At what point does something start to feel like a job?

If you boil World of Warcraft down, it's about gear. Although legitimately some players want to see all of the content, but at some point the amount of raiding required quickly makes that insignificant. Now you're playing for gear. Skill is laughed at unless you PvP, 8 year olds to 80 year olds can play the game. The only dictating factor in your skill is if your IQ is under 80. Now you're playing a game that requires no skill, you're playing long hours, and you're playing for virtual shit. But it's mother fucking fun, so who cares right? I mean, you still have your job, and maybe your girlfriend. What does it matter what I do with my free time. It's my time I'll spend it how I want. Plus only tools don't make raids or leave halfway through, right?

When I played, I wondered why people who had had it all in the game made a video or two and then quit the game. It relates to something a friend asked me when I first started playing (a lot).
"When are you going to beat this game, Peter?"
"You don't."

People play for a lot of reasons, but it boils down to gear. By getting the gear you want you're beating the game. You have the best gear. You've won. You've seen all the shit so you quit. That requires probably 5 months of play time on that character.

Thank god I'm not dedicated to beating games, and I just woke up one day and said "fuck it".

Now to all you people that say "Well I manage my life and WoW just fine", shove it and shut up. That's not the way these people will be helped it by telling them that continuing to play (and have a life) is possible.

I play WoW, Surf, Skate and do ok at school. I think its a personality trait if you get that addicted. I dont think i will. Theres too much better things to do in the REAL world.

WoW isn't the problem, addiction is.

Well, it's clearly obvious most of these people have other issues as well. Addiction is only part of the problem, and if it wasn't WoW it would most certainly be something else.

If you're in a relationship with someone, TALK to them. If WoW has become a problem, sitting on the sidelines wondering what's wrong isn't going to fix anything. And if they choose WoW over the relationship, well…maybe time for a change yourself?

Had to laugh at "Josh" and his "talented and gifted" status. He may actually be just that, but between all the spelling and grammatical errors it just shows how sad our school system is in our country, and obviously how useless his parents are. What are they doing (or clearly not doing) while all this is going on?

I play WoW, I enjoy the game, but it's a game. Real Life definitely takes precedence.

It makes me laugh to some degree its really quite sad. Its all out moderation and willpower but i too have been a victim of game addiction i broke up with my girlfriend over an MMO i wanted to to cut down an do other stuff, she didnt, she would get upset at things that happened in the game, it got to the point were all she would talk about was the MMO game…. which point i said good bye.

but it makes me laugh when people say things like "Oh i need a break for real life" you "can" do it all just be adult an responsible about things. and dont put the game before real life responibilities an relationships.

So knowing what happend to me i wont ever fall into that trap.

I admit it, I'm addicted. After reading this web page, I see further how addicted I really am. Like examples in the introductory, I think about WoW nonstop. At work I surf sites, create new specs on my lunch break, check guild web page about every 5 minutes for anything new, etc. I get home from work or college class and hurry to get kids ready for bed. I might eat dinner, but usually skip it. I log on when possible to start looking for groups, check mail and AH, etc. People at work refer to me as the "Level 70" guy. I feel I talk to and confide in many guild members more than I do my own spouse. Weekend trips to see family or do whatever are feared and I do whatever I can do wiggle out of them. I play anywhere from 4 to 8 hours of WoW after getting home from work. The weekend is often more hours on Saturday and maybe even Sunday. I skip church to play WoW.

I know it's a huge problem and I am honestly trying to fix it. Yeah, laugh all you want about it. Think of me what you will. I have a WoW addiction problem and so far am having little to no luck fighting it.

Jack Tickner, its a shame your not half as smart as the people who were addicted and actually realised it, i'll say it in easy words.

Wow is a way to kill time, a way to have fun, what is life about except having fun? doesnt matter how you get it, thats what life is about, its not striving for being seen as a success or being the next oprah, its having fun and being comfortable with who you are and if wow gives you all that, then i say go for it, cause having an IRL is not 1 damn cent better than being good at computer games.

