Divorce and MMORPGs

Remove all ads!

Hell would freeze over before I would give Mrs. Snook the items that my assassin has in Diablo 2 LOD

Taken from here.

 

Have to write a prenupt. All my paladins, I mean, my characters, are mine.

Someone was lacking a cool head, meeting in September and marrying in October. Things tend to be done the good old way in Catholic parishes and you have to wait up to half a year. Sometimes that's not enough. Girlfriend or not, a woman would have to be an insanely good and trusted (and tried) friend before I could marry her.

 

To tell you the truth my years of working in a small accounting firm left me so that things like this don't really surprise me with marriage breakdowns - I have seen everything up to an including a guy cutting his house in half using a chainsaw.

The only somewhat questionable thing is the value that is being assigned to the characters.
I did a quick currency conversion and the characters/items are being valued between $6,100 and & $7,600 Canadian which would be roughly 4000-5000 Euro.

 

That's pretty reasonable, actually.

 

I can understand why they would share an account, but why would they share individual characters? And if they didn't share individual characters, then what's the problem? Just split the chars into different accounts based on who played what. So basically, I guess I agree with the wife, but as long as they can reach a mutually acceptable compromise...meh.

 

I've seen this happen firsthand. I'm fairly active in a MMORPG and have seen role-play relationships become real-life relationships...and then seen real life relationships fall apart and take the role-play ones with them. It's kind of funny really to see people frantically trying to change their character biographies to account for some kind of breakup...or at an extreme...commit "suicide" by deleteting their character in some sort of public, dramatic way.

 

There is something wrong with relationships in MMORGP, anyway. It's sick when they get transformed into real life ones. But a roleplaying relationship without a real-life basis is sick no less.

I remember all sorts of excuses from people who have spouses and families but maintain romantic relationships "in character" in MMORPG or PNP sessions or whatever. The overwhelming theme thought is, "it's not real, so it's allowed." If it's allowed, then it's free to enjoy and so on. Added bonus, as it were.

And I've also heard, first-hand, excuses from people who had real-life relationships but engaged in online flirting and cyber sex, claiming the other person was only a mere acquaintance in real life, so it was all right.

Only just why do romantic actions of people's characters inspire so many and so strong real-life feelings, from anger to despair, and why do online flirting partners finally replace real life partners in their roles? I've seen the latter happen first-hand. Talking to the poor woman was not exactly a happy thing to do.

[ July 31, 2005, 12:02: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

I only argued over custody of the children....

 

This is the most utterly bizarre thing I have ever seen. However, I suppose that if David Eddings and his wife split, they'd have a tough time splitting the ownership / legal rights to some of the characters they jointly created (as would any other literary couple who work together -- I use Eddings as an example because he's the first one that came to mind, not because I like his crappy writing )

 

I ought to pring that off and show to my family and friends that think I am too carried away in my games...

 

Better not, or your wife will have the time to prepare ahead and you could lose your characters.

 

I'm speechless...but I didn't ever played MMORPGs...

 

Pff this is downright insane. Don't these people have lives? If this trend continues, I can imagine in X years all our relations will be on a cyber-level. What a world, what a world

 

Aren't most relationships of any kind already at least partly web-based for people with broad-band or unexpensive enough dial-up plans? My own contact list in the local communicator is longer than the one on my mobile phone. I've seen buddy lists three hundred people long.

 

With so many relationships being ruined due to one spouse being addicted to MMORPGs, this, sadly, doesn't really surprise me.

Though if I were to pick up a significant other, I'd certainly want them to play (or at the very least, tolerate) games. =D

 

Chev: I'm not married, so it's mostly my parents and a few cousins that I need to convince...

 

My girlfriend doesn't like computer games in general. Pity, beause she's got a vivid imagination, and she'd make a brilliant role-player. I've tried to convince her to join an online session of any game for the last year...

After reading that, I think I'll let her keep enjoying the bliss of ignorance.

 

Or at least keep different accounts

 

I wonder how old they were. Such a foolish thing to do.

The online games I play frown upon account sharing and multiple accounts... so sharing ten accounts between the two of them sounded a bit odd to me.

Whoever logs into the accounts and changes the passwords first gets to keep it

I don't understand how the characters and virtual items got valued into real currency.

 

I firmly believe game accounts should be extra commercio, out of trade circulation. Noobs with bought high-level accounts are really no fun.