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It's good that she likes video games in general. That way she is not getting on my case about playing them so much, she just plays with me.

BTW any going to BLIZZCON????????
 

ill be there with forum user hallubalooza and my 2 cousins.
 
i was thinking of doing a vpn connection to my computer at home so i can play wow while i'm at work. thats probably not the best idea though.

my wife isn't so interested in wow... and im not sure if she likes falling asleep on the couch while i'm playing.
 
WoW, i dont see how its soo addicting. I leveled till 50, quitted like every other rpgs/mmorg.
I played runescape, Maplestory, Flyff,WoW, all the famous ones you know. I quitted all of em sooner or later. WoW was my last. After one year, 60$, it was fun and all, but i wondered, what the heck is the point of this? Your just gonna waste money and level, then when you level all your going to want is new stuff. Pretty repetitive. Every game is, but theyre alll for lesiure right?
 
It's addictive because it's designed to be. It appeals to the competitive (PVP), gamers that crave a challenge (Raids, the continual addition of something bigger and badder to challenge you further, solo gameplay), people who like to feel they have acheived something (quest rewards, titles, etc), people that like to explore new areas, people that like customising their character with gear/specs/etc and it even has an element of social interaction. There's something there for pretty much any type of gamer.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's perfect, or the best game ever, I'm just stating my opinion on why I think so many people enjoy it and become addicted. I was an addict myself a while back and the whole PVP rank system destroyed my social life completely. I was PVPing pretty much every second that I wasn't sleeping, all the while aiming for Grand Marshal. The week after I reached Marshal my net goes down for 9 days which gave me time to think. What was the point in putting that much effort into attaining a rank and getting the gear that came with it? Shortly after the net came back up I quit the game and managed to get my normal life back. 6 months later, the expansion comes out and being curious about all the new content and wanting to see what my character will be able to do, I start up again. It's fun. There's some interesting new areas, quest, etc, I especially liked the addition of bombing runs. There's a difference now though. I don't feel the need to play anymore. I log on when I want to. If the game starts to get stale and feels like a grind, I stop until something new comes out.

I've just got back from a 6 month break (ran out of other games I wanted to play) and while there's more content, it's not really that much. So I'm levelling a new character that's completely different from my main. It's a nice new experience and a different way of playing which gives things a different feel and prevents boredom setting in. Looking forward to the expansion and definately the Death Knight. It should be fun exploring the new continent, learning a new class and seeing all the little additions, but it will eventually get to the point where it becomes a boring, stale, grindfest again. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy it up that that point and then stop playing though.

As someone said earlier, only play it if you find it fun. If it feels like work, you start to prioritsie it over your real life or you find yourself getting stressed about something trivial in game, then you're taking it far too seriously and should really ask yourself why you even bother playing.
 
In my opinion - Wow is the devil. It is SATAN INCARNATE. Yes, yes this is a negative, horrific trolling post but it can be substantiated by my immense real life hatred for what it is capable of doing to a person with an addictive personality.

Here goes...
About 2-3 years ago my cousin bought me WOW for xmas. I played for a few of the 10 free days and then just got over the monotony of the game at about lvl 18 ( dwarf hunter ). At the time i was living with my older brother ( 1 year older ). Now, he already had huge issues when he used to play Halo2 on xbox like the posessed. I came home one day and he was playing a new character with the few remaining free days i had left on the account. That was it. That was the Nadir right there - the point of no return which i remember distinctly.

In a matter of days his entire personality changed. He would get emotionally angry when i asked him to get off my PC. He just played and played and played. He activated and bought a subscription. We shared a room and i eventually lost it after being kept up for about 8 days straight cause he was tapping and clicking away about 2 feet from my bed deep into the early hours. He went out and bought a new PC ( he is a noob so it was a piece of **** PC ). I think he kind of had it under control until we moved to a new house - got better broadband, and the ultimate evil happened : he joined this very involved guild.

It basically snowballed from there; hectically. He STOPPED seeing friends. Stopped calling them. Stopped answering his or the house phone. Stopped opening mail. Eventually just turned his phone off permanently so that his friends, angry boss, girlfriend and creditors. ( he has a pretty lively social life before this and was always out and playing poker or boozing or away or with his g/f ). He also just ended it with his g/f one day. Sent her a text "Its over. Dont call me". She was distraught and tried to get me to get hold of him for ages. He was oblivious.

