[Draft] Sign's Super Nerdy Guide on the Cognitive Substrates of Quitting MS

Welcome to
Sign's Super Nerdy Guide on the Cognitive Substrates of Quitting MS!
a lighthearted cognitive perspective

 quit

/kwɪt/ transitive verb.
1. to stop, cease, or discontinue
2. to depart from; leave (a place or person)
...
quit. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved September 29, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/quit

Hi there! Everyone's heard of “quitting Maple.” Buddies quit, newbies quit, hackers quit, Tiger quit; some of them don't come back, and some come back many times. This is a guide for anyone who has ever wondered what mental states associated with quitting MapleStory might be.

 The Short Answer/Disclaimer

MapleStory is a game, just like Southperry is a forum. Whether you want to increase your time playing MapleStory or reduce it, depends completely on where your personal priorities lie. This guide doesn't seek to convince anyone into quitting MapleStory, nor does it seek to document the physical/emotional process. However, Sign writes from the point of view of one of those who has. This guide merely seeks to explore the cognitive substrates of the process. Eclectically, yes, and with horrible methodology. Someone help it!

[INDENT]Table of Contents

1. What is quitting MapleStory?
   
   1. Most definitions of quitting
   2. Broad categories of beliefs about quitting
2. Why?
   
   1. Why play MapleStory?
   2. Why would you want to quit MapleStory?
3. What do you need to quit MapleStory?
   
   1. Factors: the player
      
      1. MS Identity: what's your playing style?
      2. MS Identity: how long you've been playing
      3. Mental and emotional maturity
   2. Why do YOU want to quit? Thoughts on relevance
4. So how should we think about quitting MapleStory?

[/INDENT]

 1. What is quitting MapleStory?

 Contents of this Section.

1. What is quitting Maplestory?
1.1. Most definitions of quitting
1.2. Broad categories of beliefs about quitting

1.What is quitting MapleStory? If you've ever played Maple, there's ALWAYS someone “quitting.” What on earth is that? Good question, you tell me! In this guide, we'll use “quitting” to mean “stopping, ceasing, or discontinuing,” in the sense of “forever.” Forever, did you say, can I hold you to your word? Ah, that's alright. We know no one can resist Maple (:.

1.1.Most definitions of quitting probably fall into a continuum between two main ideas:
i) NO MAPLE: going from any level of playing to no MS involvement, comparable to before they started playing MapleStory.
ii) LESS MAPLE: going from a more intense playing style to a less intense style.

1.2.Broad categories of beliefs about quitting – here's a quick generalisation table. Also this table is completely unsubstantiated by RANDOMISED CONTROLLED DOUBLEBLINDED TRIALS. Do tell us if you find one of those lying around ):

Type of player	Notion of quitting	“Quitting is...	Attitude to quitting
Never quit, don't want to	A moment when a player ceases to play MapleStory completely.	...when a player decides to give away their hard-earned items or accounts to friends or strangers and withdraws from the game.”	“Quitting should be delayed as long as possible.”
Never quit, want to	A hazy process when a player ceases to play MapleStory in the near/distant future.	...when a player interests themselves in other things.”	“I want to quit MapleStory, but not right now.”
Quit, never went back	A moment in time when a player ceases to play MapleStory.	...anywhere from the natural end to a transient gaming experience, to a non-emotional/short-lived event.”	“I was never really a MS player anyway.”
Quit, went back at least once	A series of withdrawals from MapleStory. A player takes on of the identity of a non-player during these times.*	...an emotional, dramatic and sometimes traumatic time, during which social networks may be in upheaval.”	“I don't want to quit MapleStory, but I have to.”/”I want to quit MapleStory, but I can't.”

* distinguishing a player who reduces their playing time unconsciously from one who does so deliberately. Therefore, what on earth are frylock and meatwad? What does that have to do with the price of fish?

tl;dr: Every man and his dog has their own belief about what quitting actually is.

 2. Why?

 Contents of this Section.

