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How Warcraft Really Does Wreck Lives
An anonymous reader writes "There's a great blog post about how World of Warcraft can ruin lives, it's written by a person that was for a long time a member of the largest council on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world." This is a story that is very familiar to a lot of folks. I know people who are actively wrecking their lives and risking their jobs by playing too much of a video game.
LFG for WoW Addicts Anonymous, PST
"The Burning Crusade expansion for WoW is coming, so named because of how the game devours human lives, leaving them a smoldering ruin." ~ Tycho
It is the setup of the game. It really cannot be enjoyed in short bursts like most games can. You need to finish an hour long dungeon to get any rewards out of playing. Most other games you can drop in for a few 5 to 15 minute rounds. Then again it also speaks out for the woeful lack of discipline many people have... myself included. However i have yet to let it hurt my grades. Must get that glove... beastlakers... .>
You mad
Mom....bathroom
I don't have time to wreck my life...I've got a raid schedule to keep.
There's this married woman I really like. Do you guys think I'd have a chance with her if I introduced her husband to WoW so that he'd get hooked and not perform important functions like working and another I don't need to remind you of? I haven't played it myself so I'm not sure how effective this would be.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Games do not wreck people's lives. People wreck their own lives.
Some people gamble, some people cheat on their spouses. Some other people do drugs, and others drink too much. Some people are slackers, some people are workaholics. And yes, some people play video games too much.
Whichever way you look at it, people have a choice. They can stay grounded in reality with minor diversions into fantasy-land (whatever form that fantasy may take) and keep their lives balanced, or they can throw their lives away. Saying that World of Warcraft, The Jerry Springer Show or The Devil made you do it is a cop out.
Heard this kind of nonsense 25 years ago about other games (e.g. dungeons and dragons). The truth is some people have problems between their ears. The problem isn't WarCraft or any other game.
People wreck their own lives.
Anything can, could, and will happen.
Nothing new here, nothing at all...
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Uhm, he's still claiming to be the oldest guild in the _world_. You do know there's a world outside of WoW?
It's called MUD.
- These characters were randomly selected.
News Flash: Too much of anything is bad for you.
Stories effectively identical to the post came out when EverQuest was the big thing, came out when MUDS/MUSHES were the big thing, and have probably come out for every liesure activity developed in the history of man.
The only thing surprising about this is that it continues to surprise people when it happens. If you let your life get consumed, guess what, it gets consumed!
You can read a lot more stories like that one at the EverQuest Daily Grind. Anytime I feel like I'm getting sucked into gaming too much, to the exclusion of my family or friends, I read a few stories there and get scared straight again.
How about, how Golf or Football or Fishing or Hunting or etc ruin lives. People who have addictive personalities will find endeavors to fill that role. Whether it is shopping, collecting beer cans, or spending 20K a year on golf. It's not Warcraft that is the problem. Didn't RTFA...
He played for 70 days out of a year. That's "only" 19.something percent. If you're the sort to only need 4 or 5 hours sleep a night you could easily fit that in beside a pretty normal life (9 - 5 job, a light social life, chores, etc). If giving 1/5th of your day over to a hobby is a sign that your life has been devoured then you need to sort out your priorities. Everyone should dedicate that much time at least to stuff they enjoy. Perhaps it's a bit narrowminded to concentrate on a single activity, but it's better than spending all that time at the office or wasted in a bar*.
* Ok, maybe the bar is ok..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I read this yesterday I think and by now stretch was THIS guy's life wrecked. He put on a bit of weight, stopped some of his other hobbies and wasn't in touch with his friends as much. He met his current girlfriend in the game so lets put this in perspective. By some measures he's done okay.
Here is the difference:
WoW is the most popular MMO as of yet. Alot of people who would normaly not be tempted into these bad behaviors now are simply b/c it is easy to get into, and there are always friends who want you to come play with em.
