Diary of a WoW Noob's Addiction

Noobab writes "There's an absolutely hilarious diary style article in CNET's Crave blog about Nick Hide's first experience playing World of Warcraft. It starts off pretty tame but soon enough the man has turned from unsuspecting casual gamer into a fully fledged 'Warcrack' addict." Your mileage may vary. From the article: "I can't say that I'm experiencing withdrawal symptoms after two weeks of fairly casual World of Warcraft play (a couple of hours a night, tops. Honest, doctor), but 'neglect of other activities' made me rather worried. Last night my girlfriend got hold of an extra ticket to Wicked, the new musical. 'I, er, I'm going out tomorrow night, I'd like to stay in and, er, get an early night,' was my pathetic effort at hiding my spiralling dependency on WoW."

Comments

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[__aaclcg7560]

Day 1 - Played WOW
Day 2 - Played WOW
Day 3 - Played WOW
...
Day 69 - Looked in mirror and realized I became "He Who Has No Life". Then bladder burst opened, computer caught on fire and basement burned down.
Day 70 - Mom sent me out to the blue room with the bright light to get a job. Saw an ad to become a game tester.

Cost

[Joe The Dragon]

If it where free or cost you per hour in game then there likely less people Addicted to it as if you are paying $15 a month you feel like that need to play all the time to get most out of it.

Re:Cost

[TinyManCan]

I pay a hell of a lot more than $15 a month for cable TV. That does not make me want to watch it ALL the time, and I am well aware that I am buying channels that I never, ever watch. It doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Re:Cost

[Brown Eggs]

Wrong - I don't think cost is the key. Look at games like Maplestory or Runescape. Free games (mostly) but almost as addictive. I think it is the leveling, the competition, and all the little RPG elements that keep people coming back for more.

Re:Cost

[Feanturi]

I played MUDs back in the day. They were free and had no pretty graphics at all. They were every bit as addictive as the ones we have now. Rife with students flunking out, or people jeopardizing their jobs to play. So no, I don't buy the idea that the cost makes you want to get your money's worth.

Re:Cost

[DaveV1.0]

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

treatment

[abe ferlman]

Serious question now- does anyone personally know of someone who sought treatment for WoW addiction? I don't mean you read about it in the news, I mean personally. People seek treatment when they realize they have other sorts of non-chemical addictions but even among the most obsessed WoWers I know, none of them seem to see it as a problem that requires intervention to solve.

Re:treatment

[TheWaz]

I haven't read or know anyone needing actual medical assistance when quitting WOW. I played the game for a while and got my character to 60, and also became an officer in my guild. After a while I wasn't too thrilled with the game and went cold turkey. I think the most intervention that is needed is for mommy to come over and tell the addict that it's bedtime.

He needs to shoot little pengiuns down a hill!

[gunny01]

He needs to ease himself back to some sort of less addcitive gaming, like Line Rider.

geek rejects girlfriend for Wow?

[theStorminMormon]

That's not WoW addiction. That's stupid addiction.

-stormin

Re:geek rejects girlfriend for Wow?

[Aadain2001]

I've found myself doing that once or twice long ago. I pretty much ignored my girlfriend for a few weeks back in the spring of 2005 when WoW was really starting to take off. But all it took was one go whap upside from said girlfriend to help me re-prioritize things. Now she comes before WoW, always. But even the best of people can make a stupid mistake and recover from it.

Re:geek rejects girlfriend for Wow?

[megaditto]

That's what makes this an addiction: rejecting the natural rewards (food, sex, sleep) in favor of a virtual reward of some sort.

If you need help getting rid of your game addiction, try imbibing some emetic shortly after you start playing (check with your doctor). Or try taking strong laxatives each time you go on a gaming spree.

Or even simpler, buy two galons+ of whole milk, then each time you score a "kill" or whatever it is you score in those games, reward yourself by drinking a whole glass.

Re:geek rejects girlfriend for Wow?

[dangitman]

Now she comes before WoW, always.

So, WoW is like a post-coital cigarette?

Re:geek rejects girlfriend for Wow?

[theStorminMormon]

Then again, the mischievious part of me wonders if we should just let this gentle version of natural selection run its course.

No we should not:
1) It would not be natural. It is man-made!
2) It is precisely the smarter, more intelligent people who have a propensity to become virtuality addicts.1. Yes, it is natural. Humans are natural. Unless you are supposing some fundamentalist version of creationism or other ex-nhilo origin for our species, we're basically just smart monkeys. And our use of computers is no less natural than a monkey's use of a stick or a crow's use of a rock. There's no rational basis for calling the actions or creations of human beings un-natural without recourse to superstition.

