Addicts please post

Archive of the Sojourn3 General Discussion Forum.
Marforp
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Addicts please post

Postby Marforp » Thu Mar 22, 2001 6:11 am

Bah just reading on that post about Everquest and I'm thinking there must not be any past/current MUD addicts on here (although i know there are:P) Come out of the wood work and tell your story!

First of all if you mud for 5-7 hours a day 7 days a week and call your self addicted your an AMATEUR!!! I mudded average 8 hours a day during the week with working 45ish hours a week at the time and a 20 minute commute (I honestly thought I could do better, but was also in love with pinball). On the weekend it was 16hours a day. Group break in zones would be time enough to run to the bath room/eat and in severe cases run across the street to 7-11 for food stock-up. That was my 72 hour mudding a week days.

That in no way stood up to the time when I was in college (before I offically dropped out) when I was REALLY MUDDING!!!! In that time table it was straight telnet baby on a dumb terminal (*woot woot*). I would break into the girls dorms around 10pm or 11pm to get into their computer lab (ROFL IT'S TRUE); they had the only non-secure one on campus. I would mud till around 3pm or 4pm when everyone was finishing classes and go get some sleep. In the middle I would leave and go buy a frozen pizza and 2 lt. of dew at the quicky mart.

At one time when I was REALLY mudding I woke up in the afternoon and wanted to go say hey to some people. I had to sit there for a few minutes to convince myself that you really couldn't send tells in real life. I've heard stories about programmers being able to think in 1s and 0s, but never really believed it till I started to think in mud.

Marforp / Sasdor (the semi-curred)

p.s. the longest I ever mudded at one time was 72 hours straight. That is never leaving the putter except to grab pizza from the oven and go to the bathroom (if you got to leave the building to get food your cheating).
Jasix Prowlingwolf
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Postby Jasix Prowlingwolf » Thu Mar 22, 2001 8:21 am

I think i might have qualified as a hard core addict.. During the last incantation of Soj/toril it was open what.. 12 months? I had over 130 full 24 hour days on three characters (Jasix, conj & paladin). That does not include my less played snakes or trolls or even some of my less used goodies like my lvl 28 bard or elves nor my much used lvl 30 thief. Varia and Mplor might have had a little more ptime, maybe a few others. I would probably have logged over 150 days.

I couldn't be bothered doing the maths but 130 x 24 hour days is well over 1/3 of my entire life for the year of 1999. I took 2 full months off to have a relationship with a women so wasn't about much at all. That just makes the stats worse, 130 day in 10 months.. When did i find time to sleep? Since i live on like 4-5 hours a night it's not so hard.

I wasted almost an entire year of my life mudding... I only regret that i wasn't doign what I am doing now.... But i do not regret the fun nor the memories of that year. I do hope i don't fall back into my old habits and waste another year. Take heed my young friends, life is more important then mudding, mud all you can but don't forget to take a few nights off a week. Get lots of sleep, no one likes a grumpy mudder. But above all don't forget to pay attention to your loved ones and family, mudding cause more hassles in my house then just about anythign else in 1999. Wasn't the muds fault it was my fault for being so selfish and giving my life away to a GAME.
Mudding for 48 hours without a break might seem cool, but when you start to average 16 to 20 hours a day on the mud you will start to loose things that you love more then your spank sword or your sexy armor. If you are skipping classes or work to mud it's time to wake up! Don't let the mud rule your life.

I'm getting too old for this shit!!!

hehe but i cant wait to play again :P

Jasix Prowlingwolf
Old, dazed and confused.
Vigis
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Postby Vigis » Thu Mar 22, 2001 8:31 am

Started on Telnet and would wake up to my alarm clock trying to type get sword; wi sword. Don't remember all the hours I actually spent consecutively mudding, but it was quite a few. Don't believe me? Look at my transcripts from when soj went down til soj 2 came up. Am in for a real treat now, got a 4.0 running at midterm and Soj 3 about to come up. (Ah well, grades are that important to employers. . .Are they?
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Postby Wobb » Thu Mar 22, 2001 12:09 pm

