by 1 Cylivers
As per a recent study, almost 78 percent of Internet savvy population indulges in online gaming in one form or other. Be it Sudoku or Chess on Yahoo! Games, there is both entertainment and challenge factors associated with these. But the actual online games are much more powerful and intricate and can take years of your involvement.
My first online experience was with Ultima Online (uo.com), which introduced me to role playing games (RPG) played against thousands of players in a shared persistent world. These games cost about forty dollars to buy but the catch is the recurring monthly charges that these game cost to play which on an average ranges between ten to fifteen dollars. The games are played by installing the client portion of the game on your desktop. You need to have a internet connection to play the games, and you should have your account in ‘paid’ status. You get connected to the nearest game servers located in geographically distributed manner, create a uniquely named character, choose a starting profession from a list of varied choices and enter the game. And then, as you enter the virtual world, your actual life is basically over.
As you move though this game world, you acquire skills, complete missions, hack at monsters or enemies, team up with fellow players and end us spending your waking hours enriching your character. You will face extreme tests of your skills, you will get killed, and resurrect from death.
The objective of most of these games is to become powerful, make more and more money to acquire in-game items like weapons or lands or house and ultimately rule over all your fellow players. These games bring of the best and worst in us, and unearth deep hidden passions.
