I think I need to quit

Lord.Admiral.Fancypants

At first I considered gaming altogether, and maybe thats what it will come down to. At this point I think it's just MMO's.
No this isn't another horror story about how I lost my job, girlfriend etc etc because of my habitual gaming. I've never
actually even come to these forums until now, but I figured "If anyone could give me advice on the subject, it would be
the Penny-Arcade forums." Lo and behold, there was even an advice forum sub-section.

I'll get right to the point: today I unsubbed from a game for the gajillionth time because I was unhappy with the "class balance."
About a week prior I bought a different game because I was bored with the aforementioned game. Today I resubbed to a
different game I had played earlier in the year. I did't blow through a lot of money, but when I consider the amount of time and
money I sink into these games, it sickens me. I want to play with friends and I've made some good friends as a result that I hate
to ditch, but I think I need a new hobby. My fear is that if I don't give up games entirely, it will make it next to impossible to quit
JUST MMO's or Online PC games in general.

Incidentally, my girlfriend got me a Gamecube for christmas with a collectors edition Legend of Zelda (Long story, but its incredibly
thoughtful of her to have hunted this down for me) so I dont think giving up gaming all together is going to be a solution here.

Any other previous MMO players out there have any advice for getting out of the Genre?

ceres

I've been through this a bit.. for me, it's enough to quit the game giving me the most trouble. It sounds like you have one particular game that really makes you crazy (for me that game was WoW, makes me just fucking insane). Try cutting that game out of your life to start with, whatever that game is for you. And then just... don't replace it with another game. By that I mean "don't spend the time and money you were spending on that game on a different game." I think a big part of avoiding MMO addiction is actually good time management. Take that time you would have spent and spend it on a different hobby, or learning something new, or on things around the house or outside of it that are productive. You can keep playing whatever else you want to play, just don't do it with time you would have spent on the game you dropped. For me MMOs are a special kind of addictive that single-player games can never touch, so dropping the bad one and making an effort not to fill it with another is enough for me.

And that's just one suggestion.. I'm sure there are as many other suggestions as there are people out there.

Lord.Admiral.Fancypants

I've got 29 days left on this sub, 12 on WoW. My plan is to uninstall both on the 23rd. Your advice is good, in that I think my goal on the 24th will be avoiding my computer like the plague. I think if I can just make it 30 days without playing a single online game, I should be able to completely switch over into the new hobby AND getting back into casual gaming and not MMO's.

knitdan

I agree with finding a new hobby. Sometimes games just aren't fun anymore, and your brain could use a break. For me, it's knitting.

I admire that you have recognized a potential problem and want to fix it before it becomes a serious life changing issue.

wonderpug

A bunch of years I realized my WoW playing had gotten out of control. For me, a cold turkey approach was right. I stopped playing all games of any sort. Uninstalled everything, unplugged my consoles. If I made certain exceptions, I knew that would just start me slipping down a path toward playing an unhealthy amount of games again.

Doing this led me to find new ways to spend my time, or get back to hobbies/activities/friends I had started neglecting. After about 4 months, I allowed myself one and only one game purchase. The better habits I gained in those 4 months stuck, and I was able to maintain a well-balanced amount of gaming after that.

I did continue to stay away from MMOs, though. There's just something about the mix of the carrot-on-a-stick, in-game social aspects, and the need to 'get my money's worth' out of my monthly fee that just creates and incredibly addictive substance. Guild Wars 2 was my first exception to the rule in some 7-8 years, largely because I knew the lack of a monthly fee would keep the addictive formula from being quite as strong.

edit: forgot to mention that I had to include gaming forums and websites as part of my blackout period.

Shutdown

Maybe just don't treat games like it's everything you have to do in your spare time. One month I might be grinding the Xbox every day the next, if there's something else on it'll stay off and collect dust.

Don't just cut out games cold turkey because that's a broad way to tackle the problem (and if there's a part of you that still really enjoys games in generally, you'll resent the fact you can't let yourself do it) - you might just need something else to do as well.

ceres

For me, it's raiding and achievements and collecting. WoW is just crack for those things, and I can literally go insane trying to do everything. And you know... it's not even FUN. It's actually fun for a few minutes, and beyond that it's work. I have never had another MMO approach that level of crazy to the point where it just makes me impossible and consumes EVERYTHING.. so for me if I avoid WoW I'm golden. I did end up going back once and it wasn't even that bad. I didn't feel the quite the same crazy I had before, but I think if I'd spent much more time playing it I could have gotten there eventually. But like.. I don't have to say to myself "I won't touch my console or go near another game" because I've pinpointed the issue and it's just WoW.

I guess what I'm saying is that you may be able to narrow it down a bit. Then again, if you know yourself and you know that being at your computer will have you doing these things, then you are absolutely right and don't be at your computer. Then again again, if it's that bad you may need to make it a lot longer than 30 days, and I don't know if you want to cut your PC out of your life forever.

-SPI-

I found after quitting WoW playing other games just put MMOs into that much sharper relief. It felt so rewarding to actually play through a single player game and finish it. Especially since many of the games were part of a pile that had built up over time when I was playing WoW.

FANTOMAS

I had a similar dilema, with online games. I solved it playing a diferent kind of game that I also like a lot. Fighting games, in this specific case, a very technical and stressfull game VF 5: FS.

The good thing about this fighting game is, mostly I just play it face to face with my friends, and secondly, I find it impossible to play this game for 4 or 5 hours straight like you would an MMO, after a vouple of rounds in a fighting game, I already feel "sated", and ready to leave the console/computer to do something else.

So, find a game that you feel rewarding, but that it doesnt involve farming, leveling up, or repeating actions to no end, like WoW and the million of WoW imitations out there.

Lilnoobs

And when you quit the game, quit everything about it. Don't read up on the latest strats, don't go to your guild's website, don't keep up with anything about the game.

The first time I quit I told myself I would just read about the game and that would satisfy me. Just a bit here, maybe some news here, progress over here. But that didn't work for me because I still wasted time (now I was reading about it instead of playing it) and it made me want to get back in.

CelestialBadger

You sound bored and jaded with MMOs. It seems to me that you'll just drift away from them, especially if you make an effort to find something more interesting to do. It doesn't necessarily mean you wasted your life, just that you are naturally moving onto a new phase of life.

Iruka

I quit wow when I got to college after playing for the bulk of my highschool days. When I got to college I just didn't want to be the kid in their room playing MMOs alone. Even without the always-something-happening air of a campus around you, I recommend putting yourself outside of your house to get away from the games a bit.

Find a MeetUp group, pick up sports, or something else to get yourself a little more social and busy, and the habit will melt away without much effort.

Even if you are more introverted, you can still spend quiet weekends out of the house at museums or libraries, anywhere that is new to you will be more intellectually stimulating/fulfilling.

Mortious

For me (it was also WoW) don't play similar games.

Trying to replace it with LOTR (which was F2P, so didn't give me the same anxiety when not playing) didn't work, as it just annoyed me and made me go back to WoW.

Not just a gameplay change, thematically as well.

And if you're having issues with time management, games with discreet sections of play work best. i.e. Civ5 is bad for this, something like BF3 is good.

Jasconius

find something, anything to do that doesn't involve video games


when I was in college I played World of Warcraft and Day of Defeat basically every single moment of my life when I wasn't at work or school

frankly even Pen and Paper games and stuff like that are better than MMO's in terms of habit breaking, at least then you'll be interacting with people


what you need is replacement therapy that will scratch the itch that MMO's scratch, which, I argue, principally is "i am bored as fuck and have nothing else to do for massive chunks of my day"


as I've gotten older, gotten more into my career, gotten more of a social life, gaming has gone from sad addiction to something I have to fight to do for even a ten hours a week, which is exactly how it should be


I think meetups are a good start, or hell, find something to do with your girlfriend, you have the PERFECT partner/excuse to do something other than games, my girlfriend is the #1 reason I am done playing MMO's basically forever, because I'd rather do things with her than play games

if she is enabling you to do it, then you need to take the initiative and get both of you out of the house on your own accord


if you HAVE to play games, then single player is the best option, because you'll only play as long as you can keep yourself entertained

the dirty evil of WoW is that you'll log in even if you have absolutely nothing to do since it acts as basically a fancy chat room

Constrictor

I think I've finally managed to quit MMOs for good. I haven't played one seriously since Rift, and even that one was rather short-lived by comparison.

The trouble with MMOs is that they're insanely fun while you're first discovering the world, gearing up your character(s), leveling with friends, beating all the release content for the first time, etc.

Then you reach the stagnation phase. The thrills come slower and slower and the gripes get bigger and bigger. But you can't quit man...you've put in so many hours and your main is just SUPER badass. Not to mention you'll be letting your friends down.

So you keep going, despite not having all that much fun.

It's all very psychological. MMOs by design can not possibly put out enough good content quickly enough for a core gamer.

My advice is to quit MMOs completely and get into another genre. If you can't quit MMOs completely, try to moderate. Recognize that the most fun is packed into the first several months of the game, so just play those three months, unsubscribe, and move on to a different MMO or game.

Varinn

I had the same MMO addiction with WoW as pretty much everyone else. I played pretty religiously for 3-4 years and had my main and a couple alts leveled way up. One day I had a similar sort of feeling as you seem to be having, I woke up in the morning and just.... understood that I no longer wanted to play. Because I had been doing occasional raiding with a few real life friends I did the unthinkable and called up a few people I hadn't hung out with in years and just tagged along with them. It hit me like a truck when I realized that life was actually... fun, when you throw away the MMO and just go do stuff. Mine was a double wammy in that switching to a different group also seperated me from my pot smoking friends and put me into a place where I was no longer surrounded by the thing that was influencing me.

The biggest suggestion I have, put yourself in a place where you just do not have the option to do the thing that bothers you. I'm not saying to cut gaming out of your life, but to uninstall the game from your PC and then immediately continue to sit at your PC night after night is not helping to move the games out of your life. When you do this, you will come to understand that you really just do not enjoy it anymore. Until you really, truly understand that it just isn't what you want to do you will not make a true effort to quit. I doubt you'll realize this unless you find something else to fill your time with.

When you get out and give yourself a chance to try something else it really helps to drown the desire to go back to the games you don't even enjoy. For me I picked up two things, rock climbing and car racing. Hell I even started reading again, painting models, riding a bike, going hiking. Do you need to get out and do active things? No. But you want to replace the games with something that takes your full attention to accomplish. Not all hobbies are expensive, and not all hobbies require physical strength/dexterity or groups of people to enjoy.

What else aside from gaming have you tried and enjoyed in the past?

Vixx

Alternately, you could also look into unsubbed MMO's, where there's less emphasis on getting your money's worth every single month, thus not forcing you to put in $15 worth of game time into the game every 30 days. This can potentially make the game easier to leave when you need a break, and you won't be tearing your hair out when you have to miss a few days here and there because of other priorities.

Maybe I only suggest it because GW2 is out and I love it, but you could potentially give that a look.

If it's about quitting MMO's all together, it might be worth thinking about how that game sank its claws into you so well. Was it the hectic raid schedule? The gear treadmill? Needing to make the monthly sub fee worthwhile? Incessantly needing to experience everything in the game? Narrowing down what it is can make it possible to avoid not necessarily MMO's et al, but potentially any game of any genre that may create that problem for you.

And in terms of the gap the extraction leaves, fill it with something you've always wanted to do or pursue but never had the time for or always put off trying. A sport? Learning a new instrument? A club? A hobby? Make an effort to spend time with friends, too, because it's easier to make yourself go out and do something different if you've got good company with you. And maybe better than filling the gap, shift and adjust your gaming schedule to suit your new priorities. You don't NEED to play ACIII and a particular time of day, so if your friends say "hey wanna go out" or if something you want to do has an opportunity for you to participate at that day/time, do that instead and then game when those things AREN'T being offered or happening.

Hevach

Something to be careful about with unsubbed MMOs: a lot of them are monetized on microtransactions, and sometimes it really impacts what you can do with the game. The Old Republic puts a "tax" on a lot of the group content, which basically puts you up against a paywall at a certain point, where Star Trek Online gives you all the content and all kinds of time-gated grind but mostly populates its cash shop with newbie bait that's not nearly as pay-to-win as it looks on paper. I personally prefer the later system, but in your case the former might be better - it's much easier to walk away from a paywall than an addictive grind with its constant temptation to spend a bit of money to make it just a bit easier.