I started in college on a Macintosh. I had to find the best way to connect to the mud and my buddy Elscint (who showed me the mud) showed me how to use tintin etc...but I had to figure out how to connect (shell account) to our ISP and I started using ZTERM with a 28.8 modem. (global village platinum..was 210.00$ in 1995).

that aside! I started only by playing for about an hour or 2 a day, killing sneaky bandits in the valley of crushk for as long as one can remember. eventually, I got so hooked, my downwardly spiraling relationship ended, and I went into mudding full time, moved in to elscint's basement and the had the greatest stint of hardcore mudding known. I would play every day, from about 3 or 4pm until about 2 am on weekdays. Usually skipped a few morning classes and on weekends it was 12-16 hour sessions. my playing time on Vurad wasn't that massive because I played about 8 different characters. In any case...I was a total addict. It's been down for a while, maybe i'm cured! (maybe not)

Wobb
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Postby Malacar » Thu Mar 22, 2001 12:29 pm

Back on Soj1/Toril... I had over 250 days logged as Malacar. I lost a job as a result of it. Two actually. I lost my place to live. I also had about 75 days logged as various other characters. Addict? Yes.

Thankfully someone bailed my sorry ass out. And subsequently I shafted the poor guy, and to this day I regret it, and am planning to fix the situation very shortly.

Mal, who intends to play a lot this time, but not at the risk of losing life, limb, job, or home.
Ruhr
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Postby Ruhr » Thu Mar 22, 2001 12:31 pm

About 3-4 years back, I'd MUD all day from work over a T-1 line, then come home and MUD till 11pm, wake up and repeat.

Weekends were 16-20hr sessions.

These were the toril days when things were really exciting. Though I can't commit nearly as much time to Sojourn3, I'm looking forward to playing again.

The sick thing was, I'd be late to work from staying up late MUDding heh.

One plus about a MUDding addiction is you spend no money Image Cash that I'd normally want to blow, I didn't think about, it just piled up in the account.
Elscint
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Postby Elscint » Thu Mar 22, 2001 1:29 pm

I'm not an addict!

Elscint Hairytoes (The Halfling Sorcerer)
Luke

P.S. I may be in denial. =)
Silverast Rubicyn
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Postby Silverast Rubicyn » Thu Mar 22, 2001 1:30 pm

I played tons back in the day Image I remember staying up all night for Flames, 6am in the morning still not done, mom gets me for school, and I told her "Um, Im sick". She left for work an hour later and I was still mudding hehe, stayed home from school though! Had alot of days logged as Silverast 2 wipes ago and last wipe as well, dont remember the exact times Image

-Silverast Rubicyn, had "Marforp" disease b/c he never could get 50 and always died when about to level Image Was also the curse of Magebane! (roar Sjesko!)
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Postby Tayros » Thu Mar 22, 2001 2:10 pm

By the definitions and stories here... I'm not an addict, thanks for the help ya'll I wasn't looking forward to the meetings...

There have been times though on a Sat night when friends would get together over the mud for beers instead of IRL.

Tay
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Postby Kyse » Thu Mar 22, 2001 3:23 pm

20 min commute? hehe, you work at macdonnalds? get a real job with a hour commute in and outta DC. As for Ptimes, I gotta good 2k hours on my Cleric. That guy is pumped.

------------------
Kyse Littlecoyote
(Ticu - Savior of thy Soul)
cherzra
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Postby cherzra » Thu Mar 22, 2001 3:44 pm

I have a 10-15 min commute Image
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Postby Brugg » Thu Mar 22, 2001 3:45 pm

lol i have a real job and i drive down the street to get to work about 2 miles!
santego
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Postby santego » Thu Mar 22, 2001 4:24 pm

Me and Joth (jihad) used to break into computer labs to mud over the holidays when they closed. Uh...that's not all...don't wanna get banned though Image snic
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Postby Grintor » Thu Mar 22, 2001 5:15 pm

Well i started about 5 years ago in february. by march i had lost my job Image was always going home early and such to play toril. then was unemployed for three months. did i go looking for a job? HELL NO! i played toril into the wee hours of the second night following! 30 played days in a stretch of three months on grintor. by that august i had grintor 48, rindomas 43, grela 41 and narial 30. that's a LOT of time because remember this is NOT eq!