Now, I am not saying this is WoW's fault, I am simply saying WHY it is so prevelant, it is just that more poeple are playing. Admitedly WoW's game curve is also an addition to the problem that people face. The low levels have alot of rewards that can be gotten relatively quickly. However as you advance it takes longer and longer to get rewards, but it is nice and gradual, so you get ussed to thinking, well, just another 10 mins to finish this quest, well half and hr will let me finish this instance, well I can run this instance in an hr then spend some time crafting, etc etc etc.
btw, refferencing D&D in this is the wrong game, D&D was never said to be something that will ruin your life (unless hanging out with 5 other people on someone's house once or twice a week is a ruin...).
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
That is a good post. Basically sums up WoW for a lot of the "hardcore raider" types.
MMORPG's are like being on a treadmill with someone dangling a treat in front of you. Every once in a while you might get a taste, but they will never let you have it because as long as you want what you can't have (perhaps the feeling of 'winning'?) you will keep paying 15 bucks a month to get closer and closer to and end that keeps drifting further away.
Blizzard has made what is arguably the most addictive MMO ever appealing to human nature's greed, and the need to feel accomplished.
Up until last month I was one of those types too. I played WoW EVERY night and every free moment. I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy it.
But a few things intersecting caused me to take a step back.
First was the alpha for the expansion. After a week of playing that I realized all the godly best-on-the-server epic gear my priest had would soon be shit since at level 70 (in some cases earlier) I would get gear at or better than the current gear I had. This basically meant when the expansion came out not only would I have to "grind" out 10 more levels, but from a gear standpoint it would be like re-starting the game.
Secondly, I enrolled in a couple of classes and had some family stuff come up. Between the alpha making me concerned, and real life keeping me busy several nights a week, I have gotten to the point where I do not even feel like logging in most of the time.
Logging in means raiding. Raiding means farming for consumables etc. Farming means work.
It's at this point you begin to realize WoW is like a second job - but one you pay to work at.
Wow, like IRC (and a lot of the rest of the internet) is not just destructive. It *can* be a handy sandbox that prepares people for real life.
I played WoW for about a year, running a major guild. What did I learn?
That I'm good at self depreciating humour.
That I can get people to follow me by being the first one to stand up and provide direction.
That leading people is more about knowing where you are going than how you are going to get there.
How to negotiate peace between two people who have genuinely lost sight of what's important.
Which of those skills have turned out to be useful in my current career? 100% of them. I stand up every day knowing that basically the people I work with are no different to the people I played with, that saying something is better than saying nothing, and that if I get fired hell at least I can enjoy my unemployment hunting for epics with some old friends. It's the same confidence that people who lead sports teams at school get... and now it's available to geeks.
I might point out that being acclimatised to 70 hour working weeks and doing the same boring crap over and over also helps in the real world. Being able to have two priorities and still getting everything done with really limited time isn't exactly bad practice either.
Would I hire ex gamers? Probably. It depends if they have used their time to do something valuable, like learning how to build their confidence, lead, motivate and get along with others - and that's hard to demonstrate.
Like everything else - knowing when you have learned as much as you can and it's time to move on is a big part of determining if online games will be a constructive or destructive thing for you.
Beep beep.
I agree with your sentiment, but having played both D&D and WoW, I can say it's not the same experience.
D&D requires that you have friends, sit down with them in person (yes, now you can play online, etc), and play for some set amount of time. Usually there's a point where the DM says something like 'I'm going to bed' and everyone stops. It requires that everyone gets together, schedules a time to meet, and that the DM put work in before you start playing.
WoW on the other hand never needs to stop. It plays as long as you want to play, and if you are in a large enough guild, then there are always people around for you to work with. Even without a guild there are people out there looking for a pickup group. MMORPGs exacerbate the situation.
Part of the fun with D&D and any r/l gaming is that you are in a time crunch and know it. How far can we get? Think quick, come up with interesting solutions. Laugh and make. Even if you want to play all night, someone in your group is going to be tired and want to stop, so you all have to stop. MMORPGs take away all the restrictions and really enable you to become 'addicted' in all the ways that you might to something else.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
He obviously still takes the game seriously, if only by bringing up ad nauseum the fact that he was in some imaginary position of power. This romantic notion that he abandoned some great epic saga seems to give him great rpide, like he made the ultimate sacrifice for some greater good.
