Slashdot Mirror
Anarchy Online Gamer Responds
An anonymous reader writes "Thought some people might be interested in seeing a follow up on the NYT article about the Anarchy Online player. His reaction to it was less then supportive. You can read about what he had to say and what other players had to say." See the original story for background.
I think the worst part about the NYT scandal is that it's easy to accuse a bad story of being completely wrong now. All this shows is that somebody is a liar. Which side, I don't know. It's messed up regardless.
I think raped is an adequate way to describe defamation in a national newspaper. The reporter apparently violated thedeacon's trust on several counts, and to do it in a national newspaper is outright heinous.
Thedeacon has a point when he says that private figures are not subject to the scrutiny of public figures. If the cost of law weren't so prohibitive, he'd probably sue, and would be absolutely justified in doing so. This sort of scandalous reporting deserves some serious publicity.
---------
Get back to me when my brain starts working.
I played a MUD (www.actofwar.com) in the year 2000 or so for the first time in my life after learning about it in IRC. It's a PK (Player Killing) game where you level up and group with other players from your city, to attack the players of one of the 3 other cities. It was addictive as hell, and rewards smart and fast thinking. I'd spend over 12 hours a day playing it. Nothing I could do could stop it...I'd delete my char (it's not very long to level) sometimes, only to make new ones. When there were no enemies on, instead of logging off I'd start a new char from a different class or run the monsters for good equipment.
Over a year later I decided I'd had enough, gave away my chars and deleted ZMUD and never went there again. That's about the same time my friend lended me his Diablo 2 + Expansion CDs with a virgin CD key, and BAM! It started all over again. The first week I was a newbie trying to figure out where to go and how to do things, and 2 months later (due to inredible luck from the random item drops) I'm a rich-as-hell elite possessing the rarest bow in the game, and even though I wasn't having any fun, the preciousness (sp) of those virtual items was way too much to just abandon it all. However eventually the same same scenario happened again: I suddenly realized I was wasting my life, gave away the items, and deleted.
As I type this now, I'm addicted to laziness. I spend my time playing old PC games, games of older consoles via emulation, and downloading music and porn off Kazaa. Once again it's time for a purge except this time it'll be more radical. I'm backing up whatever personal things I've gathered over the years (wacky pictures, rom collections, sex pictures I'm particularly fond of, irc logs, etc) to view again 10 years from now since this is basically the only memories I'll have of my late teenager years, and then I'mformatting my hard drive and giving the computer to my sister.
If anyone else than me has gaming fucking up their life, I suggest they do the same. It might seem too radical, but you don't need that PC, no matter how big a geek you are (and I doubt you're a bigger geek than me), unless you're choosing a career down the road.
As for the accusations from TheDeacon: OK, the article was painfully sensationalistic. But there's no libel here. Yeah, they paint a picture of him and his life, he doesn't like. Yeah, they put stuff in the article about his financial situation he wanted to keep private. But there's no real misinformation. Just interpretations TheDeacon doesn't like.
Get real, dude. Nobody sees a person as they see themselves. And no competent journalist will let the subject of an interview have editorial input. If you want your life to be private, be more careful who you talk to.