addictivivivivness

adnans

this forum should come with an addictiveness warning since many games that are going to be talked about are addictive as ****. if you ever walk past DnC at three in the morning you should know what i'm talking about. (damn legend of mir and DAOC)

its not just nerds that get affected by this, normal people, working people, can get messed up and their whole life can stop for a couple of weeks or even months when they start playing these type of games.

anyway, now that i've given the warning to anyone crazy enough to try these games, can i ask those who were addicted once to any massively multiplayer game on how they beat that addiction and stopped playing it altogether?

my solution is simple one. never pay for those games. no, i don’t steal accounts or anything. i simply beta test them. i've done about ten so far including anarchy online, earth and beyond, neocron and currently another few which you're not supposed to talk about because of the NDA (one is a massive space trading game). some are completely crap, mainly due to beta restrictions and other stuff but mainly because they are simple not that good. but there is always few that make you stay up until five in the morning and you have to be up at seven to go to college.

so, once the beta test is over and you have to pay for the game. i refuse to pay and that severs the addiction. next please. but recently there's been some good ones and I’m really really tempted to play more. what’s the best way to stop?

adnans

Rnger

Strange that this came up now. I just quit an mmorpg last night. Its a game called tibia which just consumed my time. So last night posted on the forum announcing my quitting and offered to give my character away. I uninstalled it and thats that. It was a bit hard to give away something that i put so much time and effort into. But I didnt want to waste anymore time. I also never paid for a game and never will.

If you really want to quit. It seems to be only way to do it.

Dr_Teeth

I played DAoC until I ran out of money to borrow, then I decided to start working again.

Teeth.

Thorbar

Good point adnan, a lot of these games can be major time sinks and it can get out of hand. I remember there used to be a site called evercrack.com where there was a group of people who'd all lost love ones to Everquest, some pretty fecked up stories on that. Also most MUDs carry a fairly dire warning in their manual to be careful not to let the game eat up your life. If any of the admins are watching this would ye make this thread sticky?

Pugsley

I dont think Ive ever been REALLY addicted to a game, but I dont like giving it up, I wont stay up til insane times (unless u count 2am as insane, u sad sad person). However I could never bring myself to delete my char's in DaoC. Best way to give up is only pay it for a month tops, and if its eating all your time, take a break (and play other games ), and then return after a while if you want to see how much the games changed.

Hobbes

If a person has additive tendancies they are more likely to become addicted to the games.

Of course some of the games have addiction built in. Some games require a lot of work to build up skills so can take time that way (unless you buy your character or have kids).

Other times just the people in the games can make it additictive. Running with Rev + Venom in UO was hilarious fun and probably kept me playing longer then I should of.

Asherons Call I found addictive too, but it was more for it's content and how it was laid out. I quit that because the game was starting to die out with AC2 coming in. Sure the quests were intresting but when you couldn't rummage up enough people to help it was annoying.

ToonTown is very addictive, but not worth paying for (you can play for free for 3 days).

Neocron now.. I can say I'm not addicted to it. The game is brillant (even with some of the bugs I have to put up with), but without some major content the game becomes boring when you reach higher levels. It is easier to reach those levels too unlike other games. They are supposed to be adding epic quests and Dome of York (which looks cool) but without the content you wont' hold people.

Actually if you wanted to see what Planetside will be like I would take a good guess it's like being maxed out in Neocron only without trade skills.

Sloth

Well the only thing thats stopped me becoming a full blown uo addict is the fact that I (like most people here I presume?) have to pay per minute and on weekdays can't go online until after six because of the price. If it wasn't for that then I'd probably be on it all day everyday. God help me once I get my bb connection :eek:

Rnger

i have got i-stream no limits. I just pay one fixed fee a month and thats it. I usually dont bother disconnecting because of the hassle of the 2 second dial-up. Thats why quiting games like these, I found permanantly getting id of the character/account is the best way.

Sloth

Mmmm, a 3gb limit and a 12 month contract just doesn't do it for me. Soon I'll have 1mb a second and no limit at which point I will become the alpha and the omega.

Rnger

Originally posted by Sloth
Mmmm, a 3gb limit and a 12 month contract just doesn't do it for me. Soon I'll have 1mb a second and no limit at which point I will become the alpha and the omega.

I actually dont know much about my connection, those old people whos son i am pays for it along with everything else, me being 16 and all. Are you saying I-stream has a 3gb limit? Seems to me it's per connection, meaning if i connect download 1gb and then reconnect i can download another 3gb's, my reasoning being: Only once I was disconnected when it said i had downloaded too many mb's, just had to reconnect again and hey presto.

Not much of a bother cuz for me anyways my hard drive is just under 4gb (god dam i suck)

Hobbes

it's 3GB a month as far as I know. Which for heavy users isn't a lot.