He may have left the game, but he's still living in an imaginary world from the looks of it. Although, it's possible his leaving the game could mean the end of the world...
of warcraft.
"Don't waste your time or time will waste you" -MUSE
This guy really hits on what I think is the biggest problem with MMO's. There's no end game. If winning is really important to you (and it's an important part of games in general), then you're never going to be satisfied.
I don't play WoW, but I do play Eve-Online, and it's basically the same thing for a lot of people. They've built big and powerful alliances, they control vast in-game resources, and they're deeply involved in all of the political intrigue in the game. But they're stuck at this terrible point where no matter how much they collect, how much territory they control, there's still tons more out there.
Just like many wealthy people in life spend their money trying to procure more wealth, the means and the end have become basically the same thing, watching a few numbers constantly increase. And since there's an infinite supply of higher numbers, there's no final goal to be reached. You end up playing to win a game that can't actually be won. Not because you're unskilled or aren't working hard enough, but because there is no game-mechanic that qualifies as winning.
Yet it still manages to sweep up lots of people, and stings them along until they burn out. But at least with real life wealth, if you eventually realize what's going on and gain some perspective on life, you've probably got a decent pile of money to support you as you move in a new direction. When you burn out on a video game and decide to leave it, you've likely sacrificed a lot of what you had in the real world.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
For God's sakes its just a stupid video game. It's not a terrorist. It's not a pack of wild dogs. It's not a drunken driver. It's not a chemical that creates fatal dependencies in your body. Its a VIDEO GAME.
If you can't stop playing it, obviously you have issues. Your life is not in balance, and your obsession to the game is just a symptom of the imbalance.
The game is not wrecking your life, you are.
I play World of Warcraft. I average about seven hours a week (four on sundays, and three more on tuesdays, because thats when all my friends can also play). It is fun. It is not wrecking my life. My character doesn't level up at light speed but so what? It is just a game.
And to all you scintillating geniuses pointing out that there are much older guilds in the REAL world: no fucking shit. The "world" to which he refers is obviously the World of Warcraft.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
RTFA, and get some contextual scoping people! The author doesn't claim his guild is the oldest in -all- existence, it's the oldest ON HIS SERVER.
Quoth the raven:
The guild Mr. Yeager got me into and with which I became an officer is the oldest and largest on the server I played on.
There are lives at stake here!
In the end, your life will simply expire anyway. Make sure you've had some fun and don't listen to other people who want to decide what you do with your time.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
On the flip side, I don't play at work or when the kids are awake. I look at what I'd be doing instead after the kids are in bed. I've basically stopped watching all TV, an even more useless time sink. I don't read as much, but I have a very small pile of books left to read right now- I need some of my authors to write faster :^) I still go out with friends when I get the chance. (Rare, due to kidlets.) It's cheap given the time spent- going out for a few drinks with friends will be way more than $15 for a night. But it's still the majority of my leisure time, and I've caught "wife aggro" occasionally.
Am I addicted? I'm probably skirting the edges of that, and it makes me nervous.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
my god- forget "RTFA" how about READ WHAT YOU REPLIED TOO!
the opening of the third of three sentences follows.
I haven't played it myself
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I also didn't like how he compared WoW to "the worst drugs on the market" or whatever. He said WoW was WORSE than those. Please. He played daily for a year and then quit with no desire to go back. Try that with heroin.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
People with very little to do and have addictive personalities are prone to get addicted to anything -- WoW or otherwise. For every major addict that ruins his life, there are dozens that enjoy it responsibly. If WoW weren't around, they'd be addicted to something else -- another game, collecting stamps, stalking people, etc. Addictive personalities have existed for a long, long time.
For my boyfriend & I, we use it as an inexpensive form of entertainment. We raid, but nothing insanely hardcore. 2 nights a week, usually. Other couples watch TV, we play WoW. You can't really beat $15/month ($30 for two) for some quality entertainment.
