4 years ago I entered into the world of online gaming for the first time. A friend of mine from work was always talking about a particular game and the group (guild) of friends that he had made online that he played with. Being an avid computer gamer I was intrigued by his discriptions of the game and the fun that he was having playing with other people who were located throughout the US. For Christmas 2002 my loving wife bought me the Everquest Gold Edition and so began a one year spiral into the vortex of death known to gamers as EverCrack. Googling my characters name I ran across a post on a forum devoted to one of the games player types called a Paladin. Believe it or not it’s been 3 years since I played and I can remember writing this post and the information included like it was yesterday. That’s how much I was into the game.
Re: Paladin Soloing Guide (levels 40-50) FV zone in the NE corner is a camp of Giant Arbors. There are 3 spawns. Fights at 43 usually took a root/heal to finish and at 45 I usually have between 25 – 60% hp left. I’m not twinked but I have been following the equipment lists on the board. Loot isn’t bad (mostly merchant fodder) and they usually drop a few plat in coin. The drop loot is heavy so go there with a Rallic Sack if you can and just camp for a day. Not many people come by on my server (spiders keep em away I guess). 5 hours of camping this past weekend netted me 1 level and 500pp. I know you ubber guys are going to laugh at that but for me this was nirvana.
BTW if you do a bad pull zone is within running distance even without SoW.
Rongisnom Requiest
I sing the final lament for the undead
I played every evening for 3 – 4 hours, my wife coming in to kiss me goodnight and then heading off to bed – alone. On the weekends I would play as much as I possibly could. My wife, bless her heart, tried in earnest to understand what I was doing and ask me questions. She tried to be an encouragement to me as much as she could, yet every hour that I played was an hour that I didn’t spend with her. Like a hammer and chisel, I relentlessly chipped away at her feelings of self worth, until there was barely anything left. I took a lovingly devoted woman of God and replaced her with silicone chips, plastic and wire. At the end of that year I looked at one of the statistics of my character that I had greatly ignored – hours of play. What I saw absolutely had my jaw hitting the floor. I had played this one character for well over a month. A MONTH!! Keep in mind folks we’re not talking about playing 8 hours a day for a month, we’re talking about playing on a computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for over 4 weeks. If you put that back into 8 hour blocks, I had played this game like a full time job for over 4 months. With that horific realization, I deleted the game from my computer.
One would think, given that experience that I would have steered away from online games, or computer games all together. But I didn’t. Well I stayed away from the online MMPOG and MMPORPG – Massive Multiplayer Online Games/ Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, but I still played my computer games. Then along came Guild Wars. Here was a game like EverQuest only I could play online but not have to join playing with others, yet at the same time I could immerse myself in a game where there were other people playing. All too soon I started seeing myself slipping into the same habits again with the creation of Wren Redfeather. Luckily this time I pulled the plug before I got fully sucked into the game.
Now I still enjoy playing computer games, and I can still spend more than what’s a fair amount of time playing them. I know that I have to stay away from MMPOG/MMPORG and so I have at least learned to limit myself to stand alone games and ones where I can put it on save or pause and easily walk away from it.
I’ve explained my own predelictions to computer gaming and the amount of time I have spent in order to focus the question of “electronic” gaming to the time spent, or as some would contend, the time wasted. Given the post last month by the Unfettered Monk stating his Moratorium on video game as well as my follow up post asking if these types of games are Not for the Christian? I think it’s valuable for us to question the time spent in these pursuits.