He was promoted to guild leader of his guild called Order In Chaos. Thats when it got out of control. I just heard arguining and shouting and talking in his room on vent ALL DAY AND NIGHT. Didnt sound like fun - sounded like hard, soulless, empty work.

He started pulling a sickie about every other day. Eventually he pleaded some rubbish illness to his work and negotiated a package where he only had to work about 3 days a week ( he was a car salesman/dealer/financer etc for a very large company in london ).

The lying and general unreliability became excessive too. Just blatant lies to my face. Now keep in mind it was just the 2 of us in this big house. He stopped caring about hygene or food. He never ONCE cooked food in the kitchen. He started living off of pizza, coke and redbull. Stopped showering/shaving/brushing teeth. His room became a cesspit of old pizza boxes, dirty clothes and 2lt coke bottles. It actually got so funky that it would waft out of his room and offend anyone who got close. He never left his room. He never went into the TV lounge. Never touched or looked at his PS2 or xbox at all. Never cleaned the house or helped out. Not a dish, cup - anything.

My parents couldnt get a hold of him and he just didnt care. Never phoned them or gave a crap when my moms mom died or my dads dad passed away either. Didnt phone/email/text to give his condolences. Stopped being human basically.

We lived there for 1.5 yrs until i just quietly left one saturday and moved in with my mate. That was 6 months ago. I havent heard from him. Not once. He owes me about, and i **** you not, £3000. I bailed him out of so much ****. Thats when i started just owning all the bills and house management at that point. Ill never see that money again. The arguments we had were absolutely mind blowing. There were times I could have just murdered him. He was so tired all the time and when we got into it he was soooooooooo venemous and full of hatred it was incredible. You just cannot speak to someone when they are involved in WOW. They just nod and agree so that you will go away.

So - there you have it. I have disowned my brother - the rift between us is so great that even when he wakes up and realises that he has lost 2 yrs of his life to a mind numbing virtual game, the things that have been said and the hurt caused are too great. I too am a PC gamer but WOW has been engineered to just suck you in for hours at a time.
Its an amazing game, socially and gameplay wise. But its just too much for some people to handle. They cant juggle the toss up between real life and a virtual world.

So forgive me if I absolutely hate WOW and everything it stands for.
 
It's not the game, you guys just have self control issues.

Played for 3 months bored after the first 1.5 months quit no withdralw systems or anything.
 
Now, he already had huge issues when he used to play Halo2 on xbox like the posessed.
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It sounds like your brother has issues, not the games. It might be hard for him to realize that, but as a family member do him a favor and stop blaming the games.
 
I stopped blaming the games ages ago. Doesnt prevent me from directing my anger at it. Its such a perfect escapism tool.
My statement is justified by the sheer amount of people who have experienced a similar addiction to WOW.

Find another game that does this with the same or better magnitude.
Apart from Starcraft when it came out. Even then nothing nearly on WoWs level.

And purplerat - I was not saying that my ex brother was blameless. Its pretty clear he has addiction and time/priority management issues :)
Im blaming WOW for being the vessel to excasserbate the situation.

@ ByDesign. Thank you so kindly for your heartfelt input. You must be a special gaming hero.
 
Find another game that does this with the same or better magnitude.
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You're not going to find another game because there is no other game which compares to WoW in both game type and magnitude. The problems that people attribute to the game are a product of the games success, not the other way around. WoW is some evil game that steals peoples souls. It's probably just the most successful game of all time and there are a lot of people who can't control they're use of video games in general, so of course the top dog gets the blame.
 

Sorry to hear about your brother. Unfortunately in most situations when someone gets too deeply involved in games, substance abuse, or really any other hobbies that are an alternative to reality, it's whatever they were doing that takes the blame rather than the individual who has an obvious lack of self control as well as other issues.
 


Agreed,

You cannot be more right. Whos fault is it really. You see the biggest example of this is with violence and video games.
 
sorry to hear all that stuff with your brother. sounds like a pretty bad addiction.

it seems to effect some people worse than others. I know my ex and I would have arguements over it which now ive quit seems stupid.

The moment that made me quit was when I heard my guild in teamspeak moaning about the guild leader and he had sneaked in and started listening. they went on for ages and i was just listening while grinding. after 20 mins or so i left teamspeak then went off to do somethign else.

