No, I don’t mean exploiter in the sploitz sense. This is a legitimate question!
My husband and I were listening to a podcast a few weeks back on which the guest was talking about how kid brains are optimized for exploration and learning, while adult brains are trained for exploiting all the knowledge they gained as kids. And we couldn’t help but relate that to the feeling of going into a fresh MMORPG, where we don’t know how anything works and we just have to click all the buttons and go to all the places and put on all the clothes. (I’m reminded of that time I went to a pre-launch SWTOR demo and irritated the BioWare handlers by trying to see if my character could jump off a tower and fall to my death.) (She could not.)
But then many adults – and people who’ve played tons of MMOs or tons of one MMO – lose that drive to explore and become, well, exploiters of our environment. We see all the hooks and tricks and we capitalize on them. Which can sometimes ruin the experience and take the magic out of the genre!
Which phase are you in within your MMOs of choice – are you an explorer or an exploiter in MMORPGs?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
