So what makes these types of games so addicting? The most popular theory is that the typical online role-playing game deals out nice rewards early on in the game, which attracts the gamer and causes him to play more often in the beginning. As the player progress in the game, he is offered better rewards but the intervals between these enticements are long awaited with each increasingly challenging reward. Additionally, there are multiple rewards that overlap each other so that there is always some type of incentive to play at your fingertips, whether it is in the form of questing, trade skill advancement, or character development. Another important factor of online games seems to be the formation of a large number of personal relationships in these games. Players see hundreds of different “people” from all over the world every day in their games. These virtual characters are much easier to start up a conversation with than your average Joe walking down the street. The games are also designed so that players have to work together in groups to overpower gods or fulfill epic quests. This forced grouping causes players to have to work together in high-intensity situations, which leads to faster bonding and trust development between the players. In addition to these two factors, the fact that the game never ends highly contributes to its attraction. The serious gamer tends to be bored with most games after playing all the way through a game and beating it to its utmost. This lack of replay value draws the gamer away from traditional offline role-playing games and more into the MMORPG category because the game here will never end; there is always something to do. Then by factoring in the expansions, updates, and patches that are commonly used to add and modify current games, one can see that this results in an even more appealing game due to the ever-changing content. One popular game, Asheron’s Call, has monthly patches and events. These patches add items such as masks for Halloween and improve the statistics of armor and weapons. The monthly events follow an ongoing storyline that draws the gamer in even further because the story itself is interesting and the player’s character actually takes part in changing the never-ending saga. When reviewing these factors contributing to the addicting characteristics of MMORPGs and reassessing the facts and opinions against the possibility of addiction, distinguishing between having and not having an online game addiction might be hard for some people.
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