PSA: MMORPGs

So this week I will be talking about MMORPGs, and the danger therein of them. Firstly, I'll be talking about the different types of MMOGs, from browser based ones right to the big ones like World Of Warcraft, then I'll move on to what makes them addictive, and lastly I'll tell you how to break the addiction, or at least try to manage it

There are many different types of MMOGs, some of them being simple browser based ones, like most of the facebook ones, there's FPSs which you can play with many other people over the internet, and then theres MMORPGs, which are the most dangerous of the ones that I have listed.

The browser based ones are addictive still, don't get me wrong there, there was a case in USA where some woman let her child starve to death because she was too busy playing Farmville to take care of her own child. It's not so much a case of the game being at fault in these cases though, it's the person who is at fault. Sure, the game might prey on peoples ability to become horribly addicted, but there comes a point where you realize that you are addicted and need to do something about it.

The FPSs can be equally as dangerous and addictive though, I've known a few CounterStrike players, and some of them, if they're not playing CS, they're talking about CS, or buying things to make their CS experience more enjoyable. Again, there are people who get so addicted that horrible things happen. There was a man in France who lost a knife fight with another player in game, and spent the next 6 months tracking the man down and stabbing him in the chest with a real knife. Just goes to show that people are fucked up though.

And then there's the MMORPGs, and these days there are many. Theres Ultima Online, if it's still going, Everquest and Everquest II, City Of Heroes/Villains, Age Of Conan, Guild Wars, Aion, Eve Online, Warhammer Online, and then the big one, World Of Warcraft.

This category is horribly addictive. By becoming addicted to these games people have lost friends, family, jobs, educations, houses. I have heard of cases over in Asia where people have been killed in real life over items that are in game. People killing over virtual items. It's madness! It really is!

Sticking with the title of the article, I'm going to mostly focus on MMORPGs, because I know the most about them, being a former addict and all. And mostly it'll be focused on World Of Warcraft, but I think that it can translate into most other MMORPGs fairly easily.

What makes MMORPGs addictive. It's easy, and I'm going to steal some information for this off of a Cracked.com article, because they had some interesting and detailed information about what makes MMORPGs addictive. I'm going to write it from memory though, seeing as I don't want to directly steal off of them.

Firstly, and this is what got me addicted, there's the progression of your character. At the beginning of the game, you start off as a lowly level one. You can hardly do a thing other than wallop things with a club/sword/dagger/staff. But after killing a very small amount of enemies, suddenly you get to level two! You glow for a second, there's a nice sound to accompany your levelling. It's a fun experience, so you go on killing things and doing quests. Next thing you know, you're going up another level, and another level! Before you know it, you're at level 10 and moving to a new area with bigger and more powerful enemies.

But wait, each time you level up, it takes you longer to get to the next level, making it harder, more challenging. If it was easy to gain levels later on in the game as it was at the start, noone would play, because it would be too easy. It's addictive, the thrill of gaining levels, and each time you gain one, you want to gain another!

But also, to go along with the levels, there's the items. As you are levelling up, you are getting new and interesting items, and the higher level you are, the better items you can get, which makes the enemies easier to kill, so you go out killing things to get the items off of them so that you can use the items to kill things faster, so that you can gain levels faster, so that you can kill bigger things and get better items which will make the whole process easier! It's a vicious cycle it is.

In World Of Warcraft, there's also bosses to kill, instances to clear out. These require groups to do, well, most of them do, and there's even more satisfaction in doing the instances than there is just running around by yourself. There's the social aspect, if you get a good group of people it can be a lot of fun for everyone involved, and then there's the levels that you can by doing the instances, which you get faster than if you just run around by yourself, then there's the items that you get from the instances, and the quests that are involved, which are, again, better than you could get by running around by yourself, and then there's the bosses! Which you get another boost of satisfaction from taking down! Each thing gets you more and more addicted than the last. It's a very dangerous and addictive cycle.

How to manage your addiction, or how to not get addicted, or how to cut MMOGs out of your life entirely. My first suggestion is that if you have never played any of these MMOGs, then don't start. If you think that you might get horribly addicted to any of them, just avoid them. I know there are some people out there who can play these games on a casual basis, I think I may be becoming one of them, but there are also a good portion of the population who can and will become addicted to these games, and I was one of them.

If you are addicted, or are thinking of playing one of these games but you fear becoming addicted, then set yourself a schedule. Set an alarm or something of the sorts, and designate a specific amount of time for playing. Don't just log in and play for hours upon hours thinking 'I'll stop playing soon, just got to finish this first, and then finish that' because then it'll be 3am in the morning, you'll be unwashed, and unfed. And yes, this has happened to me.

If you want to get rid of your addiction, then get a friend to change your password and tell them not to tell you, that way you can quit cold turkey. I haven't done this, and never will because I've worked too damn hard to get all the stuff I have in World Of Warcraft, and even if I don't currently play it I still don't want to lose everything I have in the game.

If you have a friend who has lost themselves in the game, then please don't constantly pester them about quitting, this won't work. I know it won't work, because I've tried that, I've had people tell me to quit. It just makes you want to play more. And never ever ever say anything to them like 'It's only a game', because if you do, then you better be prepared to be stabbed in the face. A person has to want to quit, or want to manage their addiction. If they don't want to, then there's really nothing that you can do about it. Other than lock them in your basement until they have stopped playing for long enough that they have forgotten about the game.

Thank you for reading this PSA, I hope it has been informative and useful for you all out there. And again I am going to ask people to go and like the facebook page for this blog. The link is up on the right hand side of my blog. That way, you can be updated as to when I update the blog, as I always post on there. There's also twitter as well, because I also tweet all of my updates.

Have a good Christmas all!