That's why I don't like MMORPGs (or MMOs in general)! They are really addictive (altough I never could play one for longer than 2 months, always too bad gfx, shitty music and the loot-tactic (or Diablo-tactic) does not seem to work on me) and also can damage your finances a lot.

I'm against forbidding them completely since imo human beings are free to do whatever they want and our political-system is build up on this rule. However I would suggest introducing some kind of forced-break time for MMOs (lets say from 24:00-6:00) and also make some kind of notification system (like after 10 hours of nonstop-gaming you'll get a message: "Caution! You are playing for long time without a break, continue playing could harm yourself and your social-life") in very harsh cases I would make MMOs not playable for the person for longer than a set ammount of time (like this parents could control how long their children play, like 4 or 6 hours a day after that the screen goes black).

welcome to china

Not all MMOs are the same. Guild Wars, for instance, both gives you a message every hour ("You have been playing for x hours. Please take a break."), and doesn't actually reward endless hours of playing. Additionally, since there is no subscription fee (just an up-front cost of the game), there are no feelings of needing to play to get your subscription worth, and there are no attachment issues if you decide to take a break.

Eve Online can almost be described in much the same way, mainly because time only gets you money. Leveling in EVE is strictly about time spent training skills, which even train while you are not playing. With more automated money-making that can be done while not playing, there is less of an addiction to it.

In a way, WoW has been doing well to handle it for the main raiding portion, but there are still too many other aspects of the game that still require/promote endless grinding.

While I agree that MMOs are a waste of life, its not just MMOs that can kill people. The gook that died in 2005 did so from playing starcraft. There were also 2 idiot brothers with heart conditions who both died from playing some game in the 80s.

Same thing with becoming addicted and ruining your financial/social life. It's not just the fake achievements in RPGs, you can easily get addicted to real achievements like improving your actual skill in a particular game. Back when I competed in fighting games I had friends that would drop out of school and get fired from work because they cared more about being better at SF than they did about anything else. Some of them grew up and realized the error of their ways, while a few "fortunate" ones got sponsored a few years back and can now live out their dream of playing all day.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not anyone else's (the game's, other ppl's, etc) responsibility to prevent someone from wasting their life. If they are really determined then all the warnings in the world would have absolutely no effect on them.

"gook", really?

So nanny state it is.

Ya I'll pass..

played Metin2 for like a year played endlessly and when i quit ive spend about 1500 euro on it im not getting near such fucking games ever again

how do you spend 1500 euros in a year? did you play in an internet cafe the whole time? surely subscription at home wouldnt be more than 50euros p/m~

You could but tons of shit ingame

+9 was the highest you could upgrade something then you had to buy sets of bonus add items for it with real money but they could fail

and give crap bonusses then you had to buy changers

in the end on an item youd spend 50-100 euro to get decent bonusses on it and somehow its addicting as fuck

but in order to get something 9 youre best bet was buy things to increase the chance of succes lol

them koreans are very skilled with these things -,-

you couldnt sell the stuff on ebay after?

He probably could (on ebay Metin2 Accs range from 10€ to 350€) but then he would be areal asshole cuz he would make other people pay for this shit game.

i played the dutch server so it would be easily spotted and banned
i just passed it to a RL mate who plays its a small community there
and i had items from which i was the only 1 having it on the server

Didn´t know about this game until your post, googled it, and I´m astounded by the micropayment system, which has to be used, in order to be successful.

The vast majority of korean/chinese MMOs work that way. The game itself is free to play, but you need to buy little thing for vanity, to get an edge, or just to save time.

Again????

third or fourth time iirc

and how about them dark numbers

sure is embarrass