Everquest presents no inherent danger for the vast majority of people who play it. This is because the vast majority of people who play Everquest are not hardcore players, like I once was, and like the author of this article clearly was/is. Rather, the vast majority of EQ players are casual players, like my fiancee and the dozen or so of our mutual friends who play the game.
My fiancee will generally play Everquest once or maybe twice a week, for only an hour or two at a time. Very rarely, as in once every two months, she will play for an entire evening or night, but usually this extended play session is a result of some sort of real-life social function, such as Everquest LAN parties and the like.
When I sold my account in November of 1999, I had played for over 1400 hours, most of that in the three months following the game's release. My fiancee has played less than a tenth of that in all of two years.
I quit because the only goal I had in-game was to advance my character, and meaningful advancement, even in those early days, meant sitting in on raids for 10 or more hours at a time only to stand a fraction of a chance of getting some item that would only incrementally increase my power. The amount of time the game was asking from me to accomplish even the smallest thing was far too great when compared to the reward I was being offered.
My fiancee, on the other hand, and all of our Everquest-playing friends, don't seem to care much about being on the cutting edge, about being in the top tier, about being the first to explore new areas and to conquer new challenges as they are released. They seem quite content and happy to muck about in areas of the world that hold no new secrets to decipher, whose monsters have been killed literally millions of times over, and slowly meander through the game at their own pace. There is no pressure, no pain, not the faintest hint of any inherent danger or addictive quality waiting to swallow them up and turn them into Everquest zombies.
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Everquest presents no inherent danger for the vast majority of people who play it. This is because the vast majority of people who play Everquest are not hardcore players, like I once was, and like the author of this article clearly was/is. Rather, the vast majority of EQ players are casual players, like my fiancee and the dozen or so of our mutual friends who play the game. My fiancee will generally play Everquest once or maybe twice a week, for only an hour or two at a time. Very rarely, as in once every two months, she will play for an entire evening or night, but usually this extended play session is a result of some sort of real-life social function, such as Everquest LAN parties and the like. When I sold my account in November of 1999, I had played for over 1400 hours, most of that in the three months following the game's release. My fiancee has played less than a tenth of that in all of two years. I quit because the only goal I had in-game was to advance my character, and meaningful advancement, even in those early days, meant sitting in on raids for 10 or more hours at a time only to stand a fraction of a chance of getting some item that would only incrementally increase my power. The amount of time the game was asking from me to accomplish even the smallest thing was far too great when compared to the reward I was being offered. My fiancee, on the other hand, and all of our Everquest-playing friends, don't seem to care much about being on the cutting edge, about being in the top tier, about being the first to explore new areas and to conquer new challenges as they are released. They seem quite content and happy to muck about in areas of the world that hold no new secrets to decipher, whose monsters have been killed literally millions of times over, and slowly meander through the game at their own pace. There is no pressure, no pain, not the faintest hint of any inherent danger or addictive quality waiting to swallow them up and turn them into Everquest zombies.