my longest stretch was three days straight. had just come off a vault then jot raid with tesi and coras. coras logged, met tesi and we got breakfast. stopped at my place and BOOM! crash and invasion loaded Image was the invasion when hadjan got his twilight (beat me by one! grrrr!)

heh i plan on taking vacation during alpha so i dont hurt my rep at my current job Image
izarek
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Postby izarek » Thu Mar 22, 2001 5:39 pm

Mmm. Gimme my sojourn fix! *lick* You aren't truely addicted to sojourn till you try jamming your network cable into an ear so you can play sojourn while you sleep. You get some interesting interactions going on in you head when you sleep. Knocked my wife outta bed once when I was trying to rescue someone with my warrior. Another time I was on EM with my elf ranger and thought a kooshie was licking me constantly. I awoke to find my cat licking my face.

:P
Izzy

P.S. time to wake up now, I think I hear my alarm going off.
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Postby Tilandal » Thu Mar 22, 2001 7:06 pm

This is from the gmun fubar thread posted by Gromsharulaz


*laugh* okay with all this mudding from a floppy talk I have to share.
You haven't hit rock bottom yet... Image

Couple years back when my HD went splat I didn't have the cash to drop a new one in right away, so I resorted to a floppies. One floppy to boot to DOS, pulled out another floppy with a DOS based PPP dialer to log into the isp. Another floppy had a DOS mud client and all my triggers on it. (batch files and environment variables were used to pass the IP information between disks) Oh and finally one more floppy with a text based web browser and an ICQ program so that I could be yelled at to log on. ;p

Now that is true desperation for mudding. Heh and Cherzra while I was mudding from that floppy at least one of those times I was probably dropping full heals on you while we were doing Jot. *cackle*

Gromsharulaz Darkmace, Truly Insane DOS Derro of the Underdark
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Postby agreiver » Thu Mar 22, 2001 7:50 pm

My high school years were mostly spent logged in as Agreiver. I would get home after school and play straight until sometime in the middle of the night, sometimes to as late as 6am when it was almost time for school again. On the weekend it was wake up early as hell and play all weekend and sleep as little as possible. It was funny because me and Silverast and several others who were all in local high schools, we all had the same schedule Image

I love mudding, but the cool thing is that when Sojourn closed I was forced to actually GET A REAL LIFE. It was kind of like a rebound thing and I was out partying all the time and doing stuff. I'm kind of worried what will happen in another months time when Sojourn 3 opens.

Will I give up my real life and become a mud addict again? Will I somehow balance my new real life and Sojourn? Or will I have so little time to mud that I will decide its not worth it at all?

Somehow I'm worried that it will be the first one.

Agreiver
(Probably close to 200 days logged on all chars)

p.s. Anyone remember Arigon? He had the most days logged I believe.
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Postby Jenera » Thu Mar 22, 2001 8:12 pm

I was one of the latest old time players to find out that sojourn2 had come up.
I was sitting in my dorm room by myself lurking on irc when i decided it wouldnt hurt to try and see if i could connect through the school's firewall. I downloaded Zmud, twiddled with a few numbers and proxies and got through. The reaction was like vodka to a drunk when i saw those beautiful words, Welcome to Sojourn.
I played 20 hour days, skipped classes, ordered food and bribed the desk attendant just to let the delivery boy up with my food against the rules that the student had to come down to get it. I did that for about a month. I stopped playing for a week while friends were visiting me in my dorm and i itched every 5 seconds to turn the computer on. After that first week i snapped and i started ignoring my friends to play. I left school when i got sick from lack of sleep, bad diet, stress to pass all my finals when i had barely studied and from all the liquor i drank the semester before. I got put in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer (those hurt lots). I was dying to get back to mudding. I came home and stole the leased computer i had that wasnt allowed to leave school property and i kept the piece of #@%@ for another year and a half just so i could mud. I didnt have a job and i lived off my mom for months and all i did was mud. I was forced to get a job about 3 months later. I worked a 45 hour week, came home, mudded until i had to work the next day..only slept in short naps when no groups were happening or when i had a miraculous day off. The shortened my hours and so yay! i had more mudding time. I would skip days sometimes when i had been up all night into early morning doing one of krimon's jot runs. This went on for many moons until one day i was putzing around with my drow cleric with tramz's snake, korin's troll, belle's snake, and krymon's squid when the aforementioned cheap computer gave me the evil blue screen of death. i rebooted and the hd caught on fire. I did not get back online for nearly 6 months to find out the end of an era had happened. I started playing duris after that...damn mud addiction..on a 133 mhz fujitsu laptop with 1 gig of space and 32 ram..and a 28.8 modem, hehe
yes i was addicted Image

Jennie
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Postby Ragorn » Thu Mar 22, 2001 9:39 pm

You win.

