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A family member addicted to second life.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
That game just takes over peoples lives...what is it about it which makes it so addictive?
A family member of mine schedules her life around when her online friends from different countries are on it...has facebook albums dedicated to her 'SL' marriage.
This person doesn't work due to a lifelong disability so to occupy herself she goes on the net which is fair play but this is a pure addiction!!
A family member of mine schedules her life around when her online friends from different countries are on it...has facebook albums dedicated to her 'SL' marriage.
This person doesn't work due to a lifelong disability so to occupy herself she goes on the net which is fair play but this is a pure addiction!!
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It runs badly, it looks ugly and it's full of furries.
Shawn Elliott at GFW Magazine did an excellent article about people who are virtual prostitutes in Second Life. Folk make a living giving digital blowjobs.
My friend and I went on a tour of second life, which involved being kicked out of a Stars Wars themed area for driving clown cars around Mos Eisley We caught ourselves dancing in a German disco and realised that we were on the peak of a slippery slope. Uninstalled it straight away.
I've got to agree with the above. God knows how anyone can be addicted to Secondlife. I used it for a few hours desperately trying to figure out what the point in it was. When i realised there was infact no point i quit and uninstalled it. I wasted a few hours of my life on that shite, my time would have been so much more productive if i'd spent it scratching my backside !!
Andy
These games are designed with addiction in mind so it's no surprise people get hooked. I attended a lecture by one of the original developers of EVE and he basically said that their purpose had always been to create an addictive game you can never get enough of.
These game give a lot of people feelings of involvement and importance. You can be a warlord online whereas offline you're just a worthless person working a dead-end job and getting nagged by family for sucking so much. I think everybody knows somebody whose life is work, play, sleep. Their 'life' is going on in their games. But of course it really is just an illusion of a life. It's not all doom and gloom though
I don't touch any of these games because I know I'd become addicted easily, I have a history of having been an IRC addict and the net is still a chain around my neck at times. I'm tempted to try EVE but I just know it's not a route I want to go down anymore.
Second Life is the wild fucking west of online content. There is no sexual deviance, hobby or interest that is represented. I guess the addiction is from leading that extra life, an extra life that lets you ride a dinosaur and dance in a space station full of pirates.
Ho hum.
Okay, I've played WoW for over 2 years now, but I'm only on it a couple of nights a week, for 2-3 hours each time. We are a RL (real life) group of friends who will make plans to participate in a couple of weekly dungeons, and we have a laugh over VoIP (Skype / Teamspeak) while killing fictional dragons etc. Of course, we meet outside of WoW too, i.e. in the real world! When I'm not playing WoW on quiet nights in, (and I'm not writing/mixing music), then I'm usually out pubbing/clubbing.
What's the addiction of WoW?
Re: the WoW addiction, the blokey gets really into it. TOO into it, getting cross at it. It's mental!
The first step is getting the player to admit that they have an addiction, whether it's MMO addiction, gambling addiction or substance addiction.
Not too difficult to understand getting annoyed at something happening in a game if you stuff it up at last moment.
:yes: Exactly. I was like this with another game a few years ago.
It probably isn't that unusual tbh. Around 2003, I had an internet addiction. I'm ok now, unless I'm bored.
Not true. The beauty of these games is that you create your own goals. Sure, WoW is perhaps the most straightforward of the big games (I'm not too familiar with it actually) but like EVE, people specialise in different things and you can pretty much be whatever you want to be. You find groups to hang with that may be similarly minded. They start depending on you to do certain thing, it makes you feel good to be wanted so you keep coming and decide to put other plans on hold to make it happen.
Sure the nature of second life may be different (especially as I get the feeling it's not aimed at boys as much as it is aimed at girls) but it doesn't make it more stupid than WoW. People get addicted to these games because of the social aspect. Who cares if you're chopping people's heads off or carving penises for a laugh? The end result is the same.
Addiction often follows depression.
Gaming addiction can be bad, but it can also be good, people do not judge you in a game, your personality is projected before people can see you and they can make a better judgment of character. People online have been there for me when i was down down down and i've been there for them.
Sometimes its hard to see other peoples point of view, and almost impossible on an online game but is socialising with online friends really damaging this person or giving them a new avenue of interaction with people who will not judge their disability?
Having said that, when I first opened an account to see what the hell it was about, I couldn't see the point to it either. Loads of people milling about, stores to buy clothing, etc nightclubs ... it was, indeed, a 'second life' but wow, that got boring (like, within a day or two?).
I was just about to leave and delete the software when someone introduced me to the RP side of SL and that is all I use it for now.
I probably go on for about 3 hours a week but I do know of many people who use it almost all day. Indeed, a couple of people I know on there do have debilitating illnesses and it is their way of having a life outside of them being stuck within four walls. That I can understand. If it's entertainment, then good on 'em. However, many people are quite sad and don't have much of a real life to distract them .... I do tell them, "Take a break!" but many just can't let go. Fortunately, I can take it or leave it because I have a very fulfilling real life. Some people don't, and may use SL to hide their sadness.
I think people find it addictive because, apart from the social aspect (think of a higher form of chat to, say, MSN) they invest a lot of real currency to create their AVs and environment, and they find it hard to walk away from that.
Hey, the sims are awesome. I love them
Anyways, I use to play WoW a few years ago. Was great craic but my life didn't revolve round it as such. Just played it when I had nothing to do. Didn't really use it to talk to others either. Was just a game for me until I got bored or found something else I got addicted to.
:yes: I have come across this online. And some people have been quite ratty at me because I don't spend the amount of time that they do, and don't understand that I use it as a GAME - and not a 'surrogate' existence.
Sims are great
Between the Sims I and Sims II releases, EA released their "Sims Online". Don't get me started there. I lived in a big house-share in 2002 with 6 other students. They all decided to latch onto the game and I didn't. The house was transformed from a group of socialites to a group of 24/7 lock-ins. Probably a great game, but proven highly antisocial.