"Torture Pressie" from a Heart

I play an online game. I'm addicted to it, if you must know. The good news is that my husband is also addicted, so I can get away with this.

A few years ago, back when I had kidlets who napped, I enjoyed spending time in the chat channels of this game, and acted mostly as a heart. Now, as a background for those who don't know what diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades are in terms of gaming, let me explain: Diamonds are the achievers. They really, really want to be top-dog. Clubs are competitive, and they desperately want to win against others. Hearts are the social folks. They are interested in building more of a community with others, helping each other out, and sending gifts to one another. Spades want to figure it all out. What are the statistics? What are item drop rates? Where can I find something and what does it do? This is how people in the online game that I play (Kingdom of Loathing, or KoL for short) describe the basic gamer types outlined by the Bartle Test. (http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology) People can certainly fall into more than one category of player type.

As a heart, I found a bunch of online friends with the same sort of interests in the game. We helped each other out, chatted with one another, and a select group of them invited me to join them in going after a particularly challenging item in the game. I had a blast in this virtual world. It helped me to feel connected to others at a time when I was stuck at home and feeling quite lonely.

As the kidlets grew older, I was not able to spend nearly as much time in those chat channels. How could I when the kidlets demanded most of my attention? I did still manage to play the game every chance I got. (Addicted, remember?) Now that the kidlets are at school, and with the help of a system that can be programmed to essentially play turns for me if I run out of time, I am slowly returning to chat on occasion.

Yesterday, I had an online chat with someone I had not seen online for months. He was another heart who had worked with the group going after that tricky item years ago. We chatted about some of the new things taking place in-game, and about how close to completing our goals we've gotten since we last chatted. He wound up sending me a "torture pressie," or gift in-game that I was unable to open until I had reached a certain number of turns played. (Trust me. It's torture to not be able to open a virtual gift from someone, especially when you have no idea what might be inside the package.) I figured he had sent me one of the silly, inexpensive items we had talked about that were incredibly cheap two days before and were now getting up there in cost since a change in the game increased their significance.

Today, I hit the level of turns played that allowed me to open my virtual gift. I was astounded to discover a pretty darn rare item that had been casually mentioned in passing yesterday. I never hoped to afford one of these items because it's in-game price of around 100 million of the in-game currency (meat, in case you were curious) put it way out of my league.

In real-life, this item has no significance whatsoever. It cost somebody, possibly my friend, some money to introduce to their account in-game. That is where it's real-life significance should end, but it doesn't. You see, the real-life significance is actually what it means to me. The kind words from my friend when he sent that torture pressie and the sending of a virtual item I had longed for but never hoped to earn made me feel positively warm and fuzzy inside. Even better, I know what I would like to send him in-game as a thank-you gift, in the hopes of having him feel just as happy to know his friendship is appreciated. This is what I miss about my time in chat with my other online heart friends: doing things to make each other smile, even if there is no "real" exchange taking place.

To that wonderful person who sent me that Gygaxian Libram, you made my day, not just with such an unexpected (and expensive!) gift, but in your comments when you sent it. Thank you. I hope to see you in chat again sometime soon.