- Ragorn
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Postby Drac » Thu Mar 22, 2001 10:27 pm

Oh my that is so scary! I thought I was an addict playing a measly 4-5 hours a day tops when I played. You are all freaks Image

Drac
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Postby Galzar » Fri Mar 23, 2001 12:10 am

I AM NOT ADDICTED Image *whistling innocently*
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Postby Trogar » Fri Mar 23, 2001 3:25 am

Yeah, I'm with almost everyone else. My RL was damaged a few years ago and I think I used the mud as an escape almost. I know a lot of people here have major pdays, and you have to agree that its not just a game, its a community.

I have to be honest though, I really enjoyed playing the mud. I did get really caught up in a lot of things though, but it was all fun.

I definatly plan to play soj3 in some capacity, but i won't be a constant fixture in the mud by far.

Tro, the background line noise
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Postby Ruhr » Fri Mar 23, 2001 4:11 am

Kyse wrote:

20 min commute? hehe, you work at macdonnalds? get a real job with a hour commute in and outta DC.

I live in the D.C. metro area--7 miles from my job. I can either walk 3 blocks to a metro, or take 66 for a 10 minute commute (at night).

When I did commute to Georgetown from the suburbs, I averged 15 hours of commute time/week though.

Just got to pony up for a north Arlington address near the metro, and no more commuting blues Image
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Postby Rhelath » Fri Mar 23, 2001 4:32 am

Addicted? *twitch* I'm not addicted.. Really.. I can quit anytime *twitch*

Ah mudding.. Since the mud went down, I actually found out I had a life. Boy how it's all going to come crashing down on the 26th. No one's going to hear or see me for a week or two straight probably.

All I want to see :
You lose a level!

Welcome to Sojourn

-Rhelath.
Todrael
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Postby Todrael » Fri Mar 23, 2001 11:21 am

About 8 years ago, my dad got us a new isp called Sojourn. It came with it's own little nifty software, including a small bar with buttons on it, like WWW, Telnet, and an interesting one that just said MUD. Clicking on this button brought up a primitive telnet program with ansi graphics and the standard black background of today's clients. Welcome to Sojourn. I was immediately enthralled. I was too young to be very good at it, but I learned how to type just to play it.

I played relatively regularly, maybe 5 hours a day, for about 3-4 years on Sojourn and what then would be Toril (I actually remember being online when they first came up with the name Toril and discussed it on OOC). After a while, I took a 1 year break from Toril and came back to find the mud had changed, and everyone was a higher level with more powerful equipment. I created a new character and was level 39 in 3 months, using expertise I had garnerned from other muds, and Korth the monk to train me. And right when I hit level 39, Toril was gone. I saved the messages somewhere, knowing it was an end to something great, and then I moved on.

I've played about 6-7 muds hardcore (8+ hours a day), and I tried Everquest (boy, was that a mistake). I caused permanent damage to my eyesight from playing Everquest far more than my body could handle. I'm currently on another mud where my playing time easily exceeds 2500 hours in the 10 months or so I've been playing. Strangely, my school work does not suffer at all from my mudding habit. I spend maybe 2 hours a week on homework/studying and get a 3.65 gpa with 15 credit hours a semester. I don't let mud interfere with what's important to my future, but I don't have many friends irl (although I have hundreds on the mud).

I plan on coming back to Sojourn3, as it seems my best irl friend is heading back there when it opens, and hope to play there hardcore as a supplement to my other mud, which has long periods of downtime. Am I an addict? Yes. But I don't let it hurt me in the rest of my life.

