Everquest Daily Grind: MMORPG Infinity (no beyond)

2008-03-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking a little while ago about how running seems to be one of my latest obsessions... or addiction, if you will. Of course, to me it doesn't quite seem that way, but the strange looks that I am getting from people on the street or in their cars for running on the street in snowy, icy conditions at nosehair-freezing temperatures attests to the fact that OTHERS are certainly thinking that I may be a little... well, you get the point.

Now here is the kicker though... yes, I am running about 4 times a week, so it can certainly be compared to another obsessive hobby that I used to have (namely, EQ) - but that's where the similarities end. Running: between 1-2 hours each session, so at most 8 hours a week of actual running; then count in about 30 minutes each for stretching; on average about 1-2 hours a week maintaining my running blog, reading running news or browsing running items online; 30 minutes a week a emailing my running buddies. So now we have a high end range of ... 12.5 hours a week! Woa, mama!

Actually, not really? It's rather pitifully minimal compared to the 30-50 hours a week I would put into MMOGs during my heydays.

If I actually spent 40-50 hours doing running stuff, I doubt I'd still be alive and kicking. I can't imagine being out and about running for 16 hours a day... I can't even imagine doing that every weekend day, like I used to do with EQ on a regular basis.

So now what do I do with the rest of the time I have? Watching TV (sometimes it's nice to be passively entertained), cooking, reading, browsing junk on the Internet, playing guitar, debating with friends, writing ... the point that I am trying to make here is that I am doing such a variety of activities that won't make me an expert in much, admittedly, but that certainly keeps me more sane and responsive to the external world than sitting in front of the computer every bloody single minute that I have to myself. I still like D&D, I still like the Internet, I still like to try out new games. Just not MMOGs, because of all the computer games I have tried, none have left me as grouchy, mentally checked out and low in feelings of self worth as MMOGs have. The latter is just a god-awful feeling... have you ever felt it?

Let's face it: You are spending 10-20 hours a week on your MMOG of choice? Move along, you likely have little to worry about MMOGs impacting your well-being negatively. 30-50 hours a week? It's time to stop being such a fierce defender of your game existence and insist that it's yo choice to live your life, buddy. After all, you're not ACTUALLY fighting for the last tree on earth. Or trying to find the cure to save the world from Armageddon.

At best, you are only harming yourself. At worst, you are causing some heavy-duty damage on others who rely on you being in this world.

P.S.: And before you start thinking that it is "only" time that is the difference here, think again... time is limited and at the same time pervasive in all aspects of our lives - the length (and sure, the type) of your commitment to a particular aspect of your life and the combination of those commitments shapes who you are as a person.

2008-03-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

Well, happy belated new year! Not to give the impression that I am a) bored with blogging, b) there are just no new stories about MMOG issues, c) MMOG has overtaken the world like a big brother ... I guess it's just that I am bored with the fact that we as a mass have not gotten any closer to understanding just what is happening to people around us. Although, I have to admit, I found my new favourite term -

pop culture escapism

(or to paraphrase it "nicely",
internal emigration to mass appeal platforms)

Really sums it up nicely for me. Do you have mostly positive or negative feelings associated with pop culture and / or escapism?

A while ago I was interviewed about this blog for a documentary, and although, admittedly, some of my gut reactions definitely results from hurt feelings of vanity ("what? I wasn't interesting enough to be further investigated?"), I cannot help but also feel that some of my ambivalence towards the documentary stems from the fact that the motivations behind the documentary were somewhat obfuscated during the making, leaving me to question whose good it was for in the first place. I guess I wasn't the intended audience as this was clearly for the uninitiated newbie for whom the online gaming world was a shiny ball of vapour. I was hoping for something more. Then again, I seem to be thinking that a lot recently.

2007-11-28T09:05:00.000-08:00

MMOGs and Crime

I guess the recent news about "Baby Grace" (see http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=41926890 and countless other articles) really was just another instigator in stirring the ever-popular topic of MMOG and really bad behaviour.

Hey, looking at this blog, you can easily blame me to be biased when it comes to crimes committed by people who play MMOGs. The truth is that I'm rather sick of all the forth and back between gamers, media and non-gamers.

Well, guess what? You're all wrong. I don't think that whether someone is on or offline committing a crime should have any bearing... it's actually more distracting talking about something that happens when you have sheep bleeping in one corner "MMO made XYZ kill ABC!" with the other sheep bleeping in the other corner "MMO doesn't kill people, people kill people!"

Why isn't ANYONE coming out and saying the only solution to this is prevention, and that in order to prevent, researchers and social scientists and law makers HAVE TO look at the behaviour and thinking of those perps. And if their life tends to be spent mostly online, well, that means that anyone should have access to all those files so this can be properly investigated, analysed AND communicated to the greater public. Virtual online worlds are perfect places to collect information, since (unlike real life), all activity, types statements and even audio can and is recorded.

As important, if there are specific behaviour patterns online can be tied to subsequent violence / misdemeanour, the same level of alerts, communications, access to authorities and support should be available online than in real life.

Just because someone lives most of their life online doesn't mean that they should be protected by the game before something bad happens in real life. Just saying.

2007-07-31T10:52:00.001-07:00

Going a bit generalist here for a moment, so bear with me (or just ignore this) ...

I recently spoke to a good friend of mine who was (aside from being a physics post-doc) decided to devote much of her time to a more social cause... after our usual frantic catching-up-on-things, we realized that we were both in the search of a way to make sense of a large amount of unstructured text (or in my case, stories). Traditional social science research tools such as surveys (many of them self-selecting), interviews and observation logs are only one perspective - with the Internet, we suddenly have access to much more qualitative data out there, and most of them are not even solicited but submitted voluntarily.

Standard (free) qualitative software - well, I have done some word frequency analysis, and there are probably ways to do more correlational stuff with the data - still, I'm sure much more could be done if we had software do manipulate these types of data visually. I have found some promising research in this area but here is where the other problem comes up: funding and time. Quite frankly, social studies outside the academic environment (and even within the academic environment) are just not desirable targets for funding, unless its results can be used to further political, economic or other profitable agendas. Who cares if a large number of people find reality miserable and hindering enough to want to constantly escape into a virtual world? Who cares if the majority of women in the world are still actively discouraged and stopped from getting education? Who cares if "laziness" and "criminal tendencies" are still blamed for poor living conditions and poverty? Who care as long as corporations can still make a living selling subpar products to consumers and continue to raise profits by downsizing people and cutting environmental corners?

I realize this has somewhat turned into a full-fledged rant, so I'll stop here. Instead I'll start doing a little prayer every night that some day, at least a few semi-intelligent people will become influential enough to support and create a platform where research studies will be funded based on how much they will improve the well-being of the world at large, both on the scientific and the social side.

2007-05-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

Something funny happened on the way away from EQ... I discovered how much there is to do in rl. Not trying to act sarcastic or all-knowing here - I thought I already found out how much there is to living life outside of the online worlds when I started this blog but here we are 3 years later, and it's only become more apparent. I just moved to a new place recently and sometimes I try to imagine how life would be if I was still trying to play MMOGs while doing all the things I'm doing now - I cannot imagine it because - to be frank - it would be impossible.

I find myself further removed from MMOGs than ever before - which isn't ideal for this blog. Sure, it's done a heckload for me but I feel slightly guilty for not being able to keep this going as strongly as I would have liked. There are still so many things that could be done to look into and study the impact of MMOGs on society but wanting to do it and finding the time are worlds apart.

I am posting this in the hopes that someone out here might read this and feel that they still have much to contribute to this area and would like to give it a try. I started this blog 3 years ago with the intention of surfacing these stories and giving readers a chance to reflect and make choices. I have been lucky to exchange emails with quite a few bright, insightful and humble people who were smarter than to fall into the trap of thinking in black&white terms only. And it's made me happy to see that others have gone through the same kind of aha experience I had and decided to take charge of their own lives.

I think I have done as much as I could for now and hopefully will be able to do more in the future, but for now, I'd like to hand over part of the reigns to someone who has more energy and time than me :)

P.S.: Gamerwidow's done a great job compiling and indexing stories they've had on the forums so I'll provide the link here - http://www.gamerwidow.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=368

2007-02-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

Interesting little article ... even more interesting are the comments it's kind of nice to know discussions like these aren't solely dominated by people with one-sided tunnel vision anymore.... My take? Learn how to communicate with each other (and I mean talking beyond the topics like tv, games, celebrities or kids) and focus on being happy in real life and all these issues probably will less likely manifest themselves anyways. Otherwise, don't even try being in a relationship.

2007-02-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to WoW Detox (http://www.wowdetox.com), an anonymous confessional forum.

2007-02-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

From what I have seen, this is one of the rare well-nuanced articles about MMOGs and their impact on rl - in this specific case, it's Second Life and the implications of online affairs - a second life blog entry titled "YOUR CHEATING HEART"

2007-02-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

And the beat goes on...

The mainstream MMOG flavor of the moment is WoW, and many of the stories of those MMOG obsession have centered around that game over the past year.

Now it looks like Sony has a contender on the market: Vanguard, just released on January 30, 2007. That's 3 days only ago. Interestingly enough, I did not find out about it from reading MMOG press releases and lurking on MMOG community boards. No. I found out from partners of former EQ gamers who have already noticed the impact of this new MMOG within 2 days.

2 days? This is going to be interesting - too quick a reaction or a sign of more to come? Who knows... but meanwhile, I will try to obtain the rights to post the stories here.

2007-01-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the obvious really doesn't hit you in the face until someone else brings it up. I am not a big fan of main media reporting about "MMOG addiction" because either the issues get dumbed down or it is painfully clear that a hidden agenda prevails.

Apparently the "addicted to WoW" has made it to the daily talkies via Tyra Banks which (going back to the obvious) made me realize that I had not thought of searching YouTube for clips MMOG gamers and / or their friends may have made already. So rather than giving you the embedded video for the talkshow segment, here is a link showing the results from my search on "addicted to world of warcraft" and "wow addiction". Look and judge for yourself. Has the time come when partners and friends of out-of-control MMOGers can show what they are going through?

Interestingly enough, searches on everquest did not yield that much.

2007-01-23T10:48:00.000-08:00

First Life - a parody of the Second Life MMOG

And the creator's blog entry

2006-10-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I have stopped posting any stories for a while. No, the stories haven't stopped, I have due to the fact that I have too many other things to do at the moment. I am hoping to be able to pick it up again some time in the future; meanwhile, if someone else would like to post any or write something, email me at eqdailygrind@hotmail.com.

Onto something else: Two recent blog entries ...

View From the Top (October 17, 2006) - The preamble:
"The top of what you ask? The height of World of Warcraft greatness.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine quit playing Warcraft. He was a council member on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world, the type of position coveted by many of the 7 million people who play the game today, but which only a few ever get.

When he quit, I asked him if he would write a guest blog post about the experience. What follows is a cautionary tale about the pull an escape from reality can have on you."

From Tom's "Practical Philosophy" (October 7, 2006) - Accompanying email extract:
"I was going to write something on MMORPGs in the past, but frankly I just ran out of steam - the whole issue is so embedded in the irrationality of an individual's decisions that it's hard to generalise and come up with common themes, other than the most obvious (and therefore least edifying) ones.

However, I have linked above to something that I vomited out after reading a slightly annoying news article. I have come to reckon that we play online games not just to have fun in being who we want, but in living in a world in which we are free to 'read' others however we will - a place where our bitterness can spill everywhere, our prejudices fly freely, and where nothing can give us food for thought if we don't interpret it as useful."

2006-09-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

Here is an email that was sent to me a while back:

"A friend whose spouse was addicted body and soul to the online games you discuss piqued my interest in your site. I don’t know much about said games, but I know “Second Life” is one of them. The fact that BBC is actually renting out a virtual island in a game and a well-known band is giving a virtual show strikes me as surreal.

Here’s the link to the BBC Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5253782.stm"

2006-09-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

real-life me < online me?

I've always had a feeling that the curiousity about trying out a new identity (or identities) might be closely connected to the feeling of self-worth and ultimately, self-love. I never really theorized about this much, however, until yesterday, after watching some Internet psychologist talk about this. So - is it true, do we really create these virtual identities of ourselves because we think that our real-life manifestation is, pardon, simply too crappy?

Well, ok, so there may be a "doh" reflex coming straight out of your mouth. But really, spend some time thinking about these questions...

Given a chance to save a life, would you save that of your virtual self or your physical-world self?

If you had won the lottery (say, 21 billion jackpot), would you prefer receiving it online or in real-life? Where would you enjoy spending it the most?

In your death, would you believe a eulogy about you to be better in the real or the virtual realm?

2006-08-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

Here is an email I received recently - I posted the email and name at the poster's request:

"Thank you very much for creating the Everquest Daily Grind blog. Like
alot of the stories that you posted, I too was an Everquest addict. I
wasted almost two of my college years becoming a zombie in front of
the monitor and came to myself before failing out all together. Since
then I have held a steady job, built up a savings account, avoided
video games entirely for a year, and about to get married to a
wonderful woman. The problem I am finding is the roots of my
addiction is still intact and sometimes feel it tugging at me. After
reading some of the harrowing accounts of married couples on your
blog, I feel that I can better resist and ignore the tug.

Once again, thank you and best regards."
- Raed Noor

2006-06-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

"i ... have been married for 9 months. my husband is a total addict. i am also 3 months pregnant. it's hard for me because every night my husband plays for 5-6 hours and on the weekend he probably plays 6-10 hours.
every time i ask him to stop playing he get very angry and defensive and tells me not to control him. he tells me to be independent and do things on my own. he says that we don't have to do everything together. i don't want to do everything with him, but it would be nice to have a meaningful conversation once in awhile, and spend time together after work since we both work all day. he does not have much interest in the baby so far, and i am worried that after it is born, he will remain the same and play the game while i am struggling to work and take care of the baby. i feel that he is selfish and puts his own interests first. the past couple of night i have laid in bed crying because i feel like we have a dysfunctional marriage and i am very unhappy about it. i feel like i married the wrong person and i think about divorce. it is scary but if this is how he is going to live his life then i cannot put up with it. there is no compromising with him, and it is driving me insane."

2006-05-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

The following post is not anonymous, at the poster's request. Thank you!

"I just found your amazing blog yesterday. I have been reading it like an addict. I wanted to share my story, which needless to say is still in progress.

I am a documentary film maker. In January my business partner proposed the idea of making a movie about MMORPGs. I thought it was a good idea. I had just read the New York Times article, Ogre to Slay: Outsource to China about game farming. I was fascinated by the economies and social networks that were being created in these games. While I had played a bit of Starcraft and Diablo's 1 and 2, I was not an avid gamer. I knew to make this movie I would have to discover what made gamers tick. I decided to join the multitudes in WoW and see what it was all about.

At first I had really lofty ambitions. I recorded myself playing the early stages of the game, much like Morgan Spurlock in Supersize Me. I thought I was going to use my journey through the game as the underlying story of my film. How wrong I was. For the first week, I made dutiful video journal entries several times a day. After a few days I learned one of my best friends from high school was playing on a different server, so I started over again to play with him. By the second week of playing I had stopped shaving, I had started smoking marijuana to ease the long hours of tedium, and I had stopped making video entries. I think I stopped making the video about myself, because I was too embarrassed by what I was becoming. By week three I was hopelessly addicted to both weed and wow. Judging from my high school friend's experience, the two go hand in hand for many people.

While I was playing WoW, I was also supposed to be finding people to interview for the documentary. I placed adds in local casting papers and web pages. I got many responses that ranged from people who had met and fallen in love to people who had become hopelessly addicted. They were all very exciting leads, but I was playing WoW so much I took forever replying to the people who had written. I let all of the great leads slip through my fingers as I sprinted to LvL 40 to get my mount. Soon enough I was doing nothing for my movie and everything for my character.

My business partner began to wonder why I had nothing to show for my efforts besides a Priestess in WoW. At first I lied to him, and would tell him I did things I had not done. It felt like the only thing I was doing well was playing WoW. It was the only time I was happy. I tried writing some of the experts that I wanted to interview, but I would get total writer’s block after a few sentences. I felt like I would fail at anything besides WoW. I didn’t send one email to a potential subject for several weeks.

My partner is also my best friend. I couldn’t continue to lie to him without feeling really guilty and afraid I might lose his trust forever. Finally I told him the truth: I was failing us. I tried to get out of my rut, but that is when I realized I was severely depressed. I couldn’t wake up in the morning. I couldn’t speak to outsiders about my life. I found myself getting high at 10 in the morning and getting lost in WoW for the next 10 hours every day. My partner was very patient with me, because he saw how down I was. I am not sure I would have climbed out of my whole without a kick in the pants.

As luck would have it I got a major kick in the pants. My company got an intern. But this wasn’t just any intern. He had been a camper of mine at summer camp several years before, and he had really looked up to me. I guess it was vanity that saved me. I couldn’t bear him seeing me in that state. I wanted him to think I was a success and that he wasn’t wasting his time with some stoner gamer who was severely depressed. About a week before he started I did the first sane thing I had done in a long time, I went to the doctor confessed my addictions and depression. He immediately prescribed me an anti-depressant. It was the first time in my life I ever took one of them. I must say they work quite well, even if I hate the side effects. My urges to play WoW dropped immediately. I stopped getting high 3 or 4 times a day. When my intern arrived I took another big step. I started commuting to my partner’s apartment to work every day. Being in actual face to face contact with my friends and peers was very good for me. While two months ago I had been unable to send one email in two weeks, one day last week I sent 24 originally composed emails. The interviews subjects have been pouring in.

I still play WoW several days a week, but I have much less patience for the game. I am totally burnt out after playing one instance. I do not play more than 2 or 3 hours in a day. I have also begun role playing much more. I find role playing to be much more fun, creative, and fulfilling. I think it helps me separate the game fantasy from my real life. At least for now I am in control of my WoW urges.

In my copious research on MMO’s I have found countless divergent stories. The flip side of my story is that I have totally reconnected with my old high school friend. I think MMO’s are an amazing for keeping in touch over long distance. I have spoken to someone who plays nightly with their mother and brother across the country. They are closer now then they ever were. I have found some one else who plays one night a week with his in-laws. It has given him a chance to forge a strong friendship with his father in-law that he did not have before. I have found another family that plays together with their 6 year old child to teach him financial management, cooperation, and goal setting. I know of another woman who uses WoW to take her mind the chronic pain she felt as a result of a spinal injury. These are all really good things that happen in MMO’s.

One of the most telling stories I have discovered is that of an addict, a heroine addict. He used Star Wars Galaxies to overcome his addiction while his friends failed to do the same with rehab and methadone clinics. He was able to find new friends in the game who were not forcing him into unhealthy situations. In the end he credits these games with saving his life, and he is not other only one who used these games in that way. If I had to choose between a video game addiction and a heroine addiction, I would choose the games any day. I know there are people who would say not to fight one addiction with another, but many times it is a choice between life and death. While he played games constantly while he was getting off heroine, now he has his gaming and his life under control.