I keep hearing people talk about how WoW can ruin your life, and how it's addictive, but I don't understand how it's the game or the manufactures fault! I've been playing WoW off and on for about two years. I play for a few hours a day and I don't pay to play every month. I think it's a great game, but if someone allows it to take over their life, then it's their own fault. People need to learn how to limit themselves, to moderate their time on a game. Everything in life is good for you as long as you take it in moderation! People blaming WoW for someone loosing their family, friends, or job is like blaming the music industry for children shooting their friends at school. I see it as, people blame the game or manufacture due to the fact that they are the easiest thing to blame. People need to start blaming themselves or others, and not a product. Now, if the game had subliminal messages that caused this, then YES, blame them game! But we all know it doesn't or they hid that stuff REALLY well!
"Try that with heroin."
Fsck heroin, try that with plain ol smokes. It's been almost 4 years and I still want one now and then...
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I guess 'WoW Wrecks Lives' drives more page views than 'Take some personal responsibility for yourself and get out of your basement.'
The blog post is basically a rant from a slow learner. It took him over a year and '70 days played' to figure out what my friends and I figured out in a few weeks: Yup, WoW is still at treadmill.
It's a game, people. As soon as you have more 'virtual' commitments than real ones, that should be a clue that your priorities are askew.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Maybe you can get in a game of speed chess, but how much fun is it to drop in for 5 to 15 minutes of Monopoly? Or Scrabble? Do you get the guys together for 15 minutes of football? If there's no line at the lift, maybe you can get in a short ski run.
I think your assertion is not only false, but irrelevant. Now it's video games or the internet, before that it was golf and television, and before that it was radio.
There are many activities that can take up large chunks of time. And there are many people who engage in those activities without farking up the other aspects of their lives. Conversely, I can smoke some crack for 5 to 15 minutes. Does that mean crack is likely to be less harmful to my relationships than WoW?
Ok, maybe that's a bad example ;) Point is, what's wrong with taking responsibility for own life rather than blaming a game?
btw, referencing D&D in this is the wrong game, D&D was never said to be something that will ruin your life
I beg to differ... It's not so popular now but back in the 80's when a) I was into D&D and b) Mazes and Monsters came
out people like this were everywhere! And this guy is jut one
example (albeit an extreme one).
My opinion then was that it's ridiculous to blame the game/manufacturer and as far as WoW is concerned my opinion hasn't changed.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Denial is a warning sign, buddy.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
WoW doesn't ruin lives. People with no self control ruin their lives. I'm so tired of outside elements being blamed for people's personal inadequecies.
"Computer games can't affect kids that much. I mean, if Pacman had affected us as kids we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
For those that missed it the first time...
WoW meets LotR
I suspect it CAN be a real addiction like meth or heroin. I've known many meth and heroin addicts (my father included).
Psychological addictions are no less addictive, yet their consequenses are minute compared with drug addiction. Hell, I know people (myself included) who can be addicted to anger and malice. I find myself looking for reasons to be angry some days. Just like those kids you knew in high school who would do anything for attention (either addicted or have been neglected at home, I've seen both). But like I said, I'd rather be addicted to emotion or WoW than meth any day. I only play an average of 4 hours a week, depending on what else is going on in my life.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Tobacco is far more addictive than herion. The doctors proved it a long time ago.. Nicotene has a positive effect on your brain allowing it to work faster, this chemical addiction is insanely strong and you brain forthe rest of your life will be bugging you to give it back.
I have not smoked for 8 years now. I still have trouble at a bar with friends not to pick up one and have a toke. and I will occasionally enjoy a second hand smoke with coworkers outside. Every day I feel the desire to simply grab one and light it up. Only self control keeps me from doing it and I know that I will have that desire for the rest of my life.
Be it Cocaine, LSD, PCP, Herione, Opium, Uppers, blues, pinks, WOW, HL2, blogging, IRC, smoking, Drinking, whatever...
if you have an addictive personality, you will get addicted to it or something. Some thing are easierto get addicted to than others, but they all are identical to the poor SOB with zero self control and a strong affinity to addiction.
I have a brother in law addicted to huffing and pot. My wife's family is all upset about it, I see a pitiful 32 year old that has zero self control.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I used to be a member of The Syndicate, and they don't get much bigger, or older, than that.
