Players load software onto their computers, log on to the game server via the Internet and navigate through an enormous online 3D play space with thousands of others moonlighting as wizards, shamans, and barbarians. When they log off and return to their boring lives, the game keeps going. For the most hard-core gamers, that's where things go wrong. They can't log off.
According to Sony, the average online gamer plays 14 hours a week, and others estimate some play 50 hours a week. A recent survey revealed that 37 percent of players claimed they were addicted to the game and another 27 percent admitted they were probably addicted. One elite guild of players named Fires of Heaven requires member that "have no lives, can attend never quit." Wives and girlfriends of EverQuest addicts commiserate in online forums with names such as EverQuest Widows. Here disgruntled exes and partners swap tales of living with players immersed in the game.
For Shawn Woolley, those imaginary people were his life. Imaginary money was more important than real money. Imaginary friends were more important than real friends. "He said those were his true friends and that we were not his friends anymore," Liz Woolley remembers. And then someone turned on him.
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A character named Xander remembers the first time he killed someone for fun. It began innocently enough, strolling up to another Ultima Online character, striking up a conversation. Then, for no reason at all, Xander attacked him. "That entire first evening, to me, was a real rush. I remember my heart beating. I was swaying back and forth in my chair as if on a roller coaster," he recalls in an online posting.
Meet the grief player, a gamer who exists simply to make life miserable for others. The most malicious of them form gangs, ambush unsuspecting new players, and rob and kill one another. For Xander and other grief players, it's about "looting someone even though you don't really need the items.