From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Thu Jun 12 2003 - 18:32:57 MDT
Since its the NY Times, create an account to view the full article
By SETH SCHIESEL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/12/technology/circuits/12play.html
N the year 29477, at the distant end of a strife-torn galaxy, one of the most famous residents of the planet Rubi-Ka is a genetically engineered mutant called Thedeacon.
He is an ugly mutant, prideful and lewd. The spectacle of his wealth is surpassed by the vulgarity of his tongue. He sexually accosts strangers - be they female, male or neuter - and is renowned for his undying fetish for feet.
Thedeacon is also a kind mutant, a leader and beacon. Among Rubi-Ka's weaker citizens, he is revered for his generosity of mind, for sharing the information others need to prosper. Among the planet's elite, he is respected for his generosity of spirit, for comforting the lovesick and the lonely.
Thedeacon does not physically exist, of course. In the year 2003, at the blue-collar end of Madison, Wis., he is a struggling, frustrated 27-year-old computer repairman called Richard L. Stenlund.
Rubi-Ka does not physically exist, either. It is a construct within an Internet-based game called Anarchy Online. Every day, thousands visit Rubi-Ka as they log into their $12.95-a-month Anarchy Online accounts. Meanwhile, thousands of others depart for the vast worlds of similar games like EverQuest, Asheron's Call 2 and Dark Age of Camelot.
Most are merely playing a game, reaching for intermittent diversion. But for some players, these virtual worlds known as massively multiplayer games - filled with real friendships, real love affairs, real jealousies, real hatreds, real esteem - are almost as important as that world of bills in the mail, office politics, personal pain and unfulfilled dreams.
Rick Stenlund is one of those players.
Thedeacon is a celebrity. Mr. Stenlund, meanwhile, feels trapped - trapped in a town too far from big cities where big things happen, trapped in a hand-to-mouth existence, trapped in a mean little culture of cheap thrills and fast-food television.
That is why he has spent an average of seven hours a day in the last month on Rubi-Ka. That is why he has spent more than 2,400 hours on the planet in the last two years. That is why Rick Stenlund has become Thedeacon.
"It's a total release of the id," he said one Thursday last month as he sat in a Japanese restaurant in Madison with his wife, Sarah A. Werner-Stenlund, explaining his attraction to Anarchy Online. "I think people are generally false. Even sitting here with you, we are putting on a front. But in A. O. you can really let your true character out. If I want to be a pervert, I am able to do that in A. O. and be a pervert right off the bat."
Ms. Werner-Stenlund, who seems alternately befuddled and amused by her husband's other life, put in, "You are a pervert."
The Stenlunds run a computer repair and assembly business, Affordable PC Services, from the second bedroom of their $655-a-month apartment not far from a boulevard lined with used car dealers and small restaurants, adult bookstores and gas stations.
They don't get out much. That is partly a result of the couple's dim finances, but also a result of Mr. Stenlund's dim view of humanity. "The more you deal with people, the more you hate people," he said. "It just feels that everybody is so asleep in this world."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jun 12 2003 - 18:42:02 MDT