Topics like this make me glad I never got started on MMOs. I remember buying Everquest back in junior high, not knowing it was an MMO, thinking it was like Morrowind or something (just a bigass world where you could do damn near anything). I tried to get into it anyway, but fortunately my terrible 56k connection wouldn't ever even let me get signed on.
After hearing how addictive and life-altering (seriously, years of people's lives?) these things can be, I can't help but wonder how much different things would have been. Would I have had as many friends? Would I have done as well in school?
Of course, I lost most of my interest in trying it out once I learned that it took something like 80 hours before you even got to level 10 and learned a few abilities (plus I always hated the idea of paying for a game I'd already bought). Maybe I would have got sick of it. I'm glad I didn't find out, though.
Hey guy. If the point of WoW was to compete or cooperate everyone would start completely at the highest level.
They praticlly give it to you. So you can learn a thing or two about your class.
You live in a fantasy world. Levels 1-79 are just an elaborate apprenticeship for the time when you eventually get to play with the big boys.
I'm not saying that there aren't lots of things to like about WoW. But saying that character progression isn't the main one is provably wrong.
How popular do you think the next expansion would be if it didn't raise the level cap?
I dont care. As long people have people to log into with and do things with or gank I dont think it really matters. I honestly forgot what leveling is like since I did it back in 2004 in 1 month and then hit before christmas. I think people who play WOW everyday all the time are not leveling a character to 80. If so then they really suck at the game, as the game basiclly gives you levels.
There's nothing random in a lot of WOW. Most of the best items are bought with PVP points, rewarded with arena performance, crafted with tradeskills, etc... PVE raids earn you PVE gear that makes PVE easier. PVE can be beaten without said gear, however.
You're a god damned moron who says god damned moronic things.
Check maxdps.com or Elitist Jerks to see how many of the "best items" are pvp welfare epics or crafted items. If you're going to genuinely engage in a conversation pertaining to WoW and discuss gearing a character without mentioning mentioning Kel'Thuzad and rather focusing upon arenas, BGs, and other noob coddling bullshit then you simply do not have any idea of what the shit you're talking about.
This thread is an example of a time where someone can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Tube has pretty much covered my stance on this, more or less. I don't quite like the tone in the original post, though.
Two girls are renting the apartment under me, and one of them likes to game The Sims 2 in her free time. She told me that she really likes the game, and she would play it more often, but her roommate keeps telling her she has no life because she plays it for half an hour or hour every day. Just rubs me the wrong way when people butt their noses in like that trying to tell someone what they should be doing with their own free time.
My point with the story aside from my ranting is that I recognize there are real addicts in WoW, but not only is it hard to differentiate between an actual addiction and an avid fan, it is also an incredibly subjective analysis in the first place.
The limed part is EXACTLY what this thread originally was all about. Some guy spends a lot of time on WoW while still having a normal (though not very social) life, and a condescending person has taken upon himself to rid him of any behaviour he does not approve of.
And that's also what everyone here who says that WoW is inherently bad/lame/evil is doing.
With all the non-addicted WoW players, you'd think that the addicts have willpower issues and that WoW isn't the problem (although its mechanics encourage you to keep paying a monthly fee for it). Blizzard doesn't give a shit how many hours a week you play, as long as you don't cancel your subscription.
OF COURSE in a 11 millions people pool there will be addicts.
Have we asked whether or not the guy who wants his friend to stop playing is boring?
WoW is pretty damned fun. And if one can function AND play WoW there's no problem. It's a hobby.
I dont play WoW and only came in here because it seemed like an interesting topic, and I read the first couple pages and the last couple, and I think you're way out of line calling the OP condescending.
The OP sounded concerned to me, and I think he has every reason to be. He's seen a pretty drastic change in someone's personaliy that he is close to, and is wondering what the cause of the change is - and has a pretty good suspicion. Doesn't want to destroy the friendship so he came here for some basic advice on how to handle it.
He never said "He plays WoW and he should be watching sports with me!" or anything about WoW being stupid. He said that a guy he's friends with has gradually withdrawn, and he's concerned.
It's totally possible the roomate is sick of him, and is playing games to drown out having to live with him - which sucks for him, but that's life.
