"I actually have 2 friends that are ferociously addicted to everquest. One of them has been addicted to it since High school...this is about 5 years ago. When we all graduated high school and went to college and got jobs, he stayed home and played Everquest all day and night. Now 5 years later, nothing has changed. He never got his driver's license...he doesn't even have a learner's permit. He has NEVER held a job, ever. He rarely ever leaves his house, and on the rare event that we actually go to his house, he's always unkempt, rather smelly, dirty, and uncaring of his appearence. He lives at home with his parents, and I can only imagine what his parents must think of their ... son sitting in front of his computer from his every waking moment until he goes to bed...I'd estimate that the total amount of hours he puts into everquest yearly would constitute 320 out of 365 days in a year.

He can be called the 'Gateway' into Everquest for us...he was the one who got me playing back in High School. As for me, I hated everquest with a passion. I started playing in May of my senior year in High School, maybe 2-3 hours a day, and stopped the following December in my first semester of college...I didn't have the time, the desire, or addiction level to commit to the game. But unfortunately...and I blame myself for this everyday...EQ had done its damage on my part. I got my friend into it, and he was immediately addicted.

So this is where the story picks up. [his friend] got addicted to the game in 2000. He played for 2 straight years. In his second year of playing, he completely flunked out of college...we went to the same college together and his precious Everquest was so important to him that he just stopped going....he flunked out with straight F's to play his precious EQ. So after sitting on his ass playing EQ for another 8 months, he registered with a 2 year community college, and finally got out of it ... 2004...yes, it took a mere 3 years for him to get out of a 2 year college. During that time, he quit everquest. This was the second half of 2001. When one of the many expansions came out, he immediately went back. He failed 3 of 5 classes in the community college to play his Everquest and played straight through until the beginning of 2003. He actually managed to balance school and everquest, usually in favor of the latter, but he did it. However, I did forget to mention that, in the span of the almost 5 years since we graduated high school, he got fired from EIGHT different jobs for not showing up. Why? He was playing Everquest.

So he continuted to play Everquest on and off during 2003. He was much more agreeable this time...instead of forsaking me and our other friends, like he did during his other EQ stints, he actually hung out and did things with us. I thought maybe he was finally able to balance out. was wrong. He stopped playing in late 2003. In 2004 a game called City of Heroes came along...a game that I too played. It was alot of fun and a decent gameplay experience, but as usual with massive online games, I got dreadfully bored of it in less than a month, and I terminated my account. One of the most remarkable things about it, is that in the time it took me to get my character to level 20, ... had 7 characters across a few servers that were at their maximum levels within 3 weeks (I think level 40). But he too stopped playing, claiming he was bored. I was shocked that he had so many maxed characters but he stopped, so I was happy. He continued hanging out like he always did and things were fine.

Fast forward to September 2004....stops hanging out. He's always making excuses. He switched his ...instant messenger to never show when he goes idle, according to him he wanted to piss off one of our friends (the one who got us into Everquest in the first place). Turns out he was hiding the fact that he was back on EQ. He had been staying up til 5 in the morning every night, getting up at about 8 am every morning (less than 3 hours of sleep a night), and one day my friend went to his house, and saw an everquest instant message box up....rushed over, pushed him out of the chair onto the floor, and closed it. He said he used it to 'spy' on our other friend ... however, you can't use the EQ instant message without being an EQ Player.

So it was once again revealed that he has been playing Everquest for about a month. And the shocking thing is that he's playing so much that I was dumbfounded when I found out what he 'accomplished'. In one month's time, he has 17 characters across 6 servers, ALL of which are at maximum levels (65 I think?). 17 max level characters in one month...I can only assume he dropped out of college again. So now here he is, complaining he has no money and needs a job, and he's just sitting on his ass in front of the computer screen shooting twinkly spells at big bad dragons and running around with his EQ girlfriend.

...I've seent he way he talks to her...it's amazing how different he becomes when he's talking to her. But he claims that one day they're going to meet and get married in live somewhere else.

So last night... I was directly connected to him through ... instant messenger. We usually ALWAYS spam each other with sound files, but when I did it last night, he didn't respond. So I did it again. Knowing now that he was ignoring me for Everquest, I got rather mad, so I strung together the loudest, most annoying sound I could find to loop continuously, and THAT set him off...he started yelling at me ... and blocked me. His sister called me up in a panic this morning to tell me what he did...when I sent him the sound he was apparently having an 'intimate conversation' with his eq girlfriend on voice chat, while their characters just sat on the ground in front of each other. His sister told me that ... got so angry when I sent the sound, that after he screamed at me, he got up, smashed his keyboard so hard with his fist that it almost broke in half, breaking the keyboard drawer loose from the computer desk. He kicked his garbage can, picked it up and threw it, screaming at the top of his lungs, then he slammed his door multiple times, and started punching it furiously until he broke right through it with his fist. Then he marched right into his sister's room while she was standing terrified out in the hallway, pulled her computer desk out, ripped her keyboard out the back of her computer,and brought it back to his computer to use it. Then he started talking all lovey dovey to his eq girlfriend.

It's happened again, for the 5th time. I've lost my best friend to Everquest, and from what his sister told me about last night, and judging from the fact he has 17 max level characters in just one month's time, I can tell he is long, long gone. Chalk up another one to EQ.

Just thought i'd share my story. I'm a two time eq player, the first time I was off in about 6 or 7 months, the second time I was off in a month and a half ... its addiction power never was able to grab me, but it sucked ... right in, and I blame myself for introducing him to it."