EverCrack

[Liam]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar02/31536.asp

"The 21-year-old Hudson man was addicted to EverQuest, says his mother, Elizabeth Woolley of Osceola. He sacrificed everything so he could play for hours, ignoring his family, quitting his job and losing himself in a 3-D virtual world where more than 400,000 people worldwide adventure in a never-ending fantasy.

On Thanksgiving morning last year, Shawn Woolley shot himself to death at his apartment in Hudson. His mother blames the game for her son's suicide. She is angry that Sony Online Entertainment, which owns EverQuest, won't give her the answers she desires. She has hired an attorney who plans to sue the company in an effort to get warning labels put on the games."

[Megalyth]

The answers she desires? And what kind of answers would they be? "Yes ma'am, it's our fault entirely that your son is a fuckup and has nothing better to do than play games all day."

They should all HANG!! Send them to the gallows for making a game worth playing. I'm going to throw an anti-game protest, and when all these fucking grannies and stupid parents show up, I'm going to drop a few goodly chunks of C-4 out for them to play with. Dumbfucks.

[Amaster]

Although this story is very tragic, I cant help but feel that another idiot is about ot "ruin it for the rest of us".

[deathz0r]

don't bother trying liam.

[Sharessa]

Meh. Thins out the gene pool.

[Biffy]

If you somehow could get the information, I'll bet you'd find that many more people did many more bad things after drinking milk, than after playing a computer game. Someone had better get after this!

[Kid Airbag]

Sadly, Biffy is right.

Another good example is cars. There are millions more car accidents than people who shoot themselves over a computer game. No one is crying about outlawning cars.

[KING ELVIS]

Liam the Bard said:

Shawn Woolley shot himself to death at his apartment in Hudson

Uhhhhh, who finally cleaned up the mess ?

[fodders]

We discussed this one earlier and I pointed out that if she was so concerned for her son's well being she would have stopped him playing because

Shawn was playing 12 hours a day, and he wasn't supposed to because he was epileptic, and the game would cause seizures," she said. "Probably the last eight times he had seizures were because of stints on the computer."

[IMJack]

This one's up there with the EQ "lover's suicide" hoax and the "profane" backstory ban.

[Captain Skippy]

heh, so liam, you found it

[Liam]

Yeah, there was a link to it on some gaming site, gamebanshee I think.

[Naked Snake]

Heh, wtf is this shit?

[Lüt]

bigbadgangsta said:

Heh, wtf is this shit?

READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE YOU MONG.

Anyway, not surprising, he probably realized one day "wow, I spend 12 hours a day playing Everquest, my life is pointless".

I'd rather see her suing the local psychology clinic for charging for counseling though, that would make more sense.

[Doom-Child]

Geez, you guys wouldn't believe how many of these turdmongers there are.

Well, maybe you would **cough**DoomBoy**cough**, but that's beside the point. On with my story.

My uncle works at Verant (on a game we won't mention until after E3) and sends me emails from some of these fignuts. Good god. The man just does concept art, and he gets emails with sentences like this one:

"do yuo liek teh brabrabrain ro the gonem? i play a levl 52 wizaard on everqeust. wehn is everqeust 2 coming uto? tel me pleeeeeeez!"

Jiminy jumproping jackrabbit, it's like these people don't realize that our planet orbits the sun for a reason. I may be something of a quasi-vampiric recluse who only goes outside when the firewall denies internet access, but even I recognize the usefulness of a little vitamin D every now and again.

In my mind, it's this guy's own fault for getting too caught up in the game. Have any of you actually watched a game of Everquest? It's about as entertaining as watching paint dry to the inside of your colon via an ultrasound. The graphics are terrible (on the level of ZDoom, really), the game plays ass-slow, and the character interaction has all the wit and clout of an evening in a bot-infested IRC channel.

21 year old Hudson man? More like 21 year old Hudson moron.

Grr...sorry, I get a little tense when I think about the fucknuts who can't keep it straight in their heads that the people around them aren't Commander Keen dolls and go on a shooting spree shouting things like "Aliens got your babysitter, now I'm gonna get you!" It's these assholes who got all gaming banned from my high school my senior year. We couldn't even playing fucking NIBBLES, for crying on a cardboard crucifix.

It's enough to make me want to bash a brabrabrain with a gonem.

DC

[Zaldron]

Doom-Child said:

My uncle works at Verant (on a game we won't mention until after E3) and sends me emails from some of these fignuts. Good god. The man just does concept art, and he gets emails with sentences like this one.

That's so cool. I hate Everquest, but it's still cool.

[Captain Red]

hmm....

mayve it's a good think that I only have a 28k modem, i'll never get addicted to playing online games... I'll just get brain damage from bashing my head on my desk out of frustration from long loading times
:P

[Captain Red]

the_Danarchist said:

Meh. Thins out the gene pool.

Civilization

[Rellik]

Sounds to me like just snother case of it being everyone else's fault because in this 'modern' world no one is responsible for their actions.

