Heoolp! WoW withdrawal !!!!! (Burning Gaming Question)

[tiddlywinks]

I spent almost my entire two-week break from teaching playing World of Warcraft. (Oh, man!) I had to come back home tonight (where it's not on my computer). My parents, and my boyfriend, too, were a little concerned because people get so addicted to "gaming."

True, I played for hours at a time, (5,6,7, 8, maybe more); but couldn't you say I was just burning off holiday steam? It was like a new toy for Christmas, man! :silly: My SO bought it only two weeks ago. I've never 'gamed' before. It IS another world and an escape from reality. WoW is the most complex, astounding, and graphically amazing role-playing software there. is. period. (True, I don't know diddly about any other.) There are no words to describe it in its entirety.

I'm worried because people who love me are worried. Soooo, now, I have to step back from the computer, man. Literally and figuratively. Tomorrow I start back to work anyway. I won't have time to play and because it's not on my computer, I can't. My father recommended that I not acquire the game for myself. He said he's seen many of his college students' careers crash and burn because of gaming. He also showed me an article about gaming in today's local paper. A university sociologist wants to do some kind of research on the societal ramifications, etc.

Tonight, I'm asking myself if I've become a gaming 'addict' or am I just a new WoW enthusiast. Is WoW the gift that keeps on giving? Thank you for frank discussion, opinions, experience, and feedback.
Tomorrow I have to start thinking about lesson plans and my students....
Hmmm, perhaps I'll write a unit on gaming, the internet, and WoW!

[Redneck Socialist]

1. The novelty will wear off I suspect

I'm not into the online gaming thing, but I do have some geek tendencies. One of my buddies has a serious Everquest habit, or Ever-crack as I call it. When he first got into it he would play for ungodly stretches of time, but he's better now, sort of.

On edit: DU has a gaming group: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=248

[tiddlywinks]

3. TY Redneck Socialist.

But I don't want the novelty to wear off! I dig so much WoW!
Does your Evercrack friend reveal to you how many hours he plays?

The article the paper ran had a blurb and photo of a 69 yr old lady who spent a good part of her SS on supporting her 10 hour a day habit. Obviously, she doesn't work and can do that.... I, however, have a full time job and support myself. Doing that for me just would not be practical. (except on weekend visits and holidays :evilgrin: )

Thanks for the DU gaming info, too. I'm going there now.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. When you hit level 60, if not already there, it gets tedious fast. However

my wife seems never to tire of it.

To me, the "high end content"/dungeons have a sameness to them, always fighting the same giant dragon or ogre in some cave...

[ncrainbowgrrl]

4. Yes!!

(Of course, I don't have a level 60, but my significant other does, and he keeps doing the same dungeons over and over and over...)

[tiddlywinks]

5. Whoa, you hit 60 in WoW???

What character were you?
Was it the raids that became tedious? I'm just wondering. I doubt I'll ever reach 60, but who knows.

I'm a lvl 14 (woo hoo) female Night Elf in the Malfurion realm. I can also become the most fearsome grizzled-bear thing you'd ever hope to not run into in the woods at night. I'm such a newbie, lol.

And, oh! Spent about an hour and a half in the Cliffsprings Falls Cave this morning fighting floating green lizard thingys. My SO said that they looked like Creatures from the Black Lagoon, but in vivid, junglesk colors.

I really enjoyed grouping up with other players to accomplish a mission or quest. Especially when everybody wants to have fun doing it. It can be so fun! Did I say I liked WoW? I could go on...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

6. I hit 60 as a Night Elf Rogue, on Mal'Ganis (a PvP server).

Rogues are pretty easy to level. Druids (what you are) are also a pretty good character, my wife is a night elf druid. Stealth and speed allow you to get out of a lot of hairy situations as a druid.

The "engine" that drives the game is levelling... once you've finished (the new patch will cap it at 70 instead of 60, but the principle is the same), the "engine" that drives the game is getting more "epic loot" i.e. weapons and armor for your character. The main way to do that is to belong to a large guild with many level 60 characters, and conduct raids on the "high end" dungeons (Onyxia's Lair, Molten Core, and now Blackwing Lair, there will be new ones with the expansion).

I find the "high end raids" to be tedious. Also lot of the players become obnoxious and greedy over allocating the "epic", digital loot that comes from the raids. Successful raids require a commitment of hours at a time to get to the highest bosses with the best loot, and that's time you can't schedule as you wish as you are typically having to do the raid with 20 to 40 other people. Often the raids are at night, and might be running towards midnight if it's successful... many of the players are high school and college students who might be able to stay up late, but I have to get up at 5 to 6 in the morning most workdays. Often times the raids are coordinated via internet voice programs like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, and you actually have to listen to the voice of the pimply faced teenager that leads the raids for your guild, telling you what to do and what mistakes you and the group have made (I'm a lot older than most of the people who play WoW so this aspect of it is particularly annoying for me).

Sorry if you are that pimply faced teenager, I'm just calling it like I see it. I decided shortly after hitting 60 that large scale raids for epic loot were just not for me, and have hardly played in months. My wife, who got me into this in the first place (I never played an RPG before WoW), doesn't seem to get tired of it and still goes on regular raids with her guild full of nerds.

I really enjoyed the game when I was levelling, and I liked being on a PvP server, the fact that you might have to fight or run to complete your quests added a level of constant tension that was good I think. Blizzard is still possibly my favorite game company of all time mostly due to Starcraft/Warcraft II, and they did a great job with the overall look and feel of WoW.

