend in the guild (whom are from all over Asia and Oceania)

Immersing myself into the shoes of a gamer, this is how I genuinely feel. Things that I can get/feel in the real world seems easily obtainable/acheivable in the virtual world.

I can now understand a bit more now why youths are stuck in game and refused to stop playing.

6) Collaborating & Making Friends

One stark difference between MapleStory and WoW would definitely has to be to how WoW has been structured such that you are compelled to play in a minimum of two person together! Now's here is my own experience:

I leveled up with ease from Level 1 till 7. And that took me almost 8 hours spanned across two days. Subsequently, in order to progress the game further, it would require me to fight higher level monsters which were much tougher and would be almost impossible for me to handle by myself, espacially when they come in a mob towards me!

While working on one of the quest, I died 5 times even before reaching the main boss which I was supposed to strike down. One my final attempt, I met two character whom were also working on the same quest and we collaborated.

The beauty of WoW game structure was that it allow game characters working on the same quest to "share quest" , such that the characters involved could collaborate, complete the quest together and share the loot! On one hand, you get to complete the difficult quest and on other hand, you get to make new friends from around the globe. Isn't that killing two birds with one stone?

Now that's a redefinition to TEAM WORK isn't it?

Interesting if we could extract such learning points out to teach the youths whom are absorbed into the game.

5) Immersion Spike ALERT!!!

I decided to play WOW alone last night and go to another territory! I was richly awarded in my journey to the new land. I had an immersion spike! I have NEW EXPERIENCES all at the same time. Which kept me WANTING TO EXPLORE more. Because of that, I was also NOT BORED!

Check out my first solo flight out of Darnassus!


Check out my first Underwater Swim and combat!


And this is the first time when I slash someone, there is actually BLOOD splattering!!!


It really gets more "real-life" now...:)

5) Family Reunion & Immersion

Last night, I spent about 2hrs on WOW. I was leading pascojunior from Loch Modan to Darnassus to meet up with miloahcek. It was a tiring journey where we got lost for a while. But surprisingly, dying got us nearer to our destination. The journey took us through the Horde territory, which was really challenging as all the creatures were very powerful. But it was a journey worth it!!

We finally found Miloahcek and took a Family Photo.


We did a quest together and call it quits for the night.

But today, I played for about 2hrs also just to level up. It was really immersive.
I felt the immersion factor was really high because:

1) I totally lost track of time. I thought I played a while, but it was actually a long while.
2) I really forgot what I was doing when I came OUT of the game.

Well, I am beginning to understand the IMMERSION factor now...:)

4) Long journey to find a friend

My friend contacted me in WOW, and he had someone go to Darnassus to fetch me to where he was - Iron Forge. It was a really long journey, about 40mins (real time).

But it was all worth it as I met up with Pascojunior!!!

4) Make Friends, Dont Wait!

Waiting for friends to quest with me can be quite tiring. So I decided to go in and intentionally make friends.

See the number of monsters I have to fight? I can only do it with a friend.


Met "her" online, and she is from Singapore. She seems like a young "girl" because of the way she communicates over the chat platform. :)

4) Party Time!!!

Party : a term used to describe a team effort in completing a quest. (Jhee's Wiki)

Yes, it is time to party. I have been playing for hours already, and I keep getting killed trying to complete quests. It is no fun because I have go find the place of "death" and ressurrect myself.
Finally, my friend Angie joined me. And she was a blessing! With her I completed the quest faster and earned lots of "in game" money at the same time.

Now I will only go into a game when my friend comes in with me. :)

3) It was a BREEZE!!!!

It was so easy to play the game and level up. There were quests that slowly teaches you how to play the game. If you think it is difficult, it is not so.

It was interesting learning how to play, because the learning was BUILT into the quests...:)

Also, I leveled up to level 2 within 10mins, and then to level 3 in the next 20mins. To reach level 4, it took me 40mins.

New learning :

• When you are lower levels, it is easy to level up. The higher you go, the harder it is, and the longer it takes. :) Now I am level 4. :)

2) I changed my NAME & CHARACTER!!!

After my trial version ended, I decided to start a new character. This time, after being immersed in the game for some time, choosing a hideous character did not seem to "dislikable" anymore. Also, I took my friend's account so that I only have to pay subscription when I play, I dont have to pay for the CD/box. Therefore I choose a Night Elf - with still some good looking features.

I also choose a name where I would not be identified. Being anonymous does help me do things that nobody can implicate me or track me down. The name that I chose is my name in Japanese, the land where I started WOW.

Therefore, this day Hikiju is born!!! :) Check out my good looking character!!

2) Choosing a Character

My friend Angie asked me to choose a character call Blood Elf. But after going in I realise that it was really hideous looking. I chose a Human Mage. I mean, who wouldn't want to choose someone who can cast spells.

My main motivations for choosing that character:
1) I wanted the character to look like me as much as possible.
2) I also chose the name Jhee for my character's name.

I think this really helps me engage in the game better. I am more integrated with my character.

1) Kopiahcek jumps from MapleStory to WoW...

For the past 9 months, I have ben rather active in playing MapleStory as part of my research. I have invested time and money into building up my virtual MapleStory character to become both powerful (Level 48) and rather nice looking. Now my attention has turned to the latest craze and talk in town...... WORLD OF WARCRAFT!

I have heard so much about it, but has always been reluctant to jump onboard it because of my already huge effort investment in MapleStory... But still I decide to take and leap and bulldoze my way in.



What caused me to make this jump across to WoW?
1. For the sake of research. I want to find out what's the big hoohaa going on about this new game which has close to 9 million subscribers.
2. Because two of my good friends (Jhee and Pascosenior) also entered the game and I felt drawn to try it out too. I don't want to be left out.
3. I feel that WoW is a "more matured" game comparatively with MapleStory. Now I am slashing monsters rather than just snails and mushrooms. I have "grown up"!

What are the implications about this for youths whom go into WoW?
1. Social factor - Many of their classmates may jumped into WoW and they do not want to feel left out. Imagine everyone talking about it in class and they can't connect with their classmates!
2. Sense of achievement - Every kids want to grow up. Digital immigrants (You and me) feel grown up when we have transited to doing greater things i.e. promotion, new education levels. For digital natives (the kids), they feel grown up when they have jumped from a seeminly childish game to something more matured. BEWARE!! Matured games tend to come with more violent or mature themes in-game too i.e. violence, blood, gore, sexual content.

1) What got me started in WOW

I have heard of World of Warcraft from my friends and some of the youths that I have been working with. I have been resisting to start WOW because I foresee I will not have the time to carry on. However, after much contemplation, and constant encouragement from my friends, I have decided to take it up. I signed up for a 10 days trial, in case I dont want to continue with it.

Basically my motivation:
1) Friends encouraged me
2) Wanted to know what everyone was talking about
3) In order to reach the youths in the area of Cyber Wellness, I need to know what the youths are doing in WOW
4) As a PhD student researching into Internet Gaming, especially MMORPGs, I cannot help but at least play ONE of the MMORPGs

Here begins my journey!!!