Yes, exactly. We're programmed to get a rush of endorphins when we see a tangible result from our actions. It's easy to get sucked in to a video game, where such rewards are constant and it's easy to see an immediate result from everything we do. This site just takes that and applies it to real life. It's easy to say "we should do it just because we know we should do it," but that's not how human brains work. If nothing depends on the action (ie, we have to eat to survive, but a pile of clothes on the floor isn't going to physically hurt us) and there's no psychological reward for doing it, most people will procrastinate. It's simply in our nature to take the easiest course, conserving energy except when there's a tangible and immediate motivation to do something. People who overcome this and live a disciplined life (without being forced to) are the exception rather than the rule. I don't see anything wrong with tricking my brain into getting stuff done.
To be honest, I probably would have given up on this site a long time ago if it wasn't for the quests. I need that accountability and the goal of defeating an enemy. Without a goal, the points are meaningless, and the novelty of the little popups wears off quickly. I've already bought everything I can buy, and gold is now utterly useless. The only things worth buying are locked behind a paywall, which really irritates me, since they are obviously earning loads of money with their 30k daily users, but are horribly managing the site and the server. I am definitely interested in making a clone of this: maybe we can make a thread in the Creative forum and see how much interest we can get going.
As of now, I have 4 gems left, enough to buy one more quest. After that, my continued participation on the site will probably depend on other people getting quests, since I have no intention of giving them any more money. Otherwise, I may hand off leadership of the party and guild (which turns out to be useless!) to someone else, unless we can think of another way to make the site goal-oriented within our group, despite the limitations of the site itself.
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Topic: Habit RPG (Read 38124 times)