2.1 Why play MapleStory?
2.2. Why would you want to quit MapleStory?

2.1. Why play MapleStory? This depends on time and, of course, level! Here are some answers you might think of:
* It looks and sounds pretty
* The quests are fun
* I can level/make money faster than ANYONE else!
* Friends are everything!
* I take pride in the char I've created
* I can play anything I like, and I like MapleStory!
* I want to give something back to the community
* I'm going to play something regardless. It might as well be MapleStory.
Oh, bless! How sweet. You can probably think of millions more.

2.2.So why would you want to quit MapleStory? Oh we don't know, we're sure! Most people cite reasons that fall into two main categories, quitting out of necessity, and quitting deliberately.

Quitting out of necessity		Quitting deliberately
* lack of time		* reasons you brooded over for ages, eg, “I hate Nexon!”
* physical reasons, eg RSI		* there was something you wanted to prove to someone, either:
* emotional reasons, eg depression		a) in real life, eg, “I can quit perfectly fine!”, or..
		b) in game, eg, “xAznNinja238x offended me so bad, that I want to make a statement about how offended I feel, and I'll do that by quitting, because then I can also make him feel bad for making me quit.”

We've just listed the very broadest ideas here. Regardless, there are a variety of reasons why we play and not play MapleStory, and it's the balance of priorities of those reasons, for and against, that determines whether or not we decide to quit.

 3. What do you need to quit MapleStory?

[spoiler=Contents of this Section. Click here first ]3. What do you need to quit MapleStory?
3.1. Factors: the player
3.1.1. MS Identity: what's your playing style?
3.1.2. MS Identity: how long you've been playing
3.1.3. Mental and emotional maturity
3.2. Why do YOU want to quit? Thoughts on relevance

3. What do you need to quit MapleStory? Good question. In this section we'll go quickly over the cognitive substrates you sorta need in order to quit MapleStory. Depending on your various definitions of “quitting,” the process could change quite dramatically across the scale. So there you go – it depends. Wait...we're not ACTUALLY cheating. It depends because behaviour change needs you to know firstly (and pretty certainly) where you are right now on the continuum, and secondly where you want to get to.

3.1. Factors: the player. Section 3.1 is all about the player-related factors that contribute to the quitting process. Only player-related? Well, Sign isn't QUITE nerdy enough that she can talk about non-player factors in the quitting process today. But we can talk about player factors. MapleStory identity makes up a big chunk of these, and so does players' maturity itself. (Itself? Themselves? Do multiple players have multiple maturities? What trifles! Onward!)

3.1.1. MS identity: Intensity of playing style (Kolo and Baur, 2004) Playing Maple isn't a simple binary state. If you play MapleStory, it doesn't mean that 100% of your time is devoted to it; and, if you haven't played it for the last 4 months, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're no longer a MapleStory player. Oh no. You can't escape that easily! Based on Kolo and Baur (2004), players of UltimaOnline differed widely in regards to their time spent on it. Let's have a chat about the categories they used as applied to MapleStory. These categories depended on how often, and how long each player spent at a time on the game.

Hooray! Now you can categorise yourself as one of the following types of players. Go on, have a ball.

Player type	Frequency	Duration	Kolo and Baur example
Moderate player	You don't play that often in the week, eg, less than 5 sessions a week.	Each time you play for just a short while, eg less than 3 hours per session.	One player played 2 sessions, each session lasting 2 hours.
Frequent player	You have lots of Maple sessions, eg more than 5 per week.	Each time you only play for a short time, eg less than 3 hours per session.	One player played 21 times a week, each session lasting 2 hours. Another played 12 times a week, each session lasting 1 hour.
Tenacious player	You don't play that often, eg, less than 3 sessions a week.	However, when you do, you play for a long time, eg more than 45 minutes.	One player played once a week, but their session lasted 10 hours.
Heavy player	You play MS lots of times in a week, eg more than 3 sessions a week	And, each session lasts a long time.	One player played 7 sessions a week, 12 hours each session. Another player played 20 times a week for 4 hours each time. (We'd like to admit we've had our share of 14-16 hour sessions too.)

