Greetings from DragonCon...

[Grimthorn]

Well, the first of several EQ related panels has come and gone... I'll provide the highlights..

1) The general consensus of most of the EQ players is that EQ s dying. There were more EX-EQ players there than current players.

2) Sony/VI didn't send a paid representative, but one of the panelists happened to be a guide. He was nearly shouted from the room when he made the claim that "Part of the role that "uber" players fulfill is to find bugs that QA doesn't." (I was one of the ones shouting...)

3) Most of the developers on the panel (all of whom work for OTHER game development companies) agree that MMORPG economies are SCREWED up, and that "No Drop" is ineffective.

4) The biggest challenge APPEARS to be how to manage or eliminate the offline selling of items and accounts. (this is a biggie for them, I was surprised to hear that) Some games have played with the idea of selling in-game items for REAL cash on their websites.

5) Developers appear to have run out of ideas for how to make things more challenging beyond adding more HP/AC or adding abilities like DT. They spent a bit of time asking for suggestions from the audience. (which will promptly be ignored)

Overall, I was surprised to find the VAST majority of players were either about to quit EQ, or have already done so. The LoS incident was discussed, and I think I was the only player in the room who had BEEN to Vex Thal (except for the guide who was on the panel) so I spend most of the time "debunking" the things that the guide was saying. (Things like "It's an exploit to pull a mob through a wall" or "Vex Thal is designed well")

I ran into one other person from D-Ro, a guy who is a member of Ancient Collective. Nice guy who just likes to spend online time with his wife and his friends. He was telling me about some of the low level raids that they do, and I could tell that he was really having FUN in the game. I envy that. (They just killed Faydedar for the first time, with 33 people...)

Even the obnoxious little 14 year old who started his question with "I play on a PvP server and..." got to have his say. The panelists did a good job of letting everyone have a chance to speak up.

The best quote of the night...

"One of the benefits of being in a guild is that if the game developers screw up bad enough to force an entire GUILD to quit the game, they know they've screwed up bigtime."

If that's the kind of feedback that's necessary for EQ to be "fixed" then we're all screwed. (Unless Furor can talk FoH into going on strike or something. I regard that as being about as likely as me having sex with Heidi Klum in the next 5 seconds... (who's that knocking on my door?))

-Grim

[Maegwin]

Lots of people are all talk when it comes to quitting EQ..."yeah, I'm planning on quitting eq soon, just as soon as we kill mob x, and I get item x, and as soon as I see how bad the next expansion sucks."

But it's all just a bunch of "as soon as"'s and they still play. IMO, EQ isn't about balance anymore, or exploration, or magical monsters and fantastic spells....it's about seeing your friends and talking to them...and hanging out and laughing with people who like to do the same thing with their free time as you do.

just my 2c

[Eomer]

Yea Maeg, but you can also look at the sheer number of people who have disapeared in the past six months alone, people who have played EQ for 2+ years. It's a lot of people.

[Lepra]

I think they need to preform a miracle to keep EQ going for another expansion after PoP.. Most people I've talked to thinks PoP will be timesinks á la SoL on crack and so do I =|

[Rezz]

Hrm, if I could find the post I would repost it, but VI apparently had this neat idea of entire zones full of ring events of varying difficulty (so that people of all levels could enjoy or something) which all lead to some Boss, who would drop a key to open a harder ring event. Could be BS, but looking at Luclin and how ring-happy VI went after the acrylia one, I don't doubt it.

[Rika]

Yeah EQ is on the downslide? I think not.. what game JUST hit the 100K mark for online attendance about a month ago?


Maybe for some/lots of the old players, but the influx of new players is still great..

And don't forget even if you "quit", most people don't or won't let their characters just fade away and become deleted. That is a hard thing to do and VI still gets the cash for these dormant accounts.

Personally I think EQ is a long way from fading away. Look at the other multiplayer games.. Most people have no choice, and won't for a very long time (or til EQ2 comes out. same scenerio as UO they found their biggest competition to be themselves so they scrapped UO2).