[This message has been edited by Todrael (edited 03-23-2001).]
cherzra
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Postby cherzra » Fri Mar 23, 2001 11:54 am

Here's at tip for all you addicts: move from one part of the country to another, and then after a year repeat again. Do this about 3x and you can't be bothered to find friends in every new job/town anymore - you'll have all your time to yourself/s.o.! Be like me!

Cherzra El Trollificente!
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Postby Karikhan » Fri Mar 23, 2001 2:18 pm

rofl Cherzr :P
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Postby Kegor » Fri Mar 23, 2001 11:32 pm

Denial is a beautiful thing too... :P
20 some more days? No problem.. *Nog Me*

-Jaz
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Postby moritheil » Sat Mar 24, 2001 1:50 am

wow. Can we get a moment of silence?
*stands in awe*

I'm just curious tho, how did you guys cope with so much of your time missing? Near as I can tell I missed less time due to this (although I'll confess Starcraft took over for a time) but it still had a bad impact on things like GPA.

Would anyone care to share some secrets of coping?
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Postby Marforp » Sat Mar 24, 2001 5:40 am

That's easy...you drop out of school! The post above with a person keeping up good grades while mudding HARD core is rather unique in my experience. I do feel that most people who mud HARD core though are really escaping from something so that might be the real cause of grade dropage and dropping out of school. I know that was the case for me. I've mudded rather hard, but kept life moving and a few friends when I wasn't trying to escape from anything.

Marforp / Sasdor
Todrael
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Postby Todrael » Sat Mar 24, 2001 1:32 pm

My freshman year of highschool I missed 32 days of school, 36 sophomore year, 52 junior year, and I never got a count on my senior year. Every one of these days (barring maybe 3) were because I just didn't want to go, and spent the day mudding. I graduated with a 3.0 (failed religion twice :P) despite these absenses and lack of studying/homework. Mainly I counted on my excellent brain to get me through everything.

It's very hard to count how many times I walked into class and teacher said, "Time for the exam." with me having no prep or study time, and then getting an A on it. I feel unique in that regard, as I care little to none about school yet it seems to come so naturally. I passed my AP Calculus and AP English Comp. classes easily senior year, got a 34/36 on the ACT's and got into a respectable college.

I still mud 8-10 hours a day, easily. I only sleep when my eyes can't take the strain any more or the group breaks up and there isn't another one around. How I've managed to keep up as far as grades: I go to every class. I actually set my schedule around when most groups are going on the mud. It was hard to work around it, but I never have to cut out of a group for class, and there's almost never one running when I'm in class.

Other than that, I set aside an hour in between classes on MWF to do homework (if necessary), and study for 10 minutes before any exams or tests, and pay full and undivided attention in class. If I stayed up until 5am for a group, I still go to and pay attention to my 9am class, taking all the necessary notes. My grades don't truly matter to me. It just seems the least I can possibly do.
cherzra
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Postby cherzra » Sat Mar 24, 2001 4:06 pm

I was in a group of 6 people who MUDded hardcore at university. Three of them dropped out, and I'm pretty sure it was due to a large part because of MUDding. The other two suffered severe delays in their studies, finishing some 1.5 and 2 years after I did. I graduated normally Image MUDding is very bad if you're a student, some exceptions barred Image
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Postby Somerled » Sat Mar 24, 2001 5:40 pm

Woah! Some seriously scary addicts here! I thouroughly enjoy mudding but If I spent as much time as most here seem to, Id have nothing to show for my life except a bunch of level 50 chars, and THAT adds up to absolutely nothing in RL. Forget having a SUCCESSFUL professional career, forget having a relationship or a wife, family, OWNING a home rather than rent your entire life, a nice car instead of a 15 year old box with wheels, etc. etc. Sheesh guys, we all have our vices .... but only in moderation are they healthy for us.