Before tobacco became cigarettes it was considered a powerful medicine by native people across all of the Americas. I have no doubt that many people would have credited it with saving their lives. Tobacco is not good or evil and neither are MMO’s. They both have their dangers, but they both have their benefits as well. It is all about how you use them. The movie I am making will tell both these stories. In the end MMOs are not going away. They are growing. They might very well represent the future of our society. That is why I am making this movie. I want to present a balanced view of MMO’s so people can decide for themselves whether or not to get involved.

I want to interview people who let MMO’s control their lives. Any number of stories on this forum communicate how powerful and dangerous these games are. If you would like to share your story to help others steer clear of game addiction, please get in contact with me. You can reach me at brauer@purewestmedia.com. If you have any questions about my company please visit my web page at www.pwdocs.com. This forum demonstrates the dangers of MMO’s like no other. It has really opened my eyes and changed the way I plan on making my film."

and more specifics about his request to interview people for his documentary:

"Looking at your blog has made me take gaming addiction way more seriously. I always knew it was real and problematic, but I never realized the scale of the problem until I read your blog. Also I realized that gaming addiction recovery was a phenomenon that a lot of people were experiencing. I knew I always wanted to talk about gaming addiction, but now I want to include much more about the subject.

I guess you can include my email in the post. I really want people to contact me if they are willing to be interviewed about their experience with addiction. I would especially like to find some one who is just beginning the process of quitting. I want to follow their story as they grapple with addiction."

2006-05-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I'm kind of in awe: Carl Sagan's son referring to eqdailygrind? Surreal. Incidentally (or not?), his sci-fi novel published in 2006 is called "Everfree".

And here's an interesting term I peaked off of the twoplustwo forum: Poopsock.

2006-05-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

"Dear eqdailygrind,

This is my story:

I am a student attending ... who has always been an industrious and ambitious person. Unfortunately, my boyfriend introduced me to Everquest and I played this with him because we could spend 'quality' time with each other. It was highly addictive, and I found myself skipping class to play and gain that extra level. It occupied all my time, and I couldn't do any chores in the house, all I did was eat and play. Studies were pushed to the night before the exam, and my academics slowed down. I started dropping classes and I was subject for dismissal, which means you can get kicked out of school. My hopes and dreams were smashed. Several times I tried to quit but my boyfriend wouldn't let me. I was angry that he introduced me to MMORPG in the first place, and now he won't even let me quit until we reached the maximum level. But I think deleting the character doesn't work, because the game haunts you. All I could think about was playing. Finally, I came to a point where I thought, is my future really worth gaming all my life? Do I intend to sit in front of the computer all day, at my parent's home, until I'm in my 30s? No. So I told my boyfriend, I will break up with him if he doesn't quit, and we decided to work it out. Now, I have successfully quitted Everquest and my boyfriend plays much rarely. The key is to realize that gaming is AN ADDICTION. You need to sit down and realize it's not YOU who's playing anymore, it's the ADDICTION talking, the ADDICTION playing. I have succeeded, and you can too."

2006-05-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

"Well, after playing 2 years. I finally did it. I quit WoW. I deleted my characters, my WoW, and my subscription. My friends asked me why I deleted all of the characters, and I told them the sad truth. I had to. The game is addicting, and it is hard to pull away from, even for the short bit that I did recently to quit. If I didn't delete them, I would reinstall, and resubscribe to pay my money to Blizzard. Docking in 60 hours a week of the game, while I was still in highschool, I realised, atleast for a moment, was way too much. So I immediatly pulled the plug while I had the clarity. Now I can go out every weekend, see my friends more, and actually do my schoolwork. And I can say that I do this, without really meaning 'Yeah, I went to the movies once last month... or maybe it was the month before that.'"

Finally free of this technological Heroine"

2006-04-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

"my husband ... plays Everquest. He stopped for a while before we were married (I threatened to leave) I thought this was a video game? It seems that all his free time is wrapped up in it.
I just want to cry.
Can you offer any help or information. He gets livid when I suggest time constraints or quitting. We had a baby 7 months ago and he sits her on his lap while he plays and calls this his quality time. Are we forcing him into this world? As a former participant was it the lack of a satisfying reality that caused your retreat to a virtual world?"

2006-04-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

A new email from the one who brought you "I don't really. I just play it." (thanks!)

[Some of the comments contain profanity - you are hereby warned...]

"I sent an email about WoW to my best friend and my little brother, because I like to keep in contact with crazy things that I dredge up. It concerns some 'player justification' about playing MMORPGs after the famous death of Snowly. There are plenty of addicts stories that I know of - including especially your excellent blog! - but what I want to find out more about is what players say about continuing to play even thought they know of the problems to do with the games, in order that I may construct my essay.
Also in this email is stuff about the recent ambushed funeral controversy. I thought about cutting it out because I am pretty sure you'll know all about it, but there's an offchance it may add to your understanding of the issue. Or you may not even know about it. If the latter is the case, I am sorry for introducing you to this rather questionable example of online life.

This is the text of the email I sent:

Remember when the person behind the character 'Snowly' died playing World of Warcraft? Have just found this interesting blog post about it:

However, I don't see this as a reason to bash these games. Clearly the addictive nature of these games are a risk from a productivity and health perspective, but I think that the sense of responsibility and teamwork that is built by the games exceeds this cost...
http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/11/04/funeral_in_world_of_warcraft.html

I found that page because I was looking out for the recent 'ambushed funeral'
controversy. Here is what happened:
http://cvirus.foolab.org/?p=33
"Apparently, some dude dies in real life who is a popular World of Warcraft player. The people in the game think it would be nice to have a memorial for the player so they log into his account, take the character to a lake, and set it up for everyone to come pay their respects.
"A bunch of dudes decide this would be a great time to ambush everyone so they run over a hill, kill the dead guy’s character, and then wipe out everyone who was there to show their respects. They filmed the whole thing and put it on the net for everyone to see.
"Here’s the Video … ITS FUCKEN HILARIOUS :D LOOOOOOOOOL :D"

Some comments from that page:
"that was the fucking best video ever. those funeral bitches got pw000ned like the n00bs they are. fuck them and fuck their dead video game friend. my condolences to the real dead person though."
"That video rocked. The MMO community is the worst in gaming, and I’m not referring to the guys who raided. They rock for teaching those MMO-obsessed no-lifers a hard lesson about how video games and real life should never mix, and all people who feel the least bit of sympathy for the morons who had their little boohoo sob story broken up need to get off of the internet once in awhile."
"hahaha, i think tis the funniest goddam thing iv ever seen. how pathetic really aswell.. holding a virtual funeral. yes i feel for the victim but really… how
nerdish can u get.."

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=212276
"See, I'm an actual WoW player and i'm in two halves about this. One half of me says that it was cruel, disrespectful and completely distasteful - someone died after all! I've seen the aftermath of this and everything, there's an even bigger file around. The memorial took place after the ambush happened again anyway. One the other hand, i thought it was superb, especially the video we just saw and its editting. I'd be lying if i said i didn't at least chuckle. If i knew someone who had died in the game and there was a memorial, i'd definitely attend, no doubt, just as a sign of respect for something that they were clearly passionate about before their passing. But game or no game, people have completely overlooked the fact that someone actually died in real life...that's the saddest part about it."

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=313557dbfa5adbd8aab43be72942e2ea&t=255837
"IIRC part of the motivation for the attack was that the horde repeatedly requested that the alliance not interfere. People who pvp and grief and stuff really can't resist attacking someone who is begging them not to."

What this last post says is that "it's hard not to crash a virtual funeral when you've been asked not to do it". Just like "it's hard not to break the law against murder when people keep reminding you"."

2006-04-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

New email, short'n sweet: "Reading your blog inspired me. I logged onto my main character and tabulated the total time played in terms of 40 hour work weeks. I've spent 5 months of 40 hours/wk playing my main character in WoW. I just deleted all my characters, gold, game files, and destroyed the CDs."

2006-04-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

"... mine and my husbands story is almost identical to the March 14th post. We both found it incredibly eerie that I happened to run across this post and how closely it resembles our own story.

We have been married 10years. My husband has always been a gamer, I did not realize how much so when we got married as he didnt have a computer or playstation of his own while we dated. We shared an interest in Arcade games having grown up in a time when they were comming into their own. It was a fun thing for us to do together on dates. Both of us had the original cartrige Atari games in our home growing up and spent more than our fair share of allowances in Arcades. (hehe, anyway...I digress)

We got married and within about 6months had purchased our own computer. It was almost instantly a problem in our relationship. I tried nagging and begging for time with him which sometimes worked better that other times. As time went on we have had three beautiful children and he was missing so much with them and with me. I also was a child of divorce and did not consider that an option for us. His gaming did not effect his work for the most part so we were financial secure.

In 2004 he noticed that Star Wars had come out with an online game and that I had somewhat of an interest in that. He went and purchased it for both of us and we started playing together. At first I was a casual player and still resented much of the time he was spending on the game. Then at some point between the online chat and finnally moving my character up to a level where I could have some fun and making some credits to spend I got hooked. I really felt like if I cant beat'em join'em and started playing excessively.

Eventually I was approached by another character and we started an online affair. We created toons on another server so we could be alone and on that server I started meeting new people. I felt more of a freedom on this new server because I knew that no one there knew I was married in real life and it wouldn't get back to my husband. I fell into a cycle of meeting people and engaging in online sexual chat with them. I had all sorts of justifications for my behavior "he should have never gotten me involved in this game" "he has had his own struggles with porn on line in the past." Whatever I could think of to make myself feel better about it. One of the people I met asked me if I was married in real life and I was honest and said yes. He saw that I was following on a path that he had traveled on and was still trying to get off of and warned me that what I was doing could lead to me losing my husband and my children. His wife had just left him and taken his two girls with her. You know, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but until this incredibly insightful and bold person spoke that truth that directly to me, I just hadn't thought through the possible consequences of my actions.

I knew I couldn't stop on my own and wasn't sure where to turn, I had so isolated myself from most of my friends durring this time. I ended up going to a councelor who of corse told me I had to tell my husband what I had been doing. It took me six weeks to finally agree to do so, that was this past January and a week before our 10th anniversary. I just thought, if he wants to spend 10more years with me then I want him to do so with the full knowledge of what I had been doing, and if it meant the end of our marriage, then I would have to accept that consequence as well. My husband was more gracious than I deserved and we have been working on restoring our relationship since that time.

He has not been willing to admit to his own addiction though and has continued playing. We had quit playing the StarWars game for two months then one night a couple of weeks ago we watched one of the Star Wars movies with my son and it was a total 'trigger' for me. I told him how much I missed it, and of course he missed playing with me. He said do you think you could play without flirting, I said I think so. So we reloaded the game and I was oh so wrong, I went right back to my old style of flirting. I told him and this time he was a bit more angry, but glad I had told him so quickly.

When I read him the March 14th post last night the story rang so true with him. What she said about her husband being with the family but only a shadow of himself, he said, you know, lets see what happens in the house with no computer games for three months. This was an incredibly HUGE statement for him to make. I dont know if we will make it three months, we actually decided to go to a Celebrate Recovery group to get some support for our addiction. Last night was our first class and we felt a little silly sitting next to drug addicts whose lives have been devistated with their addictions, but we truly feel if we dont take some serious steps, our family would become another statistic.

To people that don't get addicted to gaming, I am sure it seems silly, I mean it is just a game. But, for people that have been effected by it, the effects are as damaging as any other addiction. We both had parents with addictive personalities and this is not the first area in our own lives where we have shown weakness to addictions. It is time for us to say enough is enough and get healthier coping mechanisms that we can pass on to our own children. Thank you for listening to my ramblings, this turned out to be much longer than I had planned. I wish you the best of luck on your study and will be looking for ways to help people in our own area."

2006-03-31T13:13:00.000-08:00

Dungeons & Dragons Ad...

2006-03-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

A practical philosophy view on "I don't really. I just play it."
It pretty much hits the nail on the head about a number of things. One thing struck me as something I hadn't thought about before: is playing when you're not really enjoying escapism to the extent of a quasi-suicide? Thanks to Tom for his email and this post.

2006-03-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

You know it's becoming mainstream when it shows up in Slashdot...

2006-03-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't noticed, the March 14 post now has added content: All my thanks goes to the couple who allowed me to post both their insights through their individual posts.

2006-03-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

"... I have been in a realtionship with my addict for several years.In the beginning he was attentive, available etc.The game was always present in some way but not to the extent it is now.When he quit EQ a year and a half ago-I was estatic.I really truly believed that it was the end of his dependence and I was overjoyed that he did it on his own accord.The aftermath is he picked up WOW instead.He recently quit his job and plays from the minute he wakes up till he goes to sleep.If I'm lucky we hsve short coversations when I get home from work-maybe eat dinner at his desk (while Teamspeak is going and the game), and occasionaly when he doesn't have a raid we might hang out for a hour.Lately as minimal as this sounds as far as interaction..its sunk to a whole new low.When I'm at his house he barely speaks to me..and has sunk deeper into his depression.Our one hour that we used to spend watching TV has vanished,we don't eat together,we fight constantly and our sex life has drastically declined.Not to mention last week when I got really sick-he did NOTHING.He also did NOTHING when I had allergic reaction ....His response when I let him know that I was having a severe allergic reaction and I was waiting to hear back from the on-call Dr was..'If you need me to quit my raid you better tell me know because if you tell me later I'll be letting 40 people down in my guild.' It was devasting that in the midst of my crisis now I knew that I couldn't lean on him and that "THE GAME" and "THE GUILD" was far more important than me."

2006-03-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

"I've never been with a "gamer" before, so I wasn't familiar with what it truly meant to be one, but I knew enough to know I didn't want to be with one.

The first date I had with my boyfriend (of almost a year)he had told me that he "use to be a gamer", but that he had stopped playing his online games because he didn't like what he became when he was addicted. He said he'd play 8-12 hours a day when he didn't have a job, he couldn't get away from the computer. He said he wouldn't even sleep. He played EQ, WOW, and some other game, I can't remember what it's called. He told me he was past that part of his life and he didn't miss it.. plus he had a job now.

Skip five months into the future. We are eating lunch and he tells me, "I'm starting to have a craving to play EQ again". He said that he had been missing it for a few weeks now, but was scared to tell me because he knew I would be worried. He gave me a 30 minutes speech about how much fun it would be if we could "play together like a team" and "how he loves team oriented activities", etc. After spending a few hundred bucks on the equipment my older computer needed to play it, we both signed up, created our characters and started playing.

At first I thought, 'I will act totally addicted and maybe this would scare him and then he'll want to stop'... so, I did just that, and bam... I got semi addicted. I say "semi" addicted because I could tear myself away from it, but, on the weekends I wanted to play from 10am to 2am the next morning... keep in mind - I have no kids or work on the weekends... so, I wasn't hurting anybody but myself by playing. My boyfriend did get a little worried, which is what I was wanting, but he didn't want to stop. I burned out VERY quickly from playing after about 2 months, I would play for an hour and get up from the computer and walk away. He would work on his tradeskills for hours.. he saw that I was losing interest but didn't get upset over it.

We moved to a new apartment and the internet couldn't be turned on for 2 weeks. I was so happy.. We played board games, watched movies, went to park, and had a great time!! Even after the internet came back up, we didn't play for 5 months!! That's right!! (we did get on twice and played for about an hour both times).. but, that wasn't much to me.

But, we were having problems throughout the last two months.. because during those 5 months he HAD to be playing something on the computer.. Some type of game... ROME, SIMS, and a whole bunch of other games... though it wasn't EQ, it was gaming. It got to the point of - I would be downstairs watching TV and he would be upstairs playing his games. When I ask him to come downstairs with me, he would say, 'why don't you come upstairs with me?' He would compare my watching TV to his addiction of playing games. We started fighting a lot!

Finally last week he asks me, "can we start Playing EQ again?" So, in a desperate need to want to actually make him happy and feel like a couple again I said, "yes", and we've been playing every night. Not for too long, but for about 4 hours a night after dinner.

Now he is happy again. Our relationship, and I hate to say it, but our sexual relationship too, is suddenly existing again! Before I felt like we were just friends living together, now it feels like we are a couple, but I realize, it's only because of the game. It's like I'm getting "rewarded" for playing with him and being his little monkey or something!

I do love him, but I pose the question of - do I want to marry a gamer? Do I want to have kids with him? He bought me an engagement ring and has it, but I told him I'm not ready yet.

The good things are, that he doesn't blow off family functions, birthdays, parties, dinners, etc to play.. he does have SOME other priorities, but he doesn't help out around the house at ALL.. he just eats, sleeps, and plays his games.

My sister says I should count myself lucky that he's not off at tiddy bars or cheating on me! But her husband is a MAJOR gamer, not ever wanting to leave the house and she is miserable!! I refuse to be miserable like she is.

Apparently he isn't done being a gamer, and according to his friends, he's been this way for YEARS... since they've known him! (Over 8 years)"

2006-03-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a very unique post - how often do we get to see both sides of a story?

Husband's Story:
"I've been married for nearly ten years now and was an avid gamer for about nine of them. I played some Ultima Online, created many characters in Dark Age of Camelot including one that went to level 50 (the highest at the time), and most recently had characters in World of Warcraft.

My wife tried nagging. She once swung the keyboard against the monitor and then threw it down the stairs. She started watching Oprah and Dr. Phil obsessively. She was depressed and lonely. Then one day she started using our ... son's World of Warcraft account. In a matter of days she was as addicted as I'd ever been.

At first I thought this was wonderful. Now I too could game as much as I wanted. She had finally come to appreciate what I had been enjoying without her.

Soon chores around the house were not being done at all. Our two kids were ignored most of the time. Her mother told me she could tell our son was neglected by how shy and withdrawn he was acting whenever she saw him. My wife had difficulty taking him to his speech therapy class for one hour a week and told me she spent a lot of time glancing repeatedly at the clock while there.

I came home from work to hear 'hi' from the computer room. She didn't get out of the game to hug or talk with me even for a few minutes. It got worse. She found herself flirting regularly with a few guys in the game. One was about my age, married with his own kids, and a virtual affair began.

At this point I became insanely jealous. I stopped playing the game. I tried to arrange fun family activities and ended up doing them without her. Our marriage was breaking down fast and I was becoming paranoid of her online relationships.

I tried gaming again, thinking if I got an online girlfriend she would get jealous and quit with me. She encouraged me to play with an online girl and didn't seem to care at all.

I started a cloak and dagger routine to find out what was going on. She changed passwords on the computer so I couldn't get on it. I formatted the hard drive. She had the locks changed while I was at work (but later let me in). I uninstalled the game and threw away the game disks in a dumpster a half mile from our house. She threatened divorce and made me borrow the game disks from a friend to reinstall the game.

We had several heated discussions about not flirting online. She agreed not to. She promised she wouldn't.

A couple of weeks went by and she was still gaming as much as ever. I didn't trust that she was keeping her promise. I had a friend write a keystroke logger and installed it on the computers.

I still remember the evening she went to pickup the kids from a friend's house and told me, as she left, "You're starting to trust me again, aren't you?" with a smile on her face. This was the first day the keystroke logger had been running.

I went to read the log while she was away. I was devastated. She had a virtual meeting with her online boyfriend around lunchtime that day. She told him that the only thing that would 'get her off quick' was if I showed up at the house for lunch....'

