I have this friend that I've known for a number of years, that lives pretty close to me, but I never get to see him anymore. Back in high school we had our own cool little rock "band", and had all kinds of fun playing video games as well. Now that I have a full time job, and he has a real band now, I just don't get to talk to him anymore. So, when he gave me the chance to go play a new game with him, I said I'd download it, and give it a spin.

I tell myself every time I walk into a game store that I'm never going to buy World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Everquest, or any of those other crazy addictive games, that don't have the depth of Lusternia. But as I downloaded and logged onto Ragnarok Online, I got this giddy feeling of getting a new game, and exploring a new world. The brightly colored anime, cartoonish characters, and excellent music started to draw me in before I realized what was happening. I was a kid in a candy store, and my friend was the man behind the counter, grinning evilly.

Told to skip the intro, I joined my friend and a girl in a party, and went off to go bashing. They sat there and tanked monsters while I destroyed them, and leveled up again and again. I soon became a theif, and within a few hours, I was at level 30, and able to take a good many things on my own, swinging my dagger in quick succession against the most vile of fiends.

I looked at my watch, and realized it was 1:30am. I'd been playing since 6:30pm, and had to get up for work in just five hours. Knowing I had a 45 minute commute, and it was a Monday anyway, I gave my farewells and logged off my shiny new character. As I climbed into bed and closed my eyes, I felt the glee of a newbie in a new world, but I also felt... dirty.

This feeling could be compared to how one feels in a relationship. Now, you might have to be a hardcore gamer to compare video games to a relationship, and those of you that are not so hardcore might want to skip this paragraph, but I shall continue nontheless. So, a relationship... It's as if one had a long term girlfriend, putting his time and effort into building a beautiful relationship, until one day, a gorgeous redhead/asian/whateveryoumightlike walks up to you, and shakes her goodies in your face. Shiny! New! (No shouts, less whiners!). What if you're sticking with the old relationship because that's all you can remember? You've put time, effort and money into it, and it's just... there?

Now, I'm not one to chase after a hot new girl, and in fact my real relationship just passed that particular test, but we -are- talking about video games, so I don't feel as bad "cheating". It is quite possible, as Yrael told me on msn, that "RO is the devil". Perhaps, perhaps... Also, as a wise cartoon wrestler once said, "Graphics, shmaphics, for sooth!"

Wise words indeed.

So, does this new venture mean I'm going to quit Lusternia? Doubtful. Does it mean I'll take a break? Perhaps, if I don't get guide, I will let myself take a break into the graphical world, to return to Lusternia and see that it's the old steady girl I once thought it was.

It's strange that I would put so much thought into video games, but I -am- a twenty year old male, that sits in a chair all day at a computer working, and all I do is think of sitting in a chair all night at a computer playing. Do I feel like I'm running off with the new hot girl? Sure does.

I'm a bad man. Here, slap my wrist.

So, in closing, I wanted to know if anyone else has ever experienced something like this. My gaming life seems to be heading towards something like ctrl+alt+del, and while amusing, it looks like a rough and twisted path to insanity, the way being paved with fancy graphics and excellent music.

A credit for your thoughts.

-Richter

I've been there, Richter. While I wasn't big on IRE (I'd just make characters for the roleplay opportunity), I did start playing FF11 when Square-Enix was doing Beta tests for PS2 and PC (Surprising I won both and let my friend use the PC version since mine was crap at the time).

I started out as a monk and you're there beatin' the hell out of things, doing quests with your buddies, moving to new lands and being dazzled at the music. After Beta Square sent me a free HDD w/ game so I decided to play again. $12 a month wasn't much when I could lose track of time for nearly half a day if food cravings didn't get me, and if they did and I was in a party I'd give a quick "(Be Right Back)." For anyone who doesn't know using the translator function on FF11 made talking to even U.S. members easy since you could write "be' and then hit tab for a list of words.

So.. played that for nearly a year or so before I realized it was just a monotonous cesspool. Sure, it had its moments and they did update things when I left to make it easier to play (lowered exp cost, made certain NMs drop items with no sell tags since botters would bot them all day), but in the end all it was about was getting 2+ million gil to buy that item that would make your character better than the clone sitting next to you.

You'll come back to Lusternia. Probably much sooner than you think. It'll be magical for awhile, but like the ctrl+alt+del thing said people just ruin that magic. I already have friends telling me to come back to FF11, but most MMORPGs are a time-sink. You'll gain tons of levels for now, but that number will slowly dwindle to like.. one every three hours (if anything like FF), and then one every few leveling sessions if your grounds aren't taken.

I've been there. Did I enjoy it? Sure did. Would I go back? Eh.. maybe just to see how things are going. Will I play another graphical MMORPG that requires me to pay every month? Probably not. Not saying they're bad, but once you get past the magic (Which can sometimes last awhile! I still remember struggling to get my airship pass, artifact armor... Ochiudo's Kote) you slowly begin to ask yourself what you're doing playing.

Played about 7 more hours yesterday, got to lv 40. The game rocks, but there's really no player interaction, other than eyeing another person when they run in and fight the monster you are, which on this small server, doesn't actually happen too much.

I wonder if I'll eventually get bored, and want to go back to player run organizations and roleplaying, but man... I don't miss the whining one bit.

I don't switch video games within a genre often (other than Achaea-Imperian (caused when someone gave me the 200 credit gift of buying 500 to me, me transfer them to him for the newbie bonus), and Imperian-Lusternia (Imp had grown stagnant (though it finally started getting changes when I left...)), I switch to entirely different venues.

Addictions I've had and/or have:

Chess (age 16-17 or so, logged over 2000 hours and 10000 games played).
Achaea (1-2 months before Imperian)
Imperian (1 year before I tired, made bad character decisions, mainly quit - 1 year later joined Lusternia after spatterings of activity).
Roms, freeware, etc. - 1 year or so.
Counterstrike (multiplayer shootemup, fun, mindless).

Yeah, and at peak, about 20% of my waking hours were playing chess. Remember that I was in high school at the time (6:40 am-2:45pm) with extracurricular activities...

Pssh.. you're going to make me renew my FF subscription. It wasn't -too- bad and it isn't like I finished it.

And what kind of graphics card (probably integrated) does your laptop have? I tried playing Ragnarok Online about a month ago (Well, tried getting on to a free server and whatnot) and my floor would somehow warp and turn black. So.. I got turned off of the game pretty fast.

Edit: And that's A LOT of chess. I really didn't get the opportunity to play at all due to my school being lame and my family being.. more so lame.