36
an archer , you needed to become comfortable with playing like a girl . I fell in love with Grand Chase and its strong female fighters .
Grand Chase spread like wildfire in my housing complex . The exclusive group of boy gamers talked all about Grand Chase , all the time . Despite their aversion to all things vaguely girly , the group conceded that Grand Chase was good . The game featured beautiful artwork , and had a ‘ cutesy ’ style to it that contrasted with the heavy plotline . The game was played on an online server with other players within the North American region . The boys in the group would all meet up online to fight against each other , but I still wasn ’ t invited . It wasn ’ t until a few months later , when I had levelled up my characters and established myself in the community , that I was allowed to play with them . I surpassed Nathan , and he was impressed . He told the other boys , and they all suddenly became fixated on beating me . One of the veterans of Grand Chase in the group decided to challenge my characters in player versus player . He played as a level 5 character , yet he defeated my level 30 character over and over again . It was infuriating , and it made me feel like I just couldn ’ t be good enough to be a gamer .
I spent most of my time after that focusing on
player versus player fights , and refining my gaming tactics to fight real players . I switched characters to Arme , the mage , and began winning matches more frequently with her . I stopped playing as often in dungeons , so I did not level up as quickly , but my skills allowed me defeat players who were higher levels and who paid to get stronger faster . I fell in love with the Grand Chase community , and kept playing to interact with fellow players from all around North America . I learned a lot about United States culture through playing Grand Chase , and it was there that I found out that the ‘ Super Bowl ’ wasn ’ t salad . Players would gather in the player versus player ( PvP ) chat rooms , and we would discuss game strategies , which characters were too powerful , and who recently got banned for cheating . We especially loved talking to the game moderators , Grand Chase ’ s staff who would enter the game to interact with players .
The players made Grand Chase into our own experience . We would create our own games within PvP . My favorite game was Warlock Tennis , a game where the Armes would create a tennis match by shooting flaming fireballs ( the tennis balls ), and preventing the opposing balls from hitting them by deploying reflective magical shields with precise timing . The game had the potential for player innovation and
36