World of Warcraft PS3 petition

[Nerdkiller likes BD]

Originally Posted by jason_grumpy

Being a former EQ addict with a character created March 12th, 2000 and over 300 days played (yes, 300 days played, real 24 hour periods), I can speak from experience on this.

It really goes beyond being a second life, but becomes your primary life. EVERYTHING I did in real life from ~ 2000 until 2004 revolved around EverQuest. When I ate, when I slept, when I worked, when I washed, when I went to the bathroom, when I traveled, when I dated, when I talked on the phone, when I watched TV, when I upgraded my PC -- everything. Your real life is the one that becomes secondary.

Overtime, everything faded out until EQ was the only thing that kept me interested, happy, and at peace. I was max level, good raid gear, and got as many AA's as I could get. I was constantly in a group, raid, or looking for group. I 'dated' on line characters, even going through an on line 'wedding'. If I couldn't find a group, I was chatting with guildmates while waiting or soloing or looking for someone to flirt with and hope it progressed. I watched TV only 4 times during that entire period, lost contact with all my old real life friends (online outside of EQ and off), cried over online breakups, lost sleep over corpse runs, forgot what a movie theater looked like inside, gained at least 50 lbs from sitting and drinking soda all day, didn't play ANY other game type but MMO's, and was always looking for the next big mmo fix as EQ started waxing old.

It got so bad, the only time I'd leave my house, much less my room was to get smokes, dinner was ready, or getting something to drink. My life was the world as a window beyond my computer screen. A place I'd rather be, and nothing else mattered. Pretend people, pretend armor, pretend money, pretend friendships, pretend lovers, and pretend marriages was the only thing that did matter. The fake world was real, and the real world was the fake one.

I remember being angry that sometimes I had to work later than usual, because I would be late to a raid and left out. If the job I had was on a swing, I'd schedule my days off for the more important raid nights. Ditching college classes (and subsequently dropping out ~ 2001) or work for a new expansion launch or patch. Skipping traveling vacations with my family because I would be away from EQ for a week. Jealous if my EQ SO was flirting with a 'new' person. I even quit a new job and was unemployed for over 9 months because the work schedules were too erratic to revolve my life around EQ and lied saying it was interfering with my college schedule (when I went back in 2003). Enough of that real life thing interference messing with me and my life.

Even more so, most of the people I played with on EQ was the same way. Their lives revolved around EQ and the characters there. Multiple people I knew dropped out of college. One person I know left her husband of 15 years, to go be with her EQ 'husband'. Another ditched his 2 teenage daughters to go be with someone from EQ 20 years younger -- never telling her until living together a year later. Another one of my friends got into Meth just to stay awake to play the game even longer (this happened somewhere between EQ to WoW). And yet another started feeling 'bad' while we were in a group, ignored it cause he was in a group, and DIED of a heart failure while playing WoW in which we were informed by his boyfriend of what happened. He had medical conditions anyway being a vet, so it's unknown if neglect caused it.

These were all the same people who played on EQ with me in my guild. We stuck together as a core group through various games. My only RL friend was also a fellow EQ player. He'd come over (because of his dad's complaining about his mmo addiction), bring his own PC, and even though we sat less than 1 foot away from each other, talk through the game using /tell. We'd stay up till 3 or 4am, wake up at noon, and start all over again. Most EQ players I knew transitioned to DaoC (along with myself) on the same server, got bored of that quickly, and returned to EQ. Later, we branched off into EQ2 and WoW, in which I played both but not with the same addiction.

I could say that if our guild did not break up between the two games (I didn't like WoW, i think it's vastly over-rated), and found launch EQ2 to suck at best, I would still be sitting day in and day out on an MMO somewhere.

Thankfully this transition happened right at the time I was starting to transition into normal life by going back to college, and finding a stable work place, and finding out that big bright ball in the sky that rose at an ungodly hour of 6am was the sun. That I should be waking up with the sun rise, and not going to bed with it. I later met my future wife through an FFXI / WoW friend, and thankfully, she didn't like MMO's. Finally my life started switch back into where it needed to be, and EQ and the addiction thereof was given a reason to be cut off. This all came to ahead when I started getting to involved into EQ2, and my future wife said it was either her, or EQ2.

Thank God she did that. Looking back, EQ was worse than any other addiction I've had including smoking. Even MMO's I played I couldn't help by comparing them to EQ. It really sucks you in slowly, and you keep begging for more. Nothing else is good enough. I feel sorry for those 8 million WoW players, as time goes on they too will get bored -- look for other games, but keep going back to their 'first'.

With all that said, I do believe MMO's should remain on the PC and not the console. At least with a PC, you're more apt to try to work for a living to increase your PC specs for an upcoming expansion. I think bringing MMO's to console is a bad idea for this generation of gamers. If people get to involved in FPS shooters and clans to start neglecting life, MMO's are the poison pill that will more than likely ruin or destroy the life they have.

Wow. Wow. I've heard of addictions, but the people who play Everquest are something else. No wonder it has had names like Neverest or Evercrack (which from where I've read in your post took itself a bit too seriously). I'm gald I never got WoW or Everquest now that I read that (well that and the subscription charges). Now, I'm not really sure if I support China's 4 hr a day policy on MMORPG's or against it (well 4 hr's is enough so I guess I lean toward that side). Well maybe they should keep MMORPG's off consoles but other MMO's (like the upcoming Agency) should be welcome.