# Remember to turn off visitor access! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 21, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895 "2004-12-21T01:48:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@Cerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerri)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/21 "2004-12-21T20:29:33Z")
I think that’s the funniest thing I’ve read since the “Page 8” debacle of the first EQ, which was probably the single most viewed thread of EQ message board history. For those of you who enjoyed the above meltdown, and never got to read the beauty that was “Page 8”, go [here](http://www.brellrants.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2734) MMORPG Comedy Gold. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/22 "2004-12-21T21:16:11Z")
So lemme get this straight… An in-game character gets caught cheating with another in-game character, which was all ruse to have an in-game characters in-game girlfriend break up, out of revenge for in-game harassment? 😕 Do these people ever interact wtih actual human beings? Have they ever been out in the sun before?! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/23 "2004-12-21T21:40:29Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > Do these people ever interact wtih actual human beings? Have they ever been out in the sun before?! :eek: I like in the quoted text that the girl referred to a “perm online gf” or something. What’s the token for showing that you and an online paramour have gone steady? At least they’re monogamous and not likely to catch Also, was that leetspeak or was it just some sort of incredible semi-literate cipher? Re: the “explanatory” thread: I think I’ve just succumbed to information overload - and I still have not idea what it was about. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/24 "2004-12-21T21:50:59Z")
Dunno if folks on this board are the right ones to chide the gamers here for not having real lives, **Incubus**. 😉 Think of the original prank as a pitting. IF the guy had owned up and said “Holy s—, you got me, jesus christ you’re a bunch of jerks” it probably would blow over pretty quickly. What’s so funny and becoming legendary is that the victim is INSISTING he didn’t cyber anyone, and that the screenshots are actually elaborately Photoshopped to embarrass him, and he’s gonna get people banned from EQ and sue everyone involved for committing fraud and humiliation…of his online character. He’s panicked about his reputation…in the game. THAT’s what’s funny, that this guy is taking the game so seriously he’s trying to take legal action outside of it. Actually, it’s more sad than funny, but the other gamers do seem to have a clearer grasp of reality than he does. ---
**Author:** ![Chastain86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/25 "2004-12-21T21:57:23Z")
I would like everybody within the sight of my words to view this link. And then I’d like you to personally e-mail every moderator and administrator of the SDMB, thanking them for not allowing all the sig pictures and stupid crap here. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/26 "2004-12-22T05:29:48Z")
> [@Scruloose](#): > > Young teenagers are running wild all over the internet. Its a good thing there aren’t any sheep. They’d be killing sheep ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/27 "2004-12-22T06:14:56Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > I like in the quoted text that the girl referred to a “perm online gf” or something. What’s the token for showing that you and an online paramour have gone steady? I don’t know about [Everquest 2](http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/faq.vm), because I don’t play it, but in[Everquest](http://eqlive.station.sony.com/manual/index.jsp), people can have “wedding” ceremonies, sometimes complete with a GM (company refereek, they enforce the rules and fix problems, they are a form of Moderator) who does the ceremony, and changes one person’s last name to be the same as their partner. (You can’t have identical last names without a GM petition being answered usually, sometimes a name will get by even if someone had it before you.) Here is a screenshot of a dual wedding which had a GM as acting officiant. They are the one in the white robe, with green name letters saying Highorder of Lanys (one of many servers) visible above their head. [Dual Wedding](http://img156.exs.cx/img156/3563/dualwedding7gr.jpg)[Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting](http://www.imageshack.us) ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/28 "2004-12-22T06:34:56Z")
Meant to add, most people don’t take the commitment too seriously, it’s mostly just an excuse to have an in-game get together where people give you presents, though there are some who go further and either meet up in real life, or marry their RL significant other’s character. Often those who meet each other in real life aren’t looking for romance, they just want to meet the people they’ve been interacting with so frequently, like Dopefests. Here are some of the [slang](http://everquest.allakhazam.com/Terms.html) [terms](http://eq.stratics.com/content/gameplay/guides/comm101.shtml) unique to Everquest. Here is a [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everquest) about Everquest, most of which probably also applies to EQ 2, because many of the people who played EQ also play EQ 2, so with the exception of game differences, use the same lingo. [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest_2) is a Wikipedia article about Everquest 2. Hope this helps. Everquest was the first MMORPG which had an actual economic system btw. ---
**Author:** ![Cerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@Cerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerri)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/29 "2004-12-22T07:18:45Z")
Actually, my RL fiance and I originally met in Everquest almost 4 years ago. I was apping to the guild he was in, we were getting pretty close online, started talking on the phone, met at a RL Guild Meet we had in Vegas 3 1/2 years ago, I moved down here to Texas 6 months after that, and we’ve been blissfully happy ever since. It’s not terribly common you meet someone online with whom it ends up working IRL, but it does happen more than you’d think. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/30 "2004-12-22T07:35:18Z")
