Why are so many people hooked on games like EverQuest, Asheron's Call and Ultima Online?

To me at least, they are two things: A waste of money and a waste of time.

someone explain to me the appeal of these games...

Did you every try them? If not, there's no easy way to explain. All MMORPGs are highly addictive. Good ones anyway. I played The Realm like a maniac a couple of years ago, for hours every day. That's exactly why I don't want to start playing another MMORPG. They're a lot of fun, but you can lose a year of your life on them easily.

Hope I'll never start playing World of Warcraft ;).

Killing time like a whole year? My dream has come true! Ultima Online here I come!

Well, as you'll see in my thread http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000263.html I'm interested in getting into them.

Mostly this is because I like playing the games but playing all by myself seems like such a waste of time. I like the interaction of live players. At least that way I'm wasting time with a community.

The biggest objection is the monthly fee. But really, considering the amount of entertainment you get out of the things, $10 per month is a bargain.

I can see the mass appeal of MMORPG's. I played several MUD's when I was in college, and let me tell you, they are somewhat addicting (even though I could still go and play poker for about 4 hours a day and still get 8 hours of sleep). I played one that averaged over 200 players at any given time, with a few peeks over 500 during the US prime time hours. The amazing thing with the MUD's was that they were only text based. There were no pictures, so I can see where the craze would come in when you can actually see your character with all your gear and the enemy you are fighting. I simply choose not to buy those games because I cannot afford to spend that much time playing them, the wife won't let me.

Everquest stole around three years of my life. I would play for a while, get fed up and leave, then find myself drawn back after a couple of months.

I'm not playing now, but in all honesty that's just because my pc hasn't evolved along with the game's graphics.

I drew a few friends into the game with me; we would end up talking about the game for hours, online and off.

Relating our adventures was the best part--it was also completely unintellible to outsiders: "I was in Oasis with my DE necro fighting a mob, 'a' orc warrior, that conned red. My pet held him off while I nuked, but it was a bad summon. When my skel died, the orc kept bashing me so I couldn't cast, just as he knocks me unconscious my DoTs finally kill him. I got nearly 2 blue bubs of exp!"

The above is actually going rather light on EQ lingo, too. :p

:evil:

[This message has been edited by The Deviant Mage (edited April 13, 2002).]