It's ten o'clock at night but the sun is still shining in the kingdom of Prontera. It is always day in this city, packed with shops, council buildings and hundreds of adventurers such as myself.

"This way," says Orcas, a blue'robed Wizard who has taken it upon himself to show this novice the ropes. I follow him through the sea of peddlers selling their wares, towards the teleportation area. Nearby, a grand marriage ceremony is under way, the bride and groom supported by a large congregation of funnily'dressed people. There are scores of similar folk littered all around me, resting or simply chatting to one another. It really is a case of over'population.
"Payon Dungeon," Orcas instructs and vanishes amidst a sudden blue glow. 
I follow his instructions and suddenly find myself in a dark cave, filled with purple skinned zombies. Orcas is nearby and signals me to attack them. "Be careful now, here they come!"

Sure enough, the zombies start lumbering towards me. I smile and take out my knife. This is it, my moment of glory. With a battle cry, I charge towards the horde of monsters, confident in my victory.

"Don't do that!" Orcas warns. I do not take heed and slash at the nearest zombie. I shout in triumph as the blade cuts the monster but soon sink in horror as it deals the zombie little damage. The enemy swipes at me and lands a blow. My life is suddenly reduced to a meagre ten HP (hit points). "Run!" my teacher exclaims but it is too late. The zombies close in and before I know it, I am lying on the ground, lifeless. Orcas shakes his head in resignation. "I'll see you back in the city, and we can try again," he says and promptly vanishes. I do so as well and find myself back in the bustling city of Prontera, barely alive but in a world like this, death is taken pretty lightly. A passing priest heals me with a spell and, back at full health, I go and find my teacher again.

As amazing as it sounds, this fantastic story is not a product of my imagination. It really did happen, and not just in a book or a movie. Welcome to the world of Ragnarok Online.

Ragnarok Online, or RO is a game designed by Gravity, a corporation in South Korea. It began its humble roots as a simple online game, popular within the Asian community, but has exploded into an alternate reality for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. The favourable global response to the game is only one of the many success stories in the current MMORPG (Massive'Multiplayer Online Role'Playing Game) invasion. Many other games like Everquest and Ultima Online also have members numbering in the thousands. 
How does the game work? Firstly, you choose a character and its gender (without the surgery), and start off in the prettily'rendered 3D world of buildings and people. There, your character begins the process of levelling up by killing monsters, picking up treasures and items along the way. It is the common gameplay situation expected in most Role'Playing Games. However, the game goes deeper than simply slicing up monsters for points. Delve into the actual social mechanics and you will find that RO is not just a game. It is a way of life. 
"It's pretty realistic," Orcas, a student in Malaysia, says as we lounge around a pixilated fountain. "You have to talk to people, make friends and connections to actually do well in the game. There are merchants that befriend strong warriors so that they can get a piece of the treasures brought back. It's very much like real life."

There are other aspects of 'real life' present. A group of adventurers advertise the desire for another teammate. A knight haggles with a merchant over the price of an upgraded sword and for a small fee, two characters can join in holy matrimony, complete with wedding apparel, decorations and on'lookers. 
"We do fun things too. Sometimes some bards get together and play music for us while we dance 'well, bop up and down since actual dancing actions are quite limited," Orcas explains. As well as such trivial pursuits, there are also fun events the Game Masters hold to make the experience even more interesting. For instance, the Australian RO server recently held a riddle competition where prizes in the form of rare items were awarded to the winners. The Game Masters also decorate the towns during famous holidays. "For Christmas, we had a huge Christmas tree in the centre of the city. And there was snow too!" Orcas says, giving me a virtual smiley face.

However, RO is not just fun and games. There are countless people who take the game much more seriously. Since one of the better ways to enjoy the RO world is to be highly skilled, many adventurers dedicate themselves to the levelling up of their character. And since the training process is not a short procedure, this cumulates into many hours of endless mouse'clicking. That itself is part of the game's addictive property. The desire to be the strongest, to search for that elusive item, to climb to the top as the best organization or guild in the world' all these contribute to the strong desire to keep playing the game. Orcas has been playing RO for almost six months now, and though he only spends 15 hours a week in the game (low compared to many), he is still going strong. I have only been involved in RO for barely two days and already, I see myself as a part of this brightly'coloured world.

How can a game, with simple graphics, sugar'cute illustrations and straightforward gameplay, be so addictive? I approached an experienced RO player with this question. Vale Wong is a 20'year'old student of VCA (Victorian College of the Arts), studying to be a composer. In the RO world, he was once better known as Val Phoenix, one of the strongest magicians in RO's Saskray server and headed Blood of Divinity, one of the top guilds then. Vale had played RO for over a year, starting in November 2002 and quitting around the same time the following year. In that period, he trained his character to high levels and mastered the skills needed to reach greatness. I was confident a person who had entered this world, managed to attain fame and fortune there and then leave, could answer my question.

