Author: Ere
Date:Apr 17 2002
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.