Kolo, C. and Baur, T. 2004. Living a virtual life: Social dynamics of online gaming. Game Studies: Int. J. Comput. Game Res. 4, 1. http://www.gamestudies.org. Accessed Nov. 2005.

In general, if your playing style is more intense, you generally tend to be situated further away from the NO MAPLE definition of quitting. However this doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be harder to quit – it's never quite that simple, is it? Even people with the same intensity of playing style will have different degrees of identity projection. no matter where you are!

3.1.2. MS Identity: How long you've been playing MapleStory. Simple: if you play MapleStory for longer, you'll get more of a chance to incorporate it into your personal identity. As with the intensity of playing style, it doesn't mean that “longer you've played ALWAYS= harder to quit” - it's just more likely. Sometimes it can mean you identify with your character. Sign remembers a time when she couldn't remember herself for her character. Ah, what conundrums of MapleStory!

3.1.3. Mental and emotional maturity
(But first, A note about addiction. We might as well say it – we're treading on thin ice even using the word “quitting,” because there's a great deal of hoohah and controversy in the literature about whether online games such as MapleStory are REALLY addictions, as you might call gambling or drugs “addictions.” Don't you just love academia? The good thing is that doesn't change the fact that quitting players still have to undergo a process that's vaguely similar to someone emerging from any other addiction. Even if we can't actually call it one.)
Mental and emotional maturity. Quitting by way of cognitive therapy is a really, really, annoyingly conscious process. Some might argue you can't really pull it off unless you've a psychologist hanging about you. (This guide isn't a psychologist.) The process involves higher-level reasoning and cognitive abilities such as self-awareness, organisation, as well as a rock-solid schema of what you think you're trying to do. It's also handy to be able to stomach delayed reinforcement, that is, “If you can wait 5 minutes we will give you five pieces of chocolate; if you can't wait that long, you can only have one” type thing. The things on this list aren't everything, but if the person's got them, it'll certainly make quitting a lot easier.

3.2. Why do YOU want to quit? This goes for you and anyone else who says they want to quit. It's no use us telling you, or you telling them, what's important. The person's got to be convinced, and we're too ethical/lazy to convince others of our own reasons. If you're trying to quit and you do a thorough job with your reasons, they'll be a solid backbone for any limitations you set out to sabotage yourself with. Without a strong conviction of your reason for quitting, even you won't believe yourself. No, we don't think there are necessarily better or worse reasons for quitting, everyone's reasons are valid. But whatever the reason , be convinced of it! If you're less than completely sure, you'll probably un-quit at some point.

Here are some examples! If your main reason for quitting is someone else wanting you to quit, then you might have to value that person's opinion especially much. Makes sense, doesn't it? Here's a more complex example. If your main reason for quitting is that you don't like Nexon, then to be successful you'll have to be absolutely convinced not only of your own dislike, but also convinced that you can't play a game whose company you dislike. But remember! It's totally possible to believe that you utterly despise Nexon AND that you can still play MapleStory! It's these sorts of conflicting beliefs that mean someone has every intention of quitting, and then realises they don't really want to.

[/spoiler]

 4. In summary, how should we view quitting MapleStory?

4. So how should we view quitting? Firstly, thanks, you're a champ for reading this far. If you like the amount of time you're spending on MapleStory, quitting is not for you. If you think you're managing your time perfectly, this section is not for you. If you don't think you have enough reasons to quit, this section is not for you, yet, either. But if you've managed to find your reasons for and against quitting MapleStory and you still want to go ahead with it, then you can start thinking about strategies to quit. Hooray!

NB: Actual strategies are beyond the scope of this guide. Suggestions for future guides include strategies for time management/awareness, training efficiency, and physical changes quitters can make to their lifestyle... And remember, Sign's always happy to make more suggestions if anyone wants to expand on this subject! We'd do it ourselves – but we wouldn't want to spoil your fun

Thanks for visiting! This Super Nerdy Guide on the Cognitive Substrates of Quitting MS was brought to you and Southperry.net by Sign and her associated personalities!