Regards,

Somerled
cherzra
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Postby cherzra » Sat Mar 24, 2001 5:56 pm

Owning a home is a hassle. I can leave whenever I want to now!
Somerled
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Postby Somerled » Sat Mar 24, 2001 8:38 pm

owning a home is an investment Chez ... paying rent is pissing money down the drain, but ... of course everyone has a right to do what they want with thier life and thier hard earned (relatively speaking) money. Im sure your landlord appreciates your philosophy. Image
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Postby Raiwen » Sat Mar 24, 2001 11:09 pm

I got tired of making my landlords rich...
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Postby Marforp » Sat Mar 24, 2001 11:22 pm

So ya think you got all the answer Somerled? I would say that Chez buying a house would have been a horrible financial decision so far in his life. To believe that anyone's financial decisions would be correct for anyone is just stupid. Chez posted somewhere else that he has moved three times in the last three years (possibily slightly off in the time frame). Almost all financial experts will tell you that if you buy a home and don't live in it for at least three years you are taking a huge risk. Do I have to bother bringing up examples of how people have suffered with the down turn of the housing market? Hell if you take a 10K down payment five years ago and invested in the right tech companies five years ago and sold at the proper time switching to health care stocks you would probably have about 50K. You still sure that buying a house is the only way to go?

Marforp / Sasdor
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Postby Gindipple » Sun Mar 25, 2001 12:45 am

You have to live somewhere and if you have even a basic apartment at $600.00/month for 5 years that's 36K of that 50K gone in smoke.

So glad I got out of that rut finally.
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Postby Raiwen » Sun Mar 25, 2001 3:21 am

If you bought a nice house in a nice part of the not-so-hip part of town 5 years ago, today you could sell that house for 2 or 3 times that amount, since you're in the hip-gotta-have-it part of town now.
Somerled
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Postby Somerled » Sun Mar 25, 2001 1:58 pm

Marforp ... THE rule of thumb IS ... buying is better than renting ... all other issues aside .. any, and I mean ANY financial expert will tell you that. One persons reasons of renting rather than buying IS thier own .... but the facts remain, paying rent is making the landlords investment for them, when I was a kid my family owned 7 rental houses, buy the house dirt cheap, fix it up and then rent it for 200 to 300 dollars a month more than the monthly mortgage, letting someone else pay for thier investment AND making some additional money on the side.

Take all the money that one person would spend in rent during thier lifetime, its sickening. I would concede that in some circumstances buying is not an option due to region, BUT .. that is the exception and not the rule.

Oh .. and the 10k investment thing, its a unrealistic point Marf ... most people with that much money available typically already are homeowners, and to borrow that much ... no bank is going to lend anyone that kind of cash simply for investing without colateral and good credit, and colateral of that size almost ALWAYS comes in the form of an OWNED HOME.

Somerled
A proud home owner.

[This message has been edited by Somerled (edited 03-25-2001).]
Jegzed
Sojourner
Posts: 1240
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2001 6:01 am

Postby Jegzed » Sun Mar 25, 2001 2:10 pm

I assume that Cherzr is in the same situation as me.
Well, in the overheated housing market of booming Stockholm its almost impossible to get a house or even an apartment. If I wanted to buy an apartment of the size which I pay <400$ in rent for, I'd have to pay up 200-300K$. That simply does not pay..

It might be cheaper in poorer parts of the world.

/Jegzed
Nymn
Sojourner
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Knoxville, TN

Postby Nymn » Sun Mar 25, 2001 3:21 pm

I was never really a steady hard core mudder, Mostly cause I was young when I did it and my parents were big believers in spending 12 hours a day on your computer being unhealthy, so when i got too bad they'd take my modem out and i'd find every conniving way possible to get online, but there just weren't that many options to a 15 year old... course, once i got to college it was an entirely different matter, last summer during one of the duris wipes i decided to play i averaged over 20 hours a day for a week so i could be the first to 50.. i'd actually go to sleep and set my alarm for 2 or 3 hours later, get back up and start mudding again... (oh, and when i say i wasn't all that steady hardcore, on toril, i still had like 180 days or so..) and when soj2 came back up i skipped a week of school so i could mud 16-20 hours a day..but i never had enough staying power to fuck my life up really bad..it's like i mud 20 hours a day for a week.. (I have a lot of memories of passing out on my keyboard, and literally waking up to a screenful of some random letter, and being in an XP group and they're all like "Wtf are you doing?" "uh...my bad") ...and then after like a week or 2 of that i just quit..or i mud less, and less, until it drops below 6 a day and usually at that point i don't even consider it mudding anymore and i quit entirely;) Siigh..i'm hoping i don't get involved in soj3 too bad when it comes up tomorrow..i have a gf for once, i'm doing alright in school..cough..hopefully all that will survive the week or 2 i spend mudding 20 hours a day before i get bored;) probably i'll burn myself out in alpha and then never play *hopes*..

