Hi all,
So, I have a sad, good but bad but good story.
It was the Easter event. Early in Mirs lifetime. I was out hunting. Killed a chicken.
Para ring.
What the **** is a para ring, and how much is it worth?
!Selling Paralysis Ring Pm me
!~How much is a para ring worth?
================================
Ok, a bit of context. This is my first MMO, I ordered the CD from Game Network to play the beta because my 56k, d/c every 2 hours connection wasn't good enough to download the client. (A problem I later solved for the patches with a program called "GetRight", 1 week Spiderpatch download any1?)
I was about level 18, so really had not been playing the game long. I was also 12 years old, and had no real experience of other people on the internet. These were the days before the iPhone, Facebook or Myspace.
These were the days when you heard about websites from TV or a magazine, and when my dad came home from work and said "somebody I work with said to try google.comuk - Apparently its a good search site"
So I was in-experienced at social interaction, and only just started high school.
I had not had much need to understand how many zeros were in a million.
================================
Guild Chat: About 30 Mil
Now this next bit is hazy. I can visualize the exchange, I was inside bichon warehouse. After getting plenty of PMs offering me items, and me refusing and saying I wanted cash, I finally got somebody who was willing to pay me money.
Now I'm not sure to this day (because at this point its over 10 years ago), whether the trade amount was 300,000 or 3,000,000. I think that it must have been 3,000,000, because 300k seems like a seriously low number.
Ie,
If I was told 30 mil, I must have got 3 mil
If I was told 3 mil, I must have got 300k (because at this stage, 300k was not a small amount of cash)
I'm pretty sure it was 3 Mil
Anyway, whoever it was, gave me 3mil instead of 30mil. I remember asking
!~ how many zeros does 30mil have
GC: 7
!~oh
I remember pming the guy and saying "you owe me one"
and them pming "yeah sure lol"
==================================
Tragic. TRAGIC. Right? This young kid, ripped off, could have had it all.
Well yes, and no. Like most things in life, you can learn something from how people treat you and on this day I learnt a very important lesson about being taken advantage of.
It also, in fact, gave me a reason to play. I had enough money to finance my levelling and gear at a crucial time, as I was thinking of quitting as the game was exceptionally difficult for many reasons (56k deaths, no wiki to check item drops, WTF is a quest?) but not enough that I squandered it, lost it all and left in a fit of rage for losing it all. Basically, it whet my appetite.
I later went on to level the Wiz to 28, then I started a Warr and leveled to 39, getting TDB at level 35ish and I still remember the sheer joy.
After this I went on to Lineage 2, but that's another story.
Mir became a life, and a refuge, at a period in my life when I was unhappy. Maybe I was unhappy because I spent all day playing videogames instead of going out, exercising and eating healthily, but I came from a working class family, who knew nothing of nutrition. Add in that I was on crutches for a year in primary school due to damage to my left leg, I was being bullied, and got pretty fat. And the social exclusion had already started, due to the dreadful bias towards sports teams in the education system, my injury and my weight which came with it had firmly put me on the fringes of the social order by the time high school came.
If this hadn't have happened, if I hadn't of killed that chicken and got the para ring, been ripped off, carried on playing, I would never have learnt the important lessons that an MMO taught a young person in a way that only an MMO could of at the time.
I believe I am genuinely better off having played Mir (and later Lineage 2), and learning all the lessons that I did. Making friends, having them be flaky, or come through. Working together as a team for a common goal (something which I think is sadly lacking from the youth of today). Understanding the value of money. Not just from being ripped off, but from having to save, and plan ahead, and trade and bargain and prioritise.
When it comes to bills now I live with my girlfriend, I find that I am so much better at understanding what needs to be paid, where I need to save money. I believe this is in part from making pot bundles last longer, understanding the balance of risk vs reward etc. I also have a successful professional life, one in which I barley work for a good wage in something I love. And the people skills I learnt from Mir, good and bad, have contributed to my greater understanding of social interaction.
But more importantly, I got to play an amazing game, rich with great art design, a game design that allowed lawlessness, and one which endures to this day. So I thank you, all of you, the ones who were cruel as well as kind, as you helped form who I am, whilst getting to experience an amazing game.
/BF
(Long, rambling and lost the plot, but I've never told this story before)
So, I have a sad, good but bad but good story.