But as 2 college aged adults, I would hope he can approach his roomate and voice his concern, and they can have an honest discussion, even if it is just "I'm fine, I just love this game." and "Ok then, just hope you wanna hang with us again soon."
In no way do I view this as any form of "YOU SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING ELSE INSTEAD!"
mxmarks on
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Hold on, are you seriously suggesting that a random chance to gain an item causes addiction?
No, no one's suggesting it. Science has shown it pretty clearly. Experiments were done where a rat pressed a lever, and food came out randomly. The rat would press the lever constantly, even when it was not hungry any more. It's why people get addicted to gambling.
Hold on, are you seriously suggesting that a random chance to gain an item causes addiction?
No, no one's suggesting it. Science has shown it pretty clearly. Experiments were done where a rat pressed a lever, and food came out randomly. The rat would press the lever constantly, even when it was not hungry any more. It's why people get addicted to gambling.
Skinner box! This is EXACTLY what WOW is.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
No, no one's suggesting it. Science has shown it pretty clearly. Experiments were done where a rat pressed a lever, and food came out randomly. The rat would press the lever constantly, even when it was not hungry any more. It's why people get addicted to gambling.
Slot machines in casinos work on the exact same system. That's why you see thousands of people in Vegas who sit at a slot machine for hours upon hours, putting money in a pushing a single damned button while staring like a zombie. It's really creepy just to watch it; it's like they're in a completely different world.
It's hard to gauge addiction when it's interfering with non-essential aspects of life. When they are skipping class or not going to work, it's pretty easy to determine. You can't be that addicted if you still have the willpower to prioritize things over the game.
Neglecting friends would be worrisome, I'd say. But addiction? Hard to say unless his grades were clearly beginning to decline or perhaps he was scheduling classes just so it'd be easier to play more.
Man, this reminded me of one of my first semesters in college where I scheduled my classes around raiding >_>
Those were dark times, dark times... (also lost contact with my best friend because of WoW)
OP, can you remember any particular activities that your friend likes to do that aren't associated with a keyboard? Winter sports are probably out at this point, but it would give you some hint of whether or not he's seriously addicted. It could be that he's just becoming a bit more introverted than he used to be. Speaking as a former addict, the only other advice I can offer is not to push, because it's pretty likely to blow up in your face.
Whatever. I had the game on for half the day every day for the entire time. I would play at work, get home from work and first thing I would do was log in. I would wake up and turn the game on before taking a piss, brushing my teeth, or scratching my balls. My character's name was Fei, his guild was Onslaught (see forum name). I made 60 within the first month, never rolled alts. I can tell you it was not about leveling and not about random loot. I had full 8 pierce tier 1 and still raided molten core. I had full 8 piece tier 2 (which was worse than tier 1 for shamans, true story, and was also the last to collect it in guild) in BWL. In fact theres only 2 items I ever wanted in BWL and I received them both on the first boss kills of Firemaw (CoTBD) and Flamegor (Shroud of Pure Thought) and continued to go into that dungeon for almost another year, multi weekly and then eventually weekly. I can tell you for a fact that raiding with 39 comrades had nothing to do with loot. We did it to compete with other guilds like Beatdown Brigade, Destinys Bane, Retaliation, Invictus Mortem, Rage, and other guilds who were right there with us. I never got a damn thing from Nef and CThun's set item drops multiple times every fucking kill.
So you people sit here comfortably in your armchair like you can just dictate and judge why people get addicted like you fucking know everything. If there are people getting addicted over leveling and getting random items than those people are idiots. Everyone I knew and played with was hooked in against our will because of the social aspects of it and the dire consequences of failing a weekly raid meant getting behind the other guilds competition or missing a day of pvping meant no high warlord. People that couldnt find major raiding guilds did the HWL grind or disappeared into obscurity.
Most of the hardcore shit doesnt even apply to wow anymore. You can do every raid in a night, its all easy now, they practiclly hand out epics, and theres no more pvp rank grinding. I hear reputation is pretty damn easy to get. You take away the social and community aspects of wow and you have nothing. Youll only get an extremely small fraction of people who play for more than a few months.
Your reasons to play the game are your personal reasons. Everyone plays for different reasons. Please recognize this, accept it, and get off your damn high horse like you have indepth insight into everyone's personal psyche.