Well thats my opinion on the state of EQ.. I think its high and going better than ever from a financial standpoint (and thats all that matters for the life of EQ).

Oh and I dont want to forget to mention the friends people make in everquest. One thing that makes leaving very hard, and coming back very easy.

[Zarxen]

You said it Rika, the friends in EQ is what it is all about. All the accomplishments you have endured in EQ are of things to talk about but in the end it is the friends that you shared it with that is of Paramout importance over time.

I miss my old friends Ubar, Phaera, Daisiee, Inizen etc etc and it's those people that I reflect on having good times with and they are the people that make me want to return.

[Elidroth]

Come back Zarxen.. come back..

Oh.. and as for competition for EQ.. if AC2 over the long haul is anything like my initial impression (I'm in the beta) then EQ and EQ2 had better have some seriously good shit up their sleeve.. cause AC2 is DAMN impressive (very little in common with AC1).

[Andaas]

Originally posted by Elidroth
Come back Zarxen.. come back..

Oh.. and as for competition for EQ.. if AC2 over the long haul is anything like my initial impression (I'm in the beta) then EQ and EQ2 had better have some seriously good shit up their sleeve.. cause AC2 is DAMN impressive (very little in common with AC1).

Well then... you are the first person that has said ANYTHING positive about AC2 aside from the graphics. Most people I have heard have said that AC2 looks pretty, but that it is pretty much the suck.

Still waiting on my beta cd here.

[Elidroth]

Hehe.. well it crashes a lot still.. and the servers aren't up much lately.. but it's fun I think. Of course.. what's good for one isn't always good for another.

[Illegal]

right now I have tremendous hate for this board, it ate my first TWO attempts at replying to this thread due to (<- back) (forward ->) buttons not working so well :|

my first post was huge, about all sorts of goodies in ac2, like how the trade skill system works, how easy it is to level up to high 30s low 40s (easy as in 2-3 weeks with a few friends), how screwed up the pvp system is (mostly composed of people sitting around the +pvp zone borders waiting for someone to pop up on radar so they can gank them and run back to the border), how lame the skill system is (which btw is just like the diablo 2 tree system) and how much work it needs in order to make more than one or two paths (per race) even mildly attractive to those who've seen the different templates in action. It talked about other miscelaneous things as well, my personal experiences in beta 0 and 1, any interesting bits of information I've heard about ac2 from the devs (did you know they really dont plan on raising the max lvl cap past the currently set level of 50 for quite some time after release), etc. It concluded by saying that AC2 is composed of a decent trade skills system (which needs some work, but i'm pretty sure the dev team can manage to balance it out well before release), an awesome graphics engine (ac2 runs much better than daoc on my 1ghz 512ram gf2mx comp), and pretty much nothing new when it comes to gameplay.

But the board ate that one when i accidentaly double clicked on the address bar, so I sat down and quickly wrote a second post which outlined most of the main points up there, plus some other stuff i'd forgotten to say along the way, like my prediction of how 4-6 months down the road from release, before the first expansion is out, a large percentage of players will be sitting around at lvl 50 twiddling their thumbs or farming items to ebay, or selling their characters, etc etc, and how the chat system is basically composed of /say, /group, and /tell (well, that is actually a pretty accurate description now that i think about it).

It's also worth noting that my first two posts were much easier to read (better grammar, sentence structure, so on and so forth), however I fear this one will have to do for now :p

I recently came back to eq (i've decided i wont be playing ac2 on release... the only thing i'm really looking for that EQ can't provide is a good pvp system, and ac2 is very far from that. I really like the sense of community EQ can provide, and its content although very time demanding, is enjoyable.), and after a few months of inactivity, I noticed a bunch of people I once knew have now disappeared :/ makes me feel ... old :(

[Elidroth]

You sound as though you're making a review of a completed game when in fact it's not. The fact is, it's beta.. and subject to a great deal of play tuning I'd hope before release. The ease of XP is something they're going to be addressing.

