Blogs by Todd Cheney
How Everquest can Ruin Your Life
11/22/2004 11:47:11 AM
Step 1-buy the game because they offer a 60-day free trial membership.
Step 2-worry yourself over how to get the motherlovin' thing to work on your school's Internet line. Spend a whole weekend trying to get it to work correctly. (A whole weekend, down the tubes! I could have been doing schoolwork or writing, but no...)
Step 3-even though the game doesn't work properly on your connection and/or computer, play the sucker anyway. Spend 30 hrs. on said weekend familiarizing yourself with game interface and rules of play, and trying to get better stuff. Play the game every day for at least 5 hrs.--if not more! (And subsequently discover that you get disconnected too often for you to get anywhere.)
Step 4-continue step three indefinetely (or until you die). Give up on friends and family, schoolwork, watching TV, working a job, or even going outside. (Note: before you begin this step, you must stock up on Mountain Dew/Pringles/Reese's Pieces. It's also wise to make plans to start wearing Depends and always have Visine handy for that eye strain. If you're a really hardcore player, you might want to arrange an intravenous feeding tube from a local hospital and a nurse to watch over you to make sure you remember to actually eat the potato chips at your side.)
Step 5-there is no step 5, your life is already ruined. Your relatives have begun planning your early funeral, and Sony Online Entertainment is rubbing their hands in glee at having hooked another joker on 'Evercrack.'
Step 6-even though you believed there was a step 6, there in fact, was not. For you see, poor online game addict, it was the game itself that led you to believe there was a step 6, because it was actually an in game quest that you tried to carry over and apply to your real life. When you discovered that the Ring of Everlasting Wonder did not solve your Internet bill of $4,890.67, you decided that the real world and the Internet do not exist.
Step 7-there is only Everquest. Nothing more...
Step 8-No! I've been Pk'd for the sixth time! And they stole my fine plate boots!
Step 9-The sun? There is such a thing?
Step 10-___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(insert your own multitidue of excuses for continuing to play Everquest here.)
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So as you might guess, I had some recent experience with this game. I have found it to be just as addictive and pointless as everyone claims it to be. After all, why play a game that has no end? Isn't the whole point of a game to win said game? Hell, even Monopoly has an end to it...even if it does take all night sometimes. Also, other games like Everquest have endings. With those offline games (most of which now have online versions) you pay your $40 and you actually get to complete the game at some point (and leave it behind you! Possibly sell it to your buddy next door!) The Everquacks behind Evercrack give you none of that. It's perpetual; it can be expanded forever; it gives you the illusion that you know people, even though you if you tried to call those people on the phone, most of them would call you crazy; and it lets you believe you are gaining power that doesn't exist.
You think I'm some kind of idiot? That I'm really going to pay you over $120 just to play a game that never ends, and that will consume my every waking moment? A game that has been linked to death and suicide of some of its players? I mean, Jesus Christ, someone in Wisconsin shot himself while the game was still running. HE SHOT HIMSELF WHILE HE WAS SITTING IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER WITH EVERQUEST RUNNING. How stupid do you think I am? Even my books have ends to them. I mean, I write the beginning, the middle and the end. And that's it. You don't have to pay $120 a year just to be led along like a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of its eyes. Just $20 or less, you read the book or story, and that's it. You can move on from that point, and take whatever you learned with you.
PLEASE, if you are out there, don't play EQ. I have nothing against fantasy or sci-fi personally (in fact, I quite like them), but things like EQ are over the top. It's too much. You can't create the perfect escape and then expect people who are wanting for companionship and meaning in life not to take it!
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