Your reasons to play the game are your personal reasons. Everyone plays for different reasons. Please recognize this, accept it, and get off your damn high horse like you have indepth insight into everyone's personal psyche.
Dood, I have people telling me I wasnt addicted and I was wrong. People who dont know shit about the game. I am aware people play for different reasons but the people who get addicted are the raiders. Not the casuals. If theres someone whos addicted to the game for fishing, doing mundane solo quests, and collecting mounts then there are a lot more severe addictions they could have if they are that easily warped into something.
Your reasons to play the game are your personal reasons. Everyone plays for different reasons. Please recognize this, accept it, and get off your damn high horse like you have indepth insight into everyone's personal psyche.
Dood, I have people telling me I wasnt addicted and I was wrong. People who dont know shit about the game. I am aware people play for different reasons but the people who get addicted are the raiders. Not the casuals. If theres someone whos addicted to the game for fishing, doing mundane solo quests, and collecting mounts then there are a lot more severe addictions they could have if they are that easily warped into something.
your personal biases about what you like in the game are clouding your posts
Your reasons to play the game are your personal reasons. Everyone plays for different reasons. Please recognize this, accept it, and get off your damn high horse like you have indepth insight into everyone's personal psyche.
Dood, I have people telling me I wasnt addicted and I was wrong. People who dont know shit about the game. I am aware people play for different reasons but the people who get addicted are the raiders. Not the casuals. If theres someone whos addicted to the game for fishing, doing mundane solo quests, and collecting mounts then there are a lot more severe addictions they could have if they are that easily warped into something.
your personal biases about what you like in the game are clouding your posts
please stop that
Right, all the life sucking time consuming things that every hardcore player fell into.
I was never a hardcore player but I was heartily addicted to the game
I guess it doesn't matter because my addiction could have been more severe?
And your addiction netted you over 365 time /played within 2 and a half years? Did you also lose your job, stop taking care of your hygiene and log in every chance you could? I mean if were gonna talk about how addictions are relative to the person then lets define what we mean by addicted. Im talking addiction.
Your reasons to play the game are your personal reasons. Everyone plays for different reasons. Please recognize this, accept it, and get off your damn high horse like you have indepth insight into everyone's personal psyche.
Dood, I have people telling me I wasnt addicted and I was wrong. People who dont know shit about the game. I am aware people play for different reasons but the people who get addicted are the raiders. Not the casuals. If theres someone whos addicted to the game for fishing, doing mundane solo quests, and collecting mounts then there are a lot more severe addictions they could have if they are that easily warped into something.
your personal biases about what you like in the game are clouding your posts
please stop that
Right, all the life sucking time consuming things that every hardcore player fell into.
You are aware that even being addicted to those "mundane" things, they are still addicted to the game. The difference is, they live to level alts/professions or PvP 'till the cows come home. It's the same kind of addiction as the people who are the hardcore raiders. Your own argument could be used against hardcore raiders, as there are a LOT worse things to be addicted to than raiding in WoW.
I PVPd every chance I could, thats part of the grind. Nothing is going to prevent you from doing anything like going out and spending some times like a set raid schedule or any other set obligations like arena teams or maintaining your pvp rank so you dont lose it. I have never ever met or heard of someone completely unwilling to go out and do something every once and awhile because they just wanted to level up some alts, they did so because they had made in-game obligations.
Im talking about the norm here, the common stuff, the vast majority, the pvp grinders and the raiders. Im not talking about the exception to the rule and the small percentage of people who just zombify themselves while not playing with any other players.
Not a WoW player here, but I'm constantly amazed at how some people tend to get righteous about it.
So your buddy is 'addicted' to WoW and spends every waking hour sitting in front of his PC.
So I ask you - replace "WoW" with "reading books" or "painting" - would you feel compelled to intervene? He spends every waking hour curled up on the couch reading and not playing bass guitar or throwing the frisbee around or whatever socially acceptable activity you deem is appropriate.
Does this mandate soul saving?
YES
But you don't see people get that addicted to painting or reading. You do with WOW though
Actually, yes I do. People just don't often call it addiction because they don't generally have a nonsensical hate-on for books and paintings.
I was never a hardcore player but I was heartily addicted to the game
I guess it doesn't matter because my addiction could have been more severe?
And your addiction netted you over 365 time /played within 2 and a half years? Did you also lose your job, stop taking care of your hygiene and log in every chance you could? I mean if were gonna talk about how addictions are relative to the person then lets define what we mean by addicted. Im talking addiction.
I dunno what my played time is, but you don't need to wave around that number to validate yourself or invalidate me.
it's fine to admit you had a severe addiction. there's no need to then conclude that no other less severe or different addiction is worth addressing or caring about.
Not a WoW player here, but I'm constantly amazed at how some people tend to get righteous about it.
So your buddy is 'addicted' to WoW and spends every waking hour sitting in front of his PC.
So I ask you - replace "WoW" with "reading books" or "painting" - would you feel compelled to intervene? He spends every waking hour curled up on the couch reading and not playing bass guitar or throwing the frisbee around or whatever socially acceptable activity you deem is appropriate.
Does this mandate soul saving?
YES
But you don't see people get that addicted to painting or reading. You do with WOW though
Actually, yes I do. People just don't often call it addiction because they don't generally have a nonsensical hate-on for books and paintings.
If you replaced "WoW" with any one of those things you mentioned, i'd call them monomaniacal. If all he did was sit in his room and read books until he fell asleep every night, turning away from social obligations and friends to do so, i'd be very concerned.
I was never a hardcore player but I was heartily addicted to the game
I guess it doesn't matter because my addiction could have been more severe?
And your addiction netted you over 365 time /played within 2 and a half years? Did you also lose your job, stop taking care of your hygiene and log in every chance you could? I mean if were gonna talk about how addictions are relative to the person then lets define what we mean by addicted. Im talking addiction.
I dunno what my played time is, but you don't need to wave around that number to validate yourself or invalidate me.
it's fine to admit you had a severe addiction. there's no need to then conclude that no other less severe or different addiction is worth addressing or caring about.
The OP has stated that his roommate is a raider and used an example of him upstaging him and his buddies because he had made a committment. I know from first hand experience what that means. Whatever rare case of someone who is addicted to the point where they wont do anything but play the game but dont make in game commitments is something completely used for arguments sake, nonpractical, and I dont really believe it, tbh.
My advice to the OP still stands. If you want to spend time with him that much figure out his raid schedule.
Oh man, reading this thread reminded me just how bad the old PVP rating system was. It was a system where you had to play the most to succeed, and you were competing against your whole server. I remember getting together with two of my friends to play one of our characters in shifts just to compete, god, that was miserable.
I got really into WoW's fishing. I'd show up for the tournament, I even had fishing UI mods and a special fishing outfit I wore.
It was really good gold too, if you knew when and where to fish. I would spend hours fishing. Of course, one of the best parts about fishing was that I could do something else, like homework or read a book, while I fished, thanks to my UI mods.
ah so you're just going to handwave and tell me I wasn't addicted because I wasn't doing a raid schedule
kay
I dont buy it. I really honestly dont believe it. I have presented my evidence and experience on the table and elaborated on the past and how much it consumed me. All you have told me is that you were addicted but didnt make in game commitments. What would you do? What era of WOW? How far did you get doing whatever you do? Did you play with any social communal aspects? Or just wander around killing monsters for random loot?
I got really into WoW's fishing. I'd show up for the tournament, I even had fishing UI mods and a special fishing outfit I wore.
It was really good gold too, if you knew when and where to fish. I would spend hours fishing. Of course, one of the best parts about fishing was that I could do something else, like homework or read a book, while I fished, thanks to my UI mods.
Tournament was awesome. Server first horde champ! I had the hat, boots, the special reward pole WITH the fishing line enchant! Also I had the fishing tricket that morphed you into a fish for faster speeds. Good times. Some intense PVP as well.
ah so you're just going to handwave and tell me I wasn't addicted because I wasn't doing a raid schedule
kay
I dont buy it. I really honestly dont believe it. I have presented my evidence and experience on the table and elaborated on the past and how much it consumed me. All you have told me is that you were addicted but didnt make in game commitments. What would you do? What era of WOW? How far did you get doing whatever you do? Did you play with any social communal aspects? Or just wander around killing monsters for random loot?