My heart fell through my feet. I felt betrayed by my wife for the first time in our marriage. I called my dad and asked him what I should do. She arrived back at the house while I was talking to him. I tried to hide my feelings, keep my knowledge secret, but she knew something was wrong and pursued it.

I read her a printout of what she had written and watched the color drain from her face. The online boyfriend ... and she was planning to take a trip with the kids ... in a couple of weeks (while I stayed in town to work). Trust was gone.

At this point I scheduled vacation, went with the family to .... We spent one night on a date while in-laws watched our kids. We went to a fancy seafood restaurant and stayed at an ocean-side hotel. The entire meal and evening we fought about the game.

I scheduled appointments with a counselor. Some visits I went alone, sometimes she came with. She always defended her right to play the game (against the counselor's advice). Eventually, with many discussions between us and one mutual confidant, she stopped playing except for one night a week. She promised, again, not to flirt. She said she wouldn't play with her online boyfriend anymore. However, she kept a couple of guy friends she had previously flirted with--played with them on her one night a week.

In December, she gave up the game. It was no secret how miserable I was every time she had her weekly game night. I was doing chores, cooking with her, dishes, bathrooms, anything I could think of to convince her that I loved her with all my heart and didn't want to lose her.

It has now been over three months since she played the game. Our marriage is, in her words, "the best its ever been." She has told me she didn't know it could ever be this good. She has also sworn off the game and has no plans to return to it.

It was a strange twist of fate that her playing the game got me to quit."

Wife's Story:
"I am ...[his] wife. ... encouraged me to post my side of our story. Our intention is to help in any way we can those of you in pain. I won't go into all the hurt of the addiction- reading some of your messages I'm sure you all understand that 9 years of my husband's addiction did cause a lot of pain.

He didn't understand when I'd tell him he was not "present" even when he wasn't physically playing the games. It seemed he was bored and wishing he was playing still. You may sense this in your addicted spouse- it is true, I felt the same way when I was addicted. Also, he thought it was controlling that I wanted him to WANT to be with us. His heart and mind were still in the game, we knew that is where he wanted to be, and we had a shadow of him. I knew this, but now that he is back in our lives I really understand the difference of how that feels. The kids know he wants to spend time with them, and now they run to meet him at the door. And, having him back in our marriage is amazing. I told him right before I began playing WOW that I was tired, really tired, of being the one pulling our marriage along. We are both back now pulling, and in many ways just enjoying the ride. It feels like we reached a summit that was hard as hell, and now we are just kind of enjoying the view.

A few months before I began WOW, I did decide to just live my life. I couldn't leave him, I had terrible guilt (being a child from a divorce). I was stuck, but I really stopped caring. That's the only way to describe it. I stopped nagging and begging him to be part of our lives- I told him that I'd let him know what we were doing and he could decide if he wanted to come. Invariably he decided to game. I still missed him terribly sometimes- seeing other whole families out recreating together, our children doing "firsts" without their daddy. And, I remember asking him "Why does this bother me more that it does you? I know some day you are going to regret this- and I'm so sad for the pain that you are going to feel when you do." I couldn't leave, but he had already left. I was a single mom in most ways- and I'd ask him to divorce me, and have all the free time he wanted. To let me go. But, there was no reason for him to do that- he was living like a bachelor, with someone to cook and clean for him. Luckily, his work never suffered from his gaming addiction, and so at least I didn't have the financial worries of a single mom.

I understand now this games addiction. It is an escape. From pain, and just from reality. From day to day normalcy. During my "obsession" with Dr. Phil and Oprah, Dr. Phil had a show about hobbies v.s. addictions. And he said that hobbies add to your life, addictions take away from it. These games are not like going running or having a girls night out. You come back from those filled up, less stressed, more engaged in your life. These games I think become your life, or at the least, the boundaries become very unclear. I had people in the game type sometimes my "real life" in a sarcastic away, because our lives were being spent, to a large extent, in the game. It was exciting and fun to go on adventures, to be single (my character wasn't married after all), free. ... had a girl friend, and I had a boy friend in the game. And flirted with others. It was the state of our marriage, and the game together that resulted in this I think. I do not fear any more that if I went back to WOW that I would flirt - that was filling an emptiness and a void in my life. I loved the attention. But, despite ... saying it wouldn't be painful for him for me to game again, now that we have rebuilt trust, I refuse to go back. I lost me in there. I was a great mom, it was the thing I felt like I was good at, and I was almost perfectionist about it. I was loyal and committed to my marriage. What you all need to understand is- your addicted spouses are not themselves. You are not talking to them- you are talking to the addiction.

I think ...'s ultimatum was an amazingly strong thing to do. One I couldn't do, but I should have done. You love your spouses, don't let them waste their lives in the game. Wake them up at all costs. ... might have lost me- the game or him he said. But he knew he couldn't live with me addicted. He knew our kids were not better off with me addicted. He gave me back to myself and I am so grateful. You must be prepared to deal with symptoms of withdrawal (if they choose you)- it was scary how real they were. I felt like I was coming off something. I slept for almost a whole weekend straight. And cried when I was awake. I was scared of being lonely again, felt controlled and unaccepted (because I was the game after all), and thought it was incredibly unfair that my gaming husband was telling me not to game, after all the years. I was angry. He was there for me completely. Dealing with the pain of our past, going to counseling (first time he wanted to be there), accepting responsibility for his part in the root causes of my addiction. If he had met me at that point with self-righteousness, blame, defensiveness, it would probably have been over. I needed him to understand not just what I had done, but why- and that some of that was him. And to be gentle with me. Because, as asinine as it sounds, the guilt I felt about what I had done to those in my real life with the gaming addiction made me want to run full speed back to the game. And, in the game, I felt justified and normal. Look at all these people in here, they get me, they understand. They know the flirting is "just the game" as one after the other would agree with me. It is the "safe way" to flirt we would all agree. It was a place of belonging, an unhealthy place but still. And, being ripped from that was devastating. I went cold turkey, not willingly- I no longer had the game or the characters, or even the internet. ... and I took a couple trips.... We made our marriage and family top priority- over friends, over extended family, work, everything. He really tried to re-focus me on my goals and interests before I gamed. I looked at scrapbooks of my kids and tried to re-connect with them, even before I dealt with all my chores and to-do's that had been neglected. I took them out to museums and on walks- took them to the town ... and I lived when we were newlyweds. I listened to lots of music while I was home during the day- the silence was deafening. Both our kids are old enough to have friends over almost every day and I had no idea what to do then. Its funny now because as I'm writing this my life is so full again that I'm worried I've spent way too much time in here, I have so much to do. Also, I re-discovered what I need that the game was giving- adult interaction, adrenaline (really, quests and duels do give you that), time off from all the work of day to day.

In the end though ... knew he had to give me the choice to quit. Because I hadn't really chosen us. He had taken the choice way. He re-installed the game about a month after we had stopped. I committed to once a week gaming and no flirting- I changed servers and had no contact with the guy I had lied to ... about- after we had agreed before not to flirt, and I still did. This time no flirting was easy- I felt loved and listened to in real life. Even gaming once a week was fairly easy. I don't think I could have stuck with an hour a day- everytime you log in you get sucked in for awhile, it will be more than an hour. Also, limiting it kept it straight in my mind- that this is a game, not my life. Still, he worried about it and it was still bringing my real life partner and love pain. I chose us. I was still angry and sad. Because I had been being "good". But I had hurt him with this game, he had a right to feel however he felt when I played it. I quit. And, every time I remember how fun it was and miss it- all I have to do is remember all I was missing out on, all the pain I caused, focus on that and I know I will never play again. I mean, I was rushing my kids night time prayers because my friends were waiting to go do a quest.

We are so thankful we walked the razor edge of losing it all to addiction- and somehow we made it back. I wish you all strength and patience; it is a hard road both if you choose to continue putting up with it, or if you challenge the addiction."

2006-03-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

"I play a game called city of heroes. Untill recently I haven't been a 'gamer'. I bought coh at the end of December. My playing has gotten out of control. My behavior is unlike me. My friends have stopped calling. I haven't seen them in months. I live alone so my new behavior has progressed without anyone protesting. I don't have a roommate or wife to drag me away. I sleep, work, and play. There isn't time for anything else. I feel horrible. I am at work now and I feel like I just want to crawl into a cave. When I play I feel OK. When I don't play I am a mess. I feel silly talking about this. I have always been a social person untill recently. I want to find a way to modderate my playing. I keep saying that I will but then I put it off. Tomorrow I will modderate, today I am going to play. I just want one more level. etc. I don't know what to do. If you have any words of wisdom or if you have been where I am drop me a line."

2006-03-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

"Dinner (gotta eat), Movies (appt only please), helping out (when asked). You are not alone. Even though he does these things, I can tell his mind is "elsewhere". I'm doing (or done) my duty, can I go back to playing now? My marriage was 5 months when this started.... What will we do? I am trying to pull away a little so it doesn't hurt so bad. It's the only way I can survive. Is this right? Probably not, but we don't always do the smartest thing when we're in survival mode....

I've talked to him about it. He said he saw part of it, he had been overly obsessed... He seemed to work on trying to spend more time with me. I quit nagging and we are back on the same path again, a little more play time each day. I give up (at least for now). If he's happy with his pixels, I should be happy for him. He is currently the only breadwinner (in a job he HATES) as my business has not quite yet got off the ground, so he should enjoy his free time. This is the way I am struggling to look at it. Many nights I sneak out of bed to go outside and cry so I can get out the anger and get some sleep. I try to wake up with a pleasant tone and try to behave myself and not get angry all day in hopes that he will want to spend time with me (after all who wants to spend time with someone who is always in a bad mood?) and not just feel like he's fulfulling some tedious duty. That's what I've become, a duty, not a desire. I'm trying to do things on my own without waiting for him, it's hard, I want him there so bad. I'm working on it, trying to make him happy in hopes that one day, he'll want to make me happy again, not feel the need to keep me pacified so I quit being b$$tchy."

2006-03-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

Would you like to be studied?

Wanted: Boston Area Gamer Wives & Girlfriends (just a cautionary note: this is part of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Sex in Games SIG)
"I'm a college professor (and avid gamer :-) in the Boston-area starting a research project about the wives and girlfriends of male gamers, particularly (but not exclusively) MMORPG gamers. I'm interested in how the romantic partners of gamers negotiate/tolerate/cope with the time their husbands/boyfriends spend gaming. This spring I hope to conduct several group interviews during which I can listen to 4-5 women talk/rant/bitch about life with a gamer. Interviewees will remain anonymous in the final project and participants will be fed well for a couple hours of their time. Any leads are greatly appreciated, and my credentials will be sent to serious inquires. Thanks!"

2006-03-08T14:14:00.000-08:00

It's not that there aren't any new stories, I just have not had the time to sit down and scan the stories for the past 2 weeks, so my apologies for that - I should find some time towards the weekend. Meanwhile, here is this month's briefing by DFC Intelligence titled: Who Will Benefit from the Growth of Online Game Subscription Revenue?

And this: The daily grind: when playing turns into work

Meanwhile, as usual, please take good care of yourselves :)

2006-02-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

Humans ignore the evidence of their own eyes to create a fictional stable world
aka
In certain circumstances people do not even notice if a room grows to four times its size via Pasta&Vinegar

"The Virtual Reality Research Group in Oxford used the latest in virtual reality technology to create a room where they could manipulate size and distance freely. They made the room grow in size as people walked through it, but subjects failed to notice when the scene around them quadrupled in size. As a consequence, they made gross errors when asked to estimate the size of objects in that room.
(…)
These results imply that observers are more willing to adjust their estimate of the separation between the eyes or the distance walked than to accept that the scene around them has changed in size,’ says Dr Glennerster. ‘More broadly, these findings mark a significant shift in the debate about the way in which the brain forms a stable representation of the world. They form part of a bigger question troubling neuroscience – how is information from different times and places linked together in the brain in a coherent way?’"

Why the heck am I posting this?
Well, I automatically started pondering about the implications of this finding... what might this mean with regards to any experiences in a virtual world? How many of our perceptions and deductions made in virtual space are "adjusted" by ourselves without our own awareness?

2006-02-22T06:53:00.000-08:00

"I play World of Warcraft. Yes, I am the enemy. I play the game and I enjoy it. before I played WoW, I played Everquest and before that, Ultima Online and a multitude of other games you probably all hate on down to character based MUDs back in the late eighties and early nineties. I like computer games.

That said, I recognize I spend far too much time playing these games. I'm single, 36, never married. I'm very overweight. I work as a computer programmer and I generally excel at my job. I started to think I was playing too much and started looking around for support and found this group.

Part of what you maybe don't realize about why there is such a draw to these games for your significant other is because the game is full of people like them. People that play all the time. People that realize they are playing all the time. We joke about it. People that sleep at night are slackers. As much as Everquest Widows is a support group for you, the game is a support group for us. When one of you complains to your significant other that he/she is not spending time with you, we joke that he/she has wife or girlfriend aggro (aggro being an in game term that means a monster is attacking you) and that he/she needs to work on wife or girlfriend faction (a tedious in game task involving repeatedly killing the same monsters over and over to gain favor with other in game personalities).

The posts that strike me the most ... are the ones that talk about suing Sony or spying on your significant others. Suing Sony because your significant other plays too much Everquest is like blaming McDonald's for fat people or blaming gun manufacturers for robberies. Sony and Blizzard and all the other MMO game makers are not the cause of your problems. My advice for those of you wanting to spy on your significant others, who want to know what they are saying in game, who want to be able to change their passwords and delete their characters is pack your bags and leave now. A relationship is nothing without trust.

You want your significant others back? Find out what is driving them to stay in the game because its not the game itself. Their are plenty of people that play the game and have healthy relationships, not that I'm one of them. For me, it's pretty easy, I don't have a SO and losing weight is really freaking hard (at least for me it is). Talk to your SO about the game or, god forbid, play it with them. I can tell you one of the things we gamers all drool over is the ever elusive gamer chick. Learn the game! If I saw someone trying to meet me halfway about something I really enjoy it would give me alot of incentive to meet that person halfway with their interests and needs. I think if someone we're just giving me a hard time about the game the stubborn streak in me would just make me want to play it more. We really like to talk about the game. Aside from all the time we spend in game playing it, most of us spend as much time reading and talking about it outside the game. Be the person we talk to about it. As time goes on maybe he or she will realize that the satisfaction derived is not coming from the game at all but from the interaction with you.

My post is not meant to be offensive to anyone. I realize many of you are in very different situations than I am as married people often with children. I'm struggling with the time I put into the game, but I do enjoy it."

2006-02-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

Every now and then someone comes along with a story, goes away and returns with a life update that has become one of contentment and happiness. In this case, thanks to going through the struggles and re-evaluating his life, he's still pursuing a medical career, working full-time and feeling like he's a good role model to his kids. Updates like these provide a little spark of happiness and hope to you, too, I hope.

2006-02-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

Have a look at this article from Terra Nova: World of Warcraft is the New Golf. and the associated "Power lunching with wizards and warriors".

Do I think that happens? Sure. Do I agree with it? Well, that answer coincides with my answer to the question "Do I like the fact that business deals are made on the golf course and in bars?"...

2006-02-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

Thank you.

2006-02-16T17:33:00.000-08:00

"Ok, I am a former EQ & EQ2 addict. I played EQ1 for over a year(this was way before I met my husband), I was even in the beta. 4 years after I quit I played EQ2 for about a year. If my husband tried to take me away on a romantic getaway while I was mired in my addiction I probably would have gone along but the ENTIRE time I would have been thinking about playing the game. Spend your money more wisely and get yourselves to marriage counseling. In my case, I played EQ1 because I was in a very controlling relationship with a man who would not let me leave the house alone among other things. When I finally escaped that relationship I quit EQ1. I went back to my addiction because I was missing something in my marriage that I thought I could find in fantasy land. I was lonely, had low self-esteem and was using the game as an escape from my husbands short temper. I finally left him while he was at work. I packed all my stuff in a U-Haul and headed across the country. He caught up to me halfway across the next state and begged me to come home. I logged on to EQ once after we got back to give away all of my items and say goodbye then I deleted the game from my system. We are BOTH working on our marriage now. I can bet you that if your partner is addicted to EQ it is because there are other issues that need to be addressed. And I'm not saying its the wids fault either. Just look deeper than the addiction if you want to try and solve the problem.

Also, you may want to try to replace EQ with an equally entertaining but FAR less addictive game like Morrowind. When I get the itch to play EQ (which is probably twice a month) I load my last save game of Morrowind and the game world is exactly as I left it. I don't have to obsess over it because when I'm not there, the world stops. One of the biggest problems with EQ is that it keeps going after you log off and you don't know what you might be missing out on. With an offline game you don't miss anything and if you die or screw up you can just load your last saved game and everything is fixed. There is also less pressure to keep leveling up so that you can continue to play with your guildmates because you are the only one there. And... brace yourself now... you can -pause- the game. I get all the saticfaction of hacking a monster to bits without all of the unnecessary stress."

2006-02-14T08:27:00.000-08:00

If you know someone who plays online games but feel you don't know / understand enough, here is an online magazine that may help: The Escapist. A interesting recent issue is #27, published on January 10th, 2006 titled "I Can Stop Playing Whenever I Want".

2006-02-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

"I used to be way addicted to Everquest. I was probably hooked on the game for over 2+ years playing around 6+ hours a day.

It was the cause for a massive amount of weight gain and also withdrawal from society as a whole.

I am everquest free for over a year now and I have lost over 130lb in one year and am in the best shape of my life. The folks that are hooked on everquest in my opinion are highly motivated and focused people. They just have to get their focus away from the game and on LIFE and living. It is a convenient escape and now I see it as a bunch of time that I wasted with zero return.

I look up and I am 27 years old and single. I could have met someone great by now and I lost a lot of time that I am paying for now to get back.

Hope someone finds this as an inspiration, because I know that if you have a loved one hooked on the game, please show them how if they focus their attention somewhere else that they can accomplish great things like I have.

I have never felt better, moved into a new house, and dating and having a blast in real life.

I still play video games, but its on MY schedule and usually only for about 30 minutes at a time and I can always put it down. My loved ones are always first."

2006-02-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

"I just wanted to say thanks for the blog. It helps put my problem in perspective, just seeing the stories is helpful to show that this is real. It's easy to say 'this is something I really like to do', instead of 'this is something I am obsessive about'. My story isn't as severe as the ones on your site, but I know I play way too much (3-4 hours+ /day)."

