Seriously.. C'mon people! Pay attention!

CedVicious · 08-29-2003

ITS A FRIGGIN GAME!

http://www.nwaonline.net/285269046700825.bsp

Vamcoy · 08-29-2003

Thats just so wrong. That anyone can get so int o anything that they lose track of there children is just sick.

08-29-2003

I think I'm gonna be sick..........

**Isk** · 08-29-2003

Yeah, I heard about this...makes my heart hurt.

08-30-2003

the link didn't work for me - what's this about?

Glatius2 · 08-30-2003

In summary it was a news article about a woman who was so focused on playing Everquest that she left her 3 year old trapped in a car in the hot sun for several hours and as a result the child died.

NinjaBurger · 08-30-2003

A woman (who happened to be playing Everquest) lost track of her 3 year old child. The child wandered out of the apartment, and went to go play in a car. The child died, and now it's Everquest's fault instead of the lousy fucking parent.

It honestly sickens me that people are always trying to find a new target for all of their problems.

"Oh nos, I dun spilled coffee on my lap! It must be McDonald's fault for not telling me it's hot!"

"Hey, my son with skits killed himself while playing Everquest, it must be Everquest's fault!"

It's a wonder children can find heros anymore...no one wants to take the blame for anything they do.

08-30-2003

amen ninja.

Dobbo Baggins · 08-30-2003

it's stupid.

Glatius2 · 08-30-2003

Quote:

"Oh nos, I dun spilled coffee on my lap! It must be McDonald's fault for not telling me it's hot!"

In general I agree with your sentiment Ninja. However, people throw the McDonalds case around a lot. What they see is someone spilling coffee on themselves, which any fool would expect to be hot, sueing McDonald's and reaping a big pay day. But there is more to the story than that.

McDonald's was systematically, through out the McDonalds chain, serving their coffee at 185 degrees, 20 degrees higher than the industry average of 165 degrees. At 185 degrees, burn experts testified that 3 third degree burns, which are characterized by blisters on the skin and are the most severe burns, can occur within 2 to 7 seconds.

McDonalds was aware that their coffee was dangerous, because in the decade prior to the case they had something like 700 burn incidents brought to their attention by customers. Most of which they settled. The person who sued McDonalds was a former nurse who said she only sued because McDonalds refused to pay her medical expenses for her injuries. McDonalds representives on the stand admitted they knew that the coffee was dangerously hot and had no plans to change the temperature nor had they ever consulted burn specialists as to what a reasonable temperature would be for hot coffee so as to avoid injurying customers when invariably someone spills their coffee.

The jury found that McDonalds had a duty to use reasonable care to protect their customers. Serving coffee that could cause blisters in 2 to 7 seconds if it came in contact with skin was not seen as exercising due care. The fact that McDonalds was aware of the situation and showed callous disregard for the danger to their customers was deteremind to be willful, wanton, and reckless conduct, a form of negligence (a legal catagory allowing punitive damages). Punitive damages are damages that are intended to punish the person or persons at fault and to influence them and others to change their behavior. The jury leveled a judgement of something like 2.5 million dollars against McDonalds, which was the value of two days worth of coffee sales. The intention being of course to convince McDonalds to turn down the temperature on their coffee urns to a more reasonable level and stop burning the crap out of their customers.

Upon appeal I believe the judgement was actually reduced into the neighborhood of $400,000. Still a hefty chunk of change, but hardly anything to McDonalds.

In the end, I agree that we as individuals have to take a certain level of responsibility for ourselves and our actions. I don't think that means that people should be able to hand us boiling cups of liquid through the drive through window knowing that if we should accidentally spill it on ourselves we're going to get the shit burned out of us. There is hot and there is hot, McDonalds coffee was way too damn hot and they knew it. And they didn't care.

NinjaBurger · 08-30-2003

I was really using it as an example of the fact that people don't want to take responsiblity for anything. I could also cite the people suing fast food chains for making them fat, the mother who says her skits son died because of Everquest, and people who don't know that eating too much ice cream makes you fat.

Seriously, a class action suit=pure gold these days.

Vigdis SangCaru · 08-30-2003

Yes, Ninja, and if you are using the McDonald's case as an example of McDonald's not wanting to take responsibility for something, then you got a good example there.

I don't think you read Glatius' post. The truth is that many of the sued companies are the biggest users and abusers of "personal responsibility." I wrote up a brief bullet point on the McD case a while ago for another site and cut-n-paste it here for, you know, the helluvit.

1. The old woman was not driving her car, her grandson was.
2. The car was parked when the coffee was spilled.
3. The woman suffered third degree burns over 6% of her body and was hospitalized for 8 days for skin grafting and later debridgement treatments.
4. The woman sought to settle the case for $20,000 (1/10th her real compensatory damages) but McDonald's refused.
5. Over 700 people reported claims of burns similar to this womans' burns to McDonalds in 10 years prior to this case.
6. McDonald's coffee is held at a temperature about 60 degrees hotter than (or almost half again as hot as) coffee served at home. If McDonald's coffee was held about 30 degrees colder, it would not cause the type of burns it did since the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially.
7. The jury awarded the woman $200,000 in compensatory damages and it was later reduced to $160,000 (i.e. actual damages caused by the burns, cost of surgery, etc). The jury also awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonald's coffee sales. The point of the punitive damages was not to award a little old lady, it was to punish a company that knew for over a decade that people were being burned, purposefully served its coffee much hotter than normal and in fact hotter than was possible to immediately drink, and refused to change its temperature.

