He sleeps at past three in the morning and wakes up not earlier than 10 am the following day. He gets up from his single-size mattress bed and head towards the bathroom to take a shower. Jet sprays of water from the nozzle hit his eyes. "It hurts!" he complains. "Maybe I should give myself a time off from too much exposure to the flat screen monitor."
However, work demands that he should always be in front of the computer.
He leaves his tiny apartment located somewhere in Guadalupe before noon. His place is just a stone-throw away from where he works. Before entering the building, he grabs his lunch consisting of high-cholesterol fried meat and huge serving of carbohydrates from a fast-food restaurant across the street. His office is on the eight floor. Probably, he would eat his lunch late in the afternoon with his colleagues around him discussing the latest electronic gadgets available in the market.
Anime figures surround his office cubicle. They are like sleeping minions awaiting his command. In his past life perhaps, he played a Cosplay character. He might have been a manga collector, until his little brother sold his collection to another fellow. A Mongol pencil he left last night lies somewhere under his chair. This pencil, which he used to make doodles of his favorite cartoon character will soon find its way back to his table. His anal best friend, who loves watching porn from his computer will soon notice the pencil missing from his buddy's inventory. He will pick it up, maybe inspect it for scratches and then sharpen it before putting the pencil back in the pencil cup.
Finally, his Dell Computer - the top of the line from last year's model has been kept below freezing temperature thanks to the centralized AC of his office. It has survived countless crashes and multiple hackings. It has also been reformatted several times upon the request of its user. This Dell Computer, which is at the moment turned off, is his greatest weapon. It controls the destinies of players, especially when he is the one organizing a game event.
And the moment he presses the ON button,
is the time the powers of cyberspace begins to flow smoothly on his fingertips.
However, work demands that he should always be in front of the computer.
He leaves his tiny apartment located somewhere in Guadalupe before noon. His place is just a stone-throw away from where he works. Before entering the building, he grabs his lunch consisting of high-cholesterol fried meat and huge serving of carbohydrates from a fast-food restaurant across the street. His office is on the eight floor. Probably, he would eat his lunch late in the afternoon with his colleagues around him discussing the latest electronic gadgets available in the market.
Anime figures surround his office cubicle. They are like sleeping minions awaiting his command. In his past life perhaps, he played a Cosplay character. He might have been a manga collector, until his little brother sold his collection to another fellow. A Mongol pencil he left last night lies somewhere under his chair. This pencil, which he used to make doodles of his favorite cartoon character will soon find its way back to his table. His anal best friend, who loves watching porn from his computer will soon notice the pencil missing from his buddy's inventory. He will pick it up, maybe inspect it for scratches and then sharpen it before putting the pencil back in the pencil cup.
Finally, his Dell Computer - the top of the line from last year's model has been kept below freezing temperature thanks to the centralized AC of his office. It has survived countless crashes and multiple hackings. It has also been reformatted several times upon the request of its user. This Dell Computer, which is at the moment turned off, is his greatest weapon. It controls the destinies of players, especially when he is the one organizing a game event.
And the moment he presses the ON button,
is the time the powers of cyberspace begins to flow smoothly on his fingertips.
He has now become the game master, the omniscience behind all virtual worlds.
Being the overlord, he looks after uninstructed players who get lost or abused by other players of the game he is tasked to manage. He is the virtual god, whose presence threatens even the immortality of the NPCs. (Non Playable Characters) He monitors all traffic - including the news and rumors circulating from every online fora that mention his game. When he reveals his presence, he rewards loyal guild leaders and players with rare artifacts as long as they could beat him in his game. These gracious offerings courtesy of the company's division of content writers prolong the addictive potentials of the game.
At the end of the day, his existence is a good as long as he remains the master of the game assigned to him. Nevertheless, he remains the lord of Mozilla Firefox whose powers include unlimited streaming and downloading of music, videos or even other online games hacked from every corner of cyberspace.
But the moment he leaves work, he surrenders all the god-like qualities given to him by his seemingly blissful job. With so much to lose in a very small window of time, many game masters extend their rulership by logging on to their personal computers the moment they arrive home. I don't know. It is just recently that I met a game master myself. But if you ask me how I think of what their lives are.
I wonder how it feels like being offline, even for just one day?
---
4 pm.
I was invited by a friend who works for an online gaming company in his office. We agreed that I would play some of their MMORPG games so that I may be inspired and write about them on my blog. I promised him that my review would come out in the coming days. Despite getting only 4 hours of sleep because of some work demands, I cannot deny that I enjoyed the experience. Not only I was able to see how gamers play at work, I also get to talk to them about how their lives revolve in such a world.
Being the overlord, he looks after uninstructed players who get lost or abused by other players of the game he is tasked to manage. He is the virtual god, whose presence threatens even the immortality of the NPCs. (Non Playable Characters) He monitors all traffic - including the news and rumors circulating from every online fora that mention his game. When he reveals his presence, he rewards loyal guild leaders and players with rare artifacts as long as they could beat him in his game. These gracious offerings courtesy of the company's division of content writers prolong the addictive potentials of the game.
At the end of the day, his existence is a good as long as he remains the master of the game assigned to him. Nevertheless, he remains the lord of Mozilla Firefox whose powers include unlimited streaming and downloading of music, videos or even other online games hacked from every corner of cyberspace.
But the moment he leaves work, he surrenders all the god-like qualities given to him by his seemingly blissful job. With so much to lose in a very small window of time, many game masters extend their rulership by logging on to their personal computers the moment they arrive home. I don't know. It is just recently that I met a game master myself. But if you ask me how I think of what their lives are.
I wonder how it feels like being offline, even for just one day?
---
4 pm.
I was invited by a friend who works for an online gaming company in his office. We agreed that I would play some of their MMORPG games so that I may be inspired and write about them on my blog. I promised him that my review would come out in the coming days. Despite getting only 4 hours of sleep because of some work demands, I cannot deny that I enjoyed the experience. Not only I was able to see how gamers play at work, I also get to talk to them about how their lives revolve in such a world.