2006-02-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

"I am truly horrified and ashamed for the misery I must have put my life and kids through. I have been reading your posts for a while now and have cut down my game time to maybe 2 or 3 hours between my 2 days off but I must admit it is VERY difficult. I think I have neglected my kids and my wife and now realize that this has got to stop. I love my kids more than life itself and know now what I have to do. Before we married, my wife and I played a lot and even after my first daughter was born, she and I would still play for 8 to 10 hours strait with ... in my wifes lap, breastfeeding. As ... got older, my wife with all her mothering sense just stoped playing and soon it was only me. It is true, even after my second daughter, I have sat there playing while my wife was struggling with the kids and cooking and cleaning. Its a wonder I still have them around. Now, I make sure I love on both kids at least an hour or two a day after work and only play on my days off while the baby ... sleeps. I can only say now that I owe my wife more than just an apology. This valentines day will be the best, well second best (second daughters conception on valentines day 2 years ago ... was the best). I am going to announce that my EQ accounts are not going to be renewed (along with flowers, chocolates and love notes becuase I never forgot). Hard to forget a 2 year courtship ending one very memorable valentines day followed by a marriage in Las Vegas 2 weeks later. We eloped and I am planning to steal her away again, I hope. If I am not too late.... I am very foolish and only hope that I can be forgiven for my failings. I have an addictive personality and had to give up drugs for my wife and although at times crave them as I know I will the game, I can never go back. I feel like I have sworn off a whole set of friends who meant no harm but only got me in trouble. I am not sad though, I have my daughters and my wife ... who I know will fill my life with what I was always lacking. Reality."

2006-02-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

"It is strange isn't it-how we put up with this kind of stuff in the name of love. I am a true co-dependent. I came from an alcoholic family. I am so much against alcohol. When I found a man that didn't drink at all I thought I had the grand prize. He is a good man- his only fault is that dumb game that he plays to excess- It is funny but my shrink pointed out to me that I was with an addict- I did not see it as that- But it is the same. I don't think he can quit and the best thing for me to do is get out and move on. I have a good job-lots of friends, I am a very social person. I love people and I love life. He only wants to stay on that dumb game. He prefers cartoon characters to me and the kids. Since I blew my stack he has started getting off to eat with us when the kids are around but if they aren't home he eats at the computer-He does not even go to the bathroom. Anyway I am rambling but this is probably the saddest thing I have been through. To have to sit back and see a man waste his entire life away playing a game that will only cost him the family he says he loves. I do believe he loves us- I know he loves me but he lovesEverquest so much more. So what do I do? Right now I have given this to my higher power- I am living my own life the best way I can- he will not ruin me- Hopefully he will change but I don't see that happening.

...

I did leave for three weeks- He cried like a baby- I have my own home and for soem reason I have never sold it. So I came home went to work and stayed busy with my job, kids, friends etc. I was happy- I really was but there is this co-dependent in me. When someone needs me I go to go take care of them. It was Christmas time, family was coming so it was only supposed to be to put up a front for them. He was a good boy- we had a wonderful holiday, he did not play everquest- We had good quality family time and time with each other.So I went back and the New Years weekend on New Years eve he left me sitting while he played that game for over 12 hours. The next day I packed up and came home. He starts telling me how he will die without me. So I decided to only go see him on weekends ( which is when he really plays EQ) We made a compromise- see he says I am being unreasonable by complaining- he lets me do my thing- live my life. My life is normal- I work a full time job, go to aerobics three nights a week take care of a ... daughter, run three miles twice a week, and I go to Church. I visit friends and I have fun that I consider to be normal. I take care of him cleanhouse cook--- I do not play a game or do anything 12 hours a day and neglect him. So back to the compromise- He has to spend time with me and I will tell him when to get off that game. Well It worked for two weekends but the minute I come back to my house- he plays it non-stop until he goes to work. He looks like an addict when I see him- he needs a fix- So here I am. At my home trying to figure out what to do next. I love him- he is a good man- the only bad thing about him is this game- He loves the kids so much- is a good provider- has a good job and is totally unselfish about eveyhting but EQ. He seems to think it is real that he owes these fake people something. Anyway I will make a decison soon.... I will not look back. I can forgive but not forget the many times he has left me for that game. So he may just have to count on his guild to take care of him when he gets old and sick because the kids are tired of him and I am getting there."

2006-02-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here is an extended email communication with someone who has been on both of the issue:

"I sat down and started playing the game one day. At first he said "see honey, it's fun!!! But the first night he went to bed alone!!!!!! You would have thought the world was coming to an end. I was evil. The second time I got an "Are you gonna play that damn game all night" :) So what do you do? prove you are better than him and get up and go to bed or basque in the glory of his frustration? Well I got such a kick out of the whole thing I went to bed. Didn't even throw in a now you know how it feels (yet). I wanted to drag it out a while. When he didn't get dinner or have clean underwear? It got worse. The third time he went to bed alone we finally had it out. He got up at 3 am and I was still no the game. He threw a fit. It was the funniest thing. I was eating it up (probably not healthy but it felt good) Even when he was playing and got in bed at some ungodly hour I was there waiting. Now I have the nerve to let him go to bed alone! Hypocrite.

Anyway he got my point. He plays less and I still play sometimes. We are in the same guild so we play with the same people. At least we have something in common. 90% of our conversations are about armor, spells, or leveling up. But we talk now, a lot. We seem to "like" each other more.

I had decided "If you can't beat em, join em". May not have been the right answer. And I wouldn't even recommend it. I now understand how addictive it can be, and he understands how it feels to be on the outside and neglected (well as much as he is able to understand). But the only other option was divorce. I figured I would try this for a while.

The main difference now is I still work, cook, clean, do laundry and take care of the kids, play with the kids, etc. I play after they are in bed. I understand priorities and I make myself earn my play time. He hasn't gotten that point yet."

A follow-up email:

"I had to check out the site and the opening remarks about "if you think you are someone who can play eq responsibly.." made me think. Of course I do!!!!!!!!!!!!

At least I thought I was playing responsibly, in comparison to my husband I am, but after analyzing the situation further, in reality I'm not. I "try" to only play when the kids are in bed and usually only one or two nights a week and a little on the weekend, but if there is a HQ group scheduled or other event (and I am able to get HIM off the computer) then I'm there. To justify playing I would make myself "earn"
my play time. If I'm not playing EQ I'm cleaning or helping with homework or playing with the kids or doing his yard work. So I thought I had it under control. When he's not on he's laying on the bed watching TV. But my house isn't as clean as it used to be, the laundry pile is bigger than it used to be, the fridge really needs to be cleaned out, we won't talk about my car, I haven't taken the kids to the park or a movie in a while or to see their grandparents. So in just the few months I've been
playing "RESPONSIBLY" life has gone even farther downhill.

Anyway after reading the blogs yesterday I actually considered going home and just deleting my character. I don't want to be to my kids what he has been to me for the past year. I don't want them to feel what I felt before I started playing. I don't ever want them to think they don't come before the game. But I have a feeling in the past few months there have been a few times where they may have felt that way.

But, I didn't delete the character. I didn't play or have any desire to play last night (just one night). Baby steps right? I looked at him sitting in the chair from the time he got home to the time he went to bed. Not sure he even spoke to the kids, and I just thought how PATHETIC is that. Then I thought to myself..that was you Friday night. Did the kids stand behind me thinking the same thing?"

And her last email (I sent a response following her email but forgot to save it ... the gist of the message was about how it's not about stopping gaming but finding balance in life):

".... I actually feel better knowing I wasn't as in control as I thought and that I am going to do better. My husband plays so much that I really don't get on much but when I do I'll stay up till 1 am and then try to get up for work at 5 or 6. And If I wasn't on I was thinking about it. Thinking of excuses to go home from work early to get some uninterupted play time. It's crazy. Just glad that I've "hopefully" come to my senses. Didn't play again last night. Everyone went to bed early and I thought about it, but I didn't.

They put me in charge of our Heritage Quests. So I have a duty that I feel responsible for. I think that is what really drew me in I went from playing once in
a while to...I have to get on to see if they need something!! Update the web page, etc etc. They got along fine before I came and they will get along after.

It is a good escape so I am sure I still will play. I've never played video, computer or online games, so I can't believe I got sucked in so easily. My husband
has an addictive personality and has played games his entire life, he played 7 hour after he got home yesterday without pause, just tossed him his dinner and he was happy. I'm sure he is enjoying my decision to cut back though I haven't mentioned it. The kids are happier and kept busy, the house is clean, everyone is fed and he can enjoy his life in Norrath."

2006-02-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

For those who aren't tired of the

"MMOGs are EVIL!" -"No! It's your OWN FAULT" debate...

So far the most intelligent discussion of online gaming obsessiveness that I've seen. (based on this story)

Why can't we just all just simply agree that MMOGs' immersiveness encourages compulsiveness ?

2006-02-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

Hmmm... Google API, what to do, what to do... of course, it's natural to work on something that relates to your world... and for some, that world appears to be virtual.... Google Map of World of Warcraft

And if you need any further proof that WoW and MMOGs in general are becoming more mainstream:

-- WORLD OF WARCRAFT HITS EUROPEAN MILESTONE (February 6, 2006): "...surpassed the one million customer milestone in Europe, more than quadrupling the previously estimated size of the entire European MMORPG market since its launch in February 2005.... Worldwide, the game has a growing audience of more than 5.5 million customers..."

-- I recently saw a preview of a movie called "Stay Alive", about a group of teenagers who play this videogame and find out that they die when their characters die... well, the typical horror schlock movie. The plot summary and trailer can be be found at ComingSoon.net. I haven't figured out if the game is supposedly an MMOG or not but the friends seem to be playing it with each other over the Internet.

2006-02-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

From the WoW Forum:

"1. Serious Aggro Managers - The Guide.
1/17/2006 9:38:44 AM PST by Qil

We've all seen the threads, "Nerf Shamans", "Nerf Hunters", "Nerf so and so." Yea yea, this isn't one of those threads. If running while seeing only gray was as bad as it got, I wouldn't have sat down to tell you about the undisputed ruler of overpowered classes. You guessed it, the Wife.

I shall attempt to explain my strategy on dealing with this class, and discuss a bit about her skills. Let me tell you, she got skills you ain't seen yet. Molten Core, Onyxia, Ahn' Qiraj ...ppfffft. Easy Mode. Any noob with elite gear, buffs, and an army beside them can tackle the mobs in these places. But to truly rank as a Master Player in the World of Warcraft, you must find a way to handle the Wife or you WILL be PWNED without exception. PWNED as in "more than owned. Owned, you just pick yourself up after regaining consciousness. Wife PWNED: you have your mates collect your parts in a duffle bag.

Wife Strategies

Lets face it you and I both know that if you want to avoid a mob, you gotta manage to not draw their aggro. This is a simple and fundamental rule of WoW. So the first area we'll explore is:

Managing Wife Aggro
Things you must know about Wife aggro are:

The mob has a radius of about 100 feet, or the average maximum dimension of a standard house lot. Wife aggro doesn’t diminish if you're at a different elevation or behind a barrier. It sees through and around all obstacles. If you're on the same property, you may be drawing aggro and not even know it.

The Wife is essentially a patrol. You never know where they come from or how long their patrol lasts. They respawn with regularity. They change direction seemingly without pattern. And worst of all they vary their speed and areas of focus often. Basically, think unpredictable with a capital UN.

Here are some initial steps to reduce the Aggro radius.

Stealth: This is your basic tactic, and you should be in this mode at all times. Stealth mode is an art. It requires rapid use of the Alt-Tab key combination, volume control, and engaging in one of your primary or secondary professions quickly. Hear the garage door roll up? Quick say good-bye to your group, Alt-Tab, drink a mug of TV Sound Buffer, and begin channeling: Chore Diversion.

Chore Diversion: Once you have exited stealth mode and you are within the radius of Wife Aggro, Chore Diversion is clearly your best option for minimizing Wife Aggro. The easiest of these is Dish Management. A few quick steps toward your nearest stack of dishes, some moderate clanking noises and a quick /How was your day? is almost a foolproof method to maintain minimal aggro. I try to keep dishes in stacks of 10 nearby so that I'll always have the ability to channel Chore Diversion at a moments notice.

Other notable subclasses of Chore Diversion include:
Blessing of Laundry Management.
Aura of Dusting.
Focus of Dog Brushing.
Stinky Trash Launch.
Cone of Bathroom Facilities Maintenance.

As a side note here there are really only two professions you can take to be even passable at Wife Aggro management. Herbalism is great because picking weeds is always a good chore diversion and can be done at just about any time. Enchanting is the most popular with the elite Wife Aggro managers, because fixing stuff up goes a long way in reducing Wife aggro. It takes more time to do, and it's much harder to Feign Enchanting when coming out of Stealth mode, but give it some time and you'll find that this works almost as good as Seduction.

Subtlety: Subtlety is similar to Stealth but you are able to continue questing at a much slower pace with significantly added danger. This can be done when the Wife is on the phone, in the shower, or other thing that take you completely out of the Wife aggro radius for intermittent times. If the Wife is about to embark on an exercise regime, you may have 1/2 hour or more to quest before the Wife aggro radius envelopes you once again. Trust me, you better be able to stealth and channel Chore Diversion quickly my friend. Hot key these now.

Dinner Sap: This is one of the specialized elite Wife aggro control skill but it can only be used at night and has about a 24 hour cool down. It's another channeled skill and it will take you out of combat for at least an hour. However once you're done you will be well fed and your wife will be in a stunned state (lasts usually 1/2 hour to 2 hours, depending on getting a Wine Crit during channeling.

Long Walk Mind Control: This skill is often used directly after the Dinner Sap. It takes a considerable amount of skill to do this effectively and requires the ability to employ the right emote at the right time during the Long Walk. Let's just say, you definitely need to throw down a /hug if the Wife tells you of a particularly troubling event during the day. A poorly timed /lol will land you in the Dog House after a Stink Eye crit faster that you can say "Honey?" We'll discuss these Wife Elite Skills further later on. Ultimately the Long Walk Mind Control is used as a precursor to getting the wife to take care of some of her own business immediately after and allowing you some time to employ subtlety and play for an hour or two.

Seduction: This is a skill that you now have racked up enough combo points for and you are hoping for a massive crit. Assume (correctly) that you get a combo point for each of the previously used skills of Stealth, Subtlety, Chore Diversion, Dinner Sap, and Long Walk Mind Control. Take those 5 combo points and use 'em quick. You only have about an hour after the Long Walk Mind Control to use Seduction before the combo points start to fade so don't wait on this skill to long. Buff with Light of Candle, and always repair and clean your armor. If possible, use Seduction, kite, then Seduction so that you can throw down Chain Seduction for as long as you have mana.

If you are lucky enough to get a crit while chaining Seduction, you may get the Wife to Sleep (you've just landed a crit). This will allow you time for your mana bar to regen, and you may get 6 to 8 hours of late night play time. If you're like me, this is the best time to attempt an instance. That sleep is usually sound and won't break for a good long time. Keep little adds and patrols controlled once you land one of these.

Vacation AoE Channeling: Much like saving for a mount or that killer piece of armor, you're going to have to save up for the ultimate in expensive Wife Aggro Management tool, the AoE Vacation. Once you begin channeling this, you'll be out of combat for at least 3 days, and up to 2 weeks in some cases. The bonus to this is that you will probably get up to 2 days of uninterrupted play time when the channeling is completed. This can be extended by offering to (Chore Diversion) do the laundry upon return. You may even have enough laundry to extend a play session deep into the night. When you get back from AoE Vacation, you should be at a full blue bar if you're below 60 so you'll be catching up faster than normal.

Now let's take some time to discuss:

Wife Elite Skills

This class has some of the most feared skills in the game and you would be wise to learn all the nuances of the Wife you're facing. Almost every wife starts out with a awesome racial trait:

+200 to throwing skills: Should you draw aggro, this is the one that poses the most immediate risk to your survival. Avoid everything that's coming your way, and don't be a noob and grab something and throw it back, you'll never lose aggro that way. Run. This is your only option. Run fast, run far, drink lots, return when the Wife is sleeping or on patrol somewhere else.

Now for some combat skill that may be used during your upcoming conflict:

Stink Eye: This is the initial curse used universally by Wives when they find out you're playing World of Warcraft. This can place you into the Dog House, a snare that usually lasts between 8 and 24 hours. This means you've drawn Wife aggro and should be preparing for the following attacks.

Cold Shoulder: You will be iced by the Wife, which will give you the false impression that you are moving when in actuality, you're going nowhere. It's a snare and a DoT all in one. Immediately cast Chore Diversion or Dinner Sap or your in for a whoopin’.

Mind Control: When the Wife starts talking you into a situation where it will be impossible to use either Subtlety or Stealth, she's using Mind Control. This is a DoT spell that builds over time. She'll kite you to a chick flick, one of your kid's functions, a Bunko night at a Wives encampment, or the ultimate in smack downs - Shopping. Aak!! Avoid this skill at all costs. Offer Dinner Sap right away. Feign Chore Diversion. Stealth. Get thee away poor warrior, the enemy is using you.

Soul Drain: This is another DoT that can be cast concurrently with Mind Control. If you find yourself watching the Dr. Phil Show at a mall with a latte in your hands, you're being Soul Drained. Combined with Mind Control, there is very little defense. You may just want to die and rez back at a graveyard. Watch yourself here, Wives are notorious corpse campers.

Lash of Power Cord: An instant cast stun and damage dealer that will likely put you in a gray world. Jerking the power cord free of the PC has a 100% crit chance. When the Wife equips the power cord in her off hand and wags her finger with her main hand, you know you've fully pulled all Wife aggro and are headed for a wipe. Hopefully you can reduce aggro by saying "I guess I'm done. Care for a Long Walk?"

Summon Adds: So you've acquired Wife aggro and the battle is not going well. It gets worse fast if she decides to Summon Adds by calling her sister and getting moral support for her state of aggro. This is a direct damage spell that pummels you and heals her. If the battle gets to this, you may have to spam Dinner Sap on the whole extended family. This will drain your backpack but you may be able to find some time for Stealth or Subtlety afterward.

Reverse Seduction: This is the ultimate devious scheme and probably the most effective way for the Wife to take you completely out of combat. She will drain your mana, sap your life and when she crits, you'll be sleeping for a long, long while.

Feign Banish: By the time you get to this point in the battle, it's not looking good and you're searching the world for a heal and somebody to help you crowd control. When the Feign Banish curse gets thrown on you by the Wife, you are in a desperate state. Dramatic action is needed. It may be time for an AoE Vacation. A long one. Things are getting ugly. Find an inn and acquire blue bar cause the Mob you're facing is skulls to you and you really have no chance.

Banish: This is the ultimate weapon, and direct damage spell that also deals damage over time, and is irresistible, not dispellable, and the trinkets that you need to stop this are only available to end game players that are ready to hang up their honor ranking and head off into the sunset of MMORPGS. You cannot win. Look for a new place to hearth to, because you have forfeited your hearthstone. You wanna know when this game ends? You will soon find out. Basically, you're screwed. Avoid this at all costs.

Closing Comments

I hope this guide is helpful. I'm not sure it applies to everyone here in the WoW community but there are enough of us out there that face this Mob on a daily basis. There are many similar mobs on the way to this instance and negotiating these is a similar feat but can often be mind controlled into harmlessness. Be carefule here, the Girlfriend, Significant Other, and Date mobs you face are just getting you combat ready.

Those of you that play with your significant other I say "Good job and kudos." You'll never face the ultimate class in WoW but I'm sure you'll get in more uninterrupted time. Those of you who operate outside this instance, I can only assume you're too low a level, a noob, or a gold farmer not willing to take that risk.

Thanks for your time."