2. What does intelligence have to do with anything? Evolution has no values. It's purely about survival, adaptation, and successful procreation. The notion that we can define intelligence is barely more coherent than the idea that people or their creations are non-natural. The idea that evolution cares about intelligence is, if anything, less coherent. If intelligence helps you make tools, then great. It's a positive adaptation. If intelligence ensnares you in addiction to those tools (an addiction that clearly hampers procreation to some degree) than guess what - intelligence ceases to be an advantageous trait. Now personally I don't think it makes sense to equate intelligence with a propensity to become virtual addicts. I'd say that shows a blatant lack of intelligence in a very basic sense: the ability to make rational decisions against our own urges. But even if there is such a correlation, evolution doesn't care.

-stormin

Re:geek rejects girlfriend for Wow?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Exactly. And I post this everytime a story about MMORPG addiction is posted but for those wondering how it could possibly addict someone that badly, I STRONGLY urge you to read this excellent essay on how EQ (and games similar to it) are essentially giant virtual Skinner Boxes. Psychological addiction can be just as bad, if not worse than chemical addiction. At least with chemical addiction once its out of your system you stop craving it for the most part.

Re:geek rejects girlfriend for Wow?

[Shaper_pmp]

"1. Yes, it is natural. Humans are natural. Unless you are supposing some fundamentalist version of creationism or other ex-nhilo origin for our species, we're basically just smart monkeys. And our use of computers is no less natural than a monkey's use of a stick or a crow's use of a rock. There's no rational basis for calling the actions or creations of human beings un-natural without recourse to superstition."

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's a pet hate when people indulge in pseudo-drippy-new-age "everything should be natural man... and not, like, all the artificial, y'know... stuff that harshes up our natural buzz..." bullshit.

Unless you can draw a line around "natural" and "unnatural" and sharply distinguish the difference, shut the fuck up with your romantic, luddite, wanna-live-two-hundred-years-ago-and-most-probably -die-of-tuberculosis crap.

I had a taxi driver once who found out I worked in computing, and spent an entire 30-minute ride bending my ear about how he hated "artificial stuff" and "that technology" and "liked things to be natural". He shut up fast at the end of the journey when when I enquired if he still ate his meat raw and lived in a tree.

Addicted to Warcrack?

[spun]

Who the hell checks themselves into a rehab center for World of Warcraft? WoW is not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. You ever suck dick for WoW? NO! I didn't think so.

Re:Addicted to Warcrack?

[Attrition_cp]

Want another hit?

Re:Addicted to Warcrack?

[treak007]

i know some people who would suck dick for better gear in wow

It's not the game, it's the person.

[friendofish]

You always hear of people losing their wives "Because of WoW" or forgetting their family "Because of Everquest". No, they lost their self control, they lost their loved ones because of themselves. They are the only ones to blame.

Re:Warcrack the New Evercrack?

[StikyPad]

Yeah, I actually preferred EQ, because it was NEW new. Nobody had ever done a 3D MORPG before, and it was just insane. There's nothing quite like 1000 level 1 characters running around with absolutely no clue what they're doing, or what they're supposed to do. (There wasn't the level of hand-holding back then, which was both good and bad). Later games, including the omnipotent WoW, just seem like rehashes of the same thing. Granted, EQ had become a complicated, noob unfriendly monstrosity by the time WoW came out, and many veteran players were tired of EQ, so that probably contributed to WoW's popularity.

I never really got into WoW though, despite my best efforts and friends that play religiously. I think the main reason was grouping. In EQ, grouping was essentially mandatory for efficient leveling. Grouping made gameplay more interesting, rewarding, and entertaining, although very often more frustrating. It also provided a bit of a safety net, since there was usually someone to make travel faster (teleport), ressurect, etc. In WoW, there are largely the same benefits to groups, but the benefits don't outweigh the drawback of waiting to find other players. It's simply faster to go solo for XP in almost every case. As a result, the people most desperately looking for groups are often people who can't survive on their own because they can't play their class effectively, so grouping is frequently disasterous in WoW. Even worse, when grouping IS required, people are so accustomed to soloing that they don't function well as a team. It's like watching the NBA "Dream Team" at the Olympics, where everybody's trying to be the star. I'm sure that probably changes at the higher levels, but I just didn't have the patience to continue the extremely tedious process of grinding through levels on my own.

