Monday, July 6, 2009 @ 9:37 AM

The Art of Losing Gracefully

How many times have you seen this scenario:

"And...yay! Game!" Person A moves his counter to the finish point of the Snakes and Ladders Gameboard.

"No fair," Person B remarked. "You kept going up the ladders, and I kept going down the snakes. So unfair!"

"Err..and? I couldn't control what number the dice rolled." Person A rebutted.

Find this familiar? Or in other contexts...

Person C: "How come their party win us in MC?! (Monster Carnival)"

Person D, who is in the same party as C, remarks: "They higher level what, more pro."

Person C: "But that's unfair! Whose idea was it to compete with them? I demand rematch!"

Person D: "Err...yours."

The above are examples of winning and losing. Some people take defeat well and in stride. However, there are others who are just not that...

Well, I am certain everybody has a certain "Sore Loser" streak in them, including myself. :P (meheheh.)

But we all try our best to keep it within us, and try not to show it to the world.

However, while Sore Loserdom is prevalent enough in the real world, when it comes to online games, e.g. MapleSEA etc., it becomes even more apparent.

How many times have you innocently taken (not looted, mind you) Boss monster drops? Like in Kerning Party Quest (KPQ), where the King Slime drops Squashy Shoes which are untradeable?

Or Boss Monster Cards?

Well, actually this issue was reflected just recently, when my friend recounted a common experience.

My friend, let's call him Person E, was KPQ-ing with a bunch of fellow adventurers in Maple.

Ok, so E was the highest level in the party, and the one who dealt the most damage on King Slime. And E was a close-range attacker.

The other 3 party members were attacking from afar.

Of course, it was only AFTER King Slime died then did the real drama begin. E leveled, and...

The all-revered, much coveted SQUASHY SHOES dropped out!

Of course, like anybody would, E quickly picked it up.

The party members looked on, especially the leader, F. And another member, G. H watched on innocently.

So while G was saying something about noobs and all that, F was remarking something about "the party leader take first". Bear in mind that I rephrased F's original sentence (i.e. ldr taker) to fit the proper grammatical structure of this post. :)

At this point in time, just in case you were confused, let me quickly recap what has happened.

King Slime died, E leveled. E picked up the Squashy Shoes. F and G were scolding E. H congratulated E for leveling and picking up the shoe. (Way to go, H!)

Later on, F, the party leader, requested for everybody in the party to defame E. Of course, G was still busy muttering something about "noob", but that was as far as he went.

However, F, on the other hand, defamed E. E defamed back. H stayed well out of this.


From the above scenario, we can tell that this is probably a rather common experience. I mean, squashy shoes are rather RARE. And I believe that many KPQ-ers have probably experienced this first hand, or had been an innnocent bystander.

However, what I wish to talk about today, is not so the ohsorare Squashy Shoes, nor write a guide on KPQ.

While I am sure that many people would be saying: "Why is this person blabbering on about stupid shoes in a game?!" I would wish to highlight the fact that this reflects common scenarios in our daily life.

Another friend, J, recounted an incident in which she was playing Chinese Chess with a fellow friend, K.

K was quite a good Chinese Chess player. J was just playing for fun.

However, J won K. K was very upset and she did try to hide it. But K did not manage to hold back her upset-ness; she overturned the whole board and just sat there.

J picked up the pieces on the floor, kept the board into the box, and walked away silently.

Find it familiar?

Well, what I am trying to say is that even when we lose, let us lose gracefully.

Easier said than done, though. :P

But at least we try. Regarding the case of E and F, I personally feel that F is a little bit unreasonable, and maybe E could have justified himself better.

Afterall, who wants to argue over things like these, when we're bound to forget about it soon enough.

So, enough said; on this note I wish everybody a good day ahead.

Cheers,
`ROCK[:

Labels: My 10 Mesos' Worth