[Ubar]

Zarx,

Wanna PM me your e-mail, would like to keep in touch, haven't talked to you in a long time.

As for AC2, well Im sorry but from what I've played of it, I have disliked it. It is pretty, but thats it imo, I really do not like it.

[Forty]

Some of you haven't been paying attention....

[Rezz]

Well, honestly the skill-tree idea of Diablo 2, while extremely basic was actually a rather interesting idea. In fact, if memory serves me, the SWG skill system will be much the same, just greatly expanded. PVP.. uh, I don't play RPGs for PVP, if I wanted to kill other people I'd reinstall counterstrike, but that's a preferance. You can only do so much with a "zone" based game on PVP, there just isn't that much you can do about people who camp the zonelines. That's why PVP in EQ is so retarded, it's not designed for it and the game engine doesn't even lend itself to pvp conflicts. A quick fix and probably not the best one but somewhat applicable would be making players who zone have a flag for 15-20 seconds where they are marked non-pvpable.. as in they can't pk others or be pk'd. when the time is gone they can be engaged or engage others as normal. But that discussion is for another forum and topic entirely ^_^

Rika is very much right about EQ not dying, but there will be a steady turnover of players from it to other mmorpgs as people begin to experience the "high end." Because on average, the high end player is no longer playing the game for the game, but for the companionship or simply out of addiction to whatever aspect of high end raiding/playing that attracts them. Hell, most players I met while I played who were at the high end were generally bitter and very adamant about how EQ was dying, yet they continued to play. If a good enough product comes out and it proves to be more entertaining than EQ for this upper tier, it wouldn't honestly hurt the momentum of EQ at all, because it's not grizzled old veterans who are buying EQ, it's people who haven't been exposed to the various bugs/nerfs/politics that have the high end players fortelling EQ's doom. While the guilds who are embroiled in the bugs n' shit may bail, they'll be replaced by the lower tiers, and pretty much an even intake of players will replace those who leave. Granted, this will probably be reduced because of the increased competition, but I don't see EQ dying in the near future.

Hell, if I had never played EQ before, I am pretty certain that I would still pick up EQ2 because "it looks pretty."

Don't knock the selling power of pretty pictures.

[Forty]

Yeah, that's why Druzzil-Ro only has only one guild currently able to kill anything above AoW. Guilds that once competed for upper level mobs are basically gone. Guilds that are just now getting close, are doing so because they merged with other guilds to get to the size needed for this kind of battle. I might agree with you IF the guilds were still competeing for the same mobs but there was just turn-over from within the guilds. But that's not happening.

When you lose your hard-core gamer, in the sheer numbers that EQ is now at this stage in the life-span, that's sign things aren't going so well.

Your hard-core gamer is the rat of a sinking ship. When it's sinking the rat is the first off the ship.

You should check out the websites of some of the elite guilds on other servers. Their "inactive" list is getting as long as the people listed as "active".

[Illegal]

Originally posted by Elidroth
You sound as though you're making a review of a completed game when in fact it's not. The fact is, it's beta.. and subject to a great deal of play tuning I'd hope before release. The ease of XP is something they're going to be addressing.

That's what they always say :p The game has just entered public beta, in a few weeks there will probably be hundreds of thousands of people playing (or trying to anyway). The time for altering major factors of the game is long gone, and in the next month or two (which by the way is all the time AC2 has left in beta -- it's being released in the first week of november), their only major concern is selling ac2 to the people who are now getting a taste of it. Sure, some things are still being fine tuned, and I think the team has ample opportunity to address issues such as experience gain, and balance out the drop rate of trade skill ingredients (there are huge gaps in it, pissed me off when I last played). But the game doesnt foster any kind of in-game community, the endgame is composed of twiddling your thumbs, and the skill system simply doesnt appeal to me (theres 3 races, each race can go melee, ranged, or caster, and each of those 9 "classes" has three specialization trees, of which you can only choose one. each tree gives you a maximum of two optimum paths to choose from). Those things are not gonna change in the next 50 days; the developers probably have their hands full fixing the crash bugs (theres more than one or two, heh), and dealing with server lag / stability issues.

