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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 429590" data-attributes="member: 2525">You know, I have a bit of sympathy for this news report.  Many people here seem to be putting forth the defense that Everquest is a symptom, and not a cause, of this anti-social behavior.Sorry, but in my opinion that is not always the case.  I have 3 friends, all of them formerly close, that are essentially lost as friends as a result of Everquest.  Prior to playing the game, while not socially extroverts, they were all at least somewhat engaging conversationalists interested in going out on the weekend and seeing a movie or having dinner or something like that.  They watched the news, read the paper, discussed politics and sociology and philosophy, etc... And none of them had any addiction prior to the game that interfered with their social relationships.Since becoming addicted to the game, they all three no longer go out and do things very often, and their ability to socialize has been serious reduced to discussions of the game.  They all three, in fact, eventually (after years) found girlfriends who play the game, and rapidly moved in with them, so that they could feed their addiction and still have a love life.  Now each couple sits at home every weekend and plays the game on their separate computers, often developing their relationship via the game itself.This is not healthy behavior, nor is this behavior they ever exhibited prior to playing the game.I think it is foolish to place 100% of the blame for an addiction on the individual, rather than the object of their addiction.  Objects of addiction often share at least some of the blame, particularly if designed to be addicting.If a game is built to encourage you to play it as many hours as possible, then the game designers do have some blame in my opinion.  And that is exactly what this game is about at this point.  As higher level caps are permitted, and higher level areas are added, the game encourages you to keep up with your fellow players, and play many more hours than you would ordinarily want to play (as a way of protecting your costly investment of time and money in the game).  Regardless of the player's natural tendency to be prone to addiction, playing on those tendencies is not a good thing for a company to do, and companies that do it share some of the blame for the natural, predictable consequences of that addiction.</blockquote>

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