EPTHow World oF Warcraft destroyed my real life - Page 2
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tMomiji
United States1115 Posts
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Capsize
227 Posts
You also don't want to leave all the friends you made inside the game behind and the fact that if you don't play regularly especially during the start of a new season you will be undergeared and useless during raids. Hell, most of the time I would just logged in to talk in the guild chat.. Personally, I still don't feel bad for sometime refusing to go out on friday nights so I could get honnor-capped with my arena partners, staying all-night at the end of season6 to receive "Duelist"... It was overall a positive experience to me and I honestly don't think playing WoW had any negative effects on me except money wise of course. Like everything though it can be abused and easily become excessive. To be honest though, I'm pretty sure I'm going put as much time in Diablo 3 when it come out as I did in WoW and I feel damn good about it. :D | ||
Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
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Haegr9599
United States210 Posts
Raided 4 nights a week for about 3-4 hours, then played another 4 hours a day or so during the summer. Thankfully my parents are fucking awesome and keep me away from playing too much, and rarely let me play during the school year. I do hear ya though, but im still pretty bad with video games, espcially during the summer, i play on average 7-8+ hours a day during the summer, although now its just SC2 and LoL. thankfully, i have a shitty sleep schedule (sleep about midnight or 1 to about 630), so its a long day with enough time for other things! <3 | ||
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Archvil3
Denmark989 Posts
I heard it is something about the brain thinking the gold, the loot, the kills and the success is real. The brain releases the same emotional feelings when you achieve something in WoW and other similair games as you get when you achieve something in real life. It makes your brain addicted to WoW cause you subconsiously get a feeling of being successfull. Even though you are quite the opposite. | ||
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
It's true that addiction, especially in a PvE environment can be all consuming in every aspect of life but it's not completely terrible. When you're in a raiding guild especially you're getting new gear for the raids, you're preparing flasks and food and potions, you're grinding HC's (Read: Hard mode dungeons for those who don't play) and the whole time you're doing it with guildies. You're spending time with friends. Sure they may not be RL friends but they're still friends, and they're almost certainly the hardest part of quitting the game for most players. There are bad aspects and I definately went through a good 5 years of almost completely being consumed by the game. The thing with WoW is it's goal oriented, there's something to aim for. When you get there though, the "real" goal becomes apparant and that continues infinitely in all aspects of the game. During my many years of playing (I still do play though very moderately) I owned my own place through a lot of the time so there were occasions where I'd literally spend 3-4 days playing WoW and then go to sleep through exhaustion and when I woke up jump straight back on. Alterac Valley back in the original game was a battleground where you invested so much but that one PvP match could literally take 12 hours and it was so easy to get lost in that world. Honestly I think that's the main reason they changed the Alterac Valley system, but that's going off topic. My point is with the way these goal oriented set up's work it's easy to become addicted, but I think Blizzard has gone out of their way to tone it down. Sure there are still things like collect a lot of very rare items for a legendary, but they're easier than in the past. Sure you have to make sure you have enough money for repairs on raids, but everytime someone loots something your guild gets cash that can easily cover guild repairs. Guild challenges are stuff you'd be doing anyway that results in even more cash. Flasks, already easier than getting 2 elixirs every death, have gotten far easier to farm with flask procs and guild perks giving more herbs. I'm still an officer in an active raiding guild, but I've ran out of things to do on WoW and it's basically boring to me now. Even dailies took a hit with daily hc quests now being a weekly cap instead. I can literally play for 5-6 hours and be set for over a month and I think it's gone so far the other way (from addiction to casual) that it's dying out. I don't think people need to be warned about the dangers of WoW as opposed to the dangers of gaming addiction in general anymore. To conclude, it's still fun, there are still some great guilds and social environments and a lot of my friends have carried over in to SC2 and we'll no doubt meet up again in D3 with the rest of them. WoW is a good game, but as with anything, take it in moderation to keep it fun. The guild I'm in has been together more or less since the UO days, we're looking at over a decade of friendship and fun. Let's remember the good, as well as being wary of the bad. | ||
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obesechicken13
United States10467 Posts
On August 08 2011 05:20 rift wrote: I play an MMO I can never escape from in this day and age. It's called the Internet. Yeah, op it's possible to lose the two best years of your life even without wow. I would know | ||
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shawster
Canada2485 Posts
but the thing was it didn't ruin my real life as much as others. my grades were fine, great. it's not cuz i'm super smart but i have some self control, i do 30 mins of hw which is enough and play wow. i did like the bare minimum but that was good enough for like 80's-90's since i can actually listen in class. anyways on a more personal level wow didn't really fuck me up, it didn't change me. i'm not really a sociable guy anyway so i had a ton of free time. if i didn't play wow then i'd be browsing forums/watching videos for 12 hours a day. i never refused to go out with friends, when i played wow, in fact i do it more now.it's not like if i didn't play wow i'd be getting perfect grades volunteering studying reading and playing sports. it's those kinds of people who can self motivate themselves and love doing productive things who shouldn't play wow. i miss that game though. there isn't a nicer video game related feeling to getting 2400 after months or work, getting that loot to complete your t8 set. | ||
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garlicface
Canada4196 Posts
No regrets. | ||
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Seide
United States831 Posts
