What has EfU given you in your everyday life?

[Nuclear Catastrophe]

Just a post out of curiosity, really.

Recently, I was considering the impact that this game has had on so many people - ultimately resulting the utilisation of a great deal of your all important 'time'.  But I do not like to think of anything that I have ever done in my life as time wasted, therefore, I was considering what transferrable skills EfU, and NwN have given me in the time that I have played and DMed.

Certainly, a stronger grasp of the English language has to be up there, and a formiddable typing speed.  I can touch type these days, for one thing.

Management skills and confidence?  It's not easy to stand up in front of dozens of people and deliver a speech, and the first time I did it in NwN I realised that it was actually a fairly imposing thing, and definitely helped me with even my real-life speech deliveries/briefs.  Managing a faction is never the simplest business.

Those sorts of things are just the tip of the iceberg for me though, and I'd like to hear any other person's thoughts on the matter.


Love,

Nukey (from Canada, and soon to sunny Florida, on my giant floating hunk of metal ;) )
x x x x x x x x x x x  x x

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

A source of information! Many people in the efu community have degrees in college or everyday wisdom and advise. Not to mention the humor I garner from some of the discussions.

[Ranek]

- It improves my English by the minute (such being my 3rd language)
- Boosts my creativity

[Oskar Maxon]

I agree that the language improvement has to be the greatest impact of efu.

[Nights Bane]

Nbanes two bits

Typing speed, and command over the english language is remarkable.

I think most of the efu community is qualified professionals, and some, are even experts in their respecting fields.

Its only the other week, Staring_Death helped me complete my final assessment on Calculus, an affair that lasted well over three or four hours.  He could of told me to get lost- but he didn't.  He grueled it out with me, and thanks to that, im on my way to earning the first in many qualifications with the open university.

The selflessness of the community is quite frankly the thing I enjoy most about efu; at least with regards to the chatting aspect.  

We all 'Get' each other.  Don't you think?

[Dagam]

Actually, not a whole lot.

[Mort]

There are many unseen perks to playing efu:a such as those mentioned above, but also spatial abilities.

 - Positioning and visualizing 3D environment in your head.
 - Mentally representing complex scenes based on NWN.
 - Orienting yourself in a gameworld.

There is a lot of support that video games improve your spatial memory since they require a lot of creativity to position your character in the gameworld, you are basically constantly viewing a map and trying to represent yourself in it to avoid being lost. It could also partially explain the gender bias in spatial memory at an early age (boys scoring better than girls since boys play more video games than girls).

I'm sure all of you score decently well on IQ test due to it relying a lot on spatial memory, pattern analysis and so on.

EFU having such an heavy language component associated to it develops both side of the medal (spatial memory and language) + your higher cognitive skills (such as planning, adjusting your behavior based on feedback, and so on).

And finally, there are some very interesting, achieved, smart, academic and successful people (some at the top of their field!) to take information, tips, etc. from should you choose to listen.

So, EFU, can definitely provide a lot aside from entertainment and a hobby.

[12 Hatch]

The ability to predict the actions of others.

We spend so long in-game trying to figure out just what other characters will do that I imagine I'm not the only one who has become much better at predicting the actions of people in real life.

[Udenbur]

What a depressing threat. <_<

[SanTelmo]

Some very good friends.

[Coldburn]

herpes

[Kinslayer988]

[LIST=1]

• Being able to roleplay with people who don't suck
• How to make better RL applications
• A sense of tension and conflict
• Improving behavior and English
• Being 'ok' with dictators
• One hell of a time

[The Ruins of Third Earth]

Chastity.

[Loghaire]

NWN in general made me addicted to the computer, and as a consiquence, also fat. As for EFU, it has taught me that given the chance, people will straight up murder your ass because they can get away with it. Thank God that this is all fantasy where people play out their desires!

[John Poirot]

The joy of creating and sharing stories.