Important: This could save your life!
OK, the BBC are currently running a very worrying article (I will not link to it because I don’t want to help them peddle this filth any further) on Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplay Games and how the market in this area is going to hot up in 2008.
10 years ago or so online gaming was the preserve of geeks and those of us with limited, or no social skills. This was fine, we could mingle with others of our kind and not have to worry about interaction with ‘normals’ and all the awkwardness that went with it.
Then came World Of Warcraft. Now you may not see the problem here so lets use an analogy. Lets pretend that 10 years ago the only drug that people even knew about was caffeine, and those who did this were considered to be outside the social norm. Then lets pretend that we introduced crack cocaine to the world, in a cheap, legal form and encouraged parents to buy it for their kids. Of course, I’m exaggerating here, there is no was that giving crack cocaine to kids is as bad as letting them play World Of Warcraft. This game kills people (not joking, people have gotten so addicted they’ve not slept and died). It sucks you in. In my case it destroyed a 10 year relationship when we both got addicted to it in a big way [yes, yes, we'll ignore the little pesky 'facts' that it was more likely me who destroyed the relationship, let's stay on topic shall we? m'kay?] and I found it harder to give up than smoking. Again, not kidding here.
They say smoking is harder to give up than heroin . I managed… finally. Now I’m free I never look back and the odd pang I get (which is rare these days) is easy to ignore. I found World Of Warcraft harder to give up than this. I still get flashbacks. I even fell off the wagon and probably will again. There are websites for ex addicts out there, it’s that bad! Lets go over that again shall we. World of Warcraft is harder to quite than heroin!
There is no polite way to say this: Buy this games and you will likely become Blizzards crack whore. DON’T DO IT!
There are new games like World of Warcraft coming next year. MMO’s (as this genre of drug in game form are called) that are crack mixed with crystal meth mixed with heroin if the reports on the BBC are to be believed and they’re tailored to your age range.
It’s too late for me. I’m a lost cause, but you can save yourselves.
Winners don’t do MMO’s.
Oh, and for those who are already lost: IT’S A <expletive> ROGUE! Not a sodding shade of red! How thick are you?!
::wooshing sound as this MMO stuff flies right over my head::
I’m so glad I never got into this kind of thing.
Not for nothing is it known as ‘Warcrack’
I never quite got the point myself.
Games should be played against the machine, or against real live people on the same LAN as you (so you actually know them personally).
Of course back when this the norm (pre-broadband, pre common ISDN) life was simpler - you had Quake. You played at work. Or maybe at LAN parties. You installed 3DFX cards into your work PC.
I stopped playing when the people I played with were anonymous.
Actually, I also stopped playing when every game required a slightly different set of Windows drivers, BIOS settings and in some cases, graphics hardware… so maybe I gave up when owning and running a PC just became a PITA.
So….. I was saved by the Mac!
Goron - you’re not safe with a Mac - there is a WoW client for it (and now an Eve client on the mac too - which is more sort of… dope for the MMO world)
I do agree with you though - playing with anonymous toerags who keep telling you ‘omfg you n00b lrn2play!!!11one!111′ to cover for their own shortcomings is not fun (for those who don’t speak MMO that basically says ‘hi, I’m 14 please ignore me’).
Eww… l33t speak.
I do worry about the future of society - there are all these kids growing up who only know how to talk in text-speak or like they are some kind of stereotype 80s BBS user (think darkened room, 300bps modem and an accoustic handset coupler).
Oh hang on - aren’t I describing Matthew Broderick’s character in WarGames?
Nnyes…
This’ll be exactly why I’ve refused to install anything of this nature. Given my ability to happily waste days playing against a computer that will quite happily sit and not do anything while I’m doing important things like say, pretending to work…
It just doesn’t seem fair somehow that you are effectively playing against those with far more free time on their hands and obviously don’t work here. Perhaps I’d sign up if they invented a level playing field where every account was locked at a small online time each month
Restrict the playing time? #looks horrified# Nooo some of us need a fix #hands start to shake# and to be able to totaly imerse ourselves in someone elses’ world for a while.
Gaming’s pure escapism - one of the reasons why I enjoy it so much. Travel in someone else’s imagination without having to leave the comfort of your own home. #shrugs and smiles# my inner geek is often an outer geek and proud of it.
Restricted gaming time? Bwhahahahaha. Never work: “I told you, I’ll be 5 minutes, I’m just finishing up a few quick quests to level up so I can use this new sword… what do you mean I said that 5 hours ago?”
Of course, you’re right. Which brings us full circle to the why someone with my lack of self control is unlikely to install anything until I find myself unemployed and with the available time resource to do this properly (mid Januray perhaps?)
[...] tale of World of Warcraft addiction was scary enough. Think what the next generation of internet crack will be [...]