2006-02-02T14:57:00.000-08:00

"I finally quit playing EQ around 2 months ago after about 3 years of playing. Like smoking when I was (a lot) younger, I simply lost interest in it and all MMORPGs (I was playing Eve Online for a couple of months too).

Reading some of the stories of relationships destroyed helped a lot towards my change of attitude. I love my girlfriend very much and didn't want to do what others had done to their partners. I know she wasn't happy with me playing but she tolerated it in moderation. I did have the capacity to play to excess when she wasn't around though.

I don't consider myself to have an addictive nature, but I was in some way addicted to EQ. It has a very powerful attraction to it of not being real and therefore allowing you to do things you cannot, and could not normally do, in real life. It imbues you with a (false) sense of power and achievement which is very seductive. Your achievements carry with them kudos and recognition in the game world which may be, and probably are, lacking in your day-to-day wage slavery. In the game world you can be someone special.

However, I finally realised that what I was achieving was, in real terms, nothing. Absolutely nothing. I would have nothing to show for the hours wasted in the game world. I may as well have been sleeping. And that was what finally clinched it for me."

2006-02-02T14:55:00.000-08:00

"I ... lived with my EQA boyfriend and 8 months after moving in, my daughter and i moved out. I blame most of our problems on the game...he wasnt always like this, thats why i have stuck around. I didnt think he was an "addict" at first either, until i came hear and realized that i was not the only one going thru this and that his personality traits, that i once loved had vanished and he was like all these other EQA's i was reading about. He was on a break from the game when we met and then ASKED me if he could play...i said yes not knowing what it was...i could kick myself in the ass now...i thought this was the man i was going to marry, i sometimes still think or maybe wish that he could/would be that man. We decided 2 days ago to try and work this out...this was after he decided 2 weeks ago he needed a "break" from me...well, I thought things were gonna change...he took last night off from the game and let me cook him dinner, and tonight I was child-free and thought we could actually have a date night...well once again, i lost to land of Norrath...god forbid he NOT play 2 days in a row...what would the freakin guild do with out him...he says to me, why can't you just accept the fact that i like to play this game"..well, there is a HUGE difference between liking something and being addicted or obsessed to it."

2006-01-31T16:51:00.000-08:00

I hesitated a bit but decided to post this mockumentary (via socialstudygames via slashdot) anyways because it is just too damn funny. Yes, not every MMORPGer acts and looks like this, and yes, there are fine-looking specimen of the male and female gender that choose to play the game. But really, can you honestly say that, as an D&D fan slash online gamer, you have NEVER met anyone like this? I have vague recollections of having taken part in similar moments.

2006-01-31T16:50:00.000-08:00

We quit! End game raiders perspective of WoW from the GamerWidow site.

2006-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

"I have played WoW since the Beta was available for european gamers. I liked it vermy much and enjoyed beeing part of an online world. Since the realase in Feb 2004 (again european servers) I played like mad. I brought 5 Characters to the max level, was second in command of the most competitive guild on the server. My online times grew constantly, from 2or 3 hours a day in the begining to about 13 or sometimes even 20 or more hours per day. ( I also refused to sleep and stayed awake more than 24 hours gaming sometimes :(

I completly alienated from my social contacts ( There was no time to meet real life people), not to mention my grades (not sure bout the word) at college.

I played literally day and night, even to such an extent that I got ( and still suffering from) health problems.

`Then came the fatefull day:
My Girlfriend left my and told me that she does not want to see me ever again. It hit me badly. I never ever could have mentioned that my sweety could actually LEAVE. I paniked and beged her to stay with me and cried and all that and she told me that I have to delete all my Chars. I was crying, It really hurted me cause those things were so important to me , BUT I did it. She left two weeks later for another guy :( but thats anothr story

Now I´m sitting at home realising that the first computer game i have ever played (I didnt have any games on my pc before wow) has totally ruined my life. I lost my friends, family, and my girlfriend due this game. I have some health problems, and lost about 1 and a half year from my Collegue Semesters. I have lost much more than just the actuall time I have spend. I know all that and it drives me crazy. But the reason why I`m posting here is that I need an answer how to get rid off this emptyness I feel. And how to bear all the pain I have inflicted to myself because of my gaming habits. Right now I have a new WoW account in my Hands and I have to figth wih myself not to reinstall it. To me it seems there is nothing left in my life expect the game. It really frightens me to read what I wright here.

So I hope this makes any sence ( grammaticaly )

I just wanted someone to know about my situation cuz I`m feeling really lonely now and dont know anyone to talk to."

2006-01-31T13:51:00.000-08:00

"my boyfriend started to play before we met 5 years ago, he stopped when we met and he started back like a month and a half ago. eq makes my life live in hell. My boyfriend changed so much since he started playing the game, he is playing like 15 to 20 hours a day which is just crazy, most of the time in the night because we live in Europe and he is american so he wants to play with american people. I keep telling him i am feeling lonely because we don't spend time together, when i get up he goes to sleep for a few hours and goes back on the game."

2006-01-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

"My husband began the game in 2000. He also played 7 days a week. On weekends he would easily play for 15 hours straight. On top of all of this, he had gained A LOT of weight from drinking while playing the game. I tried to compromise with him by asking him to play every other day so we could have more family time. He would agree but not follow through. The next raid was more important than the first and he was either finding his corpse or helping someone else find theirs. He would also purchase items from other players, some for pretty outrageous amounts. I take care of our finances so I would notice the draft from our account for the purchased items.

I finally told him last year... if he did not stop disregarding my needs and feelings, throwing away our family's money and ignoring our ... children, he would find himself without a family. He ignored my request, I continued to warn him.... I withdrew my loan application to purchase the house we lived in which required both of us to move. I moved into a weekly rate hotel with the children until they finished school in May, I then moved ... close to my parents. He moved in with his parents .... Our divorce was final in May. I asked for no money from him, I just wanted out.

I got a great job, bought a new vehicle and was really getting my life as a single mother together. He saw what he was losing, he went to counseling for his game addiction, started dieting and exercising and came ... to see me 2 months later.... He had lost all of his weight and looked great. Furthermore, he had stopped playing the game. I still held a lot of bitterness and doubt so I remained in .... He called and asked me to go to counseling with me, etc.. I finally decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I attended counseling with him. I moved back ... in early September and we were remarried ... after 7 months of seperation and 4 months of
divorce.

He is now clean of EQ and very much a family man. Sometimes they just don't know what they got until it's gone. I'm not promoting divorce but that is what I had to do in order for him to see the light, unfortunately for our children. He has told me numerous times if I had not have left him, he would still be playing EQ.

So, there is still hope."

2006-01-27T15:06:00.000-08:00

Much thanks goes to the person who emailed me this yesterday:

"Subject: yet another story

My husband is an addict. I had no idea when he started with EQ II last year that our lives would change forever, but they most certainly did.

He started playing every other day, and I would sit at our second computer and watch him play, amused at the antics the online characters could perform. My particular favorite was the dancing, and he would frequently ask the other players to "dance" for me. Soon, however, he started playing every day, which turned into at least 4 hours a night. I had no desire to sit for that long in front of a computer, so I started trying to find my own things to do in the house while he played. Hey, I knew he needed to "relax" after work, so I was trying to give him space. Besides, any time I brought up the fact I was feeling neglected or that I wanted help around the house, he would get so upset and claim that he couldn't let his guild members down - they had been planning this raid all week, geez!

I was an EQ II widow. No longer did I have a partner in my marriage. Instead, I was a single parent (to my child and husband!) and the maid. He would stay at his computer until long after I was asleep and rush home after work to get online before I got home. If we attempted to plan an outing outside of the house, he would get hysterical and be so unpleasant until we got home so he could see what he missed. He bought headphones so he could talk to his guildmates in "real time." Yes, he was, without question, speding more time with them than with his family.

I was constantly covering for him and excusing his behavior with our child, my family, our friends, and his family about his constant gaming. It was like, I imagine, living with an alcoholic. And like an alcoholic, he became truly skilled at hiding and lying about his addiction. I found out later that he was spending upwards of 8+ hours a night on the game and starting to skip work to stay home and play.

Our marraige was suffering. We were not communicating at all. I would have "blow-ups" and scream and yell about how I was feeling, and he would react by playing his game more because "our marriage wasn't working." It was a never-ending circle, a Catch-22. He delved deeper into the game where he was powerful, popular, needed, and in-control. At this point he was guild leader and very important in that world. In the real world, his work was slipping, his kid didn't know him, his wife hated him, and he was incredibly unhealthy from late-night eating and inactivity. Online, however, he was king. Which would you choose, seriously?

Not unexpectedly, he started a relationship with someone in his guild which progressed from in-game chats to phone calls late at night. Finally, he had someone who understood and loved the game as much as he did and with whom he could complain about his terrible marriage. They both were very high-level characters and online together for hours at a time. This affair did indeed move to the next level, and he began speaking with her on a daily basis, many times a day. Now he had no excuse to deal with his real life outside of the game. He had everything he needed: a powerful online persona and, essentially, a girlfriend.

His ability to lie about his addiction and affair was taking its toll, and I found out about the phone calls. Regardless, it was too late for me to make a difference. He was so caught up in the game and that life - not only convinced he really was that character, but that she was his soulmate. Again, he lied to the people in his real life, and changed his travel plans with his family so he was alone. She flew in and they consummated their affair.

At some point, reality came crashing down, and he had some sort of epiphany. I had already confronted him and knew about her, and he realized what this game had done to his life. He was overweight, had high blood pressure and cholesterol, was cheating on his wife, didn't know his kid, had lost a year of progressing with his job, and so completely stopped living in the real world that he hadn't paid the power bill in 3 months. Before I came back into town, he had deleted the game, sold everything involved with his character, destroyed the disks and anything involved with the game, including his meticulous notebooks. He looked at his workspace around the computer and was horrified that he had been living like an animal for so long.

So, I guess he has a happy ending for an addict: he was able to break free and got his life back. Mine, however, is destroyed forever. He learned a magnificent lesson at my expense.

It has been months, and he has not picked up EQ II again. It is like he is an entirely different person - one who is involved, calm, thinks about other people instead of just himself, and a good father. Do I know the future for our relationship? No, but at least he is trying to head himself in the right direction.

*I know you do not normally publish stories that involve affairs, but I think it is important side-effect of the addiction, and it certainly did affect my daily life - as well as his. When this was all coming to a head, I was searching your site for stories like mine to try and help me put my life together, and I would have helped to read other peoples' stories. I don't think this is salacious, but rather an blow-by-blow accounting of how my family was affected by Everquest II.

Thanks for maintaining this site. In addition to helping me, it also helped my husband realize what an addict he was/is, and encouraged him to get therapy."

2006-01-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

This is a follow-up from someone whose story was posted a year ago (January 11, 2005)

"I ... broke up with my ex because of his addiction; but he never quit the game. He didn't think it was an addiction either; and maybechemically it's not...but I think anyone who can't (won't?) give up something as trivial as a videogame for a person they claim to love has a real problem of some kind, and I choose to call it addiction for lack of a better word. If you don't like that one, "unhealthy obsession to the exclusion of everything else" works too.

We broke up about a year ago, and he goes through cycles; but in general, I would say he's still pretty addicted. Maybe slightly less than before, because he doesn't skip work as often as before. And every once in awhile he does yard work. But he probably still plays 30+ hours a week. Some 'hobby.'

Bitter? Yeah, a bit. ;)

... in general, I think what an addict is missing is a healthy sense of esteem. They feel frustrated or powerless intheir own life (to varying degrees, and for varying reasons), and they find a fantasy world where they can escape their own negative
self-image ... and, bonus, it's way easier to achieve success there. Everyone's as attractive as they want to be, and all you have to have is time.

It doesn't hurt that there's social interaction either. I think everyone craves acceptance and friends who "understand" them. And they're easy to come by in these games. In real life, it takes much more work."

2006-01-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

Did or have you ever experienced catassing?

2006-01-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

Things not to do.
A 21-year-old American online gaming fan broadcast his suicide on a Bulgarian Internet forum.... switched on his web cam and swallowed a large amount of motor antifreeze and pills after complaining about family problems and a lack of money...
(from Yahoo!News)

Just know the truth: That your "buddies" online will be shocked and perhaps feel even a little bit of guilt but are sure to move on to new topics in a short matter of time and forget that you've ever even been online. It's not worth wasting your life over that.

January 19: The above story was apparently completely fabricated, according to his roommate and several other friends from the forum (see the comments and this article or this one). So my apologies for posting this false story. On the other hand, I thought about the request to remove this post and I personally would prefer leaving this up, showing how easy it is to read news stories online and assume it's true, and at the same time keep the discussion open about this kind of topic. Because - in all honesty - it didn't surprise me when I read it. Would it surprise you?

I had an online friend from Everquest a few years back, someone I would exchange messages with (via game board) on an daily / weekly basis. He was only in his early 20s and living his life with reckless abandon... including drugs, booze, gaming, just everything. He felt at odds with his environment, his family, life in general. One day he told me that he might die from ODing himself - he sounded as if he had given up on life. Well, I never heard from him again. I don't know what happened to him. All I have is his first name, a link to a few pictures that he sent and his email. I've tried to track him down, searching with the few information bits I had, emailing him, checking if he had been online at the board, with no luck. To this day I wonder what happened to him.

The tricky thing about online friendships is that you can never be exactly sure what is going on unless you go beyond the online identity. In the above case, there were people who knew him in real life, people who knew enough about his identity in real life to follow up and demonstrate their friendship beyond the Internet. I am not sure how often that is the case.

2006-01-17T05:27:00.000-08:00

Are virtual assets taxable? by Daniel Terdiman (CNN News)

I can only imagine the gleeful looks of the people who are left behind in the physical world...

2006-01-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

"Its been 7 months since I quit playing and I am so glad that I did. I actually sat down and realized that in the 3 calendar years of having an account. I was logged in for almost 1.5 years. It is a sad commentary on the addiction that the game produces. It has been great to have my life back the last 6 months. I have accomplished more in 6 months than I did from 2/2002 till 6/2005. In addition I have made a decision to get rid of all my video games and systems in favor of physical fitness, historical learning, and real social interaction."

2006-01-06T15:34:00.001-08:00

Found this interesting site musing about MMOGs, and this particular article:

"Labor of Love" (October 25, 2005) (which talks about grind-work in MMOGs)

2006-01-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

"I am a mother of three, my husband and I have been married for eight years. Overall, he is a good guy, but the only arguments that we have had over the past 3 years has been over Everquest. I have told him that it is an addictive game and that he is addicted. He uses it as an outlet and when he is depressed, he retreats in the game and is not aware of what is going on. I tell the story of how addicted he is because of an episode that happened one night. I finally took the mouse from the computer so that he could not play the game and went upstairs to our bedroom. It was 9:15 at night, just like an alcoholic he had to have his fix. He actually drove to radio shack, bought a mouse, played his game and then hid the mouse. I found out about it when I went to balance the checkbook and found the charge to Radio shack. The times we get into arguments is when I threaten to take away the mouse, again, he gets violent. He does not hit me, but throws things and puts holes in the walls of our house. If you would meet my husband you would never suspect this behavior. He is a very quiet man and rarely shows aggressive behavior. I have tried to make him realize what this has done to his life and how it affects his family, but he does not think it is an addiction. But It truly is a classic addictive behavior. It has gotten to the point where I feel so lonely. He rarely spends time with me. I spend most of my Friday nights watching TV with my kids, while he plays his game."

2006-01-05T13:13:00.000-08:00

"...always nice to know you are not alone! Crazy thing is never realized and am just becoming enlightened to the fact this is a true and serious addiction rather than a SUPER liking to the game. Also coming to terms with I am his enabler as I watch him play like a loon and never make a big deal about his EXTENSIVE hours so as to keep the peace. On his days off from work he plays a minimun of 12-14 hours and he is off 3 days a week

PLUS plays every night after work 4-8 hours so he is truly addicted. Now that I see this for what it is I plan on addressing it and know it will not be very pleasant and he will be super defensive as he sees NOTHING wrong with it and if he doesn' have this to occupy his time then WHAT will he do. My thoughts are: you can take a shower, get a better job, spend some time with your family, read a book, work on your home you are fortunate enough to own (thanks to me!), etc....soo much else in REAL life that can be equally rewarding. I read some things on line as well that have been helpful. Mine is same with the dinner/meal situation, now I stop calling him he can just come down and find out for himself if dinner has been made. Not even sure the last time we all ate together at the table. I too am in love which is why this has gone on so long however the love is getting stale as time goes on and the problem does not get any better, the respect is pretty much out the window! Guess I thought one day this game would grow old/boring for him but I think Sony would never allow it to get boring hence they would lose money. I go about my social life and stay out however I feel like and he stays home playing."

2006-01-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

"My brother ... is married and has 2 children. He plays Mon-Fri from about 6-10 pm, and 6-8 hours on Sat and Sun. He even eats dinner at his computer. His addiction precludes him from spending time with his kids and his wife. He rarely goes out, only to take his wife out for her birthday and anniversy, thats it for the year. He lost contact with his friends and when he comes over my house on occasion the conversation usually centers around the game. I used to play as well, but I kicked my addiction after 2 years of playing."

2006-01-04T20:04:00.000-08:00

The Daedelus Project has just released a new article called "A New Disease is Born" which deals with the concept of Internet (and online gaming) addiction. You can read it here: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001494.php .

My only (public) comment: Watching TV for 30 hours every week is lame. Gaming online 30 hours a week is equally lame.

And I stick by my favourite term describing all these stories that I am collecting: Obsession.

2006-01-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

There will always be good articles that I missed out on ... this one's an interesting perspective, since it's coming from RPG Expert, a site focusing on tips & tricks for popular MMORPGs. The article is a bit old (September 2003) but hasn't lost any relevance. Out of these 10 reasons, at least 7 of them turned me off Everquest eventually.

"RPG Expert - EverQuest - Reasons to Quit EverQuest

1. The game is extremely repetitive in nature. Go over there, kill the monster, loot it, wash, rinse and repeat over and over and over.

2. Your work will suffer. If you work near a computer you will waste work time going to www.Allakhazam.com or www.EQAtlas.com to look stuff up. You’ll come home during lunch to see if the spawn you are camping is up. You’ll take sick days when your guild has a big raid. I’m telling you.. your work will suffer.

3. Your family will suffer. Faction with your wife will plummet to an all time low. Girls already have this innate need to feel they are the most important thing in your dang life. Anything that creeps up to take No.1 place, bumping them out, will make them jealous. They will grow to hate the game and resent anything related to EverQuest. She will use EverQuest in arguments over and over, claiming it’s more important that your family. And she’ll be right.

4. It’s a poor excuse of a hobby. I tried using this as an excuse to play. “Honey, it’s a hobby. If I were fishing or some other hobby, you wouldn’t complain.” These days, nobody considers computer games a hobby unfortunately. Hobbies typically have something to show for your efforts I hear. What do you have to show for your effort on EverQuest? What? A 65th level Woof Elf Ranger with lots of nice gear? See what I mean?

5. It will make you fat. Sheez, look at all the EverQuest Conventions pictures. All fat people. You can’t put in a lot of time playing and not weight under 200 pounds, unless you are anemic or something.