Leading a guild with my friends has made me many friends and connections, helped me build confidence and made me a more social person.Later on I was am officer of a top 20 US guild I formed with RL friends, a guild we started from nothing and grew. I do not play WoW anymore, but I am definitely a more social person afterwards and the leadership and organization skills I gained as a GM/Raid Leader has benefited me greatly in my real life endeavors. It all depends what you make of it. I have seen people waste hours running circles in Org, accomplishing nothing, and I have seen people become top people by simply only logging in for raids. In a good guild, progression does take time and is at times brutal, but once progression is over you only raid a few times a week and expectations and pressure are low, because everything is easy. A bad guild always stays in progression and everyone in it simply ends up wasting their time. | ||
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xXFireandIceXx
Canada4296 Posts
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gullberg
Sweden1301 Posts
MMORPGs, not for me  | ||
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-Strider-
Mexico1605 Posts
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Soulish
Canada1403 Posts
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bITt.mAN
Switzerland3689 Posts
I've always loved KotOR (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic; basically a Jedi RPG from Bioware), and I've played through both of them multiple times (I'm actually almost done with a re-run of the first one). Suffice to say, I'm a big affectionado, and the sweet thing is that now Bioware is coming out with, dun dun dun, TOR (The Old Republic, so KotOR but in MMORPG). I was fortunate enough to be able to resist playing WoW, I never started, and I'm sure glad I didn't. I'm going to college next year, and I'd prefer to be able to socialize rather than be overly addivted to an MMO (to have been ranked #1 in your country at SC:BW does mean you're kinda used to not being quite the lady-killer). Should I start playing TOR, how do I resist going overboard and completely screwing myself over, and ultimately, is it worth it? | ||
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Probe1
United States17920 Posts
On August 08 2011 05:44 Mothra wrote: I was the same way with Ultima Online back in the day. This story seems more common than people would like to admit. Is it just me or what. When I see someone else that knows what UO is I instantly think they are awesome. WoW sucked in comparison, but UO just couldn't ever keep up. Uh.. Set yourself limits bITt.mAN. It's not like we can stop you from playing an MMO. | ||
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Gann1
United States1575 Posts
On August 08 2011 05:52 OmiDeLta wrote: Am I the only person who plays WoW but doesn't play 24/7...? No, in fact lately i've only been playing like 15 minutes a week to try to get TF bindings as I don't ever feel like doing anything else when I log on. During high school though, I played all the time, similar to the OP. School and WoW was basically all I did, I didn't "go out" ever. Eventually I got bored and quit. Reading through this thread, I see that a lot of people did the same thing. I did start playing again a few months ago on my dad's server, but it doesn't feel the same as it did back when I played all the time. Then I felt like i had to constantly be working towards some goal, now I only do things because I want to, not because I feel like I have to progress. I'm not max level yet, but I don't feel like I need to get max level asap and start raiding, like I used to. Occasionally I'll feel like I want to tank a dungeon or do some quests and I'll do it, but I don't force myself to do those things to level as fast as possible anymore. The game's much more enjoyable that way, and leaves time for other things besides WoW. | ||
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
On August 08 2011 07:02 bITt.mAN wrote: + Show Spoiler + Allrighty, you guys with your MMORPG experience under your belts (I mean that literally), I need some advice: I've always loved KotOR (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic; basically a Jedi RPG from Bioware), and I've played through both of them multiple times (I'm actually almost done with a re-run of the first one). Suffice to say, I'm a big affectionado, and the sweet thing is that now Bioware is coming out with, dun dun dun, TOR (The Old Republic, so KotOR but in MMORPG). I was fortunate enough to be able to resist playing WoW, I never started, and I'm sure glad I didn't. I'm going to college next year, and I'd prefer to be able to socialize rather than be overly addivted to an MMO (to have been ranked #1 in your country at SC:BW does mean you're kinda used to not being quite the lady-killer). Should I start playing TOR, how do I resist going overboard and completely screwing myself over, and ultimately, is it worth it? Play games that you enjoy, if you don't enjoy your spare time you'll fail at everything else anyway. Is it worth it then, most definately. So long as you control yourself and don't put things off to play (where your spare time eats in to your not so spare time) you'll do fine. If you can reach that point and are confident you can recognise it and pull back, then that's all you need. | ||
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Sc2ttyl
United States245 Posts
EDIT: Think of it this way. Say you play a sport like football 2-3 hrs a day (including workouts/conditioning/training/riding back and forth from home), then 2-3 years later you arent good enough to play college(like 98% of all kids). WAS ALL THAT TIME WASTED?!?!? You got NOTHING from this but exercise and friends. YOU CAN DO THIS GAMING!~!!~~! You already get tons of friends, just go out and exercise some point every day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did playing "real sports" get you more than video games if you think of it this way? 2nd EDIT: At least with video games you will always have them to enjoy, especially if you record your favorite moments in game. Years later when sports become way more un accessible, you wont be able to play whenever you want. Computers are becoming more and more popular/accepted to the point where i have friends who can even play MMO's in their car now with hotspots/cheap laptops!!!! | ||
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CurLy[]
United States759 Posts
Quit after that thank god, but I realized how much of an addictive personality I have. I play starcraft too much now... but it isn't nearly as bad. @ poster above me, this post is directed at World of Warcraft, and the MMO community in general. MMOs are a huge time sink. Starcraft is an entirely different game and we admire these people because they are truly talented. In WoW you basically have to get a group of people together and try not to be retarded. Half the time I spent in WoW was bullshitting around doing nothing because the game is dry. Granted I had a good group of people that I enjoyed playing with so the social factor is what kept me around, it kind of makes me sad in Starcraft that I don't get a chance to come together with groups of people as often. However, these friends come and go. I've let real life relationships slip in favor of spending time online due to the game and missed opportunities that could be had in the real world. | ||
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