"It's like real life but better," Vale explains, "better because it's a world you can escape to, one without needing to work, study and all that." RO was Vale's first experience of an online RPG game and he was enchanted by it.

"It's a fun game. Not to mention overly cute, but still very enjoyable to play," he says. But according to Vale, it is not the gameplay that attracted him but the interaction between people. For him, this was the attraction. "I was so fascinated by the people I met, they were the nicest people around!" he gushes. "My social circle grew and I met so many good friends." It reads almost like a movie script, though more fantastic than usual. He had chanced upon a female priest who was offering teleportation services for a small fee. Laughing at the situation, he offered to help train her and earn some money. After several such sessions, they became friends. It was then he decided to start his own guild (Blood of Divinity) and go around recruiting members.

The dedication and hard work Vale had invested into the interactive bond between himself and his members is nothing short of inspiring. Even now, he can still remember their actual names and how they had met. "Let's see, there was Hamish from Sydney, Ricky from Alaska, Pierre Luc from Canada, Charlotte from Germany, Demi from Canada, Vasily from South Australia, John from California and Fong from London," he recites with a grin. "And they were all such wonderful people! For example, Pierre Luc is a musician so when we met, we had loads in common and could talk about a lot of things!" Apart from that astonishing display of memory power, Vale also looked after the guild members by helping them train, purchasing items and weapons for them and organizing interesting events. 
There is some real work involved too' a lot of work, in fact. "I put in tons of research in the most important thing: organising the best time for everybody to meet. There were a lot of emails sent to gain information on the perfect time for a gathering. It's especially important in the planning of events and such."
Vale believed that to actually run a guild, he had to invest more than 6 hours a day in playing RO. To do it really well, it would easily take 10 hours. Do the math and you will require at least 70 hours a week minimum of RO gaming. Naturally, that would affect anybody's daily timetable. Keep in mind that Vale was a student then and though he still did manage to go to school, his studies suffered.

"With almost 10 hours of being online, there is little time to actually do any work," he says with a sheepish grin. "My music writing deteriorated quite a bit and that wasn't very good. Also, I had to go to Japan for a while and had an exam waiting for me when I returned. So in the end, I had to stop."
Does he now regret dropping out of RO?

He replies both no and yes. No, because by leaving RO, he could concentrate more on his studies and social life. It is always good, after all, to have more free time.

And yes, parts of him do regret leaving RO, because after he left, his guild lost its main focal point and collapsed. The members drifted off to different, separate realms. "It really is sad to see something you've built from scratch just disappear into nothing. And even though it was just virtual, it felt very, very real to me."

And there it was. The answer I was searching for. People were attracted to RO because it felt so real. It was a place to live alternate lives. When I played it, I was amazed at the number of things one could do there, more so at the level of social interaction between players. A person could make partners, friends and enemies easily. "Of course I made enemies. It happens sometimes during PVP (Player Versus Player) or when somebody KSes (Kill Steals). There are moments of tension and there will be arguments."

Vale also mentioned the online and relative anonymity aspects of the game that made it easier to share experiences with each other. Similar to mIRC and other internet chatting programmes, the knowledge that your identity is secret creates a strong feeling of security.

"You could do things you wouldn't normally do in real life, say things without people judging you. We had a guild member who was regularly beaten by his father and he told us that. I doubt it's something a person would just tell random strangers but this is the internet and here, we do care. The guild even started up a website and chat'rooms so that we could talk about our daily lives," Vale tells me.

Orcas agrees that people can get very personal in the virtual world. "There was a time I was fighting monsters with this girl and all of the sudden, she mentioned that her parents were getting divorced and how depressing that was. All at once, there were messages from people nearby giving her advice and support." 
Not surprisingly, the links forged within the game do extend to real life. Thanks to the wonders of electronic communication, maintaining contact is easy. Here global pen pals are made while cutting down monsters.

Vale takes it a step further, merging his ex'RO life with reality in a small concert dedicated to the demise of his guild and the people lost. "Basically, I was inspired by the experience I had and the wonderful people I had met. This was reflected in the music I had decided to write. I wanted people to know that it is okay to escape to another place once in a while; and that there exists such a world where they can go to." The thoughts are both idealistic and understandable, with a sense of innocence one cannot deny. The concert itself received very good reception as well. After a couple of days in this realm of oddly'designed creatures and clothes, I could understand his ideals a little bit more.

This is a fantasy story. A magical one where brave adventurers dare to explore and live an alternate life away from the usual. It is a virtual reality that both emulates and challenges daily routines. For me, I think I will continue on my 15'day free trial and maybe keep playing after that. In my mind's eye, I can see my character growing stronger, teaming with others to fight monsters, joining organizations and most important of all, making friends. Ragnarok Online is an experience which I recommend trying at least one.

As long as you watch out for that purple'skinned zombie.

Sideboard

More information can be found at the official Ragnarok website,http://iro.ragnarokonline.com. There is a free 15'day trial gaming period and the game can be downloaded from the website.