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the-obakeneko

Listed below are comments made by the-obakeneko between Tuesday, 11th November 2008 and Tuesday, 11th November 2008.

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Your experiences of Online Game "addiction". 6:19pm on 11 Nov 2008 Asking whether some MMORPGs are addictive is like asking whether some candles are a bit warm. Has iPM never heard the name "World of Warcrack"?

The way these games work, addiction is not strictly necessary, and I'm sure that the companies that make them would argue that by no means do they intend to damage their users' quality of life. But in order to make progress, level up, and earn the traits and items needed to "finish" (and there is no real finishing, as new downloadable quests are always being produced), the user must almost always perform simple, repetitive quests called "grind" over and over and over. Without this grind, the user stands no chance of progressing, and as the nickname suggests, it's neither fun nor social. For better or worse, well-made modern single-player games have difficulty curves which mean the player doesn't have to go about pointless and repetitive activities in-between achieving objectives. But if the MMO user didn't have to grind, they might reach a high level quickly, and then stop paying the game's maker for their fix - sorry, their subscription.

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