A dear friend of mine brought up the struggle that he’s had with online card playing. At first I thought he was going to confide in me that he had an addiction to gambling, but no his addiction is simply playing Spades. In talking about it he gets as animated and excited as I used to when explaining Everquest. The problem is, his young wife knows all too well where his addictive nature leads, as he confessed failing out of his graduate program because the game so distracted him from his studies. So this weekend she was absolute in putting her foot down when he played this past week, even though he hasn’t played in years. Listening to him relive what turned out to be a rotten Saturday for both of them I couldn’t help empathizing with both of them. She has a very real concern and fear that he will fall into old habits, and he’s feeling like he’s being treated like an untrustworthy child. I had to be honest and tell him that his past leads me to side with his wife at the moment. (I think there is a need for compromise from both parties)
In our discussion the term “hobby” came up. Couldn’t he and I say that this is our hobby? Is there anything wrong with having a hobby? Of course the first thing that popped into my mind was NO, there’s nothing wrong with having a hobby. As a matter of fact my wife not only likes the fact that I have a hobby, but she is willing to help see me invest in it. Of course she’s not referring to my computer playing as a hobby but to the hobby of stained glass that I picked up because of all the equipment her father left when he passed away. Mrs. Rong, even signed me up for some more classes that I happen to be attending right now. But here’s the thing with a hobby – a vaild hobby – there is an end product that’s created. My wife has no problem with me going into my shop and tinkering an entire Saturday afternoon away. She’ll even go down to the local supply store and help me pick out glass. In all honesty I don’t think I can use the term hobby in reference to playing electronic (console, pc) games. They are a form of entertainment and nothing more.
So what’s my personal take on electronic games? Do I view them as being inherently evil? Do I think that as Christians we should not allow them in our homes? That would be just a tad (cough) hypocritical of me if I did. What I do believe is that we should (especially as Christians) learn personal restraint and control. That we should regulate the amount of time that we spend on these forms of entertainment, that includes the boob tube. And if, like myself, you find that a difficult task then you need to give permission to someone to hold you accountable. Whether that’s your spouse, roommate or friend you need to ask and give permission to someone to help point out when you’re going overboard.
For parents my suggestions are:
- Computers/laptops/console gaming systems are never allowed in the bedroom. That is just way too much temptation.
- Keep these in a family room that is easily viewable, not down in a basement where you as a parent would infrequently go.
- Put a time limit on how long your kids can play for. Even better, tie it into a rewards system for behavior and/or household chores, homework, etc.
- Like driving, it’s a privilege not a constitutional right.
My continued fear/suspicion/loathing of virtual reality experiences has a lot to do with the element of addiction that you write about. I’m extremely susceptible to addictive behavior (I don’t know if that’s something only certain people have or if it’s a condition of all due to the law of sin at work in the members of us all) I loathe when I’m in the grip of some temptation whether it’s something seemingly innocuous like the desire to eat another handful of pecans or something more insidious… if this is genetic and some kind of gene therapy would solve this issue I may actually change my position on stem cell research
I’m also concerned about how virtual reality mechanisms and other forms of entertainment might be altering us in a negative way. For example just recently when my children awoke one morning and asked if they could watch TV I said no. In a few moments they were in the other room and had made a gas station out of the ski machine. My son was filling up his sisters car and each had assumed some pretend role in the family. In other words they were using their imaginations to create alternative realities. Rather than having a passive role in creating those fantasies they were active.
I work with the youth at my church and the stunted state of their ability to be creative is what concerns me. They are often bored and cannot sustain thinking, conversation etc. apart from being spoon fed ideas and having video’s flashing in front of them. So much of the way they learn comes from without and there appears to be a certain amount of atrophying occuring in thier cognitive creative abilities.
Perhaps there’s no causaul relationship between video games, etc. and the stunted creative abilities of our youth… but I can’t help but wonder.
Here’s the response from my friend on “mediated” experiences –
TUM, my friend,
I’ve been thinking of you. First, because of the poster in the church hall with real 22 shells glued on it. Priceless. And also for the fact that I keep staring at my dwindling wood pile, calculating how long I can last. Hoping that February groes to be as mild as Janurary was.
Write a paper!!! Grading paper seems to be all I do these days. I don’t know where I heard the phrase “mediated experience” first, but it seems to be very much part of Berry’s concern and emphasis. I guess, in
some ways, the issue goes right back to our friends the early Protestants, for these reformers decried the mediation of Priest, liturgy, language that characterized their church and reminded us that scripture, teaching, and worship needed immediacy. Only Christ is the proper intermediary. Even the words “pontiff” and “vicar” etymologically reflect the tendency we have to shield ourselves from direct experience by means of another.