There are varying levels of addiction and obsession, dude. Just because someone doesn't display the same level of addictiveness as you have doesn't mean they aren't addicted too.
ah so you're just going to handwave and tell me I wasn't addicted because I wasn't doing a raid schedule
kay
I dont buy it. I really honestly dont believe it. I have presented my evidence and experience on the table and elaborated on the past and how much it consumed me. All you have told me is that you were addicted but didnt make in game commitments. What would you do? What era of WOW? How far did you get doing whatever you do? Did you play with any social communal aspects? Or just wander around killing monsters for random loot?
Yes, you presented evidence of your own addiction. Let me repeat this: Your own addiction
Do I need to blow up the font size, maybe? Your personal anecdotes will NOT 100% ALWAYS carry over to other people. You are you. They are them. Your personal experience is NOT directly analagous to another person's.
Stop faking like you know the root of the problem because you were a hardcore raider, when other people are addicted for totally different reasons.
Edit: Beat by Drez, but maybe we need to have 2 people tell you.
ah so you're just going to handwave and tell me I wasn't addicted because I wasn't doing a raid schedule
kay
I dont buy it. I really honestly dont believe it. I have presented my evidence and experience on the table and elaborated on the past and how much it consumed me. All you have told me is that you were addicted but didnt make in game commitments. What would you do? What era of WOW? How far did you get doing whatever you do? Did you play with any social communal aspects? Or just wander around killing monsters for random loot?
There are varying levels of addiction and obsession, dude. Just because someone doesn't display the same level of addictiveness as you have doesn't mean they aren't addicted too.
Well thats my point. We are talking about someone who refuses to do things with IRL friends and all they do is play WOW. Thats my whole point. If you are at that level I guarantee you that you're trying either hardcore raiding or hardcore pvping of a sort. Im sure you can be less addicted but with less addiction comes willingness to do other things.
ah so you're just going to handwave and tell me I wasn't addicted because I wasn't doing a raid schedule
kay
I dont buy it. I really honestly dont believe it. I have presented my evidence and experience on the table and elaborated on the past and how much it consumed me. All you have told me is that you were addicted but didnt make in game commitments. What would you do? What era of WOW? How far did you get doing whatever you do? Did you play with any social communal aspects? Or just wander around killing monsters for random loot?
Yes, you presented evidence of your own addiction. Let me repeat this: Your own addiction
Do I need to blow up the font size, maybe? Your personal anecdotes will NOT 100% ALWAYS carry over to other people. You are you. They are them. Your personal experience is NOT directly analagous to another person's.
Stop faking like you know the root of the problem because you were a hardcore raider, when other people are addicted for totally different reasons.
Edit: Beat by Drez, but maybe we need to have 2 people tell you.
Whatever. You do not even respond to my questions? Whos dodging the arguments? You are. I am frankly asking what you did, maybe I will know what its like to meet someone who was addicted to the point where they wouldnt do other stuff irl because they were out scowering for peaceblooms in Durotar 14 hours a day. I dont really know. Im asking you and you refuse to answer me. I both raided and PVPed at the most demanding levels and sacrificed my soul in the process.
ah so you're just going to handwave and tell me I wasn't addicted because I wasn't doing a raid schedule
kay
I dont buy it. I really honestly dont believe it. I have presented my evidence and experience on the table and elaborated on the past and how much it consumed me. All you have told me is that you were addicted but didnt make in game commitments. What would you do? What era of WOW? How far did you get doing whatever you do? Did you play with any social communal aspects? Or just wander around killing monsters for random loot?
There are varying levels of addiction and obsession, dude. Just because someone doesn't display the same level of addictiveness as you have doesn't mean they aren't addicted too.
Well thats my point. We are talking about someone who refuses to do things with IRL friends and all they do is play WOW. Thats my whole point. If you are at that level I guarantee you that you're trying either hardcore raiding or hardcore pvping of a sort. Im sure you can be less addicted but with less addiction comes willingness to do other things.
Bzzt.
I played EQ1 for four years between 1999 and 2003. I routinely skipped class and wouldn't hang out with friends in favor of playing EverQuest.
I didn't raid much. Sure, once in awhile, but not really. I never even hit level 60 (the max after the first or second addon) with ANY of my characters. But I was certainly addicted.
