标签：
新东方新东方英语中学版魔兽世界 |
分类： 【A】【新东方英语·抢先看】 |
Seven
从《魔兽世界》中得到的七条教训
By John August 译 / 赵娜
For about four months, most of my waking hours had been spent on either
playing the game World of Warcraft(WoW) or wanting to. Now I give it up for WoW
about giving it up, but in retrospect 3), I did learn some valuable things from my time
When facing
multiple 4) bad guys, the temptation 5) is to go after the one
who's hitting you hardest. This is often a mistake — that injured monster, or the one
who is running away? He'll be back in 15 seconds, likely with other baddies 6) in
tow 7). So take a few clicks to kill him now. Once he's dead, you can focus com-
pletely on the guy who's smacking 8) you.
与多个坏人对峙时，人们往往面临这样的诱惑——去追杀对你攻击最猛烈的那一个。这经常是个错误——为何不干掉那个受伤的或是那个正要逃跑的怪物呢？因为15秒钟之后他就会卷土重来，有可能后面还跟着一帮别的坏蛋。所以点击几下鼠标，先把他干掉。只有他死了，你才能全力以赴对付正在攻击你的那个家伙。
The real world may
not have druids 9) and paladins 10), but it's chocked full
of monsters. They're called "term papers", "errands 11)" and etc. At any given
moment, there may be one monster that looms 12) larger than all of the others, who
clearly needs to be attacked. But before you do, look around for injured monsters —
the half-finished tasks that probably need only a few more minutes to complete. If
you don't deal with them now, they'll be a constant distraction 13), and may even-
tually come back stronger.
现实世界可能没有德鲁伊和圣骑士，但是却充斥着怪物，它们被称为“学期论文”、“日常琐事”等等。在任何特定的时间，总可能有那么一个比其他怪物显得更大的怪物在逼近，很明显，那就是需要攻击的目标。不过在动手之前，环顾一下四周，看看有没有负伤的怪物——那些做了半截、可能只需再花几分钟就能搞定的任务。如果你现在不把它们解决掉，它们就会不断来分散你的注意力，甚至最后可能变得更难解决。
In WoW parlance 15), "grinding" is the process of killing
a bunch of fairly
easy monsters, one after the other, strictly to rack up 16) loot 17) and experience.
There's no adventure to it, no real challenge. It's tedious 18) and mindless, but it's
在《魔兽世界》的术语中，“研磨”指逐个杀死一群相当容易消灭的怪物，这个过程完全是为了积累战利品和经验值。这毫不冒险，也没真正的挑战。整个过程冗长乏味，不需要动脑筋，但通常却是升级最快的方法，所以每个人都这么做。
Daily life is full
of mindless tedium 20), but there's an
important distinction:
grinding has a point. While the task may be dull and carpal tunnel-aggravating 21),
there's a clear goal. You have to be willing to do serious grunt 22) work in order to
日常生活中充满了无需劳神的琐事，但是二者之间有一个重要的区别：“研磨”是有一个目标的。尽管任务可能会枯燥乏味，让手腕酸痛不已，但它却有一个清晰的目标。你不得不心甘情愿去干些重要却无趣的差事，这样才能朝目标前进。
It's easy to
confuse what you're doing with why you're doing it. Just
remember: Grinding is a means of achieving a specific goal, whereas the game itself
is supposed to be entertaining. So once you level, stop grinding and start exploring.
人们很容易把正在做的事和做此事的原因混为一谈。只要记住：“研磨”是实现某个特定目标的手段，而游戏本身理应是为了娱乐。所以，一旦升级了，就要停止“研磨”，开始探索。
I worked for a year
as a reader 23) at Tri-Star, writing
coverage 24) on 10
scripts 25) or books a week. Most of the scripts were terrible. Apart from offering
lessons-to-avoid, there wasn't any point in reading them other than the money, $65 a
shot 26). But I convinced 27) myself I was "working in the industry," so I kept
reading them, dutifully writing up my synopsies 28) and comments. Though execu-
tives would congratulate me on my witty notes, yet there was some suggestion that
filing and copying. I didn't use my brain once. That left me with abundant energy
when I got home from work, and with it I finished two scripts.
我曾在三联星公司当了一年的审稿人，每周为10部剧本或书写提要。大多数剧本都很糟糕。当然我能从中获得一些借鉴，但除此之外，要不是为了钱（审一篇能挣65美元），看这些东西完全没有任何意义。但是我说服自己“我在干这一行”，于是我就坚持看下去，尽心尽责地撰写提要和评论。尽管主管们会夸赞我的点评诙谐，但也有些人建议我另找一份工作来发展。于是我辞了职，然后在环球电影公司得到了一个实习生的职位：整理档案，复印文件。这些都不费脑子。这使得我下班回家后，依然能精力旺盛，借着这股劲儿，我写出了两个剧本。
Both jobs were
quintessential 30) "day jobs 31)." In theory, writing
coverage
should have been the better job, because it was closer to screenwriting. But the
second job was a better fit, because there was no confusing it with my true ambi-
tions.
以上两份工作都是典型的“正常工作”。从理论上来讲，写提要应该是一份好点儿的工作，因为它更接近于编剧。不过第二份工作更适合我，因为它不会和我真正的抱负混淆。
You start the game with almost
nothing: a weapon and the shirt on your back.
Each new piece of gear 33) you accumulate is tremendously exciting. But as you
level up, that early gear becomes increasingly irrelevant 34) and basically worthless.
lands, find the first character of your class, and hand him all the stuff you don't want.
It will take two minutes of your time, but give the newbie a tremendous head start 35).
(Not to mention building your karma 36)).
开始玩游戏的时候，除了手中的武器和身上的衣服，你几乎一无所有。因而，你积累的每件新装备都会让你感到极为兴奋。但是随着你级别的上升，早期的装备变得越来越没用，基本上是没什么利用价值。专门去商店卖装备也不划算，所以就别卖。不如回新手村，找到你这个门派的新手，把你不需要的东西都给他。这会占用你两分钟的时间，但却能给新手一个极大的先机。(还没不说能为你带来一份缘分。)
On a daily basis, I
find myself searching the web for answers on topics in
which I'm a newbie and leaving thankful that someone out there took the time to
write a tutorial 37) on exactly what I needed. So if everyone took the time to build
a site about the areas of their expertise 38), the world would be significantly cooler.
每天，我都会在网上寻找自己不熟悉的话题的答案，并在离开时心怀感激，感谢在某个地方有人肯花时间写下我恰好需要的学习资料。所以如果每个人都能抽空建一个和自己专长领域相关的网页，那这个世界将会变得更酷。
--------------------------------------------
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
[1]
【选自：《新东方英语·中学版》2007年7-8月合刊】
顶