Ah, the joys of being a young adult. Instead of taking things into my own hands, and developing ways to properly balance my life, I blamed my problems on an MMO addiction. These problems, however, weren’t fully realized until later, kind of like opening a letter full of anthrax. And not the thrash metal band. Oh, computer games, wtf is this nonsense... emomcgrif?
I've also come to realize now that WoW helped me through some rough times. Had it not been for this game, I would of probably gotten into worse shit, like being a hippy or something.
August 11, 2007
World of Warcraft has the potential to consume your life. I was introduced to the game roughly 2.5 years ago, up until that point I had been a casual console gamer with an interest in FPS and RPGs. It seemed so simple; go here, accept a quest, kill this, gain xp, gain levels, improve your character. I was hooked within minutes. Although the accomplishments were virtual, the gratification was instant and enjoyable. Once I started meeting like-minded gamers in the great Azeroth I delved deeper into addiction.
My family noticed, my friends noticed, and my schooling suffered. I didn't care. I had friends at my school that played on my server and we'd talk about it in class constantly and surf the WoW forums instead of doing work. I will admit 100% that my self control was pretty much non-existent at this point because I choose not to care and play the game. Eventually I reached level 60 and was introduced to raiding. You see, attaining the highest level and best abilities is only half the battle, there's an entire element to the game that allows you to immerse yourself in a labyrinth of dungeon raiding and boss killing for exceptional weapons and armor. I wanted the best items and to have the best character, this only made matters worse because every time you caught a glimpse of high end content there would be new dungeons right around the corner.
It's easy to get sucked into the raiding scene and feel pressured enough to want to sacrifice your social life towards raiding with your guild. Working together with 39 other guild members to slay challenging bosses for items that are rare and special in the game is addicting in itself. With voice communication and the feeling that your efforts are required for your guild to succeed you feel as though you're being depended on to log on every night and do your job. But it was a fun job, and I cared little about the repercussions. I felt like I belonged to something more interesting than a social clique, I enjoyed spending time talking with my guild members about different things and raiding with them felt as normal as going out to the bar with your friends.
It got so bad that I began to fear doing new things, because I felt very comfortable with WoW. I've never been an anti-social person, I've always been talkative and outgoing, but I found that being that way in-game was just as entertaining so I began to convince myself that the game was all I needed to have fun and enjoy myself. That thought alone is immensely selfish, as it comes at the sacrifice of family interaction and doing constructive things! I forced myself into believing that I couldn't enjoy the game unless I devoted all my free time to it, a product of my single mindedness and lack of intelligent reasoning.
I always get this anxious feeling when I think about my guild and WoW, it's frustrating. I think about moving on and doing better things, but I don't want to do anything about it. I've fully immersed myself in the new continent of Outlands (from the new expansion: The Burning Crusade), and my guild which I dedicate myself so diligently to is nearing in on killing the hardest boss in the game, Illidan. Instead of 39 people depending on you, it's only 24, but the challenge is greater and thus I feel more compelled to be there with my guild members. I think to myself, I'll stop or play a lot less when we kill him, as I will feel a greater sense of in-game accomplishment to be happy with' but this is not true whatsoever. Not only will I want to run those dungeons every week to max out my gear, but there's another expansion in the works with more legendary battles and more intense dungeons... it never ends.
(the following is really true at all, but was written out of rage and lols)
To this day I'm ashamed to admit that I've clocked hundreds of day's worth of time into the game over many characters. Days I could have spent meeting new people or focusing on my studies. There was a period of time where I would stay up until 3, 4, 5am everyday and wake up at 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I did it for months. It's sad but I'm not the only one who does it, and I wish that wasn't true.
I've allowed this addiction to take hold of me; it's put my job at risk and has caused me to do poorly in school. I don't blame WoW for causing me to be this way; I blame myself and the choices I made. This is a warning for anyone who plays now or wants to play in the future, have some self control. You can raid and quest and PvP successfully without devoting your life to it, and if you do devote all your time to it then you're going to regret it. ----This is true.
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