Can somene tell me about the Everquest? Should I be worried about a 14yr old Nephew?

Cafe Society
21

Hi, my name is mrklutz, and I’m an EQ addict.

I spend a lot of time playing EQ. It’s addictive, and it will suck up far more time than you think it will. However, the same can be said of most of my other hobbies throughout my life. Despite my addiction, I hang out with my friends in real life, hold down a professional job, make small improvements to my house, and so on. It doesn’t interfere with my life any more than another hobby would. In addition, I’ve met a number of folks online that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been playing.

The only bad news I have is that your nephew is a geek. As with all young geeks, his parents will have to make him go outside from time to time. He will protest, and they will persist. It’s the way of things.

Hope he has a fun summer.

22

LOL there are high elves, dark elves, wood elves and half elves=) and right now 65 is as high as you can get. They were going to extend it to 68 for the 5th anniversary shindig, but there were tech problems…

and it just struck me that I should pass on some URLs…
Official Sony EQ site
Popular fan site
{people go here to look up quests, spells, and things about the zones and animals they will run into}
Another fan site
Another fan site, with gaming news on all sorts of games
In addition, The Unholy…
MySupersales is where you can buy game items with real money. The real players do not like this as it basically is cheating. It is also against the terms of service for Sony…Players feel that people working for the site are basically ruining gameplay for others because they monopolize certain monsters to get the items they drop when killed to sell to people, instead of letting others have a turn at killing them to gett he item for themselves. You can also buy character accounts here, which is definitely cheating, and also against the terms of service…

23

No Everquest thread could be complete without reference to the Everquest Suicide.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar02/31536.asp

24

Sure, but I’d have to keel all the steenky hobbits first.

Athena, aka
Bryllyn Y’per
Dark Elf Enchantress
Tunare server

25

Same as every casino I have been in in the last 5 years or so have had signs up for gamblers anonymous or other help lines, D&D went through the ‘evil’ phase, drugs are out there…

People who are unstable are unstable, and can find something addictive, be it gambling, gaming, drugs, food or drink…and when they go over the edge the addictive item is blamed…but the vast majority of people playing obviously haven’t cracked. Some guilds require a serious dedication of time involved in being members - Afterlife [the seniormost guild in EQ, who just retired from EQ and is currently beta testing World of Warcraft] require something like 8 hours a day, the maximum level available and serious equipment. Other guilds, like the one I am in have the only requirement that you play fair, be nice to everybody, be helpful to people in guild and have fun. No time requirements, just that you join the guild website and provide a valid email in case they need to get in touch with you. FWIW, I actually know personally most of the people I game with regularly outside the game, by their real name and address, and we also talk on the phone. I have even met several of my game friends in person=)

[and you forgot the woman who had her kid in the car and it died while she went in and plaed EQ at a cyber cafe…sec while I google…my bad, she was at home – http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2003/8/28-87]

26

I was rifling through yesterday’s papers, and happened to find myself looking at the obituarys. One of the unfortunate deaths was a lad of 36 years, which is slightly rare for obituaries. He had a wife, etc. I kept reading, and a few lines before the bottom, all by itself with nothing like it around, was the sentence, “He was an avid EverQuest player.”

…

I thought of this thread. At least he died happy. :slight_smile:

27

I was “addicted” to an online game similar to EQ once… it was called Gemstone, and since it was part of AOL back before they switched to flat rate, I was being billed $3 an hour to play. It was not uncommon for me to run up AOL bills of $400 a month.

So, it could be much worse. (Such as obsession with a collectible card game, like Magic: the Gathering, where he could easily be spending $13 a day on cards.)

Yes, Gemstone interfered with my personal relationships. Yes, it interfered with many of the things I should have been doing otherwise, like cleaning house… :smack:

However, I did form personal relationships with other players, and in your nephew’s case, those other players are also real-life relationships, so they’re bonding. My experience playing with teens of his age is that these games give them a way to run rampage in virtual “gangs” and express their natural hormonally-driven pack urges without actually inconveniencing anyone else (except other gamers, perhaps).

Also, considering the other risks that are presented to teens these days, EQ is a minor vice, if it can be considered one at all.

Finally, despite a year-long addiction to my game of choice, I completely lost interest in it after a two-week hiatus when I traveled and had no opportunity to play. So it’s not really that powerful an “addiction” after all.

If you still dislike the game, after all you’re reading about it, then I suggest you purchase another game for him, in another genre, that he may find equally engaging – may I recommend Civilization III?

28

If his father plays EQ, and is a high-level player, and knows the kid is playing…

why is it your business to be worried?

29

Well, I was about to chime in with my two cents worth on online gaming and children in general, and how to tell as a parent with no clue what that means if your kid is doing too much of it…
…then I saw that his father plays the same game.

So, the question changes drastically to HOW does he play the game.

We know he plays too much, and the time limit thing is being done. Good. One problem solved.

The bigger question, though, is what does he do when he’s in the game? That is, I think, more important than raw hours spent playing.
First off, does he play with his father? Can I assume you and the father are separated? Perhaps the reason he plays is to spend time with said father.

Or, the opposite… do they have little-to-no contact in the game?

Assuming they have at least some interaction, the father would be the best source for information about the character that the child chooses to play… which is the best way to decide whether he plays ‘too much’ or not.

The real attraction of these types of games is that you get to ‘be whomever you wish to be’… and it is here that the obsessive types get, well, obsessive.

Generally, there are two basic types… those who play cooperatively with others, and those who (even though they might cooperate with others for their goals) tend to focus on FIGHTING one another… either through dueling or other ‘legal’ means, or by stealing or killing those who don’t want to be killed.

So, basically, ask the father what the kid does… if he’s running around getting groups together to go fight big bad monsters and get treasure, good. If he’s running around getting groups together to kill other groups of players, bad.

In addition, you mentioned that the majority of his money is spent for in-game items. This is not a good thing, as previously mentioned, due to it being a technical violation of the game’s rules in this case. However, also in this case, it’s one of those things that’s so common as to be quasi-legal anyway. Wonder why the mods don’t close threads for it… no matter. q;}

If the desire to play and improve a character is so great that it overwhelms his ability to be and improve himself, he plays too much. If not, he doesn’t.

And that’s my 2 silvers’ worth.