Gamer's Perspective

“Just ten more minutes.” That is what I keep telling myself…..and my wife. Yet I know the ten extra minutes will not be enough, it never is. Ten minutes will just be long enough for a member of my party to reach a new level or acquire a new skill, giving me just enough of a fix to cloud my mind long enough for me to forget my self-imposed curfew. The ailment I have is not found in any medical journal, though it should be. Unrecognized and generally ignored, unofficial estimates show that perhaps millions are infected with the disease known throughout the gaming world as “Power Leveling”.

Power Leveling is an affliction that defies reason and logic even amongst the gaming community. While playing a typical RPG most fans of the genre will admit that leveling up your characters is a necessary evil. Leveling up your characters so that they may gain strength or abilities in order to progress to a new area of the game is not considered to be entertaining, but a means to an end for most gamers. At this point it may be wise to give a basic overview of what leveling up entails for our Role Playing Game newbs.

**** As your characters fight in battles they generally gain experience points, these points continue to accumulate until the reach a completely abstract number, at that number your character’s stats increase. Stats generally include, strength, agility, stamina, speed and defense. Along with your stats increasing your character may gain a special ability or skill such as a new magic spell or the ability to unleash a special attack.****

While seeing your characters gain strength, abilities and develop throughout the course of the game is undoubtedly appealing and a large part of the RPG experience, many argue that the hours that are needed to fight hundreds of battles to gain experience points are too much and the process too boring. Most generally fight the minimum battles needed to get their characters just strong enough to move, but not those inflicted with Power Leveling.

Power Levelers, on the other hand do not see leveling as a means to an end. More times then not they see the leveling as the most enjoyable part of the game. Getting lost in a sea of numbers ever increasing, they forget why they are on a quest to acquire the stick of “Feel Betterness” from the three fingered dwarf lady in haunted woods. How do I know so much about Power Leveling? Let me tell you a little story.

In every successful Twelve Step Program the first step is admitting you have a problem. Let me be the first to step forward and announce that…..I……have a….friend. This friend, we will call him, …um… “J”, is a good guy. He has been gaming for about 20 years. J loves all types of games, yet has an enormous soft spot for RPGs. While he enjoys the stories, characters and settings, there is no denying that he also takes pleasure in the fundamental leveling up of each character.

More times than not “J” has ignored the main quest of any given RPG, most noticeable though would be “J”’s spiral into Power Leveling madness while playing Final Fantasy VII. The first time “J” realized there might be a problem was when he spent a good portion of his junior year of college not studying, or going to class. “J” tossed his chains of oppression and freed himself by diving head first into the world of Power Leveling hysteria. Maxing out his party at Level 99 wasn’t enough, nor was giving every character Master Magic Materia. “J” decided to take that extra step into oblivion and give every character a Master Summons Materia…..fully loaded.

These days “J” while well past college, continues to have his free time sucked away in number crunching hysteria. Currently I hear he’s working on leveling up his Final Fantasy VI characters, but that’s just a rumor. He has a problem, I’m sure of that, but unless he’s willing to get help I don’t think there’s much I can do. Truth be told I don’t think he even wants to be helped. He’ll probably just continue with his affliction, untreated, undiagnosed until another game snaps him out of it.

I’m sure “J” cannot be alone here. Do any of you guys have any great power leveling stories or accomplishments? If so, feel free to email them to us at mail@gamersperspective.com or join us on our forums.

By Jeremy Mravlja Gamer's Perspective