I went on teamspeak later and wow 4 hours later and they were still discussing the future of the guild and several grown men were having a serious conversation about it.

I felt soooo stupid. i thought, these are people that talk more online with guildies than their families! and for what? nothing! blizzard even states that the only thing you own is the time palying the game. THEY OWN THE CHARACTERS! so i quit. no more accoutn and uninstalled wow and now im glad! been doing things that i put off before and i have lots more spare time!

if you can play it responsibly then its a great game but some people just cant. still good game though
 
Thanks for the condolences. Wasnt really looking for pity. I get enough pity from my g/f and plus i have a wonderful sister who pawns grown gaming men at CS:S :) So - i'll live.

I just wanted to paint a sad and depressing picture of an addicted gamer. Because so many people claim that it isnt asa extreme as most people claim. The fact that I had to live through it just opened my eyes a little i would say.

And agreed delsaber, playing responibly makes all the difference.
Sitting down for a good gaming session when you know that you have "earned" it and you have no urgent responsibilites hanging over you just makes the whole experience so much more enjoyable!
 
well i was self employed working from home at the time. lets just say im back to being employed now. lol

i was readng the tech board on msn website which was talking about the same subject. its incredible to read some peoples stories.

a few wives were on there that had divorced their husbands because of it. Even a husband who had divorced his wife because she was too addicted!!

its quite scary to read. i just hope there wont ever be a game that captures even more addicts than wow. it will start being up there with the other addictions. lol. someones even died from playing it for 6 days straight without drink or food but thats a pretty extreme example
 
a few wives were on there that had divorced their husbands because of it. Even a husband who had divorced his wife because she was too addicted!!

its quite scary to read. i just hope there wont ever be a game that captures even more addicts than wow. it will start being up there with the other addictions. lol. someones even died from playing it for 6 days straight without drink or food but thats a pretty extreme example
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First of all there isn't/won't be anytime soon another game that "captures more addicts than WoW" because there's no game with as large a player base. It's no more significantly addictive than any other unending game. That includes other MMOs, non-linear RPGs, online shooters, sports games, poker etc. WoW just gets all the heat because it's the biggest/most popular.
As far as breaking up marriages I doubt any real percentage of those cases were truly or even partially caused by playing WoW. As somebody finally nearing the end of the divorce process I can honestly say that just about everything and anything is thrown into the blame game of a messy marital breakup. But in most cases it's all just the result of a generally **** relationship. More likely it is that said husbands/wives use WoW as just another escape mechanism to avoid dealing with their spouse. God knows I had quite a few of those :)
And as far as people dying from playing these games, it really has nothing to do with the game either. There have been similar cases of men dying from overworking in Japan recently. I'm not really sure what it is, but there seems to be some weird cultural thing were people in these countries take pride in working themselves literally to death, whether it be in the factory or in front of a game.

I really hate how people try to demonize a game like this. Honestly what does the game do to harm people? There's nothing more than anecdotal stories of people harming themselves supposedly by overplaying. Calling the game Satan or blaming it for failed marriages just further reinforces the idea that games are bad even to the point of being harmful. There's already a sizeable movement to further regulate video games as some sort of a deviant form of entertainment (btw I live in NY). Right now it may be mostly focused on violence and sex, but anti-MMO movements are on the rise. Even if you are not in favor of banning or regulating these games you should still be careful of furthering perceptions used to do exactly that. Most real gamers do not buy this addiction theory, but then again they're not the ones making these laws. The stories of failed marriages, lost jobs and even deaths catch on a lot better with those who are already looking for a cause to rally against and don't really care to understand the issue.
 
"a few wives were on there that had divorced their husbands because of it. Even a husband who had divorced his wife because she was too addicted!! "


i think almost every night since i started playing wow, has ended w\ me having to wake my wife up from the couch to come to bed....

i'm lvl 26 ! rawwwwwr.


i could nominate it for best game ever just because its so massive... when i get pwn'd by some horde player who is 50 levels ahead of me i just kinda think of how someday i could be that douche-bag.... killing lower level players in one hit....

i've never seen a horde player with a level anywhere close to mine; i was wondering if people lvl up on non pvp server then move to pvp server?
 
i could nominate it for best game ever just because its so massive... when i get pwn'd by some horde player who is 50 levels ahead of me i just kinda think of how someday i could be that douche-bag.... killing lower level players in one hit....

