Everquest bashing

[RobNJ]

Their editorial slant, primarily. Any instance of money being shifted away from the Arts gets the kind of emphasis and editorial exposition most people would reserve for full scale war, whereas full scale war gets dry fact and short airtime.

I mostly listen to NPR rather than watch PBS, and the majority of thier news, these days, is about war. PBS does plenty of work on war, too, and though I don't watch the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour that often, when I have, it's always about the issues of the day.

I ask this this aggressively because I have consumed a lot of news, print, internet, radio and television, and have found public broadcasting to be far and away the most superior. Newspapers are, frankly, very poorly written. They have this bizzare, herky-jerky style, and I find their coverage to be thoroughly biased (sometimes unrepentently so).

NPR (and PBS) on the other hand tends to be quite fastidious about its journalistic morals. They have lots of coverage on international news, and they're able to put in a good 5 minutes with a story (or more), rather than reducing it to a 20 second sound bite. Furthermore, they have an entire show dedicated to journalistic integrity (On The Media), in which they readily uncover any muddiness in their own reporting on a regular basis.

 

[SemperJase]

With all due respect to Shawn Woolley's families and friends and others who are addicted to the game, you cannot blame the game. As much as we find these games or any form of entertainment as a way to escape reality, it is only meant for leisure.

I think Woolley's problem was more related to depression than to Everquest.
Shawn Woolley probably had milk in his refrigerator as well, but I doubt that had anymore to do with his suicide than EQ.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...NPR, PBS, etc...

Well, I submit to you that it depends greatly on the newspaper. Some are as bad as you say. Others are more balanced. Yet others are biased, but at least have a consistent bias that is easy to filter out.

As for PBS, I'm going to beg lack of current data. I'll take your word for it until I have a chance to formulate a current opinion.

I still find NPR to be hit-and-miss. Some of their reporting has a very political slant, IMO.

Are we permitted to agree to disagree?

 

[RobNJ]

I still find NPR to be hit-and-miss. Some of their reporting has a very political slant, IMO.

Again, can you provide examples?

Are we permitted to agree to disagree?

No.

Of course.

I just didn't feel comfortable letting an attack on public broadcasting to go unsubstantiated.

 

[Tagnik]

I prefered UO over EQ..

UO was funner than Everquest to me. And it was easier to build a character and have him customized to your liking and still be a formidable opponent.

Sure it leads to a lot of "newbies" being tough early in the game, but so what? Equal Opportunity. You spend less time working on your character and more time using him.

My best Roleplaying Moments ever has been in the UO world with a group roleplaying orcs. They were called Shadowclan.

This wasn't addictive. These are just the people I hung out with via the Internet. I spent my time on it and now I have other things to do.

If you get yourself stuck to it, its because you want to.

Thanks.

P.S. The kid who shot himself... why did he have a gun in the first place?... thanks again.

 

[med stud]

I think it's so ridicolous when media are trying to blame a suicide or tragedy just one isolated thing. A kid who chosed a computer game over the rest of the life used it as a way of escapism to get away from a real life that wasnt worth much to him. Would the mother admit this? No chance in hell that she would (at least not as recently as a year after the suicide), she will of course blame everything else. What had she and the father done?

Sometimes parents do bad things to their children, not out of "evilness", but out of misguided love and crappy social talent. Combine this with a low social standing in the environments the kid is hanging out in, and his self esteem will go down. To escape reallity, the kid finds something; drugs, alcohole, gambling, everquest, sniping, D&D or whatever, but they all fill the same role: an escape from a reallity that has been really bad to him. He notices that the game (in his case) aint nothing but a shadow substitute for a real social life, and in a fit of extreme depression he takes the final step and ends a tormented existance.

This has been done a hundred times with gambling and drugs without news channels doing coverages on it. But for some reason, people dont want to have the truth. I cant see why, while facing the truth would help all the victims of this kind more then banning their refuge.

I'm almost sure that I know how the boy's (man's? I dont know how old he was) mind worked when he killed himself, while I was on the same path once, with a self esteem at zero and a total incapability to handle my own situation, caused by and combined with the early loss of my mother and being picked on in school. Now when Im out of it I see people that are now what I was like then, and the total lack of understanding of the cause.

Sorry if I was ranting, but I just get so mad when I see media making cash on these tragedies. You could get communist for less.

 

[Mistwell]

Can't really back you up here. It takes a certain kind of addictive personality to get that wrapped up without a significant biological hook. And even when there's a significant biological factor, it's not like anyone pushed the person into it.

Despite the modern perceptions of the Culture of Victimhood, you don't become addicted overnight. It takes a lot of effort on the part of the addictee.

But that's taking personal responsibility, which is, like, so 1950's, man.

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.

 

[Ranger REG]

What concrete evidence do you have, in this case, that Sony is to blamed for deliberately playing on addiction, Mistwell?

 

[Dragongirl]

I can't agree with you Mistwell. Unless someone is feeding someone with addictive chemicals (cigarettes, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc) I don't see how you can blame a company. Do you also blame shopping malls when shop-aholics go there? Please. I have an addictive personality, my whole family has it. But it is up to me to conquer it or not. I can't blame a game or something like that for being there to lure me.

 

[Ricochet]

Old post reply

Probably. I would love to see no commercials during News so there is less desire to boost ratings.

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

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?