Notice I'm not bashing the game here: It's not easy to argue against those graphics, and I believe there's a lot of people out there who will like the gameplay system ac2 has to offer. I however, do not happen to be one of them, nor do I believe ac2 to be a "next-gen" mmorpg in any way shape or form. There's simply nothing new there.

[Elidroth]

Originally posted by Illegal
Notice I'm not bashing the game here: It's not easy to argue against those graphics, and I believe there's a lot of people out there who will like the gameplay system ac2 has to offer. I however, do not happen to be one of them, nor do I believe ac2 to be a "next-gen" mmorpg in any way shape or form. There's simply nothing new there.

I'd agree with that as well.. but there ARE some innovations I do like that could be further expanded into more interesting content. The skill tree is one of them. I like the idea.. but the implementation could use some fleshing out. It looks like it's geared towards the less hard-core type player and more towards the guy who wants to do something in 20 minutes.

One of the things that made AC1 so impressive to me was the CONTINUAL evolution of the game from Turbine. They had stuff developing and churning and changing all the time. New areas, new things, new stuff that just kept getting added to the game. Add to that a player involved storyline that actually modified the world (with the bitching about Sleeper's Tomb type things) and you had a world people enjoyed. I'd have probably stuck with AC1 if I didn't really dislike the magic system. It was just too unusual for me. Now.. if Turbine can put in the same level of evolution to the AC2.. it'll be worth much more than a cursory look to me..

[Eomer]

Couple things: I just checked out their FAQ on the site, and they say the release date is "Winter 2002". Now, being a canuckian, Winter means mid October... but in terms of release dates etc, Winter 2002 means December at the earliest. Have they stated elsewhere release will be in November?

And is the game currently in public beta? Where can I D/L the beta?

[Illegal]

Originally posted by Eomer
Couple things: I just checked out their FAQ on the site, and they say the release date is "Winter 2002". Now, being a canuckian, Winter means mid October... but in terms of release dates etc, Winter 2002 means December at the earliest. Have they stated elsewhere release will be in November?

And is the game currently in public beta? Where can I D/L the beta?

there has been no official announcement (afaik) to indicate that the november launch date is final. I've been told that is their plan, however. And considering everything else in beta has been going more or less according to schedule ... I'd expect the game to be out by mid november.

As for getting into beta, i believe all people with active ac1 accounts have been or are being added to it ... you may also procure one of these:

http://www.cgonline.com/images/cgm/143coverWeb.gif

So not exactly "open" as far as being completely public, but its close enough ...

The AC2 beta community is now public also, you can access it here:

http://groups.msn.com/AsheronsCall2BetaCommunity/

I believe people who have signed up for the community will also be getting beta accounts at some point in the near future (although I have no confirmation on that, I really havent been following it too closely lately, other than the patch notes).

[Mkai]

I also think EQ is dying.
As someone mentioned, the list of inactive gets bigger and bigger.
A lot of people are playing EQ because there's nothing else out there for them. I haven't checked AC2 but SWG looks very promising. It is going to be different. But I can't say I'm unhappy about that.
One of the mistake I think VI made with Luclin is the AP system. I know a fair number of people who would like to play an alt and get the feeling of the game from a different perspective but they feel guilty exping anything other then their main knowing that a main with 60 more AP would be a lot more useful then an alt.
Of course, one could argue that AP could be considered like additional levels, which is fine, however it isn't a bad thing to have a xp cap.
I really do hope they don't add any levels to PoP.
But then again, I'm not sure I really care anymore.

But then again, even if I did completly stopped playing, I doubt i'd cancel my account just yet. that will just make Vi more happy, money in wo a user to support...

[Maegwin]

Honestly, I think it's pretty arrogant to assume that EQ is dying just because it ceases to be fun for you ( read: "you" here means, whomever thinks that eq is dying because it has ceased to provide you with wonder, excitement, or that it's balance is way out of wack, or what have you...this is not targeted at any individual ).

