Addiction - Online Roleplaying Games

I've always been a gamer. I was given an Atari 2600 at the age of 2 in order to placate my desire for the Nintendo Entertainment System that was released then. By the time I was 3 and a half, I was playing Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt with my father. I loved it, and my hobby-for-life was discovered. Since then, I've owned almost every video game system that has had a mass release, and some that didn't. I've found over the years that the games that keep my attention the most are the ones that provide me with a sweeping narrative that tells a tale with which I can interact - roleplaying games.

I've been a fan of Final Fantasy since I was young. Square, Enix, Bioware, Bethesda and the other "big boys of RPGs" have been house-hold names with me as far back as I can remember. I've played and replayed through a myriad of games that take 20, 30, 40 and more hours to master and complete. I've loved almost every minute of it. So when one of my best friends in the world told me almost a decade ago that there were new online games like this, I was instantly sucked right in. The big decision at the time was which game to play, Ultima Online or EverQuest. My circle of friends chose Ultima Online, and we played together as a cohesive group for 6 years, through high school and our first couple of collegiate years.

During the early years, when we were 15 and 16, there didn't seem anything wrong with the amount that we played these games. They were online, allowing us a social outlet, as well as providing us with hours of entertainment on a budget that was far less than our console game purchases had ever allowed. It was the best of both worlds. The problems began, however, when we introduced the opposite sex into the mix. As a rule, girlfriends and MMORPGs do not mix. It's like tossing a lit match into a can of gasoline in a house made of paper. You are simply asking for a bad outcome.