Everquest destroys marriages

My apologies if this has been posted before in an identical or similar fashion. I saw this today at the official techtv website ( www.techtv.com )and found it pretty dissapointing. It made me remember the story someone posted regarding a player who actually died whilst playing Everquest after he had secluded himself for months and months without outside contact (the end cause of his death was something medication related I believe) - anyway, this is something similar.
I love the concept of massively multiplayer online RPGs and also enjoy general mulitplayer games (like Quake 3) - they can be extremely addicting but thankfully, I have a general idea for myself of when too much is too much. I have made the mistake in the past of letting myself lose that ability however, and in the end spent way too much time with a game than in retrospect, I think was healthy for me at the given time. Its stories like these that make one really see gaming for what it can be at times (just like anything when taken into extremes) - a straight up addiction.

BTW I'm not preaching or trying to down excessive gaming - there are some times when thats all one wants to do and thats fine - I just thought ppl would be interested in reading this story. (The linked page is most likely easier to read than me just posting the article.)

http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/s...372376,00.html

I guess I'm glad I quit that game while I was ahead.

Did you find yourself playing it way too much?

I wonder if EverQuest creates more marriages than it destroy.

I remember being totally addicted to Counter-Strike.

Man, those days sucked.

I didnt really play it too much, but there was a time when I was working at a duplication office for my community college. There were plenty of labels to put on these tapes, but once you put in 32 tapes to record one 4 hour tape, you had NOTHING to do for 4 hours. My girlfriend went to the college so during breaks she'd visit, or I could browse the internet or go on Napster(That should give a timeframe) Needless to say I eventually brought EQ to work, and played it every now and then. In fact I think I played it more there, than anywhere else.

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Originally posted by burgundy
I wonder if EverQuest creates more marriages than it destroy.

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Yeah, some of the most ridiculous marriages that I've heard of are actually performed online... thats just crazy - but I also wonder how does one arrange all the details of such a marriage? Such as who's 'invited' and where in the lands of Everquest do they hold the marriage. I'd assume the easiest way would be to contact the main server people so they can send out a message to all EQ users so they could have a ton of people arrive at the wedding location online in the game at a certain time. ... *shakes head* - anyway thats crazy shit!

When I was in a guild, there was a marriage withen it. Apparantly you post it on the message board, you let whomever on the server that you play on, that is also your friend, know what time it is going down, and lastly you get a Game Master(GM) or Guide to come to it, this way the last name is actually changed in game as well... Never really thought highly of it, but decided to shed some light on it.

ah - so thats how its done. So in a way it is officially "sanctioned" by an official Everquest server? I'm not too up on EQ but I assume that there are only official servers avaliable - obviously as one has to pay to play.

What was the wedding like? What does one do at one - just kind of let your character stand there and listen to the ceremonies?

More or less, then afterwords everybody would get together, drink the alchohol which made the view distorted, dexterity go down, and screen go back and forth. When that was done, you'd probably go to the nearest dungeon and beat the shit out of whatever got in your way.