MMORPGS: Heaven or Hell?

There are people who have found community within these games that they could not find in face to face interactions. Yes, some people get so wrapped up in the games that their face to face relationships fall by the wayside, but who are we to hold it against them?

Really, I spent years switching from MMO to MMO. I've played practically every single one worth looking into, obviously including WoW. Sure I spent a lot of time playing these games but I still had a life and I still went out and enjoyed myself.

I think the people who we refer to that lose their lives to these games are usually the type of people who don't have well developed social lives in the first place.

But that's just my two-cents...it's not like we've done studies on this or anything....

We all know MMO's can be horribly addicting and time-consuming, but at the same time they are fun and offer what other games cannot. As a former WoW player of 2 years, I would like to see what everyone else thinks. MMO's offer so much more than non-online games, such to the point that I cannot play single-player games the same anymore. But at the same time I had somewhere around 80 days and ~$500 invested in it. So what is it, MMO's are a cancer on the gaming community, or do their online and social gaming structures help out hermits and make otherwise-awful-games great?

As someone who has left not one, but two relationships behind when they couldn't get away from their games, MMO or otherwise, I resolutely say they are bad.
When you stop making friends in a face-to-face way, you lose a great deal of social awareness of what you should and shouldn't do. MMOs can be a great way to waste some time, but often, they become all-consuming (speaking as a former MMO player myself) and devour the rest of your life. This isn't a new trend, and it isn't isolated. Ctrl+Alt+Del, a popular gaming comic has one character who isn't allowed to play MMORPGs, for obvious reasons. (The beginning of the current story arc here: http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20071208)

Admittedly, CAD (as it's called) takes it to an extreme, but it's not so unthinkable that people can't relate to it.

Maybe if we had an MMO that required you to stop and go off once in a while. Something simple, entertaining, but limited. Oh yeah, it already exists.

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com