Sloth

I feel that a cap on broadband destroys the entire point. I want to watch streaming audio/video files while playing online 3d virtua polka. Oh, scrap the one meg bit, I'm "only" going for 512k but soon those 4gb files will be flying about left right and centre :cool:

Nemesis

I played Evercrack with quozl initially and he wisely game up early on.I went to lev 55 and wasted a year roughly.
When i woke up I Found CS and it rescued me.
then I got bored again and tried Everquest again for 2 weeks and heard about DAOC so I played in the US on Bedevere and got to lev 44.
Then I played Beta in Europe and then played to lev 50 on excal.....
Another year wasted..
Last July I sold myPC.. 1.2ghz for 900 Euros..:)..
and didnt touch a PC for 5 months....
I bought an Alienware 3Ghz 1gig rambus GeoforceFX bells whistles Etc last week.
I cant escape...now I'm looking forward to Megalan.
My biggest fear is Star Wars galaxies...I dont want to lose another year of my life...I'm 32 married and have 3 kids...
so Its amazing I still have my family due to the time I spent playing!
DemonBaby/Nemesis.

meglome

I'm very worried that star wars galaxies will be really good. Bye bye life!!!

Venom

Originally posted by meglome
I'm very worried that star wars galaxies will be really good. Bye bye life!!!

Same here and thats one of the reasions Im staying the hell away from it

Dooom

great thing about havin a 56k modem is that i never really get addicted to a game.....( cursed legend of mir) because of the lag and horrible disconnections! i have no limits so im happy with most games but ive heard snippets behind my back that the parents are discussing i-stream :eek: ...well not that thats bad.

roll on star wars galaxies!

Sloth

When is Galaxies out anyway? I heard that it was going to be sometime in September (of course it just has to come out after my summer holidays where I could dedicate all the time in the world to it) but the date seems to vary wildly.

adnans

sloth, please stay on topic. if we are ever going to warn upcoming new players of these horribly addictive games, your off topic comments arent going to help and are bringing in new spam. thank you.

adnans

<edit>

look what you did, made me waste my 1337 post

Jak

Well the problem with these games is there is no real end point, plus the expansions are endless.

I played EQ for close to 2 years I think with a few from the boards like regi now and again. Being a post grad I was able to siphon time from that to play, without it affecting training or social life... but some aspect of your life always suffers. Especially for those of us with addictive personalities who tend to like to win or at least keep getting better. But genuinely I never would have continued if it affected training or social life, but work .. I could deal with that.

I quit because I got tired of it and I finally saw the pointless nature of it, I had reached the max level for the time (60) and been through the whole game with a bunch of crazy long term unemployed. When Verant announced increasing the level cap to 65, I said **** it this is an utter waste of time and uninstalled on the spot.

Once it was uninstalled I stopped wanting to play within about a week. I still keep a little interest in what Verant do with the game (amazing marketing and money spinner) but I simply have a rule now that I will never play a MMORPG again. Until I no longer have to work, and I can use up some extra spare time with one maybe.

For now, natural selection is all the gaming I need at the end of a day, and it has a definite end point with a list of winners ...

Well, when i realised that i had no social life, and that i was unlikely to get laid playing DOAC, i left. Considering i'd finish work, eat some food, then play till 4 in the morning most nights, with a 7 o'clock wakeup, i wasn't in much state to live a healthy life.

I haven't played much games lately, although i do play a few betas. I just alocate a small amount of time to playing them.

When DOAC sent out an email asking people to come back, especially saying that the characters hadn't been deleted, i was very tempted. But id had enough. I've played DOAC, AC, & AC2, and to be honest, it'll take a superb game to get me back interested. I'm waiting to see what Star wars is like.

Sloth

Originally posted by adnans
sloth, please stay on topic. if we are ever going to warn upcoming new players of these horribly addictive games, your off topic comments arent going to help and are bringing in new spam.

Oh yes people will read the odd comment here and there on this thread about how much time these games take up and say straight away to themselves hmmm better not. Having a thread like this is one thing but it's stupid to pretend it's a service to anyone, your not going to get people to not play them because they'll always think to themselves that they can handle it, that they won't get sucked into it, that they will play with moderation but quite clearly they won't. That's the whole problem with these games at the core, you start playing thinking you'll only play here and there but before long it pretty much takes over your life and the rest of your time not playing is spent waiting for your next fix.
I fear for our safety when Galaxies comes hence why I was asking about it....

Thorbar

Sloth adnans has a point would you please lay off the off-topic spam you've been doing it all over the forum. So far we haven't required a moderator, it would be nice if the community is mature enough/has enough sense that we don't need to get one so do us all a favour and think before you post.

Sloth

*Thinks and ponders on the world of MMORPGs before posting*

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91392

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90131

Hey come on now thats a little harsh don't you think? Look at the above two threads for shining examples of ontopicness.
I'll admit that one or two posts up there weren't exactly sticking to the exactness of the topic but I think the general consensus is that I'm getting back on track as my previous post shows. All in all I'd give myself a 4/5 for on-topicness but I fail to see how your post adds anything to the furious discussion found within this thread.

Now back to the topic at hand which I shall of course stick to in my usual manner. Klaz, I think your experience is the one that happens to most people, they play it all day to the detriment of everything else and then one day they wake up and realise how much time they've wasted and quit. It's a hard cycle to break though, and even when you quit one theres always another one to tempt you back into the cycle of work, play, eat, sleep.