Being addicted and neglecting is of course an issue and im not saying you should neglect everything just cause it makes you happy.

I don't see what's so hard to understand about WoW addiction. It's just like any other kind of addiction to a substance that doesn't cause induce a physical dependence on the user of the substance. It's fun and it feels good, unlike real life sometimes. That's why the game is so popular. But the problem comes when you find that this fun, good feeling that comes with playing this game becomes more important to you than the real-life need to work at a job, spend time with your family, clean your house, and other such not-so-pleasant responsibilities we all have in life.

It's not Blizzard's fault. It's not Dell's fault. It's not your girl/boy-friend's fault for not being more interesting and loving. It's YOUR fault for choosing this game and allowing your life to stagnate while you procrastinate and avoid the things in life that are not so pleasant, but must be dealt with.

Some people have to reach rock bottom before they'll learn their lesson. There's nothing wrong with loving to play WoW - it's when you use it as an excuse to avoid dealing with life's eccentricities and problems that it can be your downfall.

You wanna talk about addiction? I have a slightly sad (funny to some of you, but then again you don't have a heart so it matters not to me) and slightly long story for you.

a little over a year ago I started dating this smart, beautiful girl. We were perfect for eachother in every way. Every so often I'd log onto my friend's private WoW server, just something to pass the time. Well she asked about it one day when she randomly came over and I happened to be playing. I showed her the game and she wanted to play, I was thrilled, I went out and bought her a video card and RAM for it. Big mistake number 1. We start playing and she's addicted out of the gate. All hours of the night, sleep for like 5 or 6 hours, back on WoW. She calmed down after about a month of that. Mostly because she was after retail WoW at this point.

Here's where things get worse. after about a month or 2 of no WoW, enrolling and starting college, all that, she wants retail so she buys WoW and the expansion. Big mistake number 2. She BEGS me to get it too. So I do and get a retail account. She hates retail off the bat. Goes back to private before stopping again for about a month. Then her buddy from New York gets a hold of her, lets her use his alt account (His addiction could be a whole new post on here) and she gets back on WoW on his server (Realm). Now she loves it because she has a level 70 doing her bidding from the start. About a week later her friend is too tired to run her and I through an instance. He sends his close personal friend to help. Big mistake number 3. She talks to him here and there no big deal nothing to worry about.

Here's where the predictabley sad comes in. She decides all in one day that she loves me, but has a crush on him so she dumps me for him and less than a week later she up and left to spend a month in New York with him, completely skipped out of her classes and her life and all they did day in and day out was play WoW. Worst part is I was ring shopping at the time if you know what I mean. That and I heard from some mutual friends who talk to him he could give a shit about her, ignores her for WoW, makes down right rude and mean comments about her behind her back and has refered to her on several occasions a "Piece of ass" to him and mocks me too. She's home now, he went on single's cruise (Told her it was a family cruise) and he should be back in a few short hours of this post. He smokes tons of weed and plays WoW and has even told people that "WoW first, pot second, her third". It's obvious she's only with him because he's a level 70 mage, and the only thing they have in common is that she's a mage too. It's pathetic and sad at the same time. I still love the girl but she's got issues and I told her that. I can't tell her how he talks about her because she'll think it's some bitter thing, so yeah, when they break up, I might think about telling her about all that then as almost a sick fit of revenge, but I'll have to wait for that. She has no reason for dumping me, all she says is "I just got feelings for somebody else" and that's it. Cop out? You bet your ass. She tells other people this:

"I loved him, her was perfect in every way for me, we had everything in common and he taught me more about everything in life than anything ever could have, however, I got feelings for another guy."

When asked about the feelings for the other guy she tells them:

"I don't know, we think alike I guess, we both have a mutual friend and we both like WoW, I just kind of got it for him."

Can't wait for her to be level 70 and dump his ass. That was bitter, sorry.