6. Lack of sleep. EverQuest comes alive after about 10pm. The time zone changes with all the guild members makes for long nights raiding. You have dark circles under your eyes. You walk around in a stupor for the first few hours of the day because you were in a great group until 2 am and didn’t want to log.

7. Waste of money. Don’t make me add all this up. Costs about $12 per month, that’s $144 a year. Basic game cost me $30, plus every expansion (basic, Kunark, Luclin, Velious, LoY, Planes of Power... and now LDoN) that came out (about $30 an expansion on average) equals $150 soon to be $180. I got a character banned, so I bought me another one for $150. Character was stripped so I had to buy some platinum online, which was another $150. Found a few choice items at mysupersales.com I had to buy, $75. Geez.. I cold have bought a motorcycle with the money I have spent so far.

8. You can’t explore other good games when you are devoting 40 hours a week playing EQ. Oh yeah, you download the demo and goof around with it for 10 minutes, but you are not really digging into it. Aw, this game sucks.. back to EQ. Pretty soon you are saying to yourself, “Sheez, Anarchy Online stole that idea from EverQuest. EverQuest is the game you judge all others by.

9. You want to talk to others about EverQuest who don’t play. They think you are a real freak as you tell them the game is so cool and in depth. Make sure to mention EQ weddings, the jewelry with special stats and effects, all your good friends in your guild, and how you have mastered the trade skills of baking and pottery. Oh no, this doesn’t sound strange to anyone.

10. You become anti-social to people you can touch. You really find your EQ friends more enjoyable than real life people. You work on finding a mate on EQ so you can group together, have a wedding and crap like that. You are conversing more in private chats with someone than you do in real life. Now, tell me that isn’t odd.

The list can go on and on. Oh, don’t think I am going to quit anytime soon. I just got I a great guild, hit level 65, and I met this chick in-game who really looks hot. I’m here for the long haul.

Stay safe and happy hunting"

2006-01-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and all the best to everyone for 2006!

I received this email around the holidays but didn't get around to posting it. It's a thoughtful post though, so perhaps it's good that it's not getting buried under all the holiday stuff... I don't know which article is being referred to (and never received an response on my email response), so if you happen to know (or guess), please let me know...

"I read an article you posted about Everquest and how it effected the families associated with the players. Many of them were really sad stories, and it made me reflect on my own family. I have been addicted to Everquest for some time playing in some cases over 40 hours straight and getting up only a couple times to use the bathroom. During this time my wife says she understands and such that it is a form of stress relief and she tries to come in and talk with me and stuff to only notice that I may be annoyed. I still do all of the things within my daily routine, and at the same time thinking about when she falls asleep how can I sneak away. I work out and during the time I am jogging I usually daydream about the game. Since I was MT [MT = main tank, j.] I was obligated to be at all of the raids and such. This article changed my outlook on the game and I left my guild. This gave me more free time with the family that I have been neglecting. I can see how happy my wife is. I sit back and realize how you escape into a fantasy world and just let yourself go. I don't know if this is any consolidation to any of the individuals within this blog, but I don't think their significant others meant anything bad. It was an addiction to the game that caused them to spend all of the hours. Sony set the standand and designed this game to be made in such a way that it takes hours and days to accomplish stuff that in other games span only minutes. This is not to take lightly what the Everquest players have done by any means, because in every instance their actions were horrible. How can I say this best. Their addiction is almost like a drug. I have never taken drugs, but I can almost relate to their addiction and cravings. Every waking moment is dedicated to the fix. Many people that don't play video games can only reflect and say how can an individual be addicted to a game. I'm not a psychiatrist and couldn't answer that question correctly, but as a game addict I can try to explain. While playing the game you get family oriented in which people depend upon you for tasks that because of your committment you are able to help them out. The sense of accomplishment when you attain something that has taken you months of solid playing around the clock to attain. To get flagged for certain areas actually takes no less than a year or two of playing 15-20 hours a day and some people accomplish this so you think you can also it could be equivalent to earning your college degree. Then you get to the new area only to find that you haven't scratched the surface. This article is years old so I don't know if you will receive it, but I am sending the email anyway."

2005-12-23T06:41:00.000-08:00

It's the time of the year again to wish everyone Happy Holidays and a good upcoming year. It's a good time to reflect a little and for me personally, time to feel a little sentimental.

So sure, sometimes I think back about my time in Norrath, the other life that I had for a while. And while I don't have any desire to go back, I also do not regret my time there. It was fun and exciting, and the comraderie felt real (for a while, at least).

What I do regret are the things I missed out on while I was tied up on the computer ... instead of reading up on my epic quests, I could have read a few greek philosophers; instead of debating strategies and politics in our guild and on the server, I could have gone out and done some things I've always wanted to do; instead of chatting with people online, I could have collected "can you believe that?" dating stories; instead of conquering Lord Nagafen in his lair, I could have done some real trekking across the globe.

Thankfully, it is often not too late to change things. But even when we know and want that, there is one thing that can hold us back: Fear.

Changes seem a threat to our existence. We cannot predict the outcome of change and as a result, we feel a loss of control. We cannot imagine how things could possibly be better than the current situation. We are afraid to be humiliated, to feel shame or worse, to have no respect for ourselves. We are afraid that our decision to change might - as a direct result - bring about misery. And we wouldn't have anyone else to blame for it. So, staying in a predictable pattern is safe and give us the predictable satisfaction level.

This - by the very nature of predictability - means that we limit our level of joy to something that's been previously experienced. It's so easy to forget that sometimes things we never thought about may bring us much more joy than anything we would have expected.

Before this year ends (if you care about yourself) take some time off from your routine (even if it's just for a cup of coffee / tea) and think about what you could do to make things less predictable - it doesn't have to be a huge gesture. It could be as simple as deciding to go for a walk by yourself. Don't let your life be shaped solely by the boundaries of fear. Happy Holidays and take care of yourself...

2005-12-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

This email landed in my mailbox yesterday afternoon:

"Hi,

As a game scholar and casual MMORPG player, I have followed your web log with interest for quite some time. I thought you might be interested in this article about addiction that I recently wrote for The San Antonio Current.

http://www.sacurrent.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15755944&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=6

I tried to take a balanced approach: acknowledging problematic addictions while also comparing gaming behaviors to other types of media habits. My recommendations at the end of the article might be somewhat controversial, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks for making such a valuable, supportive resource available to the community. The stories posted on your site stand as a cautionary tale for all of us who enjoy these games.

Aaron"

I followed up with an email since he's asked me for my opinion on the conclusion that he's drawn at the end of the article....

"While I understand your arguments for and against online gaming, the one number I have been questioning is the 23 hour / week that you cite based on Nick Yee's research. From what people typically report about their own game play (total hours) and from my own experience, playing "casually" which in the MMORPG worlds means playing 3-4 hours every weeknight and most of the weekend can easily add up to 35+ hours a week. And that's not even considered "addictive" by the the average MMORPGer! It's reasonable to ask someone stay within the limits of 29 hours but what would that do if it's not being adhered to? It's easy to stay the extra hour or 3 once you're immersed in the online game, and it is exactly for that reason why TV and online games are hard to compare - TV doesn't depend on you, TV doesn't punish you for turning it off, and TV doesn't offer an alternate (idealistic) existence.

Also, I'm not quite sure if you read my story (March 17, 2004 post), but I don't believe that playing together is going to improve the relationship but more likely to polarize existing issues and differences. It's not unlike deciding to spend more time watching TV together - then again, perhaps I'm wrong, and watching more TV together has saved a relationship.

Anyways, I think it's always something worthy of discussion. I know that after playing for so many years, I made a few choices that leave me with very little time or desire to forge a parallel virtual existence. I still love fantasy, sci-fi and role-playing but I do it in my own terms now. With MMORPGs, I felt like I had lost that control."

He's emailed me back the following (posted with his permission):

"My girlfriend and I have been successful in incorporating MMOs into our relationship. During the long distance phase of our relationship, we used World of Warcraft as a way of keeping in touch with each other. (I actually wrote something about this at: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15011433&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=550942&rfi=6).
When she moved out to San Antonio, our playing time diminished considerably.

Playing together did highlight different aspects of our personalities. I am an extrovert, and she is much more introverted. I love the interactive, social aspect of the world, and she's just as happy to play stand-alone role-playing games. In a way, the game helped us to recognize these differences early in the relationship.

I think a crucial difference is that my girlfriend and I have not been caught up in the higher-level end-game content. At some point, in the mid 40s, we both just walked away from the game altogether. We've jointly experimented with other MMOs (e.g. SWG), but have not made a huge time commitment. I'm currently enjoying EQ II, but am too busy to get caught up completely.

You make a great point when you question Nick Yee's findings about the average playing time. His methodology is quite solid, but it is possible that there are other factors at work. One possibility is that people tend to under-report their addictive behaviors. However, on an anonymous public survey, there seems to be less of a reason to do so. Plus, among the most intense players, there seems to be real pride in the amount of time they've devoted to the game.

A second possibility is that our impressions of the MMO universe are affected by the people with whom we interact in the virtual world. Since I tend to play at the lower to middle levels, my perception is that most people are able to contain their addiction. If one plays at the higher end of the game, it is more likely that they would encounter gamers who display problematic behaviors.

The tragic thing is that Blizzard and SOE must have access to data that would shed light on the situation."

Followed by some of my own blabbering back to him:

"I ended up separating from my husband after 8 years together. I don't blame MMORPGs for that at all since the differences and underlying issues were there from the start but it certainly didn't help since we both went onto our own separate (online) lives as soon as he got me playing....

I think you and your girlfriend did the "natural" thing when playing time decreased when she moved out to San Antonio. Have you ever wondered what would have happened if that did not happen and if you two were playing everyday side-by-side instead? Then again, you are playing the game together - it would be interesting to do a survey seeing how many partners play together and how many have their own separate groups and guilds - I'd be curious to see if those who have separate online friends / guilds are more likely to split up in the long run!

You are very accurate about your interpretations, especially with about mid- versus high-level play. High-level play is a very different experience and far more immersive than mid-level / raid-less play.

Oh, another reason why Nick Yee's average weekly play amount is so low is that - well, it IS an average... I would be curious to see the individual numbers reported or at least see the standard deviation (actually, it might be reported?). Without a low standard deviation it is possible that responses were polarized (i.e., half of the people reported 10 or less hours per week; half of the people reported 30+ hours per week). Anyways, I will have to get back there and have a look at the statistics.

It is really too bad that Blizzard and SOE aren't open to making their data available - in an anonymous / double-bind manner. So much could be learned from the raw data."

I think there is one thing we both agree on: Regardless how tough/insensitive/painful it is to some, these issues have to be talked about in order to allow any conclusion or improvement to be reached. There are definitely angry people on both sides of the fence. The truth is that these fences shouldn't be there in the first place because this isn't about personal opinions.

It's about personal rights and responsibilities. It's about self discovery and the pursuit of happiness. And it's about respect for others and caring for loved ones.

2005-12-14T13:45:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm not always so serious in life as I appear on here. After reading on someone's blog that I apparently stopped playing MMORPGs to focus on this blog (um ... this blog only takes me several hours each MONTH to maintain but thanks for that), I thought: "Why NOT devote some extra time and show my feeble attempts at wisecracking?" So here it goes...

WARNING LABEL SUGGESTIONS FOR MAKERS OF MMORPGs:

WARNING: WE DO NOT GUARANTEE THAT THE WOOD ELF YOU WANT TO HOOK UP WITH IS FEMALE

WARNING: GAME IS NOT A TIME-SUSPENSION MACHINE

WARNING: REZZING PEOPLE DOES NOT MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON

WARNING: FAMILY MAY EXPERIENCE TRAUMA WITH SUDDEN HEAD TURNING

WARNING: IF YOUR LIFE SUCKS, THIS GAME WILL NOT FIX IT (ok, this one's stolen from another blog)

Any takers?

2005-12-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

"I am yet another EQ Widow. I have been with my husband for 10 yrs. We moved from ... to his home state ... two years ago.... I followed after the house sold .... When I got here he still had not gotten a job. I found work ... and took all kinds of courses to become a .... In the mean time he still did not find work. By August of 2004 I had threatened divorce. I finally had to threaten to sell the computers and the televisions before he finally put in 8 job applications. God forbid I would sell the computers. We stayed with his parents for just over a year then we moved over ... to the house he grew up in back in Feb of this year.... There is alot of work that needs to be done. Most people out here heat by wood stove. This means that trees have to be cut down and logs split months before fall and winter get here or they are not cured in time for burning. Well, we haven't done a whole lot since we came over here because he won't help with anything and I refuse to do everything myself. I already take care of my ... Mother who has lived with us as long as he's known me. I also take care of the dog and the cat. I run two motor newspaper routes .... He works one job. He comes home and goes right to his computer room and plays EQ. He usually eats in there. I recently told him that he has got to stop staying up to the wee hours of the morning then sleeping half the day away on the weekends because we are wasting precious daylight that outside things could be getting done in. We had a huge fight a couple of mornings ago which is why I came in search of a support group. I get really tired of have to take care of everything around here, including splitting the wood, cutting it to fit the stove on the saw then stacking it so we can have alternate heat and my electric bill won't be so high. I told him the other morning he was about three seconds away from a divorce and I meant it. Between MOM and I we have enough money to live on our own. He doesn't make enough to live on his own. He recently had a heart attack so the last thing he needs to do on the weekends is sit behind that computer all day and all night. I even called his Mom the other day. I was ready to hold an intervention. He has gotten better since our big blow-up the other day. He has actually done a few things around the house. His behavior is that of a child not an adult. I hate that this game has put us in this position but I don't thing sueing is the answer either. I can't believe how many marriages this thing has ruined. Hopefully I will be able to bring my husband back to reality before it is too late if it isn't already. Mine happens to be his guilds treasurer! I havne't minded him playing his role playing games in the past but this one is different. As we have all found out. I like to play my computer games too but I don't do the role playing thing. I like puzzles and mentally challenging games. Right now he has to get motivated to do all the things we didn't get done over the summer because his whole family is coming here for Christmas dinner and his brother and his ... boys are going to stay a few days. Maybe his brother can talk to him about it while he's here.... If he slips back to where he was a few days ago my next tactic is to ask him how he would like it if I played my computer games and didn't make dinner, or do laundry or do the grocery shopping. How would he like that?! If that doesn't get his attention I don't know what will."

2005-12-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

A good friend sent me this recently: The Noob.

If you want to distance yourself from your inner (online) elf/dwarf/troll..., this is a good place to start.

2005-12-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

"I am a recovering EQA. It started about 2 years ago. I had just gotten married and was leaving a bad job after several years of suffering. My wife encouraged me to go on unemployment and pursue the field that I really cared about. She said she would take care of us financially while I made the transition. Everything was looking hopeful... My wife's brothers introduced me to EQ. They called it evercrack. I laughed it off as a ridiculous notion. Little did I know what lay in store for me. After quitting my awful job, I felt my body and mind unclench slowly. I realized that I was so unhappy before and was looking foward to relaxing for a month or two before I aggressively began pursuing new work. Thats when I started playing EQ. It started off as an hour or so a day and steadily grew. After two months, I was playing at least 8 hours a day. I would go to bed at the crack of dawn, get a few hours sleep, wake up, and then play some more. When my wife came home, I would make dinner, spend time with her until she went to bed, then get back to the game. Eventually, the time I spent with her decreased. If it was a raid night, I didn't see her at all. At first she didn't really think there was a problem. Her brothers were EQ vets but they didn't play anymore. Two months passed and I didn't start looking for work. Fast forward to one year later. Still no job but I've created quite a character in the EQ world. By this time I've been flat out lying to my wife about how I spent the days looking for work. When my savings ran out, things came to the eventual climax. I am not lying when I say that I had no idea I was addicted to this game. My wife confronted me and I felt like a cornered animal. I got defensive and said some things I should not have said. But being the amazing woman she is, she didn't give up on me. She helped me realize what had been going on. I had literally escaped into a fantasy world where I thought I was somebody of quality. I dreamed about EQ every night. When the server went down, I honestly felt like I was going to die. My marriage came so dangerously close to ending. My health suffered as well. I stopped exercising and doing any of my other hobbies, like reading books, making music, etc. I stopped seeing my friends as well. Now things are much better. Our marriage is flourishing once again. I am doing things that I used to do. I'm slowing getting my life back. But I have to say once in a while, I feel the pull. I feel it calling me. That game was so intoxicating. But I resist the urge. It's not easy and I wonder if it will get easier. That game is evil. It almost ruined my life and my marriage. Please for god's sake, make your husbands stop playing. I feel like I have blinked and two years have passed me by. And what do I have to show for it? A marriage on the mend and pieces of an old life. My wife did not deserve what I put her through. I failed her and it kills me to think that I almost lost her forever. Because of a stupid game....

On a side note - someone told me that the tradeskill system in EQ is based on a highly addictive model of risk and reward."

2005-12-13T08:46:00.000-08:00

"My husband ... has been addicted to EQ for the past 26 months! ... I'm sure we've all said that same thing, it is running our marriage into the ground! And it really is, I noticed there was a problem about 6 months after we got the game (which ironically I bought him for his birthday… so it's quote, unquote my fault)...[he] was taking his two weeks of leave ...I was working during the day but when I would get home he would be on the computer, soon he was eating his dinner at the computer and crawling into bed just hours before I would be getting up. I figured that this behavior would stop once he had to go back to work, I was wrong. Some how he still managed to work and play just as much EQ. Soon it got to the point where we weren't spending time together and I brought it up. You would have thought that the whole world had come to a halt, he came up with some lame excuse like would you rather that I was at the bar? At least you know where I'm at, or things like, it would cost more money to go out. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, before EQ there was an awesome tavern down the street from our house and we would go in there together and play pool and darts, shoot the shit and knock back a few beers. [He] and I would always have a good time. In my efforts to understand the game I asked if he could teach me how to play, he gave me a half ass lesson and then would get frustrated when I asked questions. Since I prefer not to be yelled at I figured I didn't want anything else to do with it.... All of his new friends play EQ, and are single. [He] had some married friends who also played EQ and I would hang out with their wives, but [he] and one them got into a fight about the game over changing guilds and we haven't heard from them since. [One of the married friend's wife] and I aren't talking because of our husbands and it just sucks, my friend ... is the only one of my friends that knows what I'm going through, her husband however has been making big improvements on spending more time with his family. My husband however has gotten worse. I came home from work a few months ago and his friend's computer was in our house, my dinning room had been taken over. His friends have pretty much taken up residency at our house. There are always there at dinnertime, doesn't matter if I have the flu or not. They will not get the hint and my husband doesn't care. He gets so involved with his game that he will say things like 'oh honey I didn't realize you've been home' yet I've been home for hours. About 2 months ago I went out a bought myself a computer since I could never use ours and set it up in the spare room. Since we live in an apartment and were not allowed to have another cable jack installed I went with the wireless Internet, I discussed this with [him] and had it installed. Apparently there was a problem with the setup and it wouldn't allow him to log on his game, he missed his raid. He accused me of doing it on purpose and we got into a huge fight over it, until the whole thing got fixed. Then I got to hear about it for days. Yesterday he disconnected the wireless Internet leaving me with no access for my computer. I was told that I could move my computer out into the dinning room with the other ones if I wanted service. And I'll be damned if that happens. Because I know what will happen, he will download his game on there and play the two computers at the same time. I'm not sure what has pushed me closer to the edge, not having time with my husband or having to take care of all the household responsibilities on top of working a full time job. I've tried going on strike but that doesn't seem to matter because I'm the one that can't stand the mess, he couldn't care less. Then I end up with much more on my plate to do. My marriage is falling apart and I'm ALMOST to where I don't care. I hardly bother spending much time at home because I can't relax and unwind in my home. I have turned my attention towards working out at the gym, which he makes fun of. I guess I can't have a hobby that is actually good for you. I'm at a loss for what to do. And if things don't change I'm done."