I played EQ since the first week, and it still took me over 2 years to get to level 50, hardly a powergamer rate (the first guys to 50 had done so in about a month. IIRC, the guy and his group offed a named unicorn "just to see what it dropped".) By that time I was 50, the cap had moved to 60, then 65. But even this relatively slow pace was more than enough to make my wife mad at me. Left it.
Tried some other games, at a much reduced play pace. Got to "Master Dancer"/pistoleer on SWG (not a big accomplishment by any means, if you've played it). "Dancer" was the only new thing in the game. Once that was done, left it.
Got to level 28 on WoW -- with 50 gold in the bank, I was already ready for a horse with everything but the level, and 100 more gold on my back, all self-earned and not twink. Left it. Nothing new here. Yes, well done, but nothing new.
Got two level 50's, scrappers, in City of Heroes. Lots of new things here. Free high-speed travel (> 60mph), level 14. True 3-dimensional movement (SWG and WoW are highly embarassing in this respect. Even the pre-scripted griffen flights are slow, low, and rude compared to CoH. And 40g for a mount that runs 1.6x your own speed? FTW!) More new things: Nice sliders for body styles, and outfits. Make a girl who'd make that "Baby got back" guy pass out from lack of water after drooling so much.
Best new thing: The scrapper class. Yes, you could be reasonably tough and do very high damage. No more pretending you're The Hulk while swatting with a wiffle bat.
Eventually that got boring. Another 2 years at it, at a much reduced pace (a few hours during the week, 4 hours each early Sat and Sun morning.)
Now what's new? DDO? One new thing: Doing dungeons the first time, nice. Sad: Almost impossible to get a group that isn't lead by someone who's done it 373 times before, making it pointless.
LoTR? Star Trek Online? Yeah, can't wait to see the roleplaying reason as to why Starfleet Academy wants me to go on dangerous, deadly missions but won't let me set my phaser on a level higher than "5 hits to kill a rat".
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Not too long ago, I saw that there are three videos on one of the more... interesting torrent sites I frequent that are titled:
"World of Whorecraft" (NSFW, duh)
And judging by the screenshots, I think I found someone I can look down on even more than tentacle-loving hentai freaks.
It looks like regular porn, but the girls are wearing elf ears and leather straps and stuff.
But, OK, that's not the worst part.
The worst part: The ONE, SINGLE attractive mid-20-ish college educated young woman that I've ever had in my classes (I'm an IT Trainer. A geeky, hopelessly introverted one who will probably be a lifelong virgin) is a WoW freak. She's about 5'10", blonde, big eyes, long legs and has a little bit of a fitness-model look. She went rock-climbing in the Andes on her last vacation. She really nice and well adjusted (maybe other than playing WoW...) Seriously good looking girl... And she's a geek of the "Lord of the Rings/Magic the Gathering" variety, which probably means she'd fulfill every possible fantasy for about 3/4 of the Slashdot population.
I told her about the "Whorecraft" thing and sent her a link to the site (We send each other off-color jokes and stuff all the time). This is what she wrote back.
"I have an outfit like that. I use it to get (her boyfriend's) attention when he's been raiding too much."
There is no fucking justice in the world.
That's all I'm going to say.
Well, OK, also, people who play WoW now frighten me more than ever.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Kind of reminds me of reading slashdot.
To the AC who said it reminds him of work: good point. Why did you AC that? Of course, work does provide you with funds for food and shelter, so there's a minor difference there. WoW is all outgo and no income, unlike some other online worlds which are providing real income for people.
Now, the most interesting question to me is: Is "real" life a simulation? For those who freak out, leave the god stuff out of this for the moment. Just take it at face value. In every age and civilization people start making models of the world, analogs of life. Whether it is a model railoroad enthusiast building a toy landscape or a Virtual Reality guy setting standards for online sex, it's the same deal, the same drive. VR is going to get to the point where there is effectively no difference the same way movies (another aspect of this: acting) are going to get so good at simulating human actors that they can all be made by Pixar. Read some of the stuff by Ray Kurzweil. He seriously thinks we'll be able to move ourselves into machines and dispense with physical bodies, thereby becoming immortal. What if we've already been down that road before? This life thing is a pretty good and complex virtual reality all by itself. Advanced physics would suggest that once you get past atoms, there's nothing there. It's all thought: You create reality yourself.
