"I vowed to quit, and I would do so in such a melodramatic way that I convinced my editors here at The Escapist that the results would be worth documenting. I wouldn't simply do as so many before me had, click the uninstall button and privately put the whole ordeal behind me.
"I would kill my characters."
Sean Sands quits playing WoW, and goes out with a bang.
"Of course, Fansy wasn't just a Bard; he was a level five Bard. According to the hard-coded game mechanics, he wasn't yet eligible for PvP combat, but monsters didn't care about player level. ... It was glorious. I was invulnerable and could kill anyone. It was a great feeling. I giggled the entire time and rolled around in my underwear. That's how God must feel when he kills people.'"
Alan Au speaks to Fansy the Famous Bard, the player who broke EverQuest.
"Inspired by the success of media darlings WoW and Second Life, many more MMOGs have already gone into development, with some scheduled to appear "in the next few years." A majority of them will fail if they actually make it to market, and handful of them will explore new genres and succeed for what they are, but there will be a lot of crashing and burning along the way."
Nova Barlow examines the State of the Space.
"On the other hand, she's noticed that some male players seem to think anything a woman says or does is dramatic. 'Girls in games constantly have to be on guard to not look like they're causing drama - as their very presence sometimes creates it. It's like throwing meat to the lions, so to speak. If lions were competitive, hormone-enraged 20-something guys.' She says the volatile atmosphere encourages silence from women. 'Most of the women hide. They don't want the attention.'"
Melody Lutz speaks to Christine O'Reilly, a woman playing a man's game - and winning.
"When Corrupted Blood ran rampant, its patterns of diffusion resembled those of real-life diseases, and scientists took interest. Not only did the disease spread to other users, but there were carriers who, both knowingly and unknowingly, were able to take the malady across great distances via their infected pets. The parallels between World of Warcraft's plague and potential outbreaks in the real world were so compelling that the CDC requested the simulation data."
Brian Easton documents the spread of disease in World of Warcraft.