2005-12-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a news item I stumbled upon by pure chance - which feeds into what I said in the previous post about loneliness...

Tech guru dials into gaming's social side
Quote: "Hawkins started to feel that something about video games was lacking. Madden Football might be astoundingly realistic, yet it's played by only about 5% of the people who watch the Super Bowl, Hawkins says. Participants in fantasy leagues - a very low-fidelity activity based on statistics from real football games - outnumber video game football players 3 to 1.... So, Hawkins spent time thinking about what people need, not just want. As we become more mobile, 'There's a loneliness we feel in our society,' Hawkins says. 'We want to grab onto what we've lost.'"

Needless to say... stay tuned?

2005-12-12T08:03:00.000-08:00

Another story arrived in the mailbox today. Thank you.

You brought up point that I have not commented on much but may have some significance: loneliness. Is one of the reasons why people spend hours and hours online because they want to feel less alone in this world?

"Hello, this is another story of MMOG addiction only that this time it's from the addict's point of view. Let me start by saying that I'm 19 years old and currently working as a programmer.

It all starts back in the early High School, I was an excellent student, I had goals in my life and you could call me a good looking guy. At that time I started playing games at my free time, situation wasn't very bad I was just having my fun. Later on I discovered online games and the experience was much better. This kept going on and every year that passed I would find a new game and I would get even worse addiction. At my last year of high-school were my exams were the most critical of all the years I was very badly addicted with a MMOG. School, Comptuer, Sleep. That was my schedule. At that time I lost a girl that cared for me, I lost most of my friends because I was never there for them, I stopped being a good looking guy because I never exercised and I lost a lot of weight. In the end I failed in my exams, got in a low-grade university and gave up my dream of being an Engineer. After that the summer that followed I got the game called World of Warcraft. I played and played and played and played. At some point I had played around 100 hours in 1 week. Then I left, for 2 months I went away from my city to a place where I didn't have a computer. In the beggining I was very bored a bit later though I got used to it, made a few new friends and had a nice summer. Then I returned home and the addiction kept going. Around 1 month after summer I got a job which limited my playtime to around 4-5 hours a day. Now 3 months later I still got my job and I still raid almost everynight. I'm still alone and I still hate myself for doing this. Why don't you stop you might say? Well I believe that's the point of my whole mail.

I have asked myself many times: Do I like this life? No I don't. Many times I've thought to log on my account and destroy all the items on my hunter and delete the character itself (that character IS one of the best equipped in game) but then I think: "Then what?"
What am I going to do after I stop playing? I don't have friends, I don't have someone to care for me. My life will be even emptier after that. We live in a world of fashion. A world where you got to be trendy to be liked, I'm not that. I hate how all the people wear masks and hide behind them the same way we hide behind our characters in-game. They talk shit for a "friend" of theirs and when that "friend" arrives they kiss him and talk with him.

I'm really sad that I've given up the life I once had because the friendships I had were real and not with people wearing masks.I wish I could have it back but you can't go back in time can you? I guess I'll keep playing, maybe one day something will make me change but untill then I don't want to be more alone than I already am because believe it or not when we "talk to the computer", we do actually talk to real persons that keep us company when we stay up at nights playing."

2005-12-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

"I am an EQA. I fit the description perfectly. My husband is also an EQA. We our leaders of a guild in EQ2. We are both 31, we are both parents of 2 lovely girls. I don't know exactly how our gaming got to this point but it is out of control. It is like it is sucking the life right out of me (us). I was once a great mom, my home was always a nice, cheery place to visit, I used to like to read, workout, play with my kids. It seems lately all of this has come to a screeching halt and I am so tired of it. I'm sick of it all!!!

I can't even remember the last time I read my ...-yr old a story or played with her. My .. yr old daughter is so busy, she is at that akward age where she needs me.. I mean, really needs me, yet I push her away for a dumb ass game that is meaningless... just truly meaningless really. My ... year old hates this game, she says it to us all the time. Normally, I would just tell her it is an alternative to watching TV, but it is not. When you are gaming, you are totally emersed in the game...and for hours. That doesn't happen with TV.

My house is a wreck and my life is a wreck. I feel very unhealthy. I am done with the game. Period. And I hope that my husband will do the same. For all of those hardcore gamers out there that won't listen to reason... quit now.. just STOP!!! Do something else, anything!!! Look at your little girl's face when you shut off your stupid computer and read her a story instead, look at her eye's whenshe is desperately seeking your attention... but the raid you are in is so overly-important. The raid is not IMPORTANT. When you die, you are not going to be remebered for all that uber gear you acquired in those raids, but you WILL be remembered for being a good mother/father/wife/husband. You will be remembered for doing valiant deeds in REAL LIFE. There are other ways to escape and other things to focus on. As long as they are not hurting anyone go DO THEM!!!

This is going to be difficult for me, folks. It is 3 am now and usually I would just be signing off my game around this time, but instead I am cancelling my account and erasing my uber character from all existence. It has been over a year now since I have wasted my time on this godforsaken game and I will waste no more. I have seen

This is what I got from EQ2 :

Unhappy kids.
Loss of friendships. REAL friendships.
Loss of a good job.
Failure in school.
Loss of good health.
Poor sex drive.
Lack of motivation.
Detachment from family.

WOW! What great accomplishments! I must have been crazy to let this go on for so long!"

2005-11-25T07:22:00.000-08:00

"It's nice to know that I'm not alone here. My wife of three years has been hooked on everquest for the past 5 months. She was playing everyday of the week and averaging about 10 hours a day. Over this time she became distant, stop caring for the kids, and gained 35 pounds. All this time I was patient and raising a family on my own
behind her computer.

A couple of weeks ago she got really sick and I had to take her to the Doctor. Turns out she has been diagnosed with diabetes and gout (sp?) which is directly related to her gaming / eating habits. I had to look her in the eye and tell her how selfish she was and did she really want to oontinue down this path and possibly die leaving an entire family behind. The doctor backed me up on this and told her that she would only live a couple of more years if she continued to live the way she did

After this, I went home, and forced her to donate the PS2 and all of the games to charity. As for the computer, it is behind steel re-inforced locked doors and is password protected. She is no longer allowed to use the computer without my supervision. Everquest has been uninstalled and the CD has been incinerated. I have my wife back and so far we are a happy family again. Videogames of any shape or form are no longer allowed in our house."

2005-11-22T07:01:00.000-08:00

"My wife and I had lived together for the past four years. I notice right off the back that she was't like most women when it came to video games and computers. She played longer than I did and got more excited about graphics and what not. About 1 month into the relationship she re-installed the sims game into our computer. I watch as she played for 12 hours a day both days on the weekend. I was highly concerned ... put off that she had done this, but even I have indulge myself for hours playing a video game or doing fantasy sports on the computer, but that was the first time. First Red Flag.

Well for the next couple years this became a pattern you would a get a new game play it for a couple weeks straight and then she would go back to life as usual.It would happen about 12 times a year and we argue some when it would happen.

But then she got into a whole new avenue of computer debauchury. She became addicted to message boards.... She ran a message board and her level of committment was at an all time high being on the computer 3 to fours a night.
...
Well four months ago we finally got married.
...
The Day we got back from our honeymoon my wife heard about a Star Wars on line Game where you innerect with other people. It was in the same calibur of the games she used to get addicted to for a couple weeks at a time like Morrowind and Fable.

'Uh oh,' I thought at the time. It was the beginning of August 05.

She began talking about this game all the time. She would a couple hours a night for the first couple as she figured the game out, but then it happenned. The two world united. Her gaming addiction and her message board need for on line community addiction joined forces. She began play four hours a day, five hours a day....

And then her world became this Star Wars world. For the past three months straight this is my wifes schedule. She works from 8 a.m- and gets home around 6 p.m. Then from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m and sometimes up to 4 a.m she playes her star wars game. To her credit and for this only will I give her credit, she does stop for my child's basic needs that I'm not doing. Diaper changing, feedings, putting him to sleep. Changing the channel or DVD. And occasionally she will make a dineer that might take her 30 minutes to do. But aside from that and the occasional laundrt every two weeks she only games. Spends zero time with me.

This is the pattern that my wife and I get into. She plays a couple of days straight and I get real pissed. I fight with her about it.

She says, 'Why would I want to spend time with you when all you do is put me down and fight with me.'

My response is, 'The reson why we fight is because you play that damn game all the time.' Its like a catch 22.

I get so fed up and she tells me the reason why she keeps playing partly because i tell her I don't want her too. So we usually fight really bad about it. I say a lot screwed up things like 'I've lost respect for her.' Then I feel bad we make up. we never have make up sex. Our make up routine is I shut up about for the next five days while she goes even more hay wire playing the game. Finally I hit a place again we fight. i say more screwed up things we make up I'm quiet again for the next five days. This is our cycle.

My wife and i have not been intimate in 3 months. We have only had relations twice since our honeymoon. About three weeks ago i privately logged her hours during a one week span. I did this because she claims she doesn't play as much as I say. In one week she played 58 hours.

I often wake up at two three in the morning and she is not in bed and is playing the game.

Last night. this is the night of my first post. I woke up at 5:30 and she still wasn't in bed. I went to her. She said she had trouble sleeping and was planning on staying up all night. She works on saturdays.

I really don't know what to do. This is killing my relationship. It breaks my heart constantly. I feel very alone in this being a guy. my friends absolutely think my wife is crazy and cannot relate on any level. I don't know what to do."

2005-11-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

Video Game Vignettes: Gamers Grow Up - more personal accounts (11/20/2005, By Vince Horiuchi, The Salt Lake Tribune)

2005-11-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

Mobile Game Addiction Spreading (November 08, 2005, Dong-A IIbo)

I've wondered about this a while ago when games on cell phones and PSP started becoming popular but as most of those games were at best entertaining for a brief amount of time, I wonder if this won't change in the future.

Will this change much in homes? Probably not. At work and school? Perhaps. But I am mainly worried about future driving - we have problems with cell phones as it is - having mobile gaming become mainstream ... I wonder how many people would try to play for a bit while standing at the right light?

2005-11-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

Someone else's story - it's very well written and very blunt. Not ifs and buts. Life, Love and MMO's

2005-11-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

"...I thought I'd relate a little of my story because I think it offers some insight. I'm a 33 year old guy, not married and no kids and a long time video game junkie. While I was playing video games all the time, it never dawned on me that I might have been depressed, but then...Whamo! I was hit with a couple of panic attacks about two months ago. (Panic attacks and depression are commonly linked). This was followed by two weeks of extreme nervousness that landed me at the doctor. He put me on some meds and advised me to clean up my diet and take some supplements. The fact is that prior to the panic attacks I had no idea I was depressed...I thought it was just my natural state. Now, I see otherwise, because I'm feeling a WHOLE lot better.

Last night I had a choice between staying home by myself and playing some video games or going karoaking with some friends. An easy choice to go karoaking. It dawned on me today that I would have NEVER made that choice when I was depressed...I would have chosen to spend the night alone with my computer.

My thought is that playing video games could be a symptom of depression and/or anxiety. It's a form of withdrawing from the world to a "safe" place. Maybe treating the depression would help rid the obsession of the game."

2005-11-17T13:23:00.000-08:00

From the NewScientist.com news service on November 16: Gaming fanatics show hallmarks of drug addiction

2005-11-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

This e-mail response just blew me away when I read it this morning. Thank you so very much! Makes me happy to know that my message is coming through correctly every now and then, and that I am not just blowing smoke up people's ....

"I just found your website today. I was trolling for some thoughts on game addiction as I prepared to "talk" to a buddy of mine who has been lost for some time in World of Warcraft.

I play maybe 12 hours a week. I wouldn't say I'm an addict but I can certainly see some obsessive behavior considering those 12 hours are usually over the course of the weekend. I'm a law student and therefore I justified my gaming with the fact that I can't go out anyways for economic and time reasons. However, that argument loses power when I'm logging off at 4am. I have four friends who play the game as well. They've all outstripped me despite starting at the same time or later than me. One of them had to take 2 months off to get his life back in order, the other is divorced (for other reasons as well but his obsessive playing certainly didn't help) the third is my roommate who is still decently in control but I haven't had a conversation with him in 2 months that didn't involve WoW. The fourth is a guy who needs help. Let me just say that we're all professionals. We pay our bills, we go to work (except for the fourth), we are 30 or older and we maintain good lives. But there is little doubt in my mind that this game has affected all of us negatively. I have never stood my girlfriend up for the game but I know it has taken time away from us. I don't believe I have ever skipped anything to play WoW but that's not the problem. I came here to help my friend... but I'm not going to talk about him.

I just looked at my /played time "15 days and change". Since February, I have spent more than 360 hours playing this game. As a law student, my time is precious. And I just spent 360 hours of it in this game. Time that could have been spent reading, walking, talking or doing anything else but sitting in front of a computer.

I may not be an "addict" to the degree that some of these other stories indicate but there is no doubt that this game has not improved or gifted me with anything positive or memorable. There is no doubt in my mind that this game will come to an end and then where would I be? With nothing but an worthless file on my hard drive. I can do better than that.

Frankly, after reading all these stories, I was presented with the decision of saying "Man, these people are so more worse off than me" or "Maybe I should learn something from this...". I've decided to choose the latter. Just wanted to thank you. Your website has made me look hard at the long-term effects of this game. I've played it enough. I've seen most of what it can offer and, even though there's more to see, I think getting back to my life would be far more beneficial. You're doing a great job here, heck... you got to me.

In my search to help a friend, I managed to help myself first. I think I'm going to turn my computer off now and read a book."

2005-11-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

"I stumbled upon your blog this morning at around 6:00 a.m., while I was researching divorce for about the 50th time. My husband's drug of choice is EverQuest. He has played this game obsessively for the past few years and frankly, it has destroyed our marriage and his relationship with our daughter. It makes me sad to read other posts from people whose loved ones' lives are devoured by this game, but at the same time it was totally eye opening for me, and was the first time that I didn't feel completely crazy. I have spent nearly every day for the past few years trying to get my husband to quit. I've tried anger, sarcasm, gentle pleading, letters, printing out articles on game addiction...anything I could think of. And the worst part is, I feel immensely guilty because I'm so ashamed. I'm ashamed that he's chosen these random strangers over his own family. I'm ashamed to tell anyone about the loneliness and pain I feel as a result of being snubbed for a computer game. I almost wish he was an alcoholic or a drug addict. At least that's easier to explain than, "My husband would rather sit in front of a computer for days in a row than go on a walk with me or take me to dinner."

The computer he's using? It's a laptop he bought for me as a gift. I had it for maybe two days before he completely hijacked it. He'll be playing on the laptop and then will simultaneously hijack the desktop to look up information about spells. I've gone to the EQ site and read the messages he posts there. I'm sad to say that I'm jealous of the well-wishes and ass kissing posts he leaves for total strangers, congratulating them on marriages, births, successful raids, etc. One guy posted and said that he was leaving due to the fact that EQ was taking over his life, and everyone was basically like, "Good luck. Can we post your opening now?" It made my stomach turn.

I don't know what else I can do to salvage my self respect and my family. My daughter basically has given up on asking my husband to do anything with her
or to help her with homework. When she brings him her math and says she doesn't understand, he will literally keep playing his game and then will glance at her homework and say she should just try harder. The other day we had a serious discussion about our daughter's grades and performance in school, and my husband was still playing that f#*!ing game while he lectured her on paying attention. Is that a laugh or what?

My husband is famous for trying to divert my attention away from his addiction. I casually mentioned wanting to play XBox, and he lit up like a Christmas tree. He will constantly tell me I look tired and shoo me off to bed (alone) so he can stay up all night playing EQ. Last night I asked him if he wanted to watch a movie. He got upset and said he thought I was going to play XBox. I said, "I want to hang out with you." So he typed something to his guild and then put the laptop down. I assumed we would watch the movie. We put one in, and he spent the next half hour leaning over me to see if I was asleep yet. Finally, I pretended to be just so see what he'd do. He carefully maneuvered his way out from under me (I was laying with my head on his lap) and slid down to the floor at the base of the sofa. I opened my eyes and watched him pick up the laptop and the first thing he typed was an apology and an excuse that he had computer problems. So now I'm a computer problem?

I hate being saddled with these feelings, especially with the holidays coming. I feel like I want to be baking cookies and going shopping and doing what everyone else is doing as a family. Instead, my daughter and I are spending yet another weekend alone, total EQ widow and orphan, while my husband pledges his allegiance to EQ."

2005-11-03T14:05:00.000-08:00

The following is a compilation of several posts by the same person:

"Me and my partner are recently engaged and just got an apartment together. We've been together for over three years, and I know I want to spend my life with him. He is an amazing, loving person --- until he's in front of that computer screen.

He's been playing the game Asheron's Call since before we even met. I knew this when we started dating, and it was never really a problem in the beginning. After a year or so, I began to see what this game does to him. He becomes distant, and snappy, and ignores everything else around him that does not pertain to the game. I guess it was soon after I noticed that I began my "nagging." I never initially asked him to quit. I asked him to cut back on the game, and pay more attention to me and his friends and family, and he said he would. Did he? Absolutly not. He would say I was angry about him playing because I had no "real" hobbies in his eyes. So he got me playing. That was a huge mistake. He loved playing with me, and in the beginning I did as well. But then it seemed like the only thing we did together was play. That ended pretty quickly.

Fast foward a year and a half or so of the same old arguement day after day. He began failing classes, alienating family, and was completely antisocial. He was in charge of a clan, and when I would ask if we could go out and do something, he would say we would have to wait, because his clan needed this, or his friend needed that. What about what I needed? At this point, I began BEGGING. I was feeling unloved, unwanted, and unpretty. He would actually turn down sex to instead play AC. Again, he said he would cut back. This time he did, for a while. Same old crap started again, I was back to crying and begging and pleading for him to quit the game. I thought I finally changed things when I told him I was leaving. I packed everything I had at his house, and started for the door. He stopped me and promised everything would be better, and he would quit. He said he couldnt bear to delete his character as there was 4 years of work put into them, so would give them away. He didn't play, so I thought for about a month. He never gave his account away, and would only play when he knew I wouldn't catch him. But one day I did, and went to leave again. I stupidly stayed, but he did quit for a month or so. The expansion pack came out, and he begged if he could play just for a few days. I ignorantly agreed, but its been months, and he's still playing. This game makes him a liar.