Additionally, I suppose I had become disillusioned by the fact that any sense of accomplishment was fleeting and incomplete, with another "challenge" (aka time-sink) constantly waiting in the wings. The never-ending process of obtaining new items to enable you to fight new creatures to obtain new items to fight new creatures to obtain new items just gets old after a while. That's probably a good thing though, because for at least 5 years, I was an EQ junkie. I should thank them for making boring content, otherwise I'd probably still be one.

Addicting?

[theCurse]

I don't get it. I can't even get addicted to an MMO. I've played WoW, CoH, GW, and various others, and I just don't get the allure. I admit while I played them, I played them all day, ignoring sleep, food, etc., but I eventually became bored and moved on. Now you'd be hard-pressed to find me on Guild Wars, and I don't even have to pay for that.

Re:Warcrack the New Evercrack?

[talis9]

And I failed at Uni three decades ago because I spent all my time in the common room playing cards.

Students failing is nothing new, just the reasons change. It doesn't matter if it is cards, beer, girls or computer games, students will always find something more interesting to do than go to lectures.

staged addictions != news

[graycode10]

thanks zonk, it was fun to watch this man's epic journey from installing the game all the way to... his second post a few weeks later. why are we listening to a person with a character in its mid-teens and two weeks' experience? i'm willing to agree that the game can cause problems, but i'd rather hear a testimony from a person with 200 days /played, not someone who still has the crinkled cellophane on his desk and *gasp* skipped a night with his girl so that he could find his class trainer... i also like how the articles feature a night elf with a big lit doobie in his mouth. um... a real addiction is something that catches you by surprise. a staged addiction for publicity is one that you go into expecting to be addicted, complete with funny clip art and a spot on a major web page. and i'm sorry to be so bitchy, but i'm tire of people using the term 'warcrack' like they are the first person to ever do so. yes, we get it. please stop wasting our time with things like this, slapping "WoW" onto the title to get us to click on it and start our daily south park reference banter. (yes, it was a great episode) but i think i am more upset with cnet for printing this crap than i am at slashdot for linking it.

Re:staged addictions != news

[14CharUsername]

Yeah, if my girlfriend had tickets to a musical, I'd make an excuse not to go. I guess I'm a WoW addict too, though I thought you actually had to play the game to be considered an addict.

Solution - Get a life.

[pla]

No. Seriously - I mean this as neither a troll nor flamebait - If you have started sacrificing real life experiences for virtual ones that actually cost you money...

LEAVE THE FUCKING BASEMENT!


If you have nothing better to do, great, waste a few hours playing WoW. I'll admit, I accidentally saw more than a few dawns like that in college, mudding away the night. Amusing way to pass time. But when real entertainment comes along - DO IT! You don't even need to think about which you prefer - reality wins, every time. Even something like going bowling with your Aunt Sally and ther annoying hellbrood should beat wasting your life in an online game.

Re:Solution - Get a life.

[blahplusplus]

"LEAVE THE FUCKING BASEMENT!"

I know this was meant to be funny, but to be serious for a moment. Those who still live in the basement have more serious issues beyond WoW my friend, clinical depression and possible abuse being one of them.

The psychological rewards caused by natural selection can be ruined if a minimum of some of maslow's hierarchy of needs cannot be maintained. Because some serious exterinal or biological factors interfere with social and occupational functioning, causing unnatural stress and agitation on a persons nerves to the degree the wish to cease to exist to escape the cage constant stress and agitation they find themselves in. "Depression" does not in any way capture what a clinically depressed person physically feels. Anyone interested in understanding some of the evolutionary aspects of depression better can go here - http://biology.unm.edu/Biology/pwatson/public_html /dp1.htm

I've experienced clinical depression all my life, I shit you not, it's not a fun thing to know that for your entire life you do not experience life like everyone else, you do not enjoy things other people enjoy, and even the things you should enjoy... eating, sex, social life, company, take a back seat when you are clinically depressed.

The below is taken from Altruists.org :

Is Depression (i.e. and its consequences like addiction, etc) a Healthy reaction to a Sick Society?

"To demand that our children feel well in the world which we leave them is an insult to their dignity." Ivan Illich

The World Health Organisation defines depression as a 'disorder that presents with depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, and poor concentration'. It declares that it is the leading cause of disability, worldwide, and by 2020 it will be the second most important disease worldwide.