When I quit, I had 120 played days on my account. That's over 2500 hours.
But I didn't really need to provide my counter-anecdote you prove you wrong because you are wrong anyway. Your position regarding what constitutes "addiction" here is factually, objectively wrong. The end.
Posts
You live in a fantasy world. Levels 1-79 are just an elaborate apprenticeship for the time when you eventually get to play with the big boys.
I'm not saying that there aren't lots of things to like about WoW. But saying that character progression isn't the main one is provably wrong.
How popular do you think the next expansion would be if it didn't raise the level cap?
https://medium.com/@alascii
After hearing how addictive and life-altering (seriously, years of people's lives?) these things can be, I can't help but wonder how much different things would have been. Would I have had as many friends? Would I have done as well in school?
Of course, I lost most of my interest in trying it out once I learned that it took something like 80 hours before you even got to level 10 and learned a few abilities (plus I always hated the idea of paying for a game I'd already bought). Maybe I would have got sick of it. I'm glad I didn't find out, though.
I dont care. As long people have people to log into with and do things with or gank I dont think it really matters. I honestly forgot what leveling is like since I did it back in 2004 in 1 month and then hit before christmas. I think people who play WOW everyday all the time are not leveling a character to 80. If so then they really suck at the game, as the game basiclly gives you levels.
. . . okay . . .
I dont play WoW and only came in here because it seemed like an interesting topic, and I read the first couple pages and the last couple, and I think you're way out of line calling the OP condescending.
The OP sounded concerned to me, and I think he has every reason to be. He's seen a pretty drastic change in someone's personaliy that he is close to, and is wondering what the cause of the change is - and has a pretty good suspicion. Doesn't want to destroy the friendship so he came here for some basic advice on how to handle it.
He never said "He plays WoW and he should be watching sports with me!" or anything about WoW being stupid. He said that a guy he's friends with has gradually withdrawn, and he's concerned.
It's totally possible the roomate is sick of him, and is playing games to drown out having to live with him - which sucks for him, but that's life.
But as 2 college aged adults, I would hope he can approach his roomate and voice his concern, and they can have an honest discussion, even if it is just "I'm fine, I just love this game." and "Ok then, just hope you wanna hang with us again soon."
In no way do I view this as any form of "YOU SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING ELSE INSTEAD!"
No, no one's suggesting it. Science has shown it pretty clearly. Experiments were done where a rat pressed a lever, and food came out randomly. The rat would press the lever constantly, even when it was not hungry any more. It's why people get addicted to gambling.
Skinner box! This is EXACTLY what WOW is.
Arguing on the Internet something Special Olympics something something still retarded.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Man, this reminded me of one of my first semesters in college where I scheduled my classes around raiding >_>
Those were dark times, dark times... (also lost contact with my best friend because of WoW)
Why? Because I was addicted for 2 and a half years?
i think it has more to do with your ignorance and thick headed stance.
So you people sit here comfortably in your armchair like you can just dictate and judge why people get addicted like you fucking know everything. If there are people getting addicted over leveling and getting random items than those people are idiots. Everyone I knew and played with was hooked in against our will because of the social aspects of it and the dire consequences of failing a weekly raid meant getting behind the other guilds competition or missing a day of pvping meant no high warlord. People that couldnt find major raiding guilds did the HWL grind or disappeared into obscurity.
Most of the hardcore shit doesnt even apply to wow anymore. You can do every raid in a night, its all easy now, they practiclly hand out epics, and theres no more pvp rank grinding. I hear reputation is pretty damn easy to get. You take away the social and community aspects of wow and you have nothing. Youll only get an extremely small fraction of people who play for more than a few months.
Dood, I have people telling me I wasnt addicted and I was wrong. People who dont know shit about the game. I am aware people play for different reasons but the people who get addicted are the raiders. Not the casuals. If theres someone whos addicted to the game for fishing, doing mundane solo quests, and collecting mounts then there are a lot more severe addictions they could have if they are that easily warped into something.
your personal biases about what you like in the game are clouding your posts
please stop that
Right, all the life sucking time consuming things that every hardcore player fell into.
I guess it doesn't matter because my addiction could have been more severe?
