The 12 levels of Immersion

[Spyder73]

"if the decent into total addiction was 12 steps, what # step is the step you take right before losing your job over Everquest?" – Iruinedyourday

An interesting question. I believe this is the progression one needs to follow in order to achieve total immersion. Please feel free to add your thoughts (Not you Caldabolg - you pathetic piece of sh!t).

1) Installing Project 1999
2) Reaching level 50 on your first character
3) Joining a raiding guild
4) Getting on the Batphone list
5) First time you call in sick for the sole purpose of socking a raid mob
6) Quickly leaving a real life social event to answer a Batphone summons
7) Playing more than 50 hours in a single week
8) Growing a neck beard because there is no need to shave since you don’t leave your house accept to go to work.
9) Getting fired from a job for EQ related work performance decline.
10) Getting divorced because your immersion level has hit 10 and your wife has started cheating on you because all you do now is not work and play EQ.
11) Losing custody of your children because EQ has total control of your soul
12) Stop playing P99 all together and focus solely on Forumquest meme’s and GIFs.

[am0n]

12) Stop playing P99 all together and focus solely on Forumquest meme’s and GIFs.

Heh.

Heh.

[Swish]

Who would you put at 12 at the moment?

[Priceline]

s'ok to skip steps 2 through 11?

[indiscriminate_hater]

this should be on a total points scale. assign 1, 2, or 3 points per bullet depending on how sad each one is. if your total is < 6, you're okay! 7-12 is danger zone. 13-18 means you've given up on shaving your neck. 19+ means you mass-order socks on Amazon

[Raije1000]

Who would you put at 12 at the moment?

You have gotta be a 12.

[BahamutDF]

13) Abandon forumquest in favor of cosquest

http://pre10.deviantart.net/6918/th/pre/i/2013/195/5/2/ccee_2013_sakura_by_darkzephyrmoon-d6ddyun.jpg

[Lulz.Sect]

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/901/760/4ec.jpg

[Shjade]

*checks 1, 2, and 7...and that's it*

I'd put raiding and batphones much deeper in the list than a simple # hours played, but that's just me.

[Pariad]

12) Stop playing P99 all together and focus solely on Forumquest meme’s and GIFs.

Calling Hasbinbad.

[Spyder73]

*checks 1, 2, and 7...and that's it*

I'd put raiding and batphones much deeper in the list than a simple # hours played, but that's just me.

In hindsight you are 100% correct - playing 50+ hours each week definitely happens before you start wanting to join raiding guilds and get on the batphone. Those items needs to be adjusted for sure.

13) EQCosplay - definitely needs to be added somewhere in here, thats next level dedication/naustiation.

But this is why i posted, so we can iron the wrinkles out. This is just a rough draft.

It would be more beneficial to take actually stories and add them to the immersion progression - for example, "Swish was banned from the Fennin Ro server for attaching nude pictures of himself to all his guild applications" - Or "Johnny Asshole got caught playing EQ at work and was fired from his 100k a year job, last week his house was repossessed and he moved back in with his mom". Real life experiences would really add some legitimacy.

[Barkingturtle]

Six years in and I've yet to advance beyond stage one. Shameful.

[captnamazing]

I'd like a special amendment added for people who monopolize Norrath's meat trade

[Spyder73]

I'd like a special amendment added for people who monopolize Norrath's meat trade

Step 12 I feel should be when you have <NOMSANTO INDUSTRIES> behind your name. Total immersion...

However, I am not sure GG is even a real person, I think he may be the early stages of the internet becoming aware of itself.

[Champion_Standing]

14th level:

http://journalism.emerson.edu/jsons/2006/group2_videogames/Shawn_Wooley.jpg

[Kekephee]

I'd like a special amendment added for people who monopolize Norrath's meat trade

RIP Greengrocer

http://123greetingsquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rest-in-Peace-Quotes-RIP.png

[Skillslam]

Level of mace attacks?

[Spyder73]

http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction

Pras your courage - I support you brother

"December rolled around again, one year after I had taken my first steps into EverQuest's world of Norrath, and I had completely changed. I went from being a strong independent person to a gaunt, unshaven, unshowered recluse, completely withdrawn from the outside world."

""He didn't look like Mike anymore," she remembers now. "He was scary and pitiful. I was afraid he was suicidal or dying of some mysterious disease. It broke my heart and I knew that coming home and taking the pressure off would be the best medicine for him.""

[Spyder73]

Total Immersion - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/addicted-suicide-over-everquest/

""That damn game. He shot himself because of the game," says his mother. She says he was completely addicted to it. He may have had other problems, but she thinks Everquest pushed him over the edge. Susan Spencer reports."

"But Liz Woolley thinks it's a dangerous game, and addictive, by design. "I think the way the game is written is that when you first start playing it, it is fun, and you make great accomplishments. And then the further you get into it, the higher level you get, the longer you have to stay on it to move onward, and then it isn't fun anymore. But by then you're addicted, and you can't leave it," she says. "

[Spyder73]

http://www.cnet.com/news/when-games-stop-being-fun/

"Dennis Bennett was failing his college classes, his marriage was in trouble, and he wasn't being much of a father to his 1-year-old son. But he had progressed to Level 58 as Madrid, the Great Shaman of the North, his character in the online role-playing game "EverQuest," and that was all that mattered at the time."

[Greengrocer]

I found the warp zone to Level 13, SUCKAHS!!!

[maerilith]

What happens when you reach

13) Realize that memes and gifs being reposted from imgur to 99.org forums is pointless
14) Start spamming pointless crap
15) Towers Bush
16) start making new forumquest levels
17) Loose faith in humanity, and still post on these reject forums for no reason at all

[maerilith]

18)swish

....

ok ..) Madrid