Since they added the PvP battlegrounds there is more things to do than the dungeon raids, but the first battlegrounds they had weren't much to my liking. I understand that they have tweaked the battleground formulas and have new types of battlegrounds that are more popular now.

The only reason I still have an account is because it would bother my wife a lot I think if I deleted it entirely. I am in the process of getting rid of all my inventory, preparing to delete the Night Elf Rogue so I can start a horde character on the same server. Starting a whole new character is about the only way the game can continue to hold interest for me. My wife has a 60 horde character on the same server so we can do some stuff together. If she wasn't still so interested in WoW it would be off my hard driver entirely and I would have completely moved on. As it is, it WAS off my hard drive for a while until recently.

[Fox Mulder]

7. I had that problem with Counter Strike a few years back.

Now, my addiction is on the XBox, PS2, and XBox 360.

[Elidor]

8. umm...*cough*

I leveled tonight. :evilgrin:

[tiddlywinks]

10. Ohhhh, "I leveled tonight!!!!!"

tiddlywinks mocks.

OOOOoooohhhh, the angst.
You deserve this
:spank: for that.
no, just a :hug: and :loveya:
But, really? Don't you see my pain???
Now I'm :grr:
But I hope you'd be happy for me so, I should be happy for you.
:eyes:
So, okay, that was really cool, man. :headbang:
You rock.

(urm, what time exactly did you level last night, love???)

[Elidor]

12. Sorry, love

I do feel your pain. I should have said I read a book last night. I leveled early. I just happened to be up for a glass of water. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Now I have to go to work for the first time in ten days. Ugh. :cry:

[tiddlywinks]

15. lol, i'm jonesin' for Wow

the little night elf in the game i created is crying "help me!!!"

[TimeChaser]

9. Eheheh... I was just playing ^^

I'm a level 31 Tauren Druid on the Spirestone server, and a level 20 Night Elf Priest on the Stormscale server.

It's fun... a great way of relaxing after classes, a way to play with my friends across the country who I don't get to see enough in real life, and so on.

[NewJeffCT]

11. I haven't played a computer RPG since...

way back a good 11-12 years ago with a game called "Eye of the Beholder"... I'm sure PC gaming has come a long long ways since then.

However, i still prefer my RPGs to be face to face, like Dungeons & Dragons.

[Bombero1956]

13. don't know about WoW

but I've been playing City of Heroes since August 2004 and recently got City of Villains. I guess you could become addicted if you didn't have other outside hobbies, family, job to keep you from playing for insanely long periods of time. Part of it is an escape from reality and with the world being in the mess it's in who wouldn't want to get away and stay. I belong to a super group called the Jolly Rogers and most of the members are fulltime Navy their wives and girlfriends. We play only when we can play together and with varying work schedules limits the amount of time we play. Here are a couple of screenshots of 2 of my toons.


Baron Cobra


Capt. Sparrow

[cssmall]

14. Agreed there.

I would rather play D&D with my group of four. ;) They nearly got killed last night. . . well, at least, the Cleric of Kossuth did. Otherwise, in response to the OP, I think she's fine. It's good to blow off steam. My wife is doing it with Shining Force for the old genesis. Who cares? Everyone needs a break.

Gaming addiction will show up with incomplete lesson plans, ungraded tests, missed days at work, missed dates with the SO, etc.

[TheBaldyMan]

16. the first step is to admit you have a problem

although i can't point the finger at anyone else. I had a Championship Manager(CM99-00) addiction and don't play that particular game anymore.

Right now I'm recuperating from an illness, so the last year I have done a obscene amount of gaming just to relieve the boredom because I can't be as physically active as I am used to. My present fix is Guild Wars and have clocked up a lot of time since I installed it a couple of months ago. Online gaming can be a mix of pleasure and pain. Some gamers are real sweeties and some are plain ignorant.

As far as the social aspect goes, I think that it is an outlet that I could not otherwise have and yesterday cheered someone by wishing them a Happy New Year in their own language. You can get a real sense of friendship and companionship playing MMORPGs and a lot of foreign players get to practice their English. There is a danger that you can get hooked by losing sense of time, I've started playing at 7pm and not notice the clock again until past midnight. When you are clocking up lots of hours in the space of a week is the time to worry. Other than that if you only play a couple of hours a day you should have no problems. I have learned how to say "I am about to log" in most major european languages.

As you are starting work again I wouldn't worry too much about getting addicted. Needing to keep a work schedule tends to regulate your gaming activity anyway. If you are still worried about spending too much time online keep an alarm clock handy and use it.

edited for grammar & spelling

[politicat]

17. You're not an addict.

Gaming can be time consuming, yes, but so is cross stitch or tv watching or whatever - and rarely do people talk about sewing addicts. Gaming is considered evil because most people don't understand how important fantasy and imagination are and deny that fantasy can be important, and it has no time honored history of being an accepted pastime. Think about the hobbies of those who are being so worried - and then think about the amounts of time and money they spend on their hobbies....

If you find that it is interfering in your working life - i.e. you're taking sick days to stay home and game - or your personal life - you retreat into the game rather than work through personal problems, or you game rather than exercise - then you need to consider that you're avoiding something. But if you were on vacation, then that was your time to play and relax... and if the game is how you chose to do that, then that's your decision.

Besides, it's a new toy.

[tiddlywinks]

18. Yeah man, yeah!

and Thank You! Now I can go eat my dinner noodle in peace!