Nemesis

A plan I have for avoiding getting addicted again..(EQ and DAOC)
is to play games like CS , DoD and BF1942.
The type of game while playing and if your wife..mother..brother etc calls you you can drop what you are doing and go to them.
Also I intend to go to as many LANS as possible from now on and meet people..a social gathering based on our lovee of PC games with a few pints thrown in.
MEGALAN was a fine example...no Massive Multiplayer games...
I too played till 4am many times and had to be up at 7.30 for work..7 days a week.
Ended up drinking way too much especially in the winter months playing DAOC like one bottle of wine and sometimes 2 bottles.
So since giving DAOC up I've lost half a stone...saved enough to buy a new PC..and now have LANS to look forward to.
DemonBaby/Nemesis.

Tusky

I WAS addicted to DAOC for a good while...im quite scared of SW:Galaxies

Nemesis

Think I played DAOC with you.
I was called Avoca a Lurikeen ranger.
Nem.

Sarn

It's true that MMORPG can be addictive, but at the same time a non-MMORPG can also hook you albeit for a shorter period of time. There are many offline games that have consumed my time for a while.

I have friends who failed their college exams as a result of MUDs (well it was a fairly large contributing factor). They got hooked, I'd join them on occasion for all day sessions, fortunately I escaped. In the end they realised what they were doing and quit.

I was hooked for a while on DAoC after playing beta on the European servers. Thinking about it all day at work and then getting my fix when I got home. Fortunately I'm no hardcore player averaging about 15-20 hours play a week so I only needed small fixes to keep me happy. From that some could say I wasn't truly addicted.

After 7 months I got bored (and also had to finish my PhD). But there were several other factors that helped me control my craving. If you've already got a balanced life it's not going to alter your life hugely, I need my pints on a Friday night at least. My phone bill was a limiting factor as well, not willing to pay day rates helped (although I did come into college at the weekends to play as well).

SWG will be my next hit (already preordered from dvdboxoffice), at the moment there are no other games that fulfill my needs. As I'm a casual gamer I hope it won't be too much of a problem (the initial period (1-2 months) is always the worst for me. Although as I'll have BB by then (hopefully) it extends my period of vulnerability.

At the end of the day it depends on your personality and current circumstances. If you've got time to burn then it would be easier to get hooked IMHO.

Static M.e.

Been playing daoc since beta . Still hooked in. max time away
from daoc was 3 days since I started , that was in feb this year.
most of the time these days I just log in to talk to all the diff peeps that i have meet through the game . you tend to get caught up in their lives and them in yours .

Recently read somewhere that morpgs stimulate the same part of your brain as smack/herion ......... Scary thought huh.......

What did you do for the year 2002 ? played daoc .. 1 year , 365 days wasted for some 1+0`s.....

my only problem is will i be saying the same at the end of 2003 aswell .

Wednesday night 4:10 , work tomorrow at 8 then daoc again tomorrow night .

Addictive ? maybe slightly .....

tuxy

heres a site that tries to explain why people get addicted to mmorpg's i found it a very interesting read

Tusky

Originally posted by Nemesis
Think I played DAOC with you.
I was called Avoca a Lurikeen ranger.
Nem.

ahoi ahoi Avoca I did indeed play daoc with you ! get in touch - bentonio88@hotmail.com

ttys

Greenbean

The game is set up to make you want the next best thing. "Oh look what that guy has! How do I get that?" The answer is always to spend more time online either getting higher level to go camp the item, or to just go camp the item (or slight variation, camp the quest items that result in the new item). But you are rewarded for playing more. Better items, more freedom on where you can go. [m, 21]

This quote in that article pinpoints exactly why I don't play mmorpgs. Once I figure out if the game uses this simple model where it requires long playing hours to succeed at all, then its crap. All it takes is a simple game review or a week or two playing to see if the game works in this way. Its crap because you will always be up against other players who can more time on their hands than you and the only way to compete is to invest huge amounts of time.... and for what. Spending an hour a day at the game means you'll never get anywhere.

The planetarion model, where the length of time you've been involved in the game is a nicer/different approach. For pay-per-month morpgs it does the developers no harm at all, plus the servers aren't full all the time. To elaborate, this is the model where there is a realtime clock ticking over, which gives you resources only at that rate. Obviously with people creating accounts at different times (years apart even), there needs to be a serious amount of balancing to figure it out - but the basic principle of being able to log in for 1/2 an hour a day to spend resources is a nice one. At least you can progress at a good rate and be "an average player" - whereas with the standard "kill the rat 200 times for a skill point" way means players who don't do all this tedious work never move on. Hardcore players get to subtly tweak their resources more efficiently (economics analogy - in the same way compound interest would be worth more if it were calculated more often), as well as do the usual social engineering and extra stuff that will take them to the top.

So whats my point? Eh, just don't play games that don't let you get anywhere without spending loads of time at them - if they can't be entertaining for a casual player logging in every 1/2 hour, then really they're just tapping into your lust for self improvement. Why not just treat real-life like a mmorpg instead and use all the skills there