It was the Easter event. Early in Mirs lifetime. I was out hunting. Killed a chicken.
Para ring.
What the **** is a para ring, and how much is it worth?
!Selling Paralysis Ring Pm me
!~How much is a para ring worth?
================================
Ok, a bit of context. This is my first MMO, I ordered the CD from Game Network to play the beta because my 56k, d/c every 2 hours connection wasn't good enough to download the client. (A problem I later solved for the patches with a program called "GetRight", 1 week Spiderpatch download any1?)
I was about level 18, so really had not been playing the game long. I was also 12 years old, and had no real experience of other people on the internet. These were the days before the iPhone, Facebook or Myspace.
These were the days when you heard about websites from TV or a magazine, and when my dad came home from work and said "somebody I work with said to try google.comuk - Apparently its a good search site"
So I was in-experienced at social interaction, and only just started high school.
I had not had much need to understand how many zeros were in a million.
================================
Guild Chat: About 30 Mil
Now this next bit is hazy. I can visualize the exchange, I was inside bichon warehouse. After getting plenty of PMs offering me items, and me refusing and saying I wanted cash, I finally got somebody who was willing to pay me money.
Now I'm not sure to this day (because at this point its over 10 years ago), whether the trade amount was 300,000 or 3,000,000. I think that it must have been 3,000,000, because 300k seems like a seriously low number.
Ie,
If I was told 30 mil, I must have got 3 mil
If I was told 3 mil, I must have got 300k (because at this stage, 300k was not a small amount of cash)
I'm pretty sure it was 3 Mil
Anyway, whoever it was, gave me 3mil instead of 30mil. I remember asking
!~ how many zeros does 30mil have
GC: 7
!~oh
I remember pming the guy and saying "you owe me one"
and them pming "yeah sure lol"
==================================
Tragic. TRAGIC. Right? This young kid, ripped off, could have had it all.
Well yes, and no. Like most things in life, you can learn something from how people treat you and on this day I learnt a very important lesson about being taken advantage of.
It also, in fact, gave me a reason to play. I had enough money to finance my levelling and gear at a crucial time, as I was thinking of quitting as the game was exceptionally difficult for many reasons (56k deaths, no wiki to check item drops, WTF is a quest?) but not enough that I squandered it, lost it all and left in a fit of rage for losing it all. Basically, it whet my appetite.
I later went on to level the Wiz to 28, then I started a Warr and leveled to 39, getting TDB at level 35ish and I still remember the sheer joy.
After this I went on to Lineage 2, but that's another story.
Mir became a life, and a refuge, at a period in my life when I was unhappy. Maybe I was unhappy because I spent all day playing videogames instead of going out, exercising and eating healthily, but I came from a working class family, who knew nothing of nutrition. Add in that I was on crutches for a year in primary school due to damage to my left leg, I was being bullied, and got pretty fat. And the social exclusion had already started, due to the dreadful bias towards sports teams in the education system, my injury and my weight which came with it had firmly put me on the fringes of the social order by the time high school came.
If this hadn't have happened, if I hadn't of killed that chicken and got the para ring, been ripped off, carried on playing, I would never have learnt the important lessons that an MMO taught a young person in a way that only an MMO could of at the time.
I believe I am genuinely better off having played Mir (and later Lineage 2), and learning all the lessons that I did. Making friends, having them be flaky, or come through. Working together as a team for a common goal (something which I think is sadly lacking from the youth of today). Understanding the value of money. Not just from being ripped off, but from having to save, and plan ahead, and trade and bargain and prioritise.
When it comes to bills now I live with my girlfriend, I find that I am so much better at understanding what needs to be paid, where I need to save money. I believe this is in part from making pot bundles last longer, understanding the balance of risk vs reward etc. I also have a successful professional life, one in which I barley work for a good wage in something I love. And the people skills I learnt from Mir, good and bad, have contributed to my greater understanding of social interaction.
But more importantly, I got to play an amazing game, rich with great art design, a game design that allowed lawlessness, and one which endures to this day. So I thank you, all of you, the ones who were cruel as well as kind, as you helped form who I am, whilst getting to experience an amazing game.
/BF
(Long, rambling and lost the plot, but I've never told this story before)
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