Everquest bashing

[Wayside]

Two words: Pop Psychology. Detracters of Brittany Spears should revaluate the use of terms like escapism. Their credibility is strained.

Canis: Chocolate is better than vanilla except for when you want vanilla, or strawberry; Coke is better than Pepsi 100% of the time, and faster is better and more fun than the alternative. Entirely objective observations, I swear.

Dragongirl: I think if your personality were addictive, everyone here would be scratching each others' eyes out for a fix. (I probably could've said that better.)

It can take months for your life to degenerate to the point where suicide seems like a workable solution. What people don't realize is that it only takes one night to get it back. Never kill yourself while you're suicidal, in other words. People are responsible for their own actions, it's true, but whether those actions come about through any fault of their own is an entirely different question.

 

[WayneLigon]

Re: Old post reply

Okay, I expect you live in America, but still, you have commercials in the NEWS?!

Uh, yes. We have commericals during everything, period, unless you're watching some cable channels. Of course we also have some cable channels that are nothing but commercials, so I guess it balances out.

PBS is the only channel I can think of where there are no commericals during anything (unless it's during one of their fund-raising weeks and then you get their own commercials almost more than any of the shows). Yeah, it's capitalist but then, someone has to pay for all that time, equipment, salaries, etc without raising taxes.

 

[Zappo]

Re: Old post reply

Okay, I expect you live in America, but still, you have commercials in the NEWS?!

Yeah, I was surprised too. IMC(ountry), not even private stations place commercials during the news.

 

[RobNJ]

Re: Re: Old post reply

Yeah, it's capitalist but then, someone has to pay for all that time, equipment, salaries, etc without raising taxes.

The amount taxes would have to be raised would be minimal. If we stopped public funding of spectator sports, we could probably afford at least a couple of commercials. That'd be worth it.

Anyway, the point is I don't think anyone who takes news seriously uses any TV other than PBS, and more likely consume newspapers or NPR. The level of corruption in corporate news is astounding, and the amount of time they dedicate to even important stories is laughable. There's no interest in context, nor any time for it, nor is there interest in anything that challenges the status quo. Serious policy issues don't get any time on corporate TV news, but they'll gladly dedicate hours and hours to someone's genetalia being put in the wrong place.

Then on top of that you add in the octopoid web of media corporations' being owned by conglomerates with thousands of interests and the pervasive influence of "synergy", and you can be assured that anything that makes a distant corporate partner look bad is going to be filtered down or out of existence.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Please watch the direction this discussion goes. I know I am.

 

[Dragongirl]

Re: Re: Old post reply

PBS is the only channel I can think of where there are no commericals during anything (unless it's during one of their fund-raising weeks and then you get their own commercials almost more than any of the shows). Yeah

Been a long time since I had cable. Are HBO and Cinemax still commercial free? Other than for their own shows.

 

[Paradox]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/17/48hours/main525965.shtml


If my character's name was “iluvyou”, I think I'd shoot myself as well.

 

[yipwyg]

I used to play this game, but got away from it as soon as I saw it for what it was. It is just a standard text mud done graphically. There is no real need for any sort of RPing, you just hop to different "campsites" and kill everything there, go to next campsite repeat.

Here is the breakdown on the server I played on.

Freeport, Dervish Camps, Orc Highway/Crocs, Highhold Pass, Lake of Ill Omen, then others.

I don't mind the game, I know a bunch of people that still play the game, 3 out of 4 people in my D&D group play the game. I just don't like it when every conversation I have with these friends breaks down into either trying to get me to play EQ again or about what they are doing in EQ, Occasionaly talking about it is fine just not everytime.

I don't remember even the last time we sat down and actually just played D&D, recently we have been in like 9 different campaigns. Highest we have been in these is 7th level. We usually are able to get in about 4-5 hours of game time, however at least 1/3 of the time is broken up because the three eq players talk about what they are going to do later on tha week playing EQ.

 

[WizarDru]

I'm telling you, all three of these friends (two of whom I have known since high school, over 15 years) had NO OTHER ADDICTIONS. Nothing in their personality was addicting. None of them smoked, drank, ate too much, or any other common addictions. And nobody in their families have addictive personalities either. I'm telling you, it was not biological, nor personality based. It took little effort on the part of the adictee to become addicted in these cases.

I do think people should take personal responsibility for their actions, and I do not blame the game maker 100% (or even 50%). But I do blame companies for intentionally playing on addiction. And that is ALSO so 1950's to do, to make sure companies behave in an ethical fashion. Remember, the 50's is the era where health and safety laws over consumer products got their major start. Companies were forced to take responsibilty for product liability in that era. It was the era of both PERSONAL and ORGANIZATIONAL responsibility.

First off, EQ is a social game. It's not face-to-face, but it IS social. You simply cannot play without the cooperation of others. as the content level rises, you need the interaction of sometimes DOZENS of other players to successfully accomplish quests and other tasks. Three of my players are currently playing Everquest. Two of them did, at one point. None of them are exhibiting unhealthy addictive behavior. None of the players I've met in my travels have done so.

This may not be a question you want to hear, but...are you sure there isn't something else at work, here? Are you sure it isn't that they find social interaction with you and certain others as unfulfilling, or not as rewarding as EQ? My players who also play EQ still go out to dinner, talk politics, music and other things, find time for other hobbies, and do all the normal things anyone does. I honestly don't know what they're problem is....but the same qualities that you define as addiciting, many players define as necessary to make the game enjoyable for them. A game that offers no reason to return will not make money. Quite honestly, if 50,000 people a day play EQ, and only a handful become unhealthy addicts, who do you think has the problem?

And while the 1950s did introduce some sweeping business ethical laws, it hardly signalled the begin of corporate responsibility. Some companies had been involved in such practices for over a half-century by that point, and many more continued in them for another half-century. In fact, the necessity of introducing such legislation shows the exact opposite to be true...if you needed the legislation (and it was needed), then companies obviously weren't behaving as responsibly or ethically as they could.

 

[WayneLigon]

Quite honestly, if 50,000 people a day play EQ, and only a handful become unhealthy addicts, who do you think has the problem?

I think that's really the heart of any arguement of this type, be it about EverQuest or D&D or whatever. Tens of thousands of people play Everquest; probably way more than that. I don't play it, or any MMORPG at the moment (I did the Asheron's Call beta a long time ago, and that was about enough for me), so I'm not aware of the exact numbers.

Biting the Hand is probably a good place to go to see about numbers, and a good overview of the entire phenomenon from an industry perspective.

But of course the idea is that if tens of thousands of people play this game, and a couple hundred go off the deep end and develop unhealthy attachement to it, etc, then that means there is a problem with them, and not the game or the company. Not their problem.