Like it was pointed out earlier in this thread, EQ has hit record numbers online just recently, an interview with one of the head honchos ( forget who ) said they're getting 12,000 new subscriptions PER MONTH...I think thats a tad more than the few who go inactive on the highest end guilds. There's a lot of people who play EQ casually, they don't burn out and leave.

[Buazag Bonesteel]

I'd rather be playing EQ then having sex.

*cough* You're doing it wrong then :p

[Maegwin]

Buaz...Drinking Guiness(sp) != having sex...:p

close second for some tho I would wager...

[Eomer]

I agree, you are doing something horribly wrong :/

[Elidroth]

I don't think EQ is dying at all. I think it's losing its interest to the current high end gamer, but not dying. I think it's much like UO was.. UO lost a great deal of its high-end userbase to other games.. but it's still chugging along with a solid playerbase.

So while EQ may die from OUR perspective.. it's still very much alive.

[Quickbeem]

eq lost all its magic when i figured out that there formula. They make you give up your life in the real world in order to be good in there little world. I mean what other game is it necessary to be up all night trying to kill ubermob001. I found i like games where skill is more of a requirement then time and patience


Quickbeem

[Tilea]

EQ is like aging, you don't realize how much fun it was until it's too late and you find yourself wishing you were young again :p

[Selenajra]

Only thing I've been following much is shadowbane. Yeah, I know, it's pvp oriented, will be wierd to get used to, but I haven't seen any other MMOG's that I think I'll even bother to try.

[Mcpickle]

You'd rather play EQ than be having sex? I quit EQ so I could get a GF... I have one.. and we have lots of sex ... and um sex > EQ by FAR. :D I luv her very much ... maybe the fact that you like EQ more means you've had lots of meaningless sex. >_<

[Rezz]

I personally blame EQ's decline entirely on McPickle's sex life. If only he had never gotten any, then Luclin would have been released in a playable form with all the features it was originally intended to have. Blasted gnomes!

[Wyvern]

I doubt EQ is dying, but I would say that EQ has lost a signifigant number of younger hardcore gamers. I personally quit EQ cold turkey a long time ago, no one thing did it, just got sick of the game, and looking back I can't imagine playing it for as long or as much as I did.

Downtime was a big factor to me, I think that EQ has trouble retaining members of the ADD generation who once comprised a large portion of the high level gamers. I would bet that the average age on servers has taken a trend upwards of late. Consider even druzzil, when vindi died, there went a ton of mostly high school and college kids out the window, and I wouldnt be surpised to see the same trend on other servers, tho I dont know for sure.

I check in on different forums every once in a while, and as far as I can tell the people who are doing the posting and seem to be active to me are those who I knew were on the older side, i.e. not students.

The appeal of a game where you sit through 6 hours of downtime to accomplish a portion of some key to some place is minimal to some schmuck who is having a rough time sitting through an hour long philosophy class, I would assume that is where EQ is losing people to wc3 and whatever other RTS or FPS games come along.

I mean, spoilers and their sites killed the true original appeal of EQ, which was to me at least having a giant world to explore and do shit in. After that, it was and is a combination of things that keeps people playing. There is the friends element of the game, people enjoy killing time with people of whose company they enjoy, but there is also the selfish element that everyone feels. By that I mean, playing so you can get to A level, kill B mob, get C item, get D skill... and honestly, I feel that eventually that wears off, for some it takes longer than others.

Anyways, EQ had its moments for me, but the thought of spending 2 hours prepping for a 10 minute adrenaline rush just doesnt do it for me anymore, and I would imagine the same for a lot of other people.

