Everquest bashing

[yipwyg]

"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."

This kind of reminds me of a part in the movie Fight Club, where the guy is explaining to a person about his job.

Narator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

Narrator: You wouldn't believe.

Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?

Narrator: A major one.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Actually the comparison would be...

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The guy driving the car has a psychotic episode. He crashes the car, killing himself and a bus load of kids. His parents and the media blamed our product for allowing him the ability to travel at dangerous speeds.

 

[Hawkshere]

So, what you're saying is, if we can find a few cases where people have become addicted to watching television, we should do something about this unethical television menace. Right?

 

[Zappo]

I've watched lots of TV, I've played D&D, Magic, a bit Ultima Online, Diablo 1 & 2, Doom I & 2; right now I'm playing ZAngband a lot. None of these things holds me for more than a few months (except D&D of course). Am I addicted to addictions?

 

[DaveStebbins]

The report in question was one segment in a prime time CBS news show which had several segments with an overall theme of addiction. They did mention (only once) that the young man (I think he was 21 or so) who committed suicide had a history of (IIRC) emotional and learning problems.

The Sony rep was only on for a quick soundbite or two, but I thought he did a good job of getting his point across. Overall, my opinion is that the only people who would believe that the game causes addiction are those who would want to believe bad things about RPGs/CRPGs/music (and etc.) anyway.

Originally posted by Mistwell
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.

Unfortunately, lack of other addictive behaviors is, overall, a poor predictive of future addictions. A person can live a 'normal' life for many years until the right combination of personal and environmental factors comes into play.

Originally posted by Mistwell
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.

Which is still not an indictment of the game. Any form of entertainment can be highly gratifying (that's sort of the whole idea of entertainment), which can lead to addiction. If you qualify the game as addictive what other forms of entertainment do you label the same way? TV? Sports? Music? What should we do about all of these?

-David R. Stebbins, PE
I freely admit that I have no medical background to back up my opinions. Anyone may disagree with them, but before anyone condemns them as uninformed, I request they present their own qualifications and credentials.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I freely admit that I have no medical background to back up my opinions. Anyone may disagree with them, but before anyone condemns them as uninformed, I request they present their own qualifications and credentials.

Hate to break it to you, but I could claim to be Prince Charles, a nuclear physicist, or a Nobel Prize winning chemist on the boards, and there's very little that can be done to prove me wrong. The leveling effect of the anonymous internet- All of our impressive credentials mean precisely squat here.

Besides, some of the most impressively credentialled people I know couldn't function in the real world without a keeper, so credentials fail to impress me, anyway.

That aside, I agree with the rest of your post

 

[Agamon]

Man, how dissapointing. I thought this was a thread to make fun of people actually still playing EQ...

 

[Ranger REG]

Re: Old post reply

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

Correct. How else our local TV stations supplement their income? I mean, if newspaper can sell space for advertisement, so can TV news program.

Besides, I would be very wary if our government funded the news media programming. With money, they can influence what news story should be on air and what isn't, and if any news station do not comply to the "suggestions" from the government, they may find their funding dried up and can't stay in business. It's better for TV stations to stay as independent as possible. Even if a corporation or local business decided not to buy commercial timeslot, the station's advertising agency will have to seek those willing to fill in the time.

Wow, I couldn't imagine our news-shows being interrupted by commercials, that's just a bit too capitalist for my take.. Don't you have any public funded TV stations without commercials all the time?

A local Public Broadcasting Service (or PBS) station, which is funded by corporate and public donation. Production of shows on PBS are also funded and credited at the beginning and end of the show without commercial interruption.

 

[Aaron L]

Hey, I just got done playing EQ a few minutes ago. Made 34th with my necromancer and finished the Harvester quest! I've been playing since '99, sometimes going weeks without logging on. I have never been close to being addicted, and I've never known anyone who has been addicted, with several of my best friends playing.

 

[Kesh]

I saw this bit, along with my parents. While my grandparents worry that I spend too much time online, my parents saw this as an opportunity to point out to me that they had watched my usage closely as a teen. If they had thought it was becoming addictive, or harmful, they would've simply taken the computer away.

As it was, their opion on this piece agreed with mine. The guy was already emotionally imbalanced, and was probably using EQ as a social outlet. He likely didn't commit suicide because of EQ. Rather, he probably logged on one last time to visit with his friends before killing himself. Who knows what the actual trigger event was?

That being said, I have little interest in EQ. However, I've been giving Shadowbane a passing glance. I doubt I'd have enough time to dedicate to it, though. More likely, I'll wait on Neverwinter Nights to come out for MacOS.