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Rich pointed me to a post putting forward the concept of Massively Multiplayer Productivity, and I haven’t been able to find anyone who’s actually come up with a formal system for how it would work. The concept is that, in order to give the menial tasks you do in real-life the same addictive quality as the menial tasks in World Of Warcraft, all you need to do is assign experience-point rewards to them. Your To-Do list becomes your Quest Log, and every few thousand points you level yourself up – you have become a superior human being by getting things done.

So all it needs is a fair system of assigning experience points to the different kinds of things life requires you to sort out, and some markers to indicate when you would level up. I suggest:

Quest Type XP
Making a phone call 250
– that involves persuasion +250
– to someone you hate +250
Filling out a form 100
– and posting it +50
– and losing it -100
Physical labour 250
– that takes more than half an hour +250
– that takes more than an hour +250
Going to an appointment 500
– and resolving a problem while there +250
– and discovering you are terminally ill +500
Cleaning a room 500
– including removal of blood stains +500
Going shopping for groceries 250
Working outside of work 250
– for more than forty-five minutes +250
– just to get ahead +250
Doing someone a favour 250
– that takes more than half an hour +250
– that involves assassination or insurance fraud +750
Blogging 100
– about World Of Lifecraft +150

Level-ups are awarded for the following XP amounts:

Progress XP Reward
Level 1 500 Consumption of an unhealthy food.
Level 2 1000 Consumption of an expensive and unhealthy food.
Level 3 2000 A frivolous purchase =< £5/$10
Level 4 3500 Home delivery for your next groceries purchase
Level 5 5500 Immediate consumption of eight units of alcohol
Level 6 8000 A frivolous purchase =< £15/$30
Level 7 11000 Moral absolution for one theft – past or future
Level 8 14500 Home delivery for your next narcotics purchase
Level 9 18500 A frivolous purchase =< £50/$100
Level 10 23000 Moral absolution for the contract-killing of one unwanted person

And so on. (If you didn’t spot the pattern, you’re probably not geeky enough to need to turn your life into a MMOG in order to get anything done). Notice that you start at level 0, just to emphasise how worthless you are until you’ve done something.

Well, I’m level one already and I haven’t had breakfast, so I think a bacon sandwich is in order. Any suggestions for more quest types or rewards?

 
 
Comment 14 comments

Graham: I slept for 16 hours on Friday night. Does this mean that I was ultra-rested and thus got extra XP for my tasks on Saturday?

 
Pentadact: NO. Negative points for sleeping.
 

Dabs: Only 500 points for discovering you're terminally ill? You tight-arse Tom!



So you'd have to find out you've got 37 separate terminal illnesses before you earn enough points to treat yourself to something not exceeding £50 in value??!


WoL's points system needs patching badly imho. Otherwise, rest assured, I'll be on the internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.


Joe: Could there be a rest system? So if you avoid doing unproductive activities, like playing games, for 24 hours, you are awarded double XP for any menial task you complete during the next day.

Iain: I think I've found a bug. I seem to have gotten most of the rewards without gaining the necessary experience.

Iain: Ah, hang on. I think I know why. I've not been playing World of Lifecraft. I've been playing City of Slackers...

Mark Wallace: woot, I have leveled!

I love that guy's idea of a central site where everyone's stats are stored, but I think what would really be cool is some kind of collaborative software thingy where users could weigh in on how many xp they feel each task is worth. Then you average them out to get a collectively determined score for each thing you do each day. Although I guess the score for any particular task would change from day to day and could be easily gamed, but it still seems cool. I'm clearly thinking too hard this afternoon. Do I lose points for that?

 
Pentadact: 36, Dabs. You get one 500 for turning up to the appointment. The hope is that you'll try some of the other activities, though. Eighteen phone-calls later, you could have the doctor killed. That'd show him.



Mark: I don't think people would all classify their tasks the same way, so I don't think democratic point score values would be much more meaningful than my dictatorial ones. Also, gratz!
 

Matt: How about this:
An hour of physical labour gives you +1 strength, but the higher your strength, the less XP you get from physical labour.

Richard: OK, since folks wanted it, I've written the bare bones of a World of Lifecraft site, complete with domain name. I don't however have a lot of time to spend on it, so if anybody wants to take control of the admin system and start filling it up with quests, they're welcome to. Email me, richard at square8 dot com.

FinalSin: Clearly, classes are needed.

e.g. Filling Out A Form
...and losing it
-50% exp loss if Student Class (Ignorance Plea)

And a heckload more levels. And steeds.

HailandKill: Yeah, with a level cap of 10 people are going to be complaining about the boring high level experience. Life ultimately has many things to do in a hypothetical high level....

roburky: The list text in this entry is now invisible. I'm guessing a problem with the new site style?

 
Pentadact: Yeah, fixed now. Have I mentioned how much I hate CSS yet today?
 
 
 

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