[Eomer]

I don't think EQ is dying commericially, and won't be dying for some time. By that I mean actual subscription numbers. But online numbers are no longer truly valid, as a lot of people are online in the bazaar 24/7. I haven't even really played that much since they instituted the bazaar, but is 300 a fair guess on the number of people in it at all times? That's almost 12K people across all servers right there. You also have to take into account people dual boxing/EQWing, which I am sure is going up as people discover how easy it is to do in the game, and considering that (up until today's patch anyway) the best way to get exp was in smaller groups, or duoing.

However I think a lot of the high end of EQ is leaving the game, or will be very soon. It's a fact that a lot of the high end guilds across all servers have a huge number of inactives now, and even more people who play less and less. I don't think anyone in Hoss will argue that.

That doesn't mean that overall the game is dying however, as it's very possible 10 times the retiring people are joining up every day. It's hard to say w/o knowing VI's own subscription numbers.

Me personally? I think EQ is dying at the high end, and will have a serious lack of people playing at the higher levels in 6 months, unless PoP is at the very least halfway decent (and I think VI realizes this and will get it somewhat right). I think that the number of people who play for than a year or two is going to dwindle even more. With the way the game is now designed, people are able to get to 60 in probably 1/3 to 1/4 of the time. There isn't nearly the same pace of progression now, and I think that the quick advancement into raiding will cause people to grow sick of the game faster. I don't know why I think that, nor can I explain it, it just seems to fit for me.

[Parak]

Wyvern, thou speaketh the truth, verily ;o

[Xuen]

I had sex once

[Eomer]

That one doesn't count, even if you were thinking of a girl.

[Arcius]

Ah, I see what happened now. Eisai had a bad experience with Mcpickle.

[Zarxen]

.............:D

[Tilea]

"The appeal of a game where you sit through 6 hours of downtime to accomplish a portion of some key to some place is minimal to some schmuck who is having a rough time sitting through an hour long philosophy class"

Very true, hehehe. I'm a definite attention defecit, and the boring time sinks are the reason luclin has caused a steady decline in my interest of the game.

[Mkai]

Honestly, I think it's pretty arrogant to assume that EQ is dying just because it ceases to be fun for you ( read: "you" here means, whomever thinks that eq is dying because it has ceased to provide you with wonder, excitement, or that it's balance is way out of wack, or what have you...this is not targeted at any individual ).


No, but people with experience in gaming and online gaming can share their point of view. See this as history repeating itself.



Like it was pointed out earlier in this thread, EQ has hit record numbers online just recently, an interview with one of the head honchos ( forget who ) said they're getting 12,000 new subscriptions PER MONTH...I think thats a tad more than the few who go inactive on the highest end guilds. There's a lot of people who play EQ casually, they don't burn out and leave.


Granted, but how many of those will become hardcore players? Stating that a game is dying doesn't mean that the game will dissapear in the next six month. Look at UO, as far as I'm concerned, it's dead. But it's still running. EQ can very well be alive in 5 years, but when you lose your hardcore gamer, your game is pretty much dead. Those that plays 10hours a week aren't the ones that are making this game.

And to whoever stated that they had a record number of online people. It was sunday night, I think it was the first sunday after the bazaar came online. Their numbers are affected by the fact that some people didn't log off after they were done playing so they could sell stuff. It was also affected by people logging in their 2nd account to setup up their bazaar mule. Finally, you had all the curious people who had left EQ who wanted to check it out.

Ironically enough, the last MMORPG I played died because they changed the XP system by increasing the number of XP you needed to level and by reducing the number of XP mobs game... ( last patch anyone? ;) )

But then again, what do I know? /shrug

[Mcpickle]

haha me and eisai were humping and i accidently stuck in her butt and she squeeled and thats why she hates men cause i stuck it in her butt~

[Eomer]

man I never saw that one coming!

[Buazag Bonesteel]

Finally, you had all the curious people who had left EQ who wanted to check it out.

