Trying my first online multiplayer game, I was a little bit apprehensive to stay the least. I was no stranger to online games, having wasted dozens of hours of my precious youth playing clones of old arcade classics that I had grown up with. This online game, however, was different. Of course, I had played multiplayer role-playing games before in college. We would meet in a dark dorm room in the basement, swill beer and soda pop, each chips, and pretend to be heroes and wizards from long ago. I know it sounds geeky, and it was, but it was also a lot of fun. Nevertheless, I had figured that those days were over and done with. Who has time for role-playing games in this day and age? Are there still people who play these games into their 30s and 40s? Apparently there are, but they all play them on the Internet.
This was no World of Warcraft online. Instead, it was a free online game, a multiplayer one with thousands of accounts all over the world. It sounded okay to begin with. It was a science fiction setting. The online game took place in the standard dystopian future, where the Earth’s government had become fascist and tensions between humans and a dozen or so alien races that had emigrated were at an all-time high. Unlike many of the online games out there, this one had no graphics. I chose that on purpose. Although graphics free online gaming has become rarer and rarer, I still prefer it, as do many old-school role-playing fans. The lack of graphics and arcade action mean that your imagination has to play a much greater role in the online universe. That suited me just fine!
As it turns out, I loved the online game – much more than I should have, in fact. I had feared that I would develop a new addiction, but I rationalized that I was too old to spend that much time gaming. Apparently, I was wrong. In the weeks and months after I started playing that game online, I wasted probably hundreds of hours at it. For a while, the online game was my biggest obsession.
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