Eventually we'll all find out, but when you finally do know, don't forget you read it on slashdot first.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
They make it seem like he was in the oldest guilds in the world...ever. I skimmed the article but are they talking about guilds going all the way back to MUDs or MUSHs? In fact, I'm in a guild now that has been together since UO through EQ and now in WoW. I personally haven't been in that guild that long, but met up with them in EQ.
So if this guy is talking about one of the oldest guilds in WoW, then I guess the guild I'm in is also one of the oldest as it started up like a half hour after the game went live.
But hey, his article says the same thing that we've heard over and over and over. ANYTHING can be overdone. Take all things in moderation. To all the people that say "get a life", examine your own life and see what you yourself are over indulging in. From couch potatoes to football/baseball fanatics to club-goers to people that play online games....it all can get out of hand if you don't watch it.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Excuse me whilst I go on a little ramble here...
Do people have a choice? Is there any such thing as free will? Free will appears to be a contradiction in terms, unless you believe in mind-body duality. What are we but the sum of our genetics and experiences? Are not our reactions to any given stimulus, given enough information, completely predictable? If they are not, then that is surely down to quantum weirdness, and that (IMO) doesn't count as free will either.
Maybe people shouldn't blamed for their decisions, but pitied. We instinctually and emotionally shy away from any such conclusion, because we want there to be someone to blame, but that doesn't mean we're right.
However, that doesn't mean there isn't any hope. The things we say, the ways we act, they are also stimuli. They also can affect the way people think and act. We are not alone, islands of predetermination, doomed to our fates. We can save each other.
So keep shouting, brother. Some will hear and believe, and be saved.
Rgasuya aata! : I have been coding Perl and cannot tell where my fingers are now!
This whole "people wreck their own lives" trope is such a simplistic load of crap that seems to act more as a way of ignoring real human dilemmas and divorcing oneself of any responsibility for anyone else in any circumstances. TFA isn't saying he did this under duress or that Blizzard are a bunch of assholes. He's showing the specific harm (in his case, relatively minimal to him personally) done by the game and describing the mechanism by which it does harm. Useful to know and discuss. The problem with your formulation is that you left out the "with". People wreck their own lives with something, be it drugs or overeating or WoW. And, unlike you and countless others in this thread, he has the balls to own up to his own culpability as an in-game leader for not helping others deal with their addiction, which is the deeper point of his post.
Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
WoW and other similar online games are generally designed to be Skinner Boxes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_box
You do enough of the required behavior and get a reward. The key is to make the reward incentive strong enough to continue the behavior.
In WoW, and other online games, the goal is to keep the player paying money to the company to keep playing. What attracts players? A good game, marketing, other gamers, escapism, etc. The players, thusly attracted, must be kept entertained reasonably. A guy from Atari used to talk about how they developed games and thought about things like Skinner Boxes.
My comment is not particularly insightful or novel -- just google for Skinner Box and WoW. It's a connection that lots of folks have made.
Part of dealing with the problem is to recognize it when it comes at you and and realize the manipulation taking place. I don't think that the WoW owners are evil for operating their Skinner Box, as ultimately it is an issue that, IMHO, drops to the level of "personal responsibility." I'd like to see more education for kids so that they can recognize these sorts of traps in life.
We teach kids to cross streets, to stay away from old wells, not to smoke, not to shoot heroin, not to get into cars with strangers, etc. Why don't we teach them some basic life skills like recognizing likely "modern day" traps where the danger is not as obvious? Things like shopping and the dopamine connection. How fast food places manipulate their seating to encourage you to leave. How grocery stores manipulate you into walking around the entire store to get to the milk.
While I mentioned "personal responsibility" above re: WoW, the fact that some folks are either more educated about such things or more innately sensitive to the manipulation of SB's should not result in us thinking of those who fall prey to SB's as being morally deficient or lacking in self-control. To some extent, they may not recognize the danger until the SB behavior is so reinforced that changing it is difficult. I have often wondered if there are chemical or physical changes in the brain in gaming addicts that are akin to those who are addicted to alcohol or drugs, for instance. Ignorance of possible harm, rather than lack of self-control, can likely explain at least some of the fallout or collateral damage that can result from overdoing online (or offline) games.