Yup...I paid 12 bucks just to check out Bazaar. Wasn't enough to keep my account active though :{

[Mcpickle]

:o
HEHE ^_^ man i want 3 stars...

on a side note.. the GF I am with now .. my first GF ever and I'm 21... 22 tomrrow wee.. used to think the same thing about men she had met a whole bunch of shit heads... but since I'm such a super duper nice guy she realizes all men aren't the suck! I think you should give some guy a chance! Go for the quiet guys... they're usually really nice ^_^

[Zappo]

... Mcpickle is quiet?
once you start to talk she will hate guys even more :|

[Eomer]

Force of habit?

[Mcpickle]

Haha everyone jacks it ... people who say they don't are either lieing or just suck ass.

[Khael]

Hrm, if I could find the post I would repost it, but VI apparently had this neat idea of entire zones full of ring events of varying difficulty (so that people of all levels could enjoy or something) which all lead to some Boss, who would drop a key to open a harder ring event. Could be BS, but looking at Luclin and how ring-happy VI went after the acrylia one, I don't doubt it.Ahh, how lovely, the "key camp era" will be replaced with just a 3 hour long camp session requiring 70 people!

The problem is you have to do it every time. Oh well, I guess that's still better.

/sarcasm off

[Rezz]

I'm gonna go with the fact that Shakira would have to sleep at some point during the day, then what can ya do?

Next question!

[Strahd]

Hrm Eisai, sucks you hate all men so much, a lot of us are pretty good folks. The whole masturbation thing, its a human trait that is based in genetics. The whole point of the male species, from a very primal point of view, is that we are here to procreate as much as possible, to push on our species. Plain and simple, it is something that is in our makeup that wills us to masturbate so often, marriage doesn't turn that off, but it should not be considered an insult to a woman. As weird as women come off to men, and vice versa, there are things about us that are simply built in and hard to break. Our philosophies on life and how it should be run are simply way ahead of our genetics and the very VERY ingrained traits we exhibit even when situations just don't demand it...

Examples are, our bodies extreme desire to keep fat, males generally overbearing want/need for sex, womens generally more nurturing side. These are traits our human race exhibit generally, and are not needed anymore. We don't need to store extra fat, but our bodies freak out when we start cutting down meals... hence why eating 6 small meals a day works better for weight loss due to the fact your body is now trained to know its going to get its next meal, and will gladly use up its reserves. Masturbation for men, we don't NEED to do it, but I'll tell you this, there is an urge for men to that is quite bewildering. Another point about masturbation is the fact that it keeps your reproductive system healthy *note that over-zealous masturbation is not too healthy* and prepares a male to do his single most important job, procreate. And finally, for women, there is the stereotype that women are just flat out better nurturers, and where does that come from? Thousands of years of women being stuck in that role, the actual attachment a woman has to a child, and perhaps some more ingrained trait that I am missing as I am not female, that is there, that allows a woman to empathize more.

REGARDLESS, picking on things like masturbation and pointing to marriage as the end-all for it, is a fairly weak arguement. I'm not picking on you Eisai, I just get stuck in these sort of conversations all the time, especially at school and in classes like women's studies, where I get bashed all day, and never am mean back. Granted, McPickle's statement was assinine as well, but I think its abundantly apparent, he IS assinine. I'm sure you are a much different person in RL Pickle, but its fun to get people riled up in mediums where there is no real consequences to be paid. And hell if y ou do talk like that to people in real life, you must be pretty damn diesel or an all star track runner, because I'm sure you'd find yourself fighting/running for your life often. Anyway, thats my rant... yay

[Strahd]

My point is that the need to procreate is something sub-conscious... not something we pursue so much just because we consciously want it, its a sort of odd need that pushes you. Hard to explain if you aren't a guy, but its there. There are female parallels to this I'm sure, I'm just not a woman.

[Grimthorn]

Eisai, all you have to do to prove his idea wrong is name something better. :)

-Grim

[Zarxen]

Best things in life are free( relatively speaking)

Then again what's this thread about again?

[Vinilaa]

Originally posted by Mcpickle
Go for the quiet guys... they're usually really nice ^_^

Actually the quiet ones are usually serial killers. I mean what do the neighbors/family members (provided they're still alive) always say in interviews about convicted serial killers? "He was always so quiet."

