Life as massive RPG

[GREYGREY]

Okay so I had no idea where els to put this, so thought my not gaming.
Okay... personally I get heavy side tracked by shit allot of the time. And TO-DO lists are boring. Have a the neon coloured sticky notes you want... Its boring.

Whats not boring? VIDEO GAMES
So I did a bit of digging to see if anyone else had the same idea and:
Chore wars:
http://www.chorewars.com/index.php
EpicWin:
http://www.rexbox.co.uk/epicwin/

and I'm sure there are others...
Although theyre each pretty awsum... Theyre only realy there for a to do list in terms of chores and work. Theres even one for going to gym.

My idea is to expand on this... And make it a total life solution.
I dont know if its just me but I love facts and figures.... EXP points and score is a great way to sattisfy my need for seeing progress in life while also the whole system would serve as a checklist to make sure I'm doing everything I should.

The questions are:
What would be the main facets of life that would serve as "Skills" or something like that whereby a person would check to see what in his or her life is lacking.
How would skill points even work?
How could you do something like this without being glued to a computer or mobile device and miss out on real life?

Is it even worth it?
Has anyone els here had or implemented a similar idea?

The point would be to make real life almost if not more interesting that the life inside my own head.
Any ideas?

 

[GREYGREY]

Avatar..... Turn life upside down.
Create the perfect character (The best person you can be)
And emulate that character.

 

[Cognisant]

Avatar..... Turn life upside down.
Create the perfect character (The best person you can be)
And emulate that character.

I try to do that, massive emphasis on "try".
It particularly helps when trying to overcome fear, if for example you're afraid of heights you can pretend to be someone who isn't and it'll alleviate some of that fear.

I dont know if its just me but I love facts and figures.... EXP points and score is a great way to sattisfy my need for seeing progress in life while also the whole system would serve as a checklist to make sure I'm doing everything I should.

It's a great idea but the tricky bit is getting that immediate gratification, for example if you're playing ES:Skyrim you can shoot through the first five levels in 10min and that sense of accomplishment is what gets you invested in it, but in real life there's very few "low hanging fruit", at least at our age, if you started this with a young child I reckon you could get them invested in it so that later in life they'll be far more willing to grind through difficult tasks, but for us that initiation phase will have to be created somehow.

Furthermore there's the matter of there being rewards, in games there's the ever present GP and EXP which can be used to obtain greater HP, DPS and MP, which in turn enable you to defeat bigger baddies and feel like a bad-ass, which is the foundation of the entire game, but in real life those points you give yourself for doing the right thing don't really relate to anything, and without that foundation it's all really for it's own sake.

Perhaps there should be some kind of life RPG company that you can sign up with who will invest in your initiation, losing money in the short term, but in the long term is set to profit from your membership as the rewards become less frequent and more symbolic. There could even be custom/upgradeable avatars that for example represents you when you call someone with a smart phone (kind of like what they had in the "Summer Wars" anime) that by virtue of being relative to real world achievement instead of how long you've spent playing a game are actually meaningful in a real world interpersonal context.

 

[GREYGREY]

Thats pretty fare what you said.
Incentive would be the biggest quirk to fix.

Furthermore there's the matter of there being rewards, in games there's the ever present GP and EXP which can be used to obtain greater HP, DPS and MP, which in turn enable you to defeat bigger baddies and feel like a bad-ass, which is the foundation of the entire game, but in real life those points you give yourself for doing the right thing don't really relate to anything, and without that foundation it's all really for it's own sake.

In the EpicWin app they got around this by creating a seperate fantasy story line. Instead of fighting mosters in the game you 'Submit' actions and completed chores from real life which allows you to progress along the game and find "Treasure".

Lol its a little retro.

I've re-read your text around the "summer wars" reference a few times and still dont exactly know what you meant. Would you mind clarifying?

The custom avatar would be very important.... maby after honest initial input is could start out weak (If you were weak to begin with) and then after input of gym work your avatar will become stronger. (Literal visual cues implied... he would show muscle eventually just as you do)

Who knows lol?
Its something would love to tinker with... for its own sake.

I suppose... for its own sake... it would just be something to track your progress in all your endeavors and to give you back a fun and fantasy/sci-fi themed look into how well you're doing.

 

[Cognisant]

I've re-read your text around the "summer wars" reference a few times and still dont exactly know what you meant. Would you mind clarifying?