I'm sure that we will see someone ultimately argue that online games (since they are new and shiny and an "in" target) are psycholocigal conditioning devices. I suspect that, as with DOOM in the Columbine case (and GTA, and others), that video games, online and otherwise, will continue to be whipping boys in criminal cases and possibly in the tort system (regulation through litigation).
In any case, I understand the perils of gaming to some extent, and that understanding has helped to inform my personal decisions about doing it. Likewise, I'll try to educate my kids about it. I think that seeing these stories from time to time, though we all roll our eyes at them, is probably useful on the whole, as it reminds us that excesses are often unplanned and that they take their toll over time.
GF
Lots of petrified grits
>Wow, you're awesome. You should tell your grandkids about how
>awesome you were, back in 2006. If you have grandkids.
Hey, don't be too hard on him.
This modern age has taught him that he's just an animal that happened to evolve, with no significance. And he's been taught that there's nothing beyond this life to hold him accountable.
Grandchildren? He's been taught that children are a contraception failure.
Why *should* he care about anything but entertainment? Were you expecting a different outcome to his education?
I think one of the big issues with WoW (and other MMO's) that can suck people in to it is the team aspect. If you don't show up for a raid you feel like you are letting those other 39 people down. That they NEED you to help them advance.
If you are playing First Person Shooter X and your significant other comes to you and asks you to help them open a jar of pickles, change the bedding, go out for a beer, or play naked twister, you can save and quit or pause the game and come back to it later. With MMO's there is no pause or quit. So you have the social pressure on you of these 39 people depending on you NOT going afk and you end up putting the real world one or two people aside.
I think Blizzard may have realized the timesink issue with the expansion because of their change to smaller 5-10 avatar raid encounters with saveable "wing" dungeon instances. But the fact of the matter is if you are in the middle of a fight and something happens in the outside world that requires your attention, you'll still have a tendency to prioritize the gameworld first. Thats the danger of the MMO. The social pressure of not wanting to let other people down that are depending on you.
Just because I rock, doesn't mean I'm made of stone...
Please don't blame it on WoW, this is about individuals.
Let me just say that I play a few hours a night and was raiding a little before the expansion news which caused a lot of guilds to 'take a break'. I'm currently levelling up a shaman and a hunter for the expansion.
When I started college (back in '95) a few friends introduced me to a MUD. I played it mostly to keep in contact with them (at other colleges) but just didn't really like the interface. It was all typing commands and reading text, like an online D&D session except without actually playing with other people. So, I reached the level cap, albeit slowly, and quit, only logging in to talk with my friends. However, one of my friends played all the time. He was always on. He failed out of school.
So, is Blizzard responsible for creating something that can be addictive? What about EQ, DAoC, AC, UO? They all have elements that can make people who are more susceptible become addicted. But couldn't Battlefield 2/2142? Remember that in BF1942/Vietnam you didn't have ranks. There wasn't a time commitment. You could leave at anytime. But with ranks you are need to grind your way up. The more games that contain these 'RPG' elements the more of this addiction stuff we are going to hear about.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Whatever happened to the journey being to reward, not the end?
The people who have the WoW addiction feel that they must get to "the end", whatever that may be in WoW (or any other MMORPG).
For me...it was the journey of getting to lvl 60. I liked exploring the world, searching new dungeons, grouping with a few people and attempting something new together.
It was just this past weekend that I finally reached lvl 60 with my mage after almost 2 years of playing (I have 4 other characters I was playing around with.) When I annouced my "Ding! lvl 60" on my guild chat, one of my other lvl 60 guildies says "Congrats, welcome to the 2nd half of the game".
But you know what? Seeing as the 2nd half of the game is strictly raiding, I'd rather go back to the 1st half of the game.
Take responsibility for yourself. It's your problem. Your problem might be the game, but that's not the game's problem. Responsibility - it's not just for everyone else anymore.
...you'd prefer they LARP for the benefit of an ethereal third party instead of play an MMO? Whether you're grinding faction with god or with dwarves, it's all the same shit. Just a different carrot on a stick.