Killed yourself? It was the games fault! Sue!

Pregnant? It's not your fault, get an abortion!

Got AIDS? It's not your fault, we'll make a cure!

As a species, we have to stop working so hard to protect the stupid people from themselves...

[Doom-Child]

Zaldron said:
That's so cool. I hate Everquest, but it's still cool.

Yeah, I'm not an EQ buff either, but I'm getting a job with them this summer, hopefully doing graphics. I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope.

DC

[Kid Airbag]

Rellik said:

Pregnant? It's not your fault, get an abortion!

I don't want to start a big moral arguement or anything...but sometimes it's really not your fault...

[nxn]

yeah, shit happens

[Rellik]

I think Abortion should be used only if the woman was raped. Otherwise you're just telling people it's okay to do what you want because ours is a consequence free world. Why is that people are so afraid to punish others for being stupid? It's like giving a monkey a loaded shotgun, you know it's gonna find the trigger sooner or later....

[Crendowing]

Assmaster said:

Although this story is very tragic, I cant help but feel that another idiot is about ot "ruin it for the rest of us".

Ditt-on a dancing jelly bean-fucking-o.

Rellik said:

Sounds to me like just snother case of it being everyone else's fault because in this 'modern' world no one is responsible for their actions.

(see above)

[TaZeR]

Out of the millions of people playing games you will always find one troubbled person who finds an excuse to commit suicide, its deffinitly not sonys fault maybe more or less the mothers.

[fodders]

Rellik said:

I think Abortion should be used only if the woman was raped.

Yeh, assault with a friendly weapon is never nice

[Crendowing]

...but EverQuest fans say the game is a fun diversion that is much better than watching television.

Gee, what ISN'T?

[Amanichen]

1. Dumb people:

Lets think about this.

The young man had an addictive behavior patter, that is he could easily get addicted to things. There are hundreds of other things that you can be addicted to, that aren't in chemical form, and all of them have to do with the fact that the person affected has a genuine mental problem that makes him or her susceptible to being addicted to pleasurable outlets.

She said:
------------
It's like any other addiction," Elizabeth Woolley said last week. "Either you die, go insane or you quit. My son died."
------------

There are millions of people addicted to drugs, sex, and alcohol right now. And I'm sure ALL of them will go insane or quit, right?
Not in the least. Something like 50% of them will die.

The fact that the mother did not want to help her son's condition places the blame on her.

You ***don't*** give an addict more heroine if you want him to stray straight--you put him in rehab. What her son really needed is psychological help, and possible psychiatric help, which she makes no mention of trying to provide.

Instead of treating his everquest addiction (which she appeared to be FULLY AWARE of) she simply let him continue into a downward spiral alienating himself from the rest of his life, and reality.

He could just have easily done this using drugs or alcohol, and would she have sued anybody if it he had died of AIDs from screwing people without protection?

Sony is not at fault here, the mother is for her son's death.

And to the dumb bitch who thinks sony is to blame:

If you knew your son's life was falling apart, wouldn't you do something to stop it?

2. Warning labels:

Here are some other GREAT warning labels which we should have, since apparently even EverQuest can now be fatal:

"Warning: installation of this footwear onto wearer's foot may cause slippage which can result in serious injury or death."

"Warning: use of four pronged fork to eat may result in severe lacerations to lips, tongue, mouth lining"

"Warning: leaving the safety of one's house may cause one to be shot, killed, maimed, or struck by lightning"

"Warning: use of this food may cause death. This food MUST be chewed before a swallow attempt can be made"

"Warning: standing up may result in serious injury or death as a result of falling."

"Warning: attempting to breathe with mouth closed, and nose pinched may result in asphyxiation"

"Warning: communicating with people classified as 'assholes' may cause emotional trauma"

"Warning: being born may eventually result in death"

3. Lawsuits:

Following the mother's logic I should be able do say this:

"Well my son was addicted to alcohol, and addicted to driving. I think I'll sue Ford and Smirnoff because my son got drunk on vodka and killed himself driving an F150."

4. Addiction:

Cigarettes have a drug called nicotine, and soda has a drug called caffeine. Both are proven addictive. A person **cannot** help being addicted to these CHEMICALS.

Being addicted to something that is not a chemical comes from underlying psychological problems of the addictee. You don't get addicted to computer games because they contain nicotine, do you?

Anybody who tries to say that the makers of everquest intentionally tried to make their game addictive is completely wrong. If DOOM, for instance, shot you with morphine, valium, or nicotine everytime you took down a zombieman, then it would be a different matter.

[Crendowing]

If the need arises, send that in to someone.

[Doom-Child]

"Warning: use of four pronged fork to eat may result in severe lacerations to lips, tongue, mouth lining"

What if they stab themselves elsewhere, huh?? What then?? I smell a lawsuit!

And yes. Save that rant. I think that's better than mine.

DC