Online Game (Mmorpg) Addiction
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Sooner or later, almost every person on the face of this earth will engage in a hobby or activity that they enjoy very much. This is natural, and should be appreciated when found. The problem begins when these activities overwhelm your mind and create a constant craving. This is known as addiction.
I’m here to share the story of my former video game addiction. My addiction first began when I was introduced by a friend to a free online game called Runescape, where you interact with massive amounts of people online, and compete to be the most powerful and rich player in the game.
I started out as a casual player, only getting online when my friends and I could all log on and hang out in the virtual world of Runescape. This casual playing soon started towards addiction as I began to play more and more each day, even when my friends weren’t on, so that I could surprise them and show them I had gained a few levels over them while they were offline. This trend continued as I began to explore new features of the game, including quests, leveling up, and most exciting of all the PvP system that was implemented in the game. I enjoyed playing Runescape very much, and before I knew it I was spending at least one hour a day to get from level thirty to thirty-one or thirty-two. Hardly did I know, this was just the beginning.
I began to explore the features of the wilderness in Runescape, and I realized I would need to be a lot stronger and a lot richer if I wanted to be one of the top dogs of Runescape. So of course, I began to invest A LOT more time into this game. I would have to get my magic level to sixty-five or my strength level to seventy if I wanted to be strong enough to beat the next opponent. I began spending hours and hours of time leveling up to get the experience points I needed to gain levels. I would come home right after school and log on to Runescape, get into the groove, and before I knew it, it was already 10:00 P.M. or later, and I hadn’t even done my homework yet! Unfortunately, this trend continued as I always told my parents I was doing homework or projects, so that I could spend more time on Runescape. I needed to be the best.
Every night I would play Runescape, until my parents forced me to get off of the computer. Yet after I had logged off, all I could think about was playing Runescape. I had become so involved in playing Runescape, that I had lost most of my friends, and despised when I had to go out with the family. The only thing I wanted to do was Runescape. I was addicted. Night after night, I would neglect to take care of my schoolwork, and ended up with lesser grades than I was entirely capable of.
Realizing that I had a serious problem, I set out on a mission to correct it. I figured I would quit Runescape, so I reluctantly and gnashingly dropped all of my wealth and logged off. That hadn’t helped much. Now I felt crappy and addicted, because I wanted to play AND all my items were gone. A few days later when I couldn’t resist the craving to play, I turned to another MMORPG, Guild Wars. I began as a ranger and moved quickly through the game. I created several characters and became heavily involved with other players in my guild through PvP. Every night we would set out to win fame in the Hall of Heroes, to earn the in-game title of Hero. Hours upon hours of every day would be spent playing in Heroes Ascent to earn this title. In short, a replacement game didn’t help. The process began all over again.
This addiction ended about two years ago, thanks to help from God, and the drive to totally abandon the path of video games. The most recent video game I’ve been involved in is Call of Duty 4, but when I realized I was spending too much time on it, I quickly withdrew and uninstalled it. The BEST advice I can give you is to steer clear from online MMORPG’s, if you want to be in control of your life. If you like video games, console games which don’t involve competing with other players to accomplish long term goals in a virtual world are your best bet.
Thanks to my loss of video games, I have gained many more friends, much more fun in life, as well as involvement in many more hobbies ranging from blogging, drawing, and acting, to parkour/freerunning, longboarding, and actually hanging out. Most important of all I can truly have a better relationship with God and Saviour.
This game, let’s just say I’m glad I never dabbled in this:
Image via Wikipedia
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