Developing a code of ethics that doesn't rely on someone else's approval, now that's actually impressive.
No it's not.
Transistors and Beer!!
I have several friends that have "ruined" their lives with online gaming from Quake I, Diablo, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Everquest, Anarchy Online to World of Warcraft (I have personally played all those games and more, but always managed to put real life ahead). I have seen friends drop out of Uni and "ruined" their lives by taking early morning part-time cleaning jobs just to be able to play to being unemployed and gaming. I've seen people I just knew by name drop out of Uni like flies due to the above mentioned games and even before that MUDs.
So what's the point? I always tried to figure out what motivates these people, and I've tried to help a few close friends to get out of it, but the uninstalling of the game worked for 2-3 days and then they are back on it. One friend broke his CDs, but how hard is it to download a gaming client nowadays? WoW's client is on their official site to download so is several others.
I have come to the conclusion, that there are several factors and they are different from person to person. Some like to be isolated and now they can also achieve "social status" without leaving their nest, feeling accomplishment, being über and having the best items and what not and in some games the highest level. Some get caught in the socializing itself. Some feel why bother with the real world, "it sucks" yet their real life obligations are crashing and burning and will put an end to their gaming sooner or later.
I guess it comes down to that real life is less appealing, and of course it is. Instant gratification is not as straight forward, and we have to do boring things to achieve better things. What gets me is that this problem will be even bigger now, specially with World of Warcraft introducing people to their in some case first MMORPGs. With new MMORPGs like Vanguard, Age of Conan, Warhammer and so on this problem will continue to grow.
Personally I would like to go all bonkers and draw wild unfounded conclusions like "this reflects a modern escapism from a society that is spinning out of control", but of course there is so much more to it than that, but alas the problem with online gaming will grow huge in the years to come. How to solve this problem? It is hard, it a person to person case I think, there is no pill for this, unless the goverment start banning things.
My 2p, a 60 Priest w/ crappy blues, in a non raiding guild.
A note: I do not in anyway blame the gaming companies.
There is no ultimate point to anything. It just is. However, to say there's no point is to ignore the fact that we create the point. Mythologies are our creations, they give us meaning that we make. But we don't need a mythology to make meaning. A Buddhist koan asks: why did bodhidarma bring Buddhism to the east (china)? The question is really asking, what is the point of life? If there is no point, as Buddhism seems to state, why spread Buddhism? The most famous answer is "Three pounds of rice." Think about it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I just realized something. I have a friend who's dad, I'd guess he is around 40-45 year old, has been playing World of Warcraft since the beta. I thought it was actually kinda cool, he was the first real life person I know who reached level 60. He and his son, my friend, has always been in the same guild. They raided together. I actually kinda envyed him for having a dad who knew what we talked about, and usually laughed about the same jokes as us. We used to laugh our ass off when we heard him swear in the ventrilo, not the reaction you'd expect from a completly normal dad. Now, just a couple of days ago, I heard his parents are getting seperated. And that's after (I'd guess) 20 years of marrige. Just now did I realize that WoW most probably has atleast something to do with it. Really makes me sad.
People do this all the time. It has nothing to do with WoW, EQ, MMOs, games, or computers. For thousands of years, people have been finding hobbies that take them away from their normal lives. They pursue the hobby like an obsession. They care more about their precious garden than they do about their family and friends, or they spend all day in a park playing chess against strangers so they can brag that they're the smartest hobo in the world.
Maybe it's horseback riding, hiking, poker... and sometimes it's not even a hobby. Sometimes the obsession is more work. It doesn't matter what it is. During these secondary activities that become more important than their life, they meet people, have affairs, and throw 20 years of marriage down the tubes. And all this was happening long before Blizzard was even imagined.
Do I understand why people do it? Not really. Don't even bother explaining it to me because you're too sick to rationally understand why you are the problem, it is not the problem. Do you honestly expect me to believe you were on the fast-track to success, on the verge of being a Kung-Fu master, socialite, and brilliant newly graduated engineer were it only not for this game? Nice try, I know it's not your bridge to sell.