Vigdis SangCaru · 08-30-2003

As for the actual topic of this post, I think its sad and sickening.

But I do think that many players take this game far too seriously, probably myself included. I'm actually a member of the EQ Widows, not because I am an EQ Widow, but to give me some perspective as to how "the other half" thinks.

There are a lot of sad stories on that board. I do not think Sony is responisible for what happens to these people and their relationships. The people are.

On the other hand, Sony has done something very recently to the game that I think we can all agree gives it a far more "addictive" quality. What is that? Flags. Sony instituted Flags and when you are not playing with your guild 24/7 you risk the chance of missing that progressive Flag. And when you miss that Flag, you cannot progress with your friends. So the system, regardless of why it was originally implimented, has led to folks playing a whole helluva lot more and actually being anxious to log off for fear they may miss the progression. That was a mistake imo.

Glatius2 · 08-30-2003

I agree, people don't want to take responsibility for anything. And class action suits do equal pure gold in many cases. But there are reasons for that.

Take for example the case of Ford Motor Corporation and the Pinto with the rear gas tank. Now, Ford realized that putting the gas tank in the rear of the car, outside the frame, was a dangerous thing to do. They even knew that is would cause deaths from time to time when a rear end impact caused a fire or explosion. And they had their accountants sit down and figure out that they were better off financially settling the average number of wrongful death suits they'd get each year than in recalling and/or re-engineering the car. They made a money decision that would kill people. Manufacturers have a duty to the public not to put their lives into unreasonable peril just to make a buck. And companies found doing that deserve to get the legal bejesus beat out of them.

But who is better able to defend themselves in a law suit? You as an individual or Ford Motor corporation with billions of dollars in resources? And if class action lawsuits didn't reap huge rewards, who would ever take on a company like Ford Motor? Or Firestone tires? It is seen to be in the best interests of the public to allow class action lawsuits to reap large rewards because it gives lawyers incentives to take on the cases. And that gives companies the incentive to watch how they do things in order to avoid class action lawsuits. Ultimately businesses have far more ability to do harm than an individual. And as a consequence they are far more at risk than an individual. They themselves must also take responsibility for their actions as a corporate entity. And since you can't put a corporation in jail, you hit it where it lives, in the wallet.

As far as the lawsuit against McDonalds making people fat, I happen to have read the revised suit that was filed not too long ago. The main point wasn't so much that McDonalds was selling food that would make people fat, but that McDonalds was systematically attempting to portray their food as "wholesome good food" which could easily be worked into a healthy diet. Much of their advertising, rather than focusing on the truths of McDonalds food being fast and tastey, focused instead on trying to portray it as "healthy" or at least "not very bad for you". They are attempting to make the case that McDonalds has been trying to, much like the Cigarette companies did, deceive the public as to the extent that their product is bad for people.

I not sure they'll be able to make their case, because despite McDonalds attempts to convince us otherwise, I think most people understand that McDonalds food it pure crap that is absolutely horrible for you. But they might be able to make the case that the advertising was persuasive enough to change some people's eating habits. And when people are intentionally misinformed as to the truth by a company because it will benefit the company finacially and as a result people's health is advesely impacted, many times the company is found liable for at least a portion of that harm.

And the fact that the case focuses on children is important as well. Under our system of justice, children are seen as needing even more protections than adults. Therefore frequently the requirements to prevent harm to children are greater than those for adults. And I don't think anyone doubts that much of McDonalds advertising is specifically targetted at children.

Gazu · 08-31-2003

Is it just me ... or are there way to many people out there that have studied the McDonalds case? Must be in college learning to be lawyers I say. As for the actual story ... being a parent of 2 wonderful girls ... theres no F^CKING way I would ever pick EQ over them.
As for the people that protest EQ as addictive ... I talk with my family before I play the game ... I involve my excitement at times with my wife ( Which usually gets me blank stares ) ... Its the communication on every level that makes my relationship work. To pick EQ over your family is generally a case of something else wrong.
I have played EQ for 3 years ... my wife has no interest in ever playing ... she terms it as a hobby for me ... just as sewing is a hobby for her. She has her hobby and I have mine. I never ever let EQ effect my relationship ... just as sewing has never effected our relationship. Since then I have made several over 50 characters ... and my favorite ATM is my warrior.
I dont know how long I will continue to play ... but who cares ... its a game not a "Real World". If you feel that EQ provides more than entertainment for you ... maybe you should quit ... As I feel that poor little girl must have been thinking something along them lines as she was passing out from the heat ... hoping her mom would quit and help her.

Gazu