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.
Thedeacon:
I'll come right out and say that my future in AO is shaky right now as a result of the slanderous and untrue article posted about me in the New York Times last Thursday. I don't make this post to create more drama, but rather to state my case and also to shed some additional light on what's going on in my life right now in relation to this horrible article.
Before I go any further, I want to first thank the entire community for all the words of support I received in the past few days. It shows what good people play Anarchy Online, to come to the aid of one of their own. It does make me feel good that you guys don't buy into what that article said, because it's just not true. I'm still reeling in shock over the amount of untrue information was in that article and how certain private issues (bankruptcy) were thrown in that article after the reporter, Seth Schiesel (ingame name Amis) had agreed not release private information such as financial info, school info, etc.
I got so many wonderful and supportive replies in the forums, through email and through private messages, not to mention the fact that Amis has not had the balls to log into AO since the article broke, so I should feel great, right?
Well I don't. I did a search on my name, as someone mentioned they had heard about the article from some dutch site. "Dutch site?" I said to myself. So I did a search on my name, both real name and ingame name and I was shocked to find what people were saying about me. It was absolutely crushing to my ego and my self worth, as I know deep in my heart that the article itself was a lie and Seth's motive may have been to exact revenge on me for flaming an old article he did on AO last year
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php? s= &threadid=58442 is the link. What I said wasn't even that bad, it was more of a joke, but it bothered Seth enough to mention it to me dozens of times while he was here. That should have been my first clue. This was like right when the Jayson Blair story was breaking, so my guard was down because I hadn't fully read up on the Blair situation.
You might have noticed I'm not logging in much lately. when I do, I've been trying to pretend like everything is alright, but I get this sinking feeling, a feeling like I'm going to be judged for my online time and it's totally sucked the fun out of the game for me.
Just reading that article in the Times, looking at the "creative writing" he did and how he left off so much of the positive aspects of my life shows me that he wrote this article with malice. I treated him like family while he was here and he turned around and stabbed me in the back.
Much of what was in that article that actually was true (VERY little of the article had any truth to it, but things like me filing bankruptcy was infact true) were things I had told him outside of the interview to explain a bit of the situation. Both my wife and I demanded that this be left off the article, which he agreed to. I was told that the article was not about ME per se, but rather a positive article about the online gaming community of AO, as told through my eyes. None of my personal information was to be released in this article. I was lied to, my wife was lied to, my friend stuntiliator who he also interviewed was lied to, and now the world is being lied to via this article.
I feel raped. There's no other way to describe it. The person described in the Time article is less than pathetic. He's a weak person that gave up on life. And damnit, that just isn't me at all. I'm no recluse, im no social outcast, I'm no mmorpg addict and I'm no quitter.
7 hours a day. you know what? That's such a load of crap
I would say it's quite rare that I'm ever online for more than four hours a day. Any longer and it's usually me logged into the chat channel or my character sitting doing nothing while I chat. So why am I on so much? Well figure this: I work from my home. There's the occasional downtime while I'
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.
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Get back to me when my brain starts working.
Error creating new session
Hell, that's what most geeks say when normal people ask them about their lifestyle.
The deacon's first response on slashdot to the original story.
The rest of his incoherent ramblings
This guy is a lunatic, tells a new york times reporter a bunch off things about him that he never wanted published, freaks out whn it is saying he was shocked that the journalist didn't live up to his expectation of the article only containing complimentary information, and then freaks out on the entire slashdot corwd for discussing the article. Why is this news still??
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.