Summer Wars

The custom avatar would be very important.... maby after honest initial input is could start out weak (If you were weak to begin with) and then after input of gym work your avatar will become stronger. (Literal visual cues implied... he would show muscle eventually just as you do)

Nah that would suck, it would be too real, instead I think all progress should be represented by points of some sort (effectively GP) which can be used to buy upgrades for the avatar, such as clothes, accessories, etc, and levelling up means the avatar becomes more complex, for example starting off as a little retro bitmap, increasing in resolution level by level, then becoming a little chibi drawn in vectors which again incrementally grows up into a more humanoid shape until you have a fairly developed anime character, which then becomes a cell shaded 3D model, which continues growing in resolution, with better shading and textures, until it becomes photorealistic.

The more developed the avatar is the more stuff you can "buy" for it (but this is explicitly not a micro-transaction business model, it would devalue the whole thing) as after all a low resolution bitmap couldn't possibly show stuff like earrings, likewise a red shirt worn by a bitmap character will become a very basic red shirt when worn by an anime character, so as people level up they'll want new items for their avatars and can give away their old items to other people (so all items can go up in resolution, but only basic ones can go back) which gives lesser people a reason to suck up to their betters.

Of course the cost of items will be drastically less than the cost of levelling up and to get the points in the first place people will have to do self improvement stuff like reducing their weight if they have weight to lose, or learning a new language and completing tests to prove their competency in it, likewise for learning to play an instrument, indeed there could be a whole university-like system where instead of pursuing a degree you pursue more short term goals like passing one test at a time in "chemistry skills" which if you fail just means you have to wait a fortnight before you try again, it's more or less all at your own pace.

 

[Cognisant]

Of course there would have to be testing centers for this sort of thing and the avatar software would take a lot of work to develop, because it's going to need a lot of content to satisfy everyone's desire to be unique, so this would all require a significant initial investment, which you may not get back for a while considering how the indervidual membership cost has to be kept low enough that people won't mind paying it.

Of course once you get them initiated they'll have to keep paying so they never lose their avatar and their progress, which would especially suck if it becomes like facebook and everyone has one.

 

[GREYGREY]

Lol you've got some serious farsight... Brilliant.
And wats rong if everyone has it?
I think that would make it richer.

For example... If your too introverted and want to become more social.
You would get points for having "cantact" with people.
Maby even add a little GPS tech into the mix.

As u said... There would need to be ALLOT of different faccets to cover
In order to cater for diverse needs and circumastances.
But perhaps its more worthwile creating avery flexible system that people could create custom actions to slot in.

I like the idea about the avatars development... Like that stupid "tamagotchi" thing awhile back.
But I wouldn't personally feel inclined to purchace gear for it... Then its not relevant in my life.

At the end of the day... The app or watever is supposed to help you develop into a better person.
Ofcourse some ppl would cheat... But it defeats the point.
Would u see a point in cheating?

 

[redbaron]

I don't understand.

Your goal is to create an avatar of yourself that is essentially, 'perfect' and then try and emulate that?

Why not just remove the avatar and do it anyway?

Forgive me if I'm missing the point here, it's 5:50am and I haven't been to bed

 

[Cognisant]

Well the avatar isn't so much a literal representation of you as it is a personal assistant or a pet... Err I mean the one nagging you and tracking you stats is going to be your avatar.... Oh for fuck sake go read Megatokyo and you'll understand, the main character (who is male) has a female avatar in games and it has an almost independent existence to him, they're still one person but in different realities, it's a sort of MPD thing.

*sigh*
Are you familiar with the idea that a king's honour can be his men's honour, well an avatar is kind of like that, I mean Cognisant and I are one person and yet we are quite noticeably different, in a sense we're two people with one mind. Now that's kind of what this sort of avatar will represent, y'see my avatar here (the picture to the left) doesn't actually look like the physical me, and of course it doesn't, that's a picture of Cognisant, but I still take pride in how good my avatar looks because it also is me, if that makes any sense.

People don't embody their avatars, they live with them, the avatar in your phone will be an extension of you that encourages you to improve yourself so you can improve it as well, not that it's using you, the desire to improve both it and you comes from you.

Your avatar may not even be human, it might be a cat-person or a robot, which obviously doesn't represent you directly but it would make sense if my avatar was the stereotypical robot-girl wouldn't it? Just like Piro and the cute-but-deadly Pirogoreth.

 

[redbaron]

I can appreciate your creativity, but I can only see this idea taking off with lonely/lazy people in the first place.