WHO goes on to say that in most cases, drugs are an effective treatment. This reflects a materialistic worldview that focusses on symptoms, not root causes. A multinational drug company has claimed that "depression is caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals", but this fails to explain why it is more widespread than ever before, (9.5% of US adults suffer from a depressive disorder in any one year) and why it is still spreading. Depression is not just another disease. If it is not caused by pathogens, how can it spread?

Maslow's hierarchy of needs predicts that if securely fed and housed, people's well-being depends less on material goods, more on factors such as good relationships with and love of others. However, most people are in the thrall of an economic system that ignores this fact, punishes generosity but rewards unnatural selfishness. This results in cognitive dissonance, because people feel forced to do things of which they disapprove, leaving them feeling guilty, disempowered and depressed. This would seem to explain why depression is booming even amidst materially prospering populations. Although a human tragedy, this epidemic of depression is a boon for the economy, since consumer culture feeds off people's low self-esteem by encouraging self-indulgence and escapism, resulting in a vicious circle of increasing consumption and decreasing well-being.

We believe many depressive symptoms are a natural response of the mind to an unhealthy, unsustainable, diseased and generally distressed society. Many of those who dismiss it as being an 'illness' of the brain, are sadly mistaken, others cynically exploiting it for their own benefit. Among the chief causes are the priority given to the competitive money system which discourages healthy human relationships to the point where, starved of friendship, some people even question the validity of loving others. Altruism is a side-effect free, natural way to cope with depressive symptoms and to live a longer, healthier and happier life.

What an Idiot

[matt74441]

He really should have gone to the stupid musical. Everyone knows that girls will "reward" their boyfriends later for being a good sport and going, at least thats how it happened with me.

Played for two weeks

[Datamonstar]

.... and yes, battlegrounds are crackity crack crack! But still.. my interest is waining quickly. I've gone from 4 hours a day to only two hours this week. AND we had an ice storm today. that had everyone at home, but I still only logged three capture the flag matches before I got back to something else. I played Everquest for about 6 years and after that, you just don't want to log those sort of hours in a game anymore. Believe me. Once it's worn off it's worn off for good. It doesn't matter what the next game is going to be. Unless you happen to just LOVE mmorpg's your addiction will eventually burn out over time.

Re:Warcrack the New Evercrack?

[Wolfkin]

"Grouping made gameplay more interesting, rewarding, and entertaining, although very often more frustrating."

Mostly the last. WoW is already plenty interesting enough solo, and I *most* *certainly* don't want my game playing to be anything like frustrating. It requires a group? I'll pass, thanks. I'm actually okay with groups where I'm just helping someone, but after about 20 bad experiences, I'm not interested in going into any instance I can't solo, and so when there are places that require a group in order to still be able to get XP, I'm off to do something fun, instead.

Re:Warcrack the New Evercrack?

[Xentor]

You bring up some valid points, but it's not ALL that bad. I've been playing WoW since release (Minus a 6-month hiatus when I got bored), and I've been in a lot of good groups and bad groups.

What you'll find is that every class in WoW is made to solo, specifically because there are a lot of people who just don't want to quest in groups. On the other hand, two complementary classes can perform MUCH better than any single one. A group of five, working together properly, is really a beautiful thing.

Unfortunately, there are, as you said, a LOT of players who just can't play well with others. This includes:

1) Newbies: Just coach them along, and they'll get the hang of it eventually. Insulting them won't help them play better, so try to be helpful instead of hostile.

2) Raider Alts: Most players who have a somewhat maxed-out character will create more characters to experience more of the game. SOME of these will be VERY over-confident and reckless, saying things like "It's not like this is MC or anything" (MC = Molten Core = One of the first endgame raids), forgetting that their character isn't exactly superman yet. Avoid these people.

3) Anyone who doesn't speak your language. No communication = No teamwork. Avoid these, too.

If you get a bad group, it can be either really annoying or EXTREMELY funny (Best part about having a guild, is having people to chat with to laugh about the idiots in your current party). Trust me, I've had some FUNNY ones... Most recent was a druid (Hybrid class) that refused to deal any damage because it wasn't her "style".

If you get a good group, it can really make up for all the bad times, because five people working in synch... well, good times.

Hopefully the changes in the next patch will cut down on the time it takes to FORM one of these groups, because on that point, I agree 100% with the parent. It takes way too long.

Disclaimer: Yes, I'm a lifeless computer geek, but after taking a six month break from WoW, I realized I wasn't doing anything interesting anyway, and I was just as bored. I know I'll get flamed for being an addict, anyway, but that's just slashdot.