> [@Lord Ashtar](#): > > I couldn’t even get halfway down the page. All those enormous sigs and picture attachments. What’s going on? 😕 Yeah, and the text goes outside of the normal screen width, or is that what you meant by enormous sigs? ---
**Author:** ![poeticyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6bbea6/32.png) [@poeticyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/poeticyde)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/31 "2004-12-22T13:48:13Z")
Ceciliantas’ Theme (To the tune of “Fell in Love With a Girl” by the White Stripes) Cyber love with a girl, Ceciled her at once, and _almost_ completely, But in a virtual world, Sometimes these meetings can be so misleading, I “came” and said, “are you alright?” But I knew that she was fine after “cyber beating,” Aren’t I glad I have nothin’ to hide, Cause I’m sure that Evenstar won’t consider it cheating, nah…. But then, to ruin my world, An invisible scout with his eyes a-peeping, Saw me cyber the “girl”, And with screenshots exposed our illicit “meeting,” Then I find out that the “girl” is a “dude,” And my cyber-reputation really takes a beating, So I deny the whole thing is true, Yeah, I said that once before, but it bears repeating now… With only the faintest of apologies, Poeticyde (Yet another who has no connection to EQ but finds this hilarious) ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/32 "2004-12-22T21:29:54Z")
> [@Lamar Mundane](#): > > It makes me feel oddly proud to say that I don’t have one iota of a clue as to what that is all about. > > It may as well be written in Swahili. You and me both. I get the _gist_ of it, but all the screen caps and such—had no clue. I’m not wading through all that. And I think things will look “huge” if your screen resolution is anything less than 1280x1024. (That’s what mine is at, and it looked fine.) Still, most people go with 1028x768 or lower, so for them it’s going to look too big. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/33 "2004-12-22T23:09:13Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > Its a good thing there aren’t any sheep. They’d be killing sheep You think that’s a joke. I never did the online gaming thing but I did play D&D in college. Got involved in a campaign with a guy who took it so seriously that he threatened to kill all of us if we let his character (who’d been severely wounded) die. We figured he was just being a jerk, so we kept his character alive-but-comatose (with magick, oooh!) and then, shall we say, had our way with his charcater. Repeatedly. In the butt. We stopped campaigning with him after he physically attacked one of us. Another bunch of people I hung out with at the time were into “witchcraft” (no disrespect to actual witches intended) and “psychic powers.” Ever see that episode of Hing of the Hill where Bobby falls in with the “coven”? Like that, only hundreds of times worse. Unbeknownst to the general public, these folks were engaged in full-on psychic warfare throughout the Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex. Harmless fun, until people started disappearing mysteriously… People take this shit _waaaay_ too seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/34 "2004-12-23T00:45:44Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > Unbeknownst to the general public, these folks were engaged in full-on psychic warfare throughout the Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex. Have you seen the recent South Park where Cartman mentally battles a society of psychic detectives? Funniest moment for several series, I swear. ---
**Author:** ![DarkPrince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@DarkPrince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarkPrince)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/35 "2004-12-23T05:09:10Z")
That guy’s a idiot of the highest order and got thoroughly 0wn3d harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Going from a no-name dumbass to being laughed at by over 300,000 people from pretty much every developed country on the planet has to hurt. :smack: [sub][Needs to get outside more]That Page 8 thing made me laugh my ass off. Also, I’m proud that I got a link and was able to reply on the cecil thread on one of the early pages when his royal n0obness was still reading.[/The sun, it burns!][/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/36 "2004-12-23T05:44:37Z")
I went, and my first thought was “Holy shit, what an ugly board.” Then I read it, and saw the human tragedy unfolding. Then I laughed. Loud and with cruelty. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/37 "2004-12-23T06:58:32Z")
This may be wrong, but my first solid thought on that thread came on page 2, in that otherwise very amusing post by GEORGE\_ZIMMER. Dante’s Inferno was written in Italian, not Latin. So does that make me a BIGGER geek than those Everquest folks? ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/38 "2004-12-23T06:59:13Z")
It’s amazing how this is spreading. I wonder if it’ll make it to television news. ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/39 "2004-12-23T09:08:55Z")
I’m still reading the thread. Most of those people are such fucking assholes. They really sour the humor. I remember why I don’t like gaming communities. Seriously, people who suggest or joke that he kill himself make me really sick. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895/40 "2004-12-23T09:16:01Z")
Those are the trolls of the EQ2 community. Things like that thread bring them out of their dark cesspits in droves. There are so many playing the game, there are bound to be some jerks, but you can avoid them once you’ve identified them. The nice thing about EQ and EQ 2 is, you can type /ignore \ and you won’t be able to recieve any more “tells” (that’s text messages to Fark) from them. It’s so nice. 🆒 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-to-turn-off-visitor-access/280895.md?page=3)