RPGs: The Blur of Reality

In today’s gaming world RPGs are one of the biggest platform designs game developers use in creating games today. This year the biggest RGP released was Elder Scrolls newest chapter Skyrim. Personally I have put in over 250 hours of gameplay into Skyrim. The game allows you to create a character to develop and master different skills used in the middle ages. The avatar I created is a human named Leonidas. I made my avatar look exactly like Gerard Butler’s character in the movie 300. I made him a shield and sword fighter with exceptional archery and magic powers. When leveling up my avatar I wanted him to be as well rounded as possible. I wanted to make him as over powered as possible so I made him armor that had a rating of over 1000 and an attack rating over 300 making him basically invincible. After I achieved that point the game became boring because I could never be stopped.   After becoming addicted to this game reality became different for not only me but all the other gamers that have played the game. Even today talking with friends who played the game we always make references to the game and try to use our imagination and use the powers in the game to act it out in real life. My friends and I are constantly trying to use our shout powers with no success. My friends that have created avatars for this game remarkably resemble themselves in real life. They created their avatars to be an exaggerated version of themselves. So in Role Playing Games u can see how Waggoner may be right in saying they do in fact change the formation of identity. After playing Skyrim my identity has been changed and I sometimes wish that reality was Skyrim and I was my avatar and how much easier life would be.

Response to Implication of User Choice

I created a Myspace when i was back in 7th  grade and i only did cause Myspace was the thing to have during that era. I never realized how "ghetto" Myspace was till i made the switch to Facebook. The amount of customization to Myspace pages was insane. The thing that brought me to Facebook was how clean looking it was. When creating my Facebook profile i left a lot of things out and put only things that i wanted people to see which made me feel that Facebook is fake. it lets people create a false front that makes them feel protected and built up ego and can say things that they would never say in person.