 

[GREYGREY]

Well the avatar isn't so much a literal representation of you as it is a personal assistant or a pet... Err I mean the one nagging you and tracking you stats is going to be your avatar.... Oh for fuck sake go read Megatokyo and you'll understand, the main character (who is male) has a female avatar in games and it has an almost independent existence to him, they're still one person but in different realities, it's a sort of MPD thing.

People don't embody their avatars, they live with them, the avatar in your phone will be an extension of you that encourages you to improve yourself so you can improve it as well, not that it's using you, the desire to improve both it and you comes from you.

Lol you said it perfectly Cognisant thanks....

REDBARON: "I can appreciate your creativity, but I can only see this idea taking off with lonely/lazy people in the first place."

And in response to REDBARON:
Thats fare to a point.... But people do it all the time. "Normal" People do it all the time. They set goals and track aspirations... Make to do lists and some even create elaborate rewards for accomplishing things.... Self help seminars teatch you yo create a perfect image of yourself and reinforce it every day with positive affirmations.

I dont think this would ONLY appeal to "Lazy/Lonely" people... I would expect high schoolers to catch on to it quick. Not just the "Geeks".... EVERYONE. Just like that little Virtual Pet toy that came out years ago.

I suppose I could blabber on about how people these days (Professional working class at that) so often loose their own sense of identity to their careers... Why not have an interesting intuitive little app that gives you back (Even if only virtually) that personal little part of yourself back? ...And also happens to give you a nudge when it comes to tasks for self improvement.

...Lol, too lazy to read over again before posting this I got work to do. Hope I made some sort of sense.

 

[Cognisant]

I can appreciate your creativity, but I can only see this idea taking off with lonely/lazy people in the first place.

Like there's any shortage of those

 

[redbaron]

Like there's any shortage of those

Touché

I dont think this would ONLY appeal to "Lazy/Lonely" people... I would expect high schoolers to catch on to it quick.

Wouldn't high school be one of the largest demographics of lonely and lazy people?

I wasn't implying there was a shortage of those people (as Cognisant pointed out). I actually think the idea would be disgustingly popular if marketed well. I wouldn't buy it though.

 

[GREYGREY]

Lol... True that.
Just like Facebook/Myspace

 

[darude11]

What would be the main facets of life that would serve as "Skills" or something like that whereby a person would check to see what in his or her life is lacking.
How would skill points even work?
How could you do something like this without being glued to a computer or mobile device and miss out on real life?

Is it even worth it?
Has anyone els here had or implemented a similar idea?

The point would be to make real life almost if not more interesting that the life inside my own head.
Any ideas?

Skills? Well, if I had to base them off RPG's...
Strenght, which could be measured by how much kgs/lbs (I'd prefer kgs) you could lift up.
Agility measured with formula d/t, where d is distance in meters and t is time in seconds, it measures how many meters you run per second.
Intelligence could be measured by IQ, but that system is often considered faulty, so maybe something else...
Endurance would stand for number of minutes you would be able to run with constant speed before you'd have to stop (have pause overally) OR before you couldn't run at all anymore.
*Health regeneration - I don't have idea how could it be measured, but it would be pretty morbid idea to implement, since one would have to get hurt to dinf out how quickly does he regenerate.
*Element reisitance... well, you can put in place of element either frost, air, fire, water, earth, lighting, white magic, black magic, astral magic or any element you want. I'd love to see how this would work


Now, if I don't have to base them of RPG's, I'd group them as Cognitive functions.
Se - strenght + agility + endurance /all of them above/
Si - maybe some new skill, something like "memory"
Ne - theoretical knowledge or something like that
Ni - predictions? I dunno lol
Te - "order" or "intellect"
Ti - "intellect?"
Fe - social status
Fi - personal alignment (good-neutral-evil)
Hmm, it seemed to me more amazing when I came to it. Maybe... well, I don't know anymore. There are so many skills, but so small possibilities of implementing it into reality...


Doing it without being glued, hmm... Maybe somebody can make simple app, which could be easy to work with. You wouldn't be glued to it, if not necessary. You could just press in Menu something like Input, put in what you did and some simple number about it and it would store it. Then, if you had free time, you could check for a while what are your actual stats.

That's all I've got to say to this. Also - it's interesting idea!

 

[Melkor]

I'm only in if my hair defies gravity and a victory theme plays everytime I slaughter an innocent animal.