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

[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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.