Library: Mudders tale

The story you are about to read is completely fictious. None of the characters neither the events found in text are based on a real life. Once upon a time a young man lived in the northern part of Europe. He was normal looking human. Well... Actually he was a bit different from normal human male: He had blond long hair and small beard. Otherwise he was at least close to normal. What makes him different from other people then? Lets look behind the curtains of his life. This man is called Timo and he lives with his wife Riitta. They don't have any children and at this point in their lives they don't need any children. They both study at university. Riitta has studied 3 years medicine and this is Timo's 5th year in the department of mathematics. Surprisingly Timo is interested in computers, like many others human males of his age. Three years ago Timo's friend showed him once how to play BatMUD with university's computers. Timo was amazed. When he was young he played Dungeons&Dragons with his friends once a week and now he could play this text based D&D game with computer. Timo played this game every now and then when he had some free time from his studies. He gain a bit experience and few levels, but he was able to control his playing. Year passed and he got friends from USA, Africa and of course from his home country. That time he was quite shy and didn't have many friends IRL. This game helped him to communicate with his first year of playing he had more free time from his studies and he started to play more actively. Everything happened quite slowly. First he played twice a week and sessions lasted for 1h. Then sessions started to last about 2h. Next step was Christmas holiday. His wife went to see her parents in another city and he was left alone for a week. Timo sat in universitys computer class for 5 days and he played from 8AM to 7PM. He didn't have time to go to eat, so he ate few sandwiches that he had made in the morning. He didn't see what was happening to him. After that 5 day mudding session he came home and sat in his couch and started to wonder who of his friends were on and if they were doing any eq. Time was crawling and he didn't have anything to do. Nothing seemed to happen outside that game. Timo got bored and he began to wonder how much would ISDN or ADLS cost. He made many calculations as a mathematician should do before important desicion and then he came into conclusion that he purchased ADSL to his home computer, no matter what his wife was going to say. He ordered ADSL from local shop and they told him that it would take 2 weeks before the line was ready. Christmas week seemd to last forever and he was not interested of any nice presents he got. He didn't even glance at her wife's new panties she had bought. He was nervous and biting his nails. Timo waited anxiously and you should have seen his wide smile the day he started to make connection to internet with his own computer. He shouted and danced when he made the first connection to MUD. His wife was not home that time, because she had gone away with her friends to stay out of Timo's way. She didn't know what was going on. Timo didn't speak much and he was many times absent. She thought that Timo was stressed because of his studies, but that was not the correct answer. Timo was bored to RL! Timo was getting addicted to computers. He was becoming net-aholic. That didn't bother Timo. He just wanted to make more and more experience points and a bit more EQ. First time Timo's wife started to suscept something was the day she saw their account balance. There was a mysterious transfer to some mysterious Ry, amount of 500 USD. That time Timo was happy. He had recieved his first task points. He explained her wife that he had donated the money to charity. Riitta bought the explanation that time. Second time Riitta started to get suspicious was when she saw Timos report card. Timo hadn't been in school after christmas holiday. That ment Timo hadn't studied anything and they couln't get any social support for their living and for Timos studies. Riitta got angry. She pulled the plug out of computer and told Timo that he couldn't play, until he gets his studies for this spring. She said:"You must choose. It is either me or the computer! What do you choose?" Timo got stunned by those words and he did what real man should do in that kind of situation: He stopped playing because of his wife. Timo had to study hard to catch up with other students. He had to catch up 3 months by himself and he had to use every mudders nighmare:FREEZER. He freezed his character for 30 days. Longest period without playing had been a week during his 2 year career. First two days were nightmare. He woke up in the middle of the night sweating and freezing. Occasionally he also spoke while he was sleeping:"I stunned that bitch!" or "Ouch, that really hurt!". Luckily his wife had studied medicine so she understood the difficulty of getting rid of that kind of addiction. Riitta was supportive and Timo went back to school after 5 days. Timo studied hard and after difficult beginning month went fast. He still had to study hard to catch up other students. The day he could log back in mud came and there he was sitting in front of his computer. He had missed lots and lots of experience hunting and many EQ-parties. He started to play again, but then Riitta said:"Haven't you learned anything? Have you allready done your studies?" Timo realized that he was slipping towards that bad habit again. He gathered courage and freezed his character for another 30 days. That helped. He studied harder than before and he passed all exams he took that year. Soon it was summer and Timo got work from department of mathematics and there it was waiting for him: A computer. It was ment for difficult calculations and programming, but you can allready quess, what Timo did. He slipped. That summer he became to play like a fool. When he had to do real "work" he used triggers to idle in his friends parties. But most of times he didnt work, he just played and played all days long. He got Riitta convinced that everything was ok, so he could play a bit more in evenings from his home. Everything seemed to be fine until autumn came and school started. Timo was again addicted. Riitta woke up often in the middle of the night when she heard some weird noises. Once she went to see Timo and there he was watching dirty WWW-sites in small window and playing MUD in other window. He listened to illegal Mp3 tracks so he couldn't hear Riitta sneaking behind his back. Riitta knocked Timo's shoulder and asked:"So... There are you again!" Timo got scared so much that he fell of the bench and he also got killed in MUD. He was wondering did Riitta see those dirty pictures. Yes she did, but she was not angry about the pictures. Timo had told her a lie that he's addiction was in control. Riitta said:"That's enough, I'll move to my parents until you get rid of your addiction." That was hard for Timo but it didn't help. Now Timo had more time to play. He played and got to top 10 on experience plaque. That was not enough. He played all days and nights for three weeks until he got sick because of all that coffee drinking. Now he had to be laid up with fewer for many days. That didn't put end to his playing. He played and played until he woke up and noticed that he had been in hell for many hours. Timo was in the bottom. Only way from there was up and he couldn't even find that direction. Timo had experience, he had EQ, he had task points and friends in game, but did he have a life? No, he didn't. He lost last bit of his real life when Riitta moved away and it took 3 months for Timo to realize that. Ironically everyting got clearer for Timo because of that game. One day in that game he reinced to bard guild and started to do bard levelquests. One of them was to write real or fictious tale. It made Timo to think back his life. "What has happened to me?", he asked himself. "Is this worth losing my life, everything ?" No, it isn't Timo echoed in his head. "Get your life back" text appeared in his screen. Perhaps it was just hallucination or then it was echo message from a wizard, but it worked. Timo started his recovery process. He cut his playing time to half every week, until he was playing only 3 times a week for 1h. That was amazing. Timo had got his life back. He cleaned the house and dared to call Riitta. He said:"Hello Riitta. I'm back to normal. No more lying and no more game addictions. Will you come back?" Riitta didn't say anything and for a second Timo thought Riitta went LD. "Are you still there?", asked Timo. He heard a short answer "Yes". "Yes I'm here and I'm coming back. I really hope that you have changed", said Riitta. Timo had changed. He still is online 24/7 but he doesn't play. He even don't use illegal triggers to robot. He's friends are on game, so he still goes to chat with them but he is not addicted. He is cured and he has learned from his mistakes. This game has taken much from him, but it also has given him something that can be valued in RL -- Real life experience.

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Library: Mudders tale