Widescreen Gaming Forum

MMORPG's take over your life, literally. Think twice before getting sucked in.

MMORPG's take over your life, literally. Think twice before getting sucked in.

I think that is why I do not play them. I mean, I play way too much BF2 on my off days...I can only imagine how addicting the MMORPG's would be. Also I like the fact that I pay one time for my BF2 obsession and get unlimited free online play.

The MMORPGs should be minimal in up-front cost of the game if you are paying each month. They could charge $5 or $10 to cover the cost of the CD and packaging. And/or offer a free download of the game, but you pay to play online each month. But charging someone $40 or $50 for the right to pay $10 more per month is ludicrous. But, if people are going to keep paying for it... they will continue to use that pricing model.

So, if you don't like the pricing model...start up a campaign to get people to stop playing. Start a big petition and get people to agree to cancel their subscriptions. But I doubt the people playing the game would stop to try to get the pricing changed. It would be like asking all the crack fiends to stop smoking crack to lower the street value. :D It just wouldn't work.

I am now officially hooked on WoW.

I was initially underwhelmed with the game, but after spending some time with it, I am starting to love it. The graphics didn't impress me at first, but now I really like the style. The game is WAY larger than I had anticipated. It rivals CoH/CoV in my opinion as the best MMO on the market.

That said, it takes a certain level of commitment/insanity to play MMOs, but if you have a few friends to play with, coupled with a good voice chat program like Teamspeak or Ventrilo, the experience is great.

MMORPG's take over your life, literally. Think twice before getting sucked in.

Anything can take over your life if you don't exercise self-control. I've played WoW since beta, have maxed out a few characters and on average don't play more than 8 hours a week. I do play other games, work full time and am in an evening MBA program. Besides, MMORPGs have a social element which is quite engaging and enjoyable.

Pricewise, online games are extremely reasonable. $15 a month is really not much - that's ~40 hours of entertainment for the price of going out to a movie for me and my wife.

Graphics wise, WoW isn't anything spectacular or next-gen. It does have native WS support, and has some fun lighting and spell effects. It has a cartoonish feel which is reminiscent of previous Warcraft games. The game itself is great - with a multitude of quests, two huge landmasses with dozens of zones. It is easy to group or solo your way from level 1-60, and at 60 raiding (even if you only spend 2-3 hours, 2-3 nights a week) is the way to go to get better gear. With an expansion due out sometime this year?? it is a great introduction to the world of subscription based gaming.

Trust me, you can try your best to exercise self-control, but for games where you really get into it, it's HARD.

I have end-game characters in FFXI, Ragnarok, WoW and a few other MMO's. Certain ones are easier to control yourself in like WoW, where stuff is fast and you don't need a big commitment, but for FFXI it really takes over your life.

I got to the point where I was at home in the summer, I'd wake up around noon, play solo FFXI till about 6 when my static party started, then play till around 12 at night. The problem was that my long distance relationship (during the summer it's long distance) was suffering because she'd get home around the same time my static pt would start...and since you couldn't alt-tab out of FFXI back then I wasn't able to talk to her!

It even got to the point where I didn't leave my house for a week during exam week where I had no exams or classes.

It's very easy to get lost in the really tedius games that require huge amounts of time to get anywhere, such as FFXI!
(just to let you guys know, I did quit FFXI that summer so I could focus more on school the next year -_-)

Well, I guess that's the tricky part if you get too involved in ANYTHING. Right now I'm really into working late hours, and it's no fun. Anyway, for example, back in high school in the early 90s I was very much into BBS gaming (Trade Wars 2002, Barren Realms Elite, etc); and those games, like MMOGs, required a daily commitment of time to stay current and competitive in the game. Online games are addictive for that very reason, and even more so because you commit to others in your clan/guild you feel pressured to get online and play. But I've known people who are obsessively addicted to CS:S, The Sims, even TV reality shows *gasp*. You just have to learn how to turn off your box, unplug the router and find something, anything else to do for a while.

But it is definitely fair to say that MMOGs in particular can be extremely time consuming, and once you get into it, it can be very difficult to just stop playing.

I am just waiting for someone to try to sue the developers for making a game so addictive that it costs them their job or something. There are so many frivilous lawsuits here in the US, I am surprised this hasn't been tried yet.
:lol: