Crash farming, health, and OCD.

They own a logo, not two letters. If you can own "GW" then I can own the word "a" and that's just not how anything works. I may be wrong about this, but I think I'm right. If a third person can come in and explain this, please do.

Here's the copyright info. Now I'm from Canada so I'm not sure how UK law works, but they did secure copyright on the following (of which GW is included).

[QUOTE=Haijiibirdhead] Lets say that someone died from the Polar bear thing who was under an obcessive compulsion. QUOTE]

Because OCD is a hex spell the computer casts on some people...
It's a game, and I've never really heard of anybody dying from playing too many videogames. That's impossible.
This can't be that much of an issue, can it?

OCD

25e, 5c, 60r

Skill. Target foe repeats their current action. They continue repeating it until OCD ends. Unlimited duration.

Okay, then... GW doesn't have "GW" trademarked, but there's NOTHING stopping individuals from calling Guild Wars GW.

Of course there isn't anything stopping them. ArenaNet is quite below the notice of Games Workshop. They seriously could not care less what slang is used in regards to Gw. (The other reason I call it Gw is that's what ArenaNet actually calls it, apparently; if you check your system processes while Guild Wars is running you'll see Gw.exe; that's Guild Wars.)

Compassion --> OCD sufferers

LOL --> OP

Remember the movie "Mazes & Monsters?" The problem was not the game; it was the boy's mental condition.

Hah I hadn't seen your reply Zeek... until now. Really need to check this thread more often, it's an interesting topic.

Ok, I'm normally at my own apartment, which I share with my husband. During the holidays I generally end up at my grandparents, along with my family (my dad, mom, older sister, her husband and her two sons). As I type this, I'm back "home" (my apartment).

I've TRIED explaining to her. 2 days ago she talked to me about it again, because she's dead sure I have some problem... but then again I'm her little baby boy and I was a problem child (I was your typical ADHD kid, but unlike some I knew I wasn't a bully or anything - the opposite actually, since I was bullied throughout my elementary and it stopped after I came out of the closet, at 16, still never understood how O_o;;; ). Because she doesn't act the same with my sister, and mothers tend to be more... protective with their daughters, as opposed to their sons. So I'm damned sure it's linked to the fact that, unlike my sister, I was a problem child and was a problem teenager too (let's face it, I'm no angel).

My mom is over-protective. My dad asked her to cut some slack on me but she's totally obsessed, and it's beginning to annoy me. At one point, she could call here 2 times a day - I take my car and it takes me around 20 minutes to get to their house. Shows how much I live close yet she worries so much about me. She doesn't do that with my sister (she's 29) who moves between Toronto and Montreal weekly.

Back on the topic...

TBH, I've heard of the cases where people died from not doing anything else than computer games. But then again, doing too much of something isn't good in general...

It's a topic that comes back to me given I'm in a studying field that deals with their own social problems - Japanese Studies. If anyone is familiar with "hikikomori", you know what I'm talking about and what's the relation to this thread. To the people who've never heard of it, it's a term for those teenagers and young adults who shut themselves from society and watch anime, play games, surf the net... etc. They have little to no social contacts, even with their parents. Some go outside, some try to "fit in" with people of their own age, social status or similar interest via the internet. A lot were bullied as children, have lost friends, and so on. Some find refuge in online gaming. For most, it's a "phase"; some have a hard time getting out of that.

Maybe I'm linking both for no reason or by symptoms only, since it doesn't mean they are obsessed by their game/TV show/whatever, but it's kinda similar in a way... but sometimes, I can't help to think it might happen here. I don't know anyone THAT addicted, but if I NEVER went out of my house, didn't have any social contact or barely ate, while all I'd do would be gaming, I'd call myself addicted.

As for now, my main hobby is video games, always has since my father bought the NES in 1989. Whether I spend 5 hours on one, or 2.5 hours on 2... remains the same to me. I have a normal life, I'm nowhere near "addicted" as some people think I am (namely my mother). I enjoy GW, I love my computer, but I'll take my IRL friends over my online friends (heh sorry guys, but it's true, lol... >_<). I'm called to go to parties and take part in activities in my university... I never gave the "oh tonight I'm playing GW" excuse, because seriously, as much as I spend a lot of time on that game, I've got priorities.

And that, IMHO, is called responsibility.

But yeah, I'm a 22-year-old male. Every now and then I think I play a bit too much than I should lol. I think you guys will agree that we all feel as if we'd prefer playing over going to work, let's say. And yet most of us leave our computers, go to school, university, work, parties and such.

You are correct, Zeek.

This is further complicated by laws in other countries - ArenaNet incidentally is a US company. So if you want to talk about legal anything where it is concerned, you should be using the correct site for the country they are in.

But they're owned by NCSoft which is based in Korea.

Want to further complicate things? Games Workshop is only listed as Games Workshop according to the US Trademark office!

But according to the UK's own trademark site, Glaxo Wellcome trademarked "GW" in 1999. Games Workshop trademarked it in 2003. So how can two companies (plus a few more) trademark that?

(get ready for it!)

A trademark is not ownership of letters! It is far more complicated than that.

I think only reason why I'm probably replying to this is that my OCD demands it.

On topic: can we all agree that people need to take responsibility for their own actions?

Thank you for having OCD. <3 *stops hijacking*

Heh...Elinora...you just rock<3

You have heard of the WoW addicted parents who let their kid die because they couldn't be bothered to take care of them, haven't you?

Hmm... methinks the crack is strong in this one...

GW (the letters) aren't what's owned. The art and presentation of the said GW is what they own. Therein lies the trademarked part.

I guess it's an easy mistake to make, but in this case. It IS a mistake.

Now be sure to never used the letters KM together lest I have my people calling your people. It'll affect my OCD in game (keeping on the subject, in an abstract and odd sort of fashion...)

I believe the hourly warning thing is a requirement in some countries, I believe South Korea being one of them.

China goes even further by having some sort of penalty if a player plays the same game for too many hours at a go. That just mean that people swap games every few hours, haven't stopped them keeling over at the keyboard.

Fixed.

I was going to leave this thread, but your implication that I engage in smoking crack simply because I read something accurately irritated me, so I decided to do one of the more annoying internet arguing techniques, the fixed quote. I do realize that you may reply in kind. And that's cool with me.

EDIT: By the way, I find multiplayer shooters considerably more addictive than MMOs.

What you say is fairly true.... EXCEPT

It would have been nice for you to spell obsessive correct atleast ONCE.

Aw thanks! :: hugs Shakti and Zeek ::

You see OCD everywhere - casinos, games, drugs, alcohol, job, etc etc. You can't cure OCD by simply removing the object of obsession, in most/all cases it shifts to something else (another game!)

Since this topic was apparently triggered by the Polar Bear Incident I must point out that perhaps somewhat surprisingly the late confirmation of the new mini was a good thing in respect of OCD influenced bear lovers.

When the farming frenzy started there was less than 24 hours of effective play time left until ANet pulled the plug. While a session that lasts non-stop twice around the clock is certainly crazy, an otherwise healthy person should be able to pull it off without any permanent damage.

Now, if the bear had been found on the first day of the event, there would have been a whole week to try one's luck, and crucially, still with a negligible chance of success. There would have been casualties.

Yes, people are ultimately responsible for their actions (or in the case of minors, their parents are to an extent). However, game makers shouldn't specifically encourage self-abuse, and the PBI pushed all the right (or wrong) buttons as if the devs were actually hoping to see some people go berserk.

If people are that obsessed with getting a little collection of pixels that resembles a polar bear, I maintain that they need to reevaluate their priorities. If it's that important to them, maybe they should go outside for a bit. I personally find it really sad that a cool little addiction to the game resulted in so much bitterness (and the jealousy against the people that DID get one). Sure, I tried for one - for about 2 hours. Then I thought "you know, I just wasted 2 hours on something I may not even get. Life's too short" and went off to spend time with my family. My only regret is that I spent those 2 hours at all given what I COULD have done with 2 hours.

People choose self abuse, just like they choose to eat fast food even though it's bad for them (I do it too sometimes), choose not to exercise, or choose to drive without a seatbelt. No self abuse was encouraged - if anything, someone may have made the mistaken assumption that players have good judgment (which I think we all know to be false, about 2 minutes in any populated district shows that).

If people had common sense I'd say "I'd wish people had known earlier" but given the fact that people really do exist who have holes in their judgment big enough to float an aircraft carrier through, it really IS better that it happened on the last day because at least ordeal only lasted a day.

I got not clue why people spend so much time doing a single thing over and over again. Man, if i spend so many hours doing that i would feel pretty stupid.

Just be glad that they doesn't decrease the drop/fame/gladiator points/rates once you cross the 3 hour line......like they do in South Korea.

Again: Compassion to those suffering from OCD, and derision to those who want to blame someone for the OCD sufferer's awful situation.

Parents are completely responsible for their children - they are not just responsible to an extent. Unfortunately, this is the attitude and/or mindset that creates the 'victim' mentality.

As long as (by any stretch of the imagination) a person can find someone to blame their problems on regardless of whether there is any merit in their claim -- then that person can wear the coveted title of "Victim."


Okay - now this poster is actually assuming as fact the guilt of the game makers. And here you have it... It's all the fault of the developers, ANet and NCSoft. And what is ironic is that it's not the actual OCD sufferers who are leveling this charge. This person, like too many others, would rather not personally wear the title "Victim" when they can get the better title: "Victim's Advocate."

And this is the saddest part... the advocate always gets more attention than the person or group they are advocating.

