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| Riskbreaker
166th Post
 
Regular Customer
   
|  "3 year old death link to Everquest"
, posted Tue 2 Sep 23:10
I find this newspiece disturbing and I hope the District Attorney throws the book at her and thensome.
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Death Linked To EverQuest
An Arkansas mother was arrested after her 3-year-old daughter died sweltering in a closed car while her mother played EverQuest, police told the northwest Arkansas Morning News. Mary Christina Cordell, 36, faces a felony charge of manslaughter in the death of her daughter, Brianna Cordell, of Springdale, Ark., police spokesman Brian Simmons told the newspaper.
Cordell—who goes by her middle name, Christina—was being held in the Washington County jail on Aug. 25 awaiting a bond hearing, the newspaper reported. If convicted, she faces three to 10 years in prison and a fine up of to $10,000.
Authorities said Cordell and her boyfriend, Eric Long, 21, may have been so fixated with the online role-playing game EverQuest that she neglected to pay adequate attention to Brianna's whereabouts on Aug. 8, the day the child died, the newspaper reported. Brianna was found dead in the front seat of her mother's car at about 3:30 p.m. in the parking lot of their apartment complex.
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http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-.../29/09.00.games
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| Fygee 788th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member+
   
    
| "Re(8):3 year old death link to Everquest" , posted Thu 4 Sep 03:14
I'll put things into perspective, being a former EQ player, and having observed a lot of the behaviors of people.
The game is boring, frustrating, and full of timesinks. There's no question about it. However, the one thing that keeps people playing is the constant thought of advancing and finding that uber item, so people can love and worship you in the game. You basically achieve in the game what you couldn't in real life.
Also, the way the game is set up, there are times if you so much as get up and go to the bathroom, you can miss your chance to get an extremely rare item needed to progress, meaning you'll have to wait for another opportunity to come again, which can sometimes be almost an entire month. Its almost like gambling, where you think "If I'm there today, maybe it'll happen, I can't leave and risk it". This is where the "addiction" sets in.
Also, when you become high level, it almost becomes an obligation to play, because you have to help out your clan, try to find the uber item as stated above, and basically maintain your character so you don't miss out on anything.
Now, being one who hates games that are boring and just plain suck, doesn't have a need to be uber in a false world outside of the elements of gameplay that require it, and feels that once playing a game becomes an obligation, its not a game anymore, I fell out of love with Everquest after about 6 months. Same for every other MMORPG I've played with the exception of Neocron, because the combat is actually fun.
So in a way, EQ is just a game for those who are insecure and have social, compulsive, and addiction issues. :p
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| Mosquiton 882th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "Re(9):3 year old death link to Everquest" , posted Thu 4 Sep 06:40
quote:
I'll put things into perspective, being a former EQ player, and having observed a lot of the behaviors of people.
The game is boring, frustrating, and full of timesinks. There's no question about it. However, the one thing that keeps people playing is the constant thought of advancing and finding that uber item, so people can love and worship you in the game. You basically achieve in the game what you couldn't in real life.
Also, the way the game is set up, there are times if you so much as get up and go to the bathroom, you can miss your chance to get an extremely rare item needed to progress, meaning you'll have to wait for another opportunity to come again, which can sometimes be almost an entire month. Its almost like gambling, where you think "If I'm there today, maybe it'll happen, I can't leave and risk it". This is where the "addiction" sets in.
Also, when you become high level, it almost becomes an obligation to play, because you have to help out your clan, try to find the uber item as stated above, and basically maintain your character so you don't miss out on anything.
Now, being one who hates games that are boring and just plain suck, doesn't have a need to be uber in a false world outside of the elements of gameplay that require it, and feels that once playing a game becomes an obligation, its not a game anymore, I fell out of love with Everquest after about 6 months. Same for every other MMORPG I've played with the exception of Neocron, because the combat is actually fun.
So in a way, EQ is just a game for those who are insecure and have social, compulsive, and addiction issues. :p
I think I'd still like to try FFXI, MMORPGs do have positive points to them... there's just something satisfying about building up a powerful character. Many (if not most) rely on this principle to some extent.
So I wouldn't call anyone who played one a braindead loser, but that woman (and a lot of other people) obviously has problems. I say do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone... it's really sad to see a new life snuffed out by compulsion.
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| OmegaDog 765th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(9):3 year old death link to Everquest" , posted Thu 4 Sep 18:02
I'm just curious -- if subscriptions lapse on EQ, are they deleted (whether or not there's a grace period)? Or are they indefinitely kept?
There is the appeal in MMPORGs to become an uber-powerful character, as Fygee and Mosquiton mentioned -- and there is the appeal of getting an uber-rare item.
With regards to leveling up and item collecting, though, you can be of the camp that every monster you don't kill is a missed chance to get an uber-rare and useful item and some experience -- or you can realize that being on a section of a map every waking hour, killing the same enemies for one simple item, can be incredibly unenjoyable and unfulfilling -- plus, it still leaves you with the high probability that you might not find the item you want, while someone else might get the item after five minutes of killing enemies. [Tying into that last part -- if leveling up and spending lots of time collecting that random rare is something you avoid or want to minimize as much as possible in games (say, you didn't care to get all the souls and a high level in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow), then you most likely won't be devoting all waking hours to leveling up and hunting rares in an MMPORG.]
If a player is the kind of person who has a major goal in offline RPGs to obsessively-compulsively level up and then brag about his/her characters to his/her friends, then an MMPORG would most definitely be a problem for him/her.
If you realize, though, that it really doesn't do much for you at all in life to do that kind of obsessive-compulsive work in an MMPORG -- then an MMPORG can actually be fun; it can actually be a game. At least in Ragnarok Online, it's fun to get into temporary parties, explore dungeons, and fight monsters, not only watching your own back but also watching the backs of others. It's like playing a tactics game with more than one person.
I suppose it depends on what kind of mentality you have when you play RPGs.
"I'll punish you with my burning fist of justice!!" | CCT: NEXT STAGE IS 14 |
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| DarkZero 265th Post
Copper Customer
| "Re(10):3 year old death link to Everquest" , posted Thu 4 Sep 19:18
I think the real problem with MMORPGs that a lot of people miss is the scale that the characters are on. Most of the players are just the normal, pathetic citizens that give the "uber powerful" characters a sense of scale. 90% of the players are just the village NPCs standing around chatting or the dead soldiers that were slaughtered by the huge monster, while the other 10% get to be The Cast, i.e. the Clouds, Tifas, Aerises, and Sephiroths of the MMORPG. In order to have a character that's even slightly powerful, you have to level up for a month or two. You're not really useful until your fortieth level or so and even then you're not exactly Cloud or Sephiroth. You're more of a Cait Sith, or worse, an Algus or Hammer.
Early MMORPGs were designed to drain your time and keep you playing. Unfortunately, this somehow became the standard for MMORPGs and now everyone that plays them has to kill rats and chickens for two months before they can move UP to the boring, unoriginal enemies. Thankfully, it looks like Blizzard wants to change this, and I'm actually keeping track of the development of World of Warcraft. It looks like you'll be able to use some kick-ass powers early on and you won't have to go through any ridiculous requirements to play as an Undead or Tauren. Each race will also supposedly have special powers right from the start, but the only one that they've mentioned so far is that Tauren run as fast as a horse. It could turn out to be a piece of crap like every other MMORPG, but so far it looks like it might be pretty good.
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"Re(5):3 year old death link to Everquest" 