I know I contribute to the problem. But he makes me feel so guilty when he tells me he would never make me give up something i love.

I'd be lying if I said things havent gotten better. They definatly have and I'm thrilled about that. He doesnt play nearly as often as he used to, but every once and a while he will slip up for a day or so. I AM happy with the changes he has made, but I know I will never be 100% happy until its completely gone. Just from the history he has had with it. I never want to go back to the days of endless crying and I want to have a family with him in the future. I don't want him to slip up later and become who he was before. I don't want to be raising a child alone. I know it's an addiction. And I know he has made a HUGE attempt and done great with it, but should I demand more? Or am I already being selfish?

I know this was long, thanks for reading. It feels good to know theres others where I've been."

.... in another post:

"Like I said, I am happy with the progress my fiance has made, but he has done it before, and fallen back into the game. It hurts so much to see him laughing and talking with people he doesnt even know, as opposed to me, the person who loves him more than life and will always be there for him. I try to explain to him all the time that I am going to be there for him when he is hurt, or sick, not them. I just hope I got through to him this time, but I'm not letting my gaurd down just yet. He's lied to me before, and my guess is that he would again. I just never want to go through that pain that we've all felt before."

.... yet another post

"So, I got him to put the game away. Of course that is only while I am with him. Apparently he thinks as long as I don't see it its all ok. Only, I don't want him to flunk out of school or become even more antisocial than he already is. Anyway, I no longer have to deal with the game taking away from my time with him, now it is the message boards pertaining to the game. I asked him tonight to come cuddle up and watch a little tv with me, after making him dinner and cleaning up after him of course, and what did I get? "Give me just one minute, I'm reading this post, I'll be done in a sec." Thirty mins later I'm still alone on the couch listening to the obnoxious keyboard. So when he finally comes over to me, he expects everything to be fine and when it isnt, its just me "pushing him away." I explained the problem to him, and never recieved an apology, he just kept trying to be affectionate. I wasn't having it.

At least things are better than they were. I guess we'll see what happens...."

2005-11-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

Here is an email that I received just recently - many thanks and all the very best to the sender.

"I'm 23 years old and as long as I can remember, I've been an avid gamer. Both of my parents are alchoholics and have been for many years. I remember when I was about 8 years old, I they would go over to the neighbors house, or the neighbors would come to our house and all of the adults would sit around all night and drink. Being the youngest of the neighborhood by 4 years, I was left out of almost all of the interactions, even of the neighbors children and my sister. Eventually I started acting out at school by claiming to be sick so I could go home. I had no way to deal with feelings of abandonment that I was encountering at that young of an age. When everyone would get together to party (my parents weren't young parents when they had me, at this time my mother was 32, and my father was 37) the only thing I would do was play games. It became a ritual. Every Friday night or Saturday morning, my dad would take me down to the video store and I would get to rent a Nintendo game. I started looking forward to it more and more, and it became an obsession.

The game may have been different from month to month, but the concept was always the same. At first it started out as honest fun and I played because I enjoyed it. Then eventually it became something I liked and wanted to succeed at. Finally it would spiral out of control and I would invest so much time in it that I would begin to get angry when I was pulled away from it. Anytime someone I was away from the game, I wanted to talk about it with someone else who appreciated it. I altered my sleeping pattern at one point during my addiction so I could be up to play games with my brother-in-law who was a first shifter and still manage to play games late at night with the people I had come to know in various games. I would sleep for three hours between 9am and 12pm, get up and stay up till midnight or later, and then sleep for 8 hours. Then I'd get up for another 25 hours, sleep for 3 and get up and stay up till midnight. I would repeat the pattern which left me more time to game during "prime time" and I still was able to interact with my family, all though I admit the time I spent with them was probably quite negligble compared to the amount of time I spent defusing bombs on DE_Dust, or killing mobs in Kunark...

After reading through the posts on this site, and coming to understand just how much it affects the people on the sidelines I realize that my addiction to online games is no different than my mother and father's addiction to Alchohol. I neglect, lose myself in a fantasy world to kill the pain, hang out with unsavory types despite not enjoying my interaction with them. Luckily I don't drink like they do, but I now have my own addiction to contend with. My wife and I will be having a serious talk this afternoon so she can let out what's been bothering her about my gaming, and this time I'm actually going to listen, and adjust my lifestyle to help my relationship with her grow.

Any parent out there that is reading this...If your kid(s) game obsessively, do something about it now. The majority of addiction is not physical or chemical, it's emotional. With your help your children can break away and find joy in interacting with the real world rather than the world they pay to play in.

Best of luck to everyone, my heart goes out to the Widows of EverQuest."

2005-11-02T10:50:00.000-08:00

"I got married to my husband, before we entered University. However, we study in different cities. I will be graduating next year, but he has been playing games the whole 3 years of University. He hasn't taken any courses, so he will not be graduating. I used to go to his place on holidays&weekends, and talk, cry, throw things, yell, even hit him (basically go nuts) to persuade him to stop playing, and start thinking of our future. With this problem occupying my mind 24 hours of every single day, I am not doing well at school either, lately. When he's into the game, he doesn't answer his phone, or reply to my e-mails. Everytime it goes on more than a week, I get worried that he might be dead, because he forgets to eat while he's playing. Also, I am so ashamed about it, that I hide it from my friends and family and lie to them that my husband is doing fine over there, and that everything's going great. But I can not go on like this!!! Next week I am going to go there, and bring him here for good. I am hoping if we live together, he will not play and our lives will be normal again. What do you think? Please somebody tell me how I could make my "dead" husband "live" again!!!"

2005-10-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

Should I be surprise that there is a Livejournal community out there called MMOPRG Addiction? Probably not, but sometimes I can be naive...

I've been wanting to test out Google's Blog Search for quite a while now, so this seems like a good one to try. A few interesting thoughts popped up here and there, definitely more personal thoughts than you would ordinarily get through a simple Google Web search.

The smorgasbord:
.an anecdote by forezt on WoW addiction
.Christian Science Monitor is actually writing about this??
.Adventuring with Ark: Is it gambling
.mazdagirl's thoughts about eXistenZ and MMORPGs
.Geldon Yetichsky's: My State Of Computer Game Addiction
."My EverQuest Addiction does not stop."
.BorkWeb: World of Warcrack and the future of MMOGs

2005-10-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

A new email:

"Hello,

I will be celebrating a 25 years anniversary alone I am sure.This Tue the 25th of Oct is our big 25 years.

But,I don't know who I will be celebrating with...I or my husband..I is his characters name on-line.

Lets just say that he took me out to buy a Diamond Ring tonight and I ask him on the way home if it was to keep me away from him for the weekend and he said,yes!..I said ok I can do that. He even took off Mon and Tue,and any other time he would be excited to go to the coast..He said No i don't want to go...

He can't sleep anymore all night long. He has been going to bed about 1 hour later or even 1 1/2 hour later,on a work night!..He gets up around 4.00 as he says he can't sleep because he is dreaming of work...NOT,He can't wait to get up to play this EverQuest game.

But,that is not the worst of it.His brother lives with us and has been out of town on a work assignment. My husband sits there and plays 2 computers all at the same time. He plays his brothers character at the same time,2 different computers.

He works,comes home and sits on his computer until bedtime. He sleeps,wakes up,and plays his game. He plays from Fri evening about 5:00pm until 2:00 am, Sat morning. Then he is up on Sat morning about 5:30 and that is him sleeping in...

He then plays for 19 hours straight. Then he is up again at 5:30 am..and all the way until about 11:00 pm. Then the week starts all over again.Yikes...I never thoughthe could be the one to become addicted to anything...
The house has suffered,I mow the lawn!!Like one lady said,he is nothing but a paycheck to me.But,I think he just doesn't understand how it feels to me. He does not miss me that is apparent to me.
If it is not this game then it would be the TV.His 1st love was the TV for the 1st 20 plus years of our marriage,now it is just the computer. He talks to his game buddies more than to me ever.He has said to them 2 times as much as he has ever said to me..

I think there is a problem...I don't care if you put this on-line..Maybe this is what it will take in order for him to see he has a REAL PROBLEM.. Don't get me wrong,I know here he is and what he is doing? But,does he know where I am and what I am doing? Does he care?"

2005-10-23T19:10:00.000-07:00

This email arrived a while ago, but I felt somewhat uncomfortable putting it up right then and there because it seemed so (too) raw...

"I am sitting here with tears running down my face. I have just printed the basic papers required to file for divorce.

Divorce, my 2nd. First from an abusive raging alcoholic. 2nd? From a once incredibly sweet, kind loving devoted husband who now spends every waking minute playing EQ. I try to think back on when it all went wrong... 2 years ago? 3 years ago? Probably even before that when he was playing other games where they had weekends away for their Quake tournaments. I thought he was young (he is younger than me) and he would grow out of it. And in time it seemed he had. Until we moved back to the States.... He picked up EQ again and so my story of sorrow picks up here.

I had threatened divorce multiple times this year. He said he would change. Said he would delete the game. Said he would cut back. Said he would pay the bills on time. Understood that as my health problems mounted and my health diminished that my ability to contribute to our family income also greatly diminished. Knew I counted on him more and more for support.

I feel trapped. I don't have a job, I don't have an income. We have become seriously in debt. He still buys additional software packs - "but they don't cost that much!" $29.95 here....again there. Pays our bills constantly late - NOT because we didn't have the money, but because he didn't bother to open up the bills until we get collection notice calls and letters and I start nagging.

One of my extreme low points? 3 or so months ago, I coyly asked him if he would join me in the bedroom as I was feeling romantic and hoped to make love. His response? "Sorry, I can't right now". I asked why...he said, "I have made arrangements to meet up with others on here" referring I guess to his guild members.

Turned down for sex to play a computer game with strangers. What does one tell themself - it's my fault? I've gained weight....my health is bad, I don't contribute enough. It's so easy to blame myself. Even my mother quickly jumps on the band wagon. You mustn't interest him anymore. Why is he so bored with you?

..... I'm so depressed and disgusted and angry and sad and humiliated, frustrated and bordering on hopeless. Where did our dreams go? Our future, our mutual goals and hopes? He has no friends. He forgot his mother's birthday.... He has become detached and cold. And I feel numb.

Last night, angry beyond belief because I found out that he had just paid our car insurance and it was due to lapse (the kicker - our car is at the body shop due to his car accident a week ago) I got onto his computer and deleted EQ. He had again promised me for days that he was going to delete it. Refocus on our marriage, refocus on himself. Yet there was the game still running nonstop on his computer.

And yet, tonight at 2am I find him playing EQ. He had of course reinstalled it. Told me that sometimes he needs to have downtime and will be playing the game. I said, well then I guess I will proceed with filing for divorce. He just grunted and kept playing. Now I am only worth grunt responses.

And so here I sit. A prior alcohol and drug abuse counselor, knowing that you can't make threats you don't intend to keep. You can't pour out the alcohol just like you can't erase the computer game.

Tears stream down my face. I don't know where I will go. How I will take care of myself. What I will do next. I honestly don't even know if I care anymore.

I do know that in my marriage vows it said nothing about computer games.

nothing at all"

2005-09-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

"I browsed your site and the testimonials & stories scared me. I'm glad that this resource is here, and I want to tell you about my boyfriend. He played EQ before he met me, and whenever he talks about it I feel like he thinks it was the best days of his life. I start to feel jealous that maybe he does think it was better than now even with me in the picture. He talks so proudly about when he and a buddy started up a guild years ago, and he repeats and puts emphasis on the words when he mentions that "everyone" looked up to the two of them. It's sad because I know there are plenty of real live people who have a high opinion of him and esteem for him, but he can't see it and wants the EQ respect instead.
Right after last Christmas we were both having a hard time financially. He mentioned WoW and the way he brought it up was that we could use it as a hobby we could do together since we do not live together. I said I would think about it. No sooner had he mentioned it then he admitted he had already bought it. At first I thought nothing of it and was happy he had a hobby - he didn't seem to have any when we met. I personally couldn't get into WoW in the beginning, even though he came over and showed me how to make a character and get around in the world.
Then he began pressuring me to play because, as he put it, he refused to get into the game without my support because he knew he couldn't have a relationship and the game at the same time. He told me up front that he would be involved spending alot of time playing, and wanted us both. I felt like I was holding him back from doing something he wanted to do and was excited about, so I bought the game, which was over my budget, and I played just to spend time with him. Unfortunately we saw each other in real life less and less, as he thought game time could take the place of quality time. I called him on it and he blamed his absence in not wanting to be around my family I was living with. The amount of time we spent together per week never improved after the game intruded in our lives.
Later, I became more and more motivated to play and let things like housework slide. My best friend would call and I would only pretend to listen. I flirted with WoW guys out of boredom and my boyfriend would get mad, yet I sat for hours online waiting for a response from him to acknowledge I was there. The only one I was ever serious about flirting with was my boyfriend, though. And in his eyes, I couldn't play for him, I had to play for me because he wanted me to like it. When I realized what was happening and came up for air, my boyfriend would get on my case about not being online and he'd make me dive back down again. He rationalized that he felt better when I was online because he knew where I was & wasn't going out getting into trouble. In the meantime, he spent alot of in-game money on my character and bought her expensive gifts to entice me to play, but all the while pressuring me to level faster. In my warped mind, I thought maybe he did those things for my character because he couldn't afford to buy me nice things in real life.
Now I have slowed down as I have been disillusioned with the effects of the game, but I don't mind playing every once in a while. I already let our guild know that I only want to play a couple nights a week, tops. I enjoy the forums more than playing, really, and play my character now just out of guilt knowing that my boyfriend and others helped level and outfit her. Plus I am going to start school again soon and I need to find a better job.
But to this day my boyfriend is a different story. Sometimes he will make excuses not to come over because he had to work, but I know it's because he wants to get online. He used to stay the night on the weekends sometimes two, three nights at a time but now he is more picky about when he comes over and only comes out in the middle of the day to where we only have a short time together before he takes off in the middle of the night. When he does come over I can tell that he just wants to check the Auction House, and he wishes he'd never have come so he could be playing in the privacy of his own home. Or sometimes long after I have gone to bed I wake up and he's on the computer making inconsiderate clacketyclackety sounds on the keyboard if he hasn't already left. Or during the day, I will step away from him for just a short time to check my hair and when I get back he will be on my computer. He has
told me playing the game is better than sex. When we have problems, he retreats into the game even more and I've had to come online & type in caps to get his attention. Even during a phone conversation the night before I went away on a vacation, he was busy playing the game and wasn't focused enough to say he would miss me while I was gone or even to have a great trip - two basic civilities I was longing to hear. He continues to be extremely irritated when he plays, and I have watched and wondered why someone would play a game that makes them so angry.
In truth, I don't know how much time he is spending playing WoW since we are not in the same household, but he sounds addicted to me when it affects our relationship and time together. We have been together almost three years now, and he gave me a promise ring not too long ago. I am unsure about it and don't always wear it, even though it is not a serious proposal, because I feel neglected while the game is in our lives and I'm not sure how much longer I can feel like the third wheel even though I view WoW as a hobby of mine, as well. Whenever we have a huge fight, he lets me know that he is not always going to have the game in his life, either, and threatens to start going out and finding girls instead of playing the game. It's wierd because he wants all the respect the game can give him but at the same time he looks down on his main hobby as a geeky thing to do - "I don't want to live my life like this," he says, when he acts like he has better things to do with his time than me. He forbids me to talk about WoW with my family and gets embarrassed if I bring it up in public. Then when we are on the phone privately, the game is all he can talk about and I get tired of hearing about it because I want to talk about real issues or even positive things. Also, in the same week he gave me the ring he made a post in our guild forums stating that he would work time with me around the raid times. I think it should be the other way around but least I know where I stand. I feel like WoW is just as bad as another woman sometimes."

2005-09-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

"My boyfriend has tried to suck me into his everquest hole before; sometimes it's funny but other times it really hurts. He would bring this big everquest manual with him everywhere, even on our dates, I guess he thought he could get me to read it.Sometimes he would try to get me into other games too, as if I would begin to understand his addiction. I tried to understand I even let him show me a demo of that crap one time... I still cry for those wasted minuites in my life that I will never get back."

2005-09-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

New report summary from DFC Intelligence, a market research and consulting firm focused on interactive entertainment and the emerging video game, online game, interactive entertainment and interactive television (ITV) markets

The Service-Oriented Game Industry: Paving the Way for New Business Models.
Extract: "The forecasted $580 million 2005 China game market, has been dominated by one very particular type of game, the massively multiplayer online game or MMOG. MMOGs are baseline more resistant to piracy than standalone games because the game is not a product but a service requiring an authenticating connection with an (expensive and technologically sophisticated) server array. As the chart shows, these MMOG products are expected to make up over 75% of the China game market in 2005."

And here is a recent article from the New York Times about the success of WoW: Conqueror in a war of virtual worlds.
Extract: "'World of Warcraft' has shattered earlier assumptions about the potential size of the market. 'For many years the gaming industry has been struggling to find a way to get Internet gaming into the mainstream,' said Jeff Green, editor in chief of Computer Gaming World, one of the top computer game magazines. 'These kinds of games have had hundreds of thousands of players, which are not small numbers, but until 'World of Warcraft' came along no one has been able to get the kind of mainstream numbers that everyone has wanted, which is millions of players.'"

2005-09-21T04:10:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in a seminar recently listening to research reports about the Net Generation, those who were born post-1982 and take the Internet for an assumed part of life. For some reason, I started thinking about MMORPGs and how most of the stories I had been reading involved adults in their 20s, 30s and older, rather than children and teenagers. Now, I know that there are young MMORPG gamers who spent excessive amounts of time playing online games, but I always thought that we had more stories of adult gaming obsession because of their amount of responsibilities and because younger gamers had parents and guardians who had a say in how their time was spent.

Here is the thought that had not occured to me until now: Do gen-Xers and baby boomers play more obsessively and have a harder time unfocusing from the MMORPG world than the Net Generation because they possess less / no intrinsic skills to detach and divide their focus? According to research, there is proof that the net generation's brains are wired differently than that of the previous generations - so I am asking this: Does being connected everywhere & everytime and multi-tasking since birth make it easier for the newer generations to take in MMORPGs just as another part of life without getting completely immersed (aka sucked) into a virtual persistent world?

I thought I was a good multi-tasker, but compared to a kid who can study while listening to music, while talking to friends on IM and having the TV running in the background, I probably could not even call myself a multi-tasker. Heck, once I focus on writing an email or IM'ing someone, I am oblivious to the TV or someone's conversation.

Everyone's certainly been "complaining" about the short attention span of the newer generations but do we perhaps miss the fact that they can divide their attention between so many different activities and stimuli? Will they be less prone to spending years of 40+ hours in MMORPGs than us? I guess only time will tell.

2005-09-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

A couple of interesting articles found by Lisa Galarneau from socialstudygames:

My life as an online gamer. Extract: "I think I am addicted. I've got to the stage where I feel that without gaming, I have nothing interesting to do."

Student held over online mugging. This fits in nicely with prediction numero 8 from another article I posted last week ("There will be a branch of government to rule the virtual world").