And your addiction netted you over 365 time /played within 2 and a half years? Did you also lose your job, stop taking care of your hygiene and log in every chance you could? I mean if were gonna talk about how addictions are relative to the person then lets define what we mean by addicted. Im talking addiction.
You are aware that even being addicted to those "mundane" things, they are still addicted to the game. The difference is, they live to level alts/professions or PvP 'till the cows come home. It's the same kind of addiction as the people who are the hardcore raiders. Your own argument could be used against hardcore raiders, as there are a LOT worse things to be addicted to than raiding in WoW.
Im talking about the norm here, the common stuff, the vast majority, the pvp grinders and the raiders. Im not talking about the exception to the rule and the small percentage of people who just zombify themselves while not playing with any other players.
Actually, yes I do. People just don't often call it addiction because they don't generally have a nonsensical hate-on for books and paintings.
I dunno what my played time is, but you don't need to wave around that number to validate yourself or invalidate me.
it's fine to admit you had a severe addiction. there's no need to then conclude that no other less severe or different addiction is worth addressing or caring about.
Is there some kind of reasoning behind this claim or are you hoping it stands on its own?
If you replaced "WoW" with any one of those things you mentioned, i'd call them monomaniacal. If all he did was sit in his room and read books until he fell asleep every night, turning away from social obligations and friends to do so, i'd be very concerned.
The OP has stated that his roommate is a raider and used an example of him upstaging him and his buddies because he had made a committment. I know from first hand experience what that means. Whatever rare case of someone who is addicted to the point where they wont do anything but play the game but dont make in game commitments is something completely used for arguments sake, nonpractical, and I dont really believe it, tbh.
My advice to the OP still stands. If you want to spend time with him that much figure out his raid schedule.
Heh, I can't believe I actually did that.
kay
It was really good gold too, if you knew when and where to fish. I would spend hours fishing. Of course, one of the best parts about fishing was that I could do something else, like homework or read a book, while I fished, thanks to my UI mods.
I dont buy it. I really honestly dont believe it. I have presented my evidence and experience on the table and elaborated on the past and how much it consumed me. All you have told me is that you were addicted but didnt make in game commitments. What would you do? What era of WOW? How far did you get doing whatever you do? Did you play with any social communal aspects? Or just wander around killing monsters for random loot?
Tournament was awesome. Server first horde champ! I had the hat, boots, the special reward pole WITH the fishing line enchant! Also I had the fishing tricket that morphed you into a fish for faster speeds. Good times. Some intense PVP as well.
There are varying levels of addiction and obsession, dude. Just because someone doesn't display the same level of addictiveness as you have doesn't mean they aren't addicted too.
Yes, you presented evidence of your own addiction. Let me repeat this: Your own addiction
Do I need to blow up the font size, maybe? Your personal anecdotes will NOT 100% ALWAYS carry over to other people. You are you. They are them. Your personal experience is NOT directly analagous to another person's.
Stop faking like you know the root of the problem because you were a hardcore raider, when other people are addicted for totally different reasons.
Edit: Beat by Drez, but maybe we need to have 2 people tell you.
Well thats my point. We are talking about someone who refuses to do things with IRL friends and all they do is play WOW. Thats my whole point. If you are at that level I guarantee you that you're trying either hardcore raiding or hardcore pvping of a sort. Im sure you can be less addicted but with less addiction comes willingness to do other things.
Whatever. You do not even respond to my questions? Whos dodging the arguments? You are. I am frankly asking what you did, maybe I will know what its like to meet someone who was addicted to the point where they wouldnt do other stuff irl because they were out scowering for peaceblooms in Durotar 14 hours a day. I dont really know. Im asking you and you refuse to answer me. I both raided and PVPed at the most demanding levels and sacrificed my soul in the process.
Bzzt.
I played EQ1 for four years between 1999 and 2003. I routinely skipped class and wouldn't hang out with friends in favor of playing EverQuest.
I didn't raid much. Sure, once in awhile, but not really. I never even hit level 60 (the max after the first or second addon) with ANY of my characters. But I was certainly addicted.
When I quit, I had 120 played days on my account. That's over 2500 hours.
But I didn't really need to provide my counter-anecdote you prove you wrong because you are wrong anyway. Your position regarding what constitutes "addiction" here is factually, objectively wrong. The end.