People who pervert justice at the expense of the rest of us FTL!!!

i farm until i get bored, which doesnt take all too long xD

I really think we should take the topic of OCD out of this. A game is no more likely to trigger OCD than any other activity of life because OCD is not really triggered by activities outside the brain. It is triggered by the brain itself and simply focuses on an activity or thought - seemingly at random.

OCD is when an obsession or compulsion gets tied to the survival instinct even though the obsession or compulsion has nothing to do with any life or death situation. In others words, the obsession or compulsion makes no logical sense and no one activity is more likely to be the focus than another. Just because a game is fun, frustrating or addictive does not make it more likely to become the focus of OCD than any other activity. Most of you are taking your own, natural response to the game and inflating it, thinking that this is what happens in OCD. But that is not what OCD does. It does not increase natural desires. It ties natural extreme reactions to actions that normally would not logically lead to those reactions.

OCD doesn't make sense. It is unpredictable. You can't predict that a game or a portion of the game will become the focus of OCD just because the game is slightly addictive in its own right.

What you guys are really talking about is an addiction - and that is completely different than OCD. In an addiction there is an actual logical possible gratification to an action. Addiction requires some kind of rewarding behavior. the focus is not on the activity itself but the possibility of reward, even when the activity is destroying other parts of the person's life. In many individuals the reward is taking the place of more natural and healthy rewards which seem unobtainable in some way.

OCD focuses on an activity while Addiction focuses on the possibility (however small) of reward.

So, while a game may be a problem for someone with an addictive personality, no game is any more dangerous for a person with OCD than any other activity in life would be. So, can we take OCD out of this discussion, please?

(Just as an example of how "illogical" OCD is: In my case, as a teen, I had to blink my eyes in a certain rhythm before any test or before going to sleep at night. I felt that I had to do it "right" or repeat the action. Problem was that I could never really define what "right" was. The more I repeated it and did not get it "right" the more stressed out I got. It literally did feel like the world was going to end if I didn't do it just right even though I knew in my mind that was not true - that is one of the things about OCD, you know what you are doing is illogical but you can't stop it and become very nervous if you are not able to finish the ritual correctly. The rhythm was close to "shave and a hair cut - two bits", by the way, which makes me really sympathize with the OCD sufferer who felt she had to hum a particular tune and complained that "it wouldn't be so bad if it were an interesting tune, but this one is just so boring." Thankfully, it is much better as an adult - probably because the brain chemistry changes but also because I was able to refocus to actions that are less bothersome. But there was no reason why I focussed on blinking rather than hand washing or something else. It just happens. And a game is no more likely than eye blinking to become the focus of OCD)

And for the OP: obsessive-compulsive traits are related to Obsessive Compulsive PERSONALITY Disorder which is completely different than OCD.

I don't know which part of the world you call 'home' but at least where I live the responsibility of parents on the actions of their children is a sliding scale that depends on the age of the child in question. On one extreme there is a child with no personal responsibility whatsoever, and on the other a young adult with full personal responsibility of his/her actions. Between those two extremes parents are responsible to the extent that is not the responsibility of the child. You know, humans don't turn from a child to an adult overnight. This has been specifically codified in law as well.

As for the rest of your rant, you're reading into my words things that are not there. That is usually called a straw man argument and hence I won't even bother addressing it

So you have full responsibility for your 3yo kid but if your kid is 16yo you have little or no responsibility for the actions of that child? That's pretty convenient to absolve you from taking care of your minor child. And so if I exercize full responsibility over my 16yo kid then I am violating the kid's rights and am subject to prosecution? Yes, I can agree that unfortunately we are traveling down that slippery slope, er I mean sliding scale.

I should say that some people are traveling that path - many like myself do not.


Well, I quoted your words verbatim -- I didn't have to set up a straw man to knock down your attack on the GW team. What you have done since you can't defend without taking your words back is don't address it at all and hope that people forget there was actually a valid objection to what you said: But I will clarify for you anyway :

Hmm, are you talking about GW??... we are not quite sure here... (your so-called Polar Bear Incident to be specific) Oh, okay, you were talking about GW! ...stressing 'wrong' ... so the devs seem to have hoped for someone 'going berserk.'

Nope - I didn't have to add a thing. I really wish you would be more thoughtful when you post. -V

Well - I was defending ANet on this point - that it is not their responsibility what the players chose to do to themselves as they play the game.

But I just saw Gray's answer about the polar bear - they are not changing their decision - they still think it was a good idea to have it there in the tiny numbers they originally assigned to it.

Since, they have never bothered to explain why they thought that this was such a good idea - and the only thing it did accomplish was to encourage people to spend long hours in a repetitive activity that could have done both physical and emotional harm, I can only conclude this was, in fact, their intention. It would appear the Devs did indeed hope for someone to go berserk

Eh, just depends on if you want to waste time or not.