I think a lot about this issue when I consider my lifestyle and when I think about raising my kids. Remember you and I talked about convenience as a dirty word. I think that stems from the fact that conveniences get in between us and life’s rough edges.
So, a styrafoam cup’s disposablity mediates between us and the reality of landfills, resource waste, etc. etc. Heating one’s house by means of central heating (albeit the norm) makes this basic necessity someone
else’s job (the mediator), makes us forget about the colossal idiocy of drilling for unrenewable resources thousands of miles away in war ravaged, politically charged regions. Everyone in our area has no direct
experienc with providing his own warmth, and look at the consequence. Whereas, the man who tends his own flame (literally) has a direct experience. He looks with an appraising, knowing eye at the trees in his
woods, or the wood by the side of the road, at the weather and forecast. The “immediacy” of heat gives him a healthier (this is pure Berry here) view of his surroundings, since its health is his. Walking the stairs at the Metro was to remind us that convenience
engenders ignorance and weakness.
Thus, my riff on video games as not PURELY anathema, but as potentially so. As games like any other sedentary, board game, I guess,their harmless enough. EXCEPT! Other games, chess, parcheesi,cards, etc, don’t try to immitate real experienc. That’s not their goal. Card games are a thing unto themselves. The fun in them is strategizing and besting another by utilizing the skill that game requires. However, video games (I guess I’m talking about particular types of
video games) aim to make you feel like, for instance, you’re playing basketball, or driving a car or…. shooting a spaceship. This seems to me why they are so odious, because their ultimate trajectory, design-wise, is to become virtual experience. So now a lot of video games include algorithms that immitate gravity, erosion etc.. in other words, laws of the
physical world so that they can be more and more like the physical world. Why bother going outside to play hoops when you can sit in a chair with a bag of chips in one hand and the WI stick in the other in the warm
cocoon of your suburban family room and dunk like Michael Jordan?!! The problems are obvious, but, I think, stem basically from the idea that these playing these games are highly mediated experiences.
I have been so excited to see that my son has picked up the guitar with a passion and as a result has left such games behind. He get’s home and the first thing he wants to do is make music with his own
hands!
Ok, look at this, you managed to wrangle an essay out of me. I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to go on and on like this. It’s a dear subject to me as you can see.
Best to you, my brother,
Ahhh… my old wounds are suddenly getting very tender. Skeletons… skeletons… stuff in my past that my dear Unfettered friend has probably never heard.
I also have an extremely addictive personality. I think it’s only by the Lord’s *direct* intervention that I got out of some of my old addictions like yours, Rong.
I will not elaborate and write an essay. Perhaps some other time. But I spent my childhood and teenage years creating a personalized, very creative and expansive version of Dungeons and Dragons that I brought 7 or 8 of my closest friends into. And it’s all I did outside of school from age 9 or 10 until about 18. I regret a lot of it now. For lots of different reasons.
But I didn’t get addicted to video games back then. I was using my imagination in an amazingly creative, original way. And its end was bad. Ahh, my Unfettered friend… isn’t this a paradox? My parents never had to ban video games. I got into trouble using my imagination. And not much else.
Then the Lord freed me.
About 10 years later, I got re-involved in an online story-writing blog kind-of thing. Role playing via text on a series of boards. NOT a video game… but text posting not unlike this Blog!! Fun!! And then I got addicted again. It went badly, lasted about a year. Again, the Lord got me out of it.
Now it’s been seven years or so since I have been into one of my adversary’s (both internal and external) traps. I’ve been in lots of other battles, but these role playing/gaming types are finally behind me, I pray.
I guess my point is, as in all things, beware. it’s not just video games or the interactive simulations, my friends. The battle rages on ALL fronts, wherever we are not expecting it.
~The Traveller