i've never seen a horde player with a level anywhere close to mine; i was wondering if people lvl up on non pvp server then move to pvp server?
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No, you can't switch from PVE to PVP. You might just be on a mature server (in terms of how long people have been playing on it, not the actual maturity level of players). Also the game has been tweeked to allow faster leveling since the announcement of the next expansion. A new player like yourself will not level as fast, where as experianced players can blow through the first 60 levels in no time. That's what I did with my last character. I'd sold my last account and wanted to start playing again. With my experience playing the hunter class, knowing the horde quests and having several 70 friends I was able to go 1-60 in less than 4 weeks without having any all day/night marathons.

And yes kill low level charcters can be tons of fun. Especially those 50s who like to beat up on real low level characters. Wiping out a questing group of ~50s is great. They always try to come back for more thinking they can out number you.
 
night before last there was an invasion in stormwind LOL

this one horde stunned me or something and then i followed this lvl 70 alliance guy who seemed to be chasing the whore'd and then i got fragged out of nowhere... then first respawn i went toward the tower and there were dead bodies everywhere and the stormwind keep was just filled with horde... i tried reviving a lvl 70 guy and then this big horde guy chased me down and killed me.

i love teh auction system though, i'm starting to make pretty good gold. I need to get pricing down because i think some things i sell too cheap and others i try selling for too much....

i sold a some wool in a matter of minutes for like 75 s, so then put more up at 1g 25s and both bundles sold right away too... i probably made about 8-10g yesterday at auction.
 


Get Auctioneer. And Wardrobe mod. and Titan Panel. And off you go !!!
 
Purp, you need to stop being such a fanboy and defending WoW like people are attacking a family member. DannyBoy told a story about his brother, he wasn't attacking your beloved WoW. There are tons of stories about people who get hooked in that stupid POS game. I was one of them. I quit after about a year. It's not until you quit that you realize all of the things that you missed while you played. Just because your girlfriend plays with you (no pun), doesn't mean you aren't (double-negative) missing awesome things happening in real life. You sound like a person desperate to justify wasting your life in a game.

Chris
 
Purp, you need to stop being such a fanboy and defending WoW like people are attacking a family member. DannyBoy told a story about his brother, he wasn't attacking your beloved WoW.
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It has nothing to do with being a "fanboy". Even if it were a game that I had no interest in I would still be sick of hearing people blame their problems on a friggin piece of software. I've hardly ever played any GTA game, but I don't buy people saying it makes them act violently. I also don't listen heavy metal I get sick of hearing people same it turns it's fans into satanist. I just get sick of hearing people not take personal responsability. If you can't do anything other than play a game go seek mental help. If your husband would rather play a game than talk to you go see a marriage counsler. Making statements like
In my opinion - Wow is the devil. It is SATAN INCARNATE
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is just plain asinine. As to my own WoW playing habits or "fanboy-ness", I've never kept my account active for more than 3 months in the almost 3 years I've been playing. When I play it I don't play any more than I would a game like Madden. Yeah I think it's a fun game and I don't want other people telling me I can't enjoy it - much like the govt tells me I can't do so many other enjoyable things because some people can't control themselves *cough* pot *cough-cough* gambling *cough*. Even if you're not necessarily saying the game should be banned, spreading the idea that a game can control people's behavoir plays right into the hands of those who want to do just that.
Now if you want to tell me WoW is a POS game because you don't like the graphics, combat mechanisms, playstyle or whatever I really could give a damn.
 
Before WoW, the same stories were around about Everquest. I've known people who've done the whole divorce and losing jobs over Lineage 2, a grindfest I can't stand to play.

It's not the game, it's the need/desire to escape from their reality. If a marriage ends due to it, it was obviously bad initially if one or the other needed to escape the situation, even if just mentally/emotionally.

If not a game, it'd be something else. I've spent ridiculous numbers of hours raiding in a few games, but then again, I've also spent entire weeks drunk back when that was my escape mechanism. As those things go, games aren't as destructive as some others, but they're also so innocuous that perhaps serious issues go unnoticed.

If a drug addict gets too out of hand, everybody sees it and may try to intervene before they harm themselves. If a game addict gets too involved.. they're just a jerk since they no longer interact with people around them.

Truly addictive personalities don't rely on any one obsession, anything will do.
 
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