No Time For Second Life, Dr. Jones

I used to play around in several user environments called mucks (Multi-User Chat Kingdoms), back in the day. These were virtual environments similar to MUDs, but the difference between then and now was that it was all text. No pics or images to look at (unless you used ascii images), so all you had to go on was your imagination and good writing. In the mucks, I would create virtual landscapes, and bedrooms in a house. I wasn't a particularly good writer, so they were pretty much static things based off of a show I liked or something. My avatar was based on a character I liked, and was part of a group in the show, but made up of my RL (real life) friends. Unlike Second Life, there was no economy, and no upgradeable membership. That was it. I still made a couple friends online therein, but mostly I did it to hang out with RL friends.

I did that for a year, maybe 2. I eventually logged in less and less, and so did my RL friends. It was immersive, but not that immersive.

About a decade later, along comes WoW. Now this was immersive. You could create an avatar that people could look at and earn XP (experience that allows you to "buy" more skills, magic spells, etc) and any money you "earn" from fighting NPC (non-player characters) and other players from the enemy clan could buy you better weapons/armor/clothing...All at a monthly subscription price. You could spend the hard-earned in-game cash in the online auction house for new magical items and weapons and armor, or you could put any of your treasure up for auction as well. Heck, there were gold farmers out in China that would sell you in-game gold for RL money (as long as you didn't get caught violating the EULA). The world was beautiful, vast, and one could spend days online, and many people would, to the detriment of their RL responsibilities.

I did that for a year and a half, but some of my friends still do it and run a couple clans. They spend upwards of 8 hours a night online many times, and I just couldn't put that kind of time in anymore. Heck, I usually could only put in an hour or 2 before I had to attend to RL stuff, barring the random all-nighter to raise a few levels.

I keep telling myself I'll get to playing again, and maybe even check out another MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) called CoH/CoV (City of Heroes/Villains) where you can play either a super-hero or villain. I have a few good friends on there that would show me the ropes. But I still don't have time, and I don't know when I will.

For now, it will have to be a "No thanks" from me; my first life stresses me out enough.