Nymn (Merssink, SsNymnsk)
Somerled
Sojourner
Posts: 55
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Carlsbad, NM, USA

Postby Somerled » Sun Mar 25, 2001 4:12 pm

My apologies Jegzed, I know that in some parts of the world inflation and the cost of living is outrageous, ie. Japan, etc. ... my thoughts on renting, home ownership, etc. is strictly in regards to the U.S. economy and costs of living, which compared to most parts of the world are extremely inexpensive. There are parts of the US where the cost of living are horrendous, i.e. NYC, Southern Cal, .. Silicon Valley, etc. .. but these are exceptions here in the US ...

Best of Regards
Somerled
cherzra
Sojourner
Posts: 1868
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Holland

Postby cherzra » Sun Mar 25, 2001 4:24 pm

Heh nods, even if I WANTED to buy a house, I couldn't. The prices have risen with at least 10% a year for the past decade, so houses which cost 200K a decade ago are now 500k. There's no chance I will be able to afford that within 10 years. Anything decent is impossible to afford, damn the real estate market to hell and back.
Somerled
Sojourner
Posts: 55
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Carlsbad, NM, USA

Postby Somerled » Sun Mar 25, 2001 8:17 pm

The key to first time home owning, dont set your sights on something outside your financial situation ... no one steps strait into a $150,000.00+ 2500+ sq ft home, most people upgrade as they go through life, as thier financial situation increases, as thier earning power increases. First time home owners, find the crappiest home you can afford in the best area you can find, and then .. FIX IT UP! and viola! instant equity .. repaint, some remodeling, landscaping, all these things you can do on your own over time and increase the value of a home ... then, when ready sell it and move up to the next level, maybe another fixer upper in a slightly higher priced area, and so on and so on ... look for good deals, foreclosures, repos, etc ... owning a home is not as difficult as it sounds, it just takes work. Some people actually make a living doing exactly that.

Practically no one has a beautiful magnificent home thier first time unless they inherited it, or inherited the money, etc.

Regards,

Somerled
azzixxenae
Sojourner
Posts: 154
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Warner Robins GA

Postby azzixxenae » Mon Mar 26, 2001 12:12 am

AHH. But the unknown variable is the surrounding community. Best to buy the cheapest house in the best community vs. the most expensive house in the crappiest community.

If the surrounding homes are shit, it wont matter if you've fixed your home up or not. The crap surrounding your house will drag you down.

Northern virginia is the exception. No where in the US is like old Town. Expensive townhomes for ambassadors on one side of the street and the projects on the other...totally mind boggling.

Cheers,
azz
Mistari
Sojourner
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Contact:

Postby Mistari » Mon Mar 26, 2001 4:39 am

Hmmm, anyone ever consider casting unholy word at church or on the school bus ? Popcorn comes to mind, no ?

Mistari/Thydyl and more Image
Nitania
Sojourner
Posts: 268
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2001 6:01 am

Postby Nitania » Mon Mar 26, 2001 8:54 pm

The south is famous for its lack of zoning ordinaces. AT a T intersection you could have an industrial complex, a 5million dollar home and projects all within 300 meters of one another!! its sickening, but hey, gotta love the south!

Long live the US!

Nitania
Mamoru
Sojourner
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Norfolk, Va. USA
Contact:

Postby Mamoru » Tue Mar 27, 2001 3:45 pm

Started on Soj with a 2400 baud modem many many years ago (it seems) by the time I finally left I had over 140 days on Mamoru alone and about 57 on my monk. After many other characters I left to other MUD's but haven't really stopped for almost 9 years now.

*Lights the Candle and passes it on*

I'm an addict!
Tovel
Sojourner
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Feb 16, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Charleston,SC,USA
Contact:

Postby Tovel » Tue Mar 27, 2001 5:07 pm

I knew it was getting bad for me when I said nog to someone irl.

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