So here you have it folks, the quiet ones are the ones you need to run screaming from.

I also think that the fact that Mcpickle is quiet irl goes to substantiate my claim. We all know how he'd act if he could get away with it considering the comments he makes in an environment where there are no real-world consequences for his behavior. :eek:

[Lola]

Ahahaha and to think I almost wasn't going to read this thread again after the first page. Boy, what a topic change!

[Eomer]

Yea, this fucker hung a serious left about 10 posts ago!

[Mcpickle]

:o
Of course I'm different on the internet than in real life.. so is everyone else on here.... I bet if you met me in real life you'd be very suprised, people call me the 'nicest person they've ever met' on a sub daily basis so I dunno, the fact that I started this game in high school and built a reputation when I was younger and now people expect me to act a certain way isn't my fault. I guess I could get a name change, but I don't know.. I think for some I provided a little humor in a game riddled with people who are just serious tight asses. But thats cool, I played how I wanted to, and I realize people didn't take my humor in the best of ways many times. I don't just act this way on the internet b/c I know there aren't consequences... I'm 6 8 in real life, I can handle myself, but I feel there needs to be a place for me to vent some of the things that I just can't do in RL due to professionalism, or just the fact that it's retarded. If I could start over I dunno if I would, I've enjoyed what I've done.... granted I've apprently insulted people such as Eisai, and I regret it obviously, but even when I tried to be nice to maybe set things straight it wasn't accepted... so I would just get mad and say more stupid shit. ;)
Oh well, this thread is obviously derailed. BTW I don't apprectiate you ragging on someone who just b/c they had a few bad boyfriends makes them more likely to choose someone who would be a bad choice for a boyfriend (me). From your account you've had a bad experience with a man ... does that mean that you'll choose some loser later? I don't think so. I think she learned the hard way, and wants to be with someone nice and who appreciates her. .which I do tremendesouly. In fact the first night I came over to her house to watch a movie is the night i uninstalled EQ.. i said 'man this kicks EQ's ass' and quit right there. Took me 3 years but I did it. Anyways its our 4 month anniversary today and I'm taking her out to fondue at the melting pot which is a rad place and costs way to much but its great. I'm sorry if I said things in the past that offended you Eisai. I offer my apology first, I don't care if you accept it but I will try to act civil towards you anyways... even though the only place I interact with you is on this msg board. Cheers

[Mitsy]

Hostile much?

Mitsy

[Vanuiil]

hahaha /agree lola, i had left this thread alone after first page as well and for some reason decided to look into it now...too funny

[Mcpickle]

Oooh ooh did I insult you in RL?? Did I hit your tender spot? Well wake the **** up and look how often you insulted me in RL as well. Don't dish it out unless you can take it. Jesus you're a hard ass bitch.

[Mcpickle]

3 stars i rule

[Elidroth]

Eisai..

It's very simple. Masturbation is FUN and we don't have to move much. No more complicated than that. We're lazy and just like the feeling of spackling the ceiling. Hehe.

And as for your dislike of men so much, all I can surmise is you've only experienced the dregs of the species. SOME of us are actually damn nice, considerate, thoughful, etc.. Of course.. the women WE like always complain they can't find a nice guy, always get treated like crap, but in reality want the 'bad boy', who ultimately treats them like shit. So unless we get lucky, we're stuck in a vicious cycle of being attracted to the people who will only hurt us.

Of course.. maybe that's just me.

[Mcpickle]

Um I don't know who told you it was me, or what causes you to think that ... but truthfully I never even saw your private homepage. I just said I had saw your pics to get a rise out of a few people. You miss are mistaken. Sorry.

[Mcpickle]

Oh, and I don't have any RL friends that play Everquest. So ... don't know what to tell ya there.

[Elidroth]

Hmm.. I just thought you were cute.. never though slut at all. /shrug.

[Mcpickle]

Gee if I was worried about looking like a slut i'd try not to cyber for a copy of luclin....