A while ago, moonriver asked how many people on soulcast were using Second Life. I said that I haven't, because I only know about the program through the SA columns. And while I recognize that these guys are often sarcastic goofballs, I had worries of harrassment
- towards and/or by furries
- towards and/or by SA goons
- towards and/or by unaffiliated idiots who just assume that the internet is a place where one can do absolutely anything one wants to whomever one pleases and damn the consequences
I just basically didn't want to get involved in what I was worried would become an internet turf war.
This does not mean, however, that I have completely ruled out the possibility of joining. A week ago, in fact, I joined an on-line RPG (turn-based, which I'm quite good at). I won't say which one, but it has been a lot of fun.
Which leads me to another reason why I'm worried about joining Second Life--internet addiction. It's not as obviously dangerous as, say, overdosing on cocaine or meth. However, I hear tell internet addiction contributed (not caused, but contributed) to the death of a South Korean man, who died of exhaustion a few years ago after playing an on-line RPG for 50 hours straight.
Which is nuts, and pretty improbable--but not exactly impossible.
The last time I, myself, played the on-line RPG I recently joined, I skipped both breakfast AND lunch, and I had to be forceably pried away for dinner. I fear, very greatly, that if I am to join yet another on-line community, I will probably never leave my computer alive.
Which is one reason I've been waiting so long to play World of Warcraft. I'm saving that one for last. I plan to play that game once I am 80 years old, unable to pleasure myself, and confined to a wheelchair; I plan to hook my brain up to the computer I will use, hook myself up to a feeding tube, hire people to change my bedpans and liquified food bags, and spend the rest of my existence as a 6-foot-tall, dark elf battlemage (or equivalent class thereof). And when I die, it will be like dying in my sleep, and I'll dream of slaying pixilated orcs with summoned monsters and bolts of lightning for all enternity.
Those will be good times... And I will have died honorably, knowing that I worked for and earned my reward, and I will have died a true gamer's death.