I'm 13 and im a girl and play wow about 12 hours a day and I also eat alot. It started with me not having any friends at school, so I got wow because I heard people on there were nice. When I made a bunch of friends I started skipping school to play and eventually failed school. My parents were always drinking and yelling at me and when they were drunk one day I got them to get me broadband. All I did is play wow and eat but and tried to stop. I am a guild leader and I have Six 70's and I raid every day with three diffrent guilds. I have also begun drinking alot while I play sometimes passing out at the keyboard. And I really want to get better with my life its just the game is so fun and really hard to quit.It's hard to go back to school because my parents have also started to do crack and usually cant take me, and when they can I am usually in a raid or doing PvP. someone on wow told me about this and suggested I share my story. I play a male character because guys dont like me and think im ugly… Dagolamar-Scarlet Crusade

Once upon a time i was a serious student, gifted and athletic but not popular. I had lasting friendships that have been rock solid for 15 years, i was pretty and healthy. Then i met my ex. He broke my heart (wasn't the first but was definitely the worst). I didn't want to talk to anybody, i didn't want to go to school, i didn't want to run. I admit i may have been a tad depressed. I visited a friend who managed a local EB to put himself through chef school (he is now a chef at a premier restaurant in Sacramento). He told me to come play wow with him on this server. I did. I felt better, i felt like i wasn't totally alone and failing. I met other people, who i knew in real life, playing wow with this guy. We become really really good at the game. Really really into it. I let my grades fall, some old friendships died, and i retreated from the world of men for a solid year. I hit 60 in 7 days played the first time. I was geared in T1 (this was kind of a big deal back in the day) in under a month. I raided regularly. I applied to local universities, got in but didn't go (it would take me away from my friends/raiding and starving while working my way through college didn't sound fun). I went to CC. I raided during classes. I failed a few because of this. But i got 2 AS's and 1 AA in two years, and school was easy. I applied to a local CSU, got it and took classes. I started to date and party, i forgot about wow. I met a guy. He was handsome, and loving and everything worked. I fell in love. Then his friend, not handsome and not loving and sad and alone, wanted him to play a game with him. He started to play, made it to 60 in 5 days played found it easy, made it to 70 in another 4. Was in T4.5 before 5 came out, on all 4. He did poorly in school, his parents cut him off (because i wasn't christian, not because of the game), he starved, wrecked his car, dropped out of school, and was fired from his job (wrongly, he sued and they lost their jobs). He played even more. He wouldn't go to the museum or baseball games with me, he wouldn't dance anymore. His parents and sister didn't speak to him for a year and he was too proud to ask for help. So I sat with him and told him about how wow was my crutch, and how life is more than games, that it's good to be sad sometimes and that we are never alone. I told him how i loved him, and held him while he cried, for the first time in his adult life. He lived with me for two months before my friend, the chef, offered him a room in his place (we had been sharing, amicably, my tiny room i rented from a kind old eccentric lady). He found a job he can work weekends and nights and make 40, right across the street. He's buying a car next month and going back to school next spring. He still doesn't talk to his parents, and he still plays wow and counterstrike with my brother(online), when it's late and he's missing me, and sometimes when i fall asleep on his lap after classes. He's not addicted anymore. I'm not addicted. It cost alot. I could have gone to Columbia.
We're going to a baseball game next monday and he danced with me last night. We make plans to be married, and we are happy.

Oh, Casey, I want to pick you up and hug you. I want my husband and I to adopt you & we can quit playing WoW together and have real life experiences that don't involve drinking or crack or overeating. Oh, my, god. You need some serious help and it has very little to do with a WoW addiction, it has much more to do with parental neglect and low self-esteem. You do need to share this story, but probably with the POLICE or DSS. Even a foster home sounds healthier than what you are living with and through. If you need someone to talk to, you can find me… here is my WoW info: Amaranna, NElf Druid Lvl 48, Lightinghoof Server.

lolz @ Casey Tatum

I call bull sh!t on that one

my cousin got her own computer about a year and a half ago, for school work when she started collage. Everything was going great for her until she got her very own WoW account. little by little she did less and less school, went outside less, and eventually all she dose is WoW. there is a parental control on the game, but even with only allowing her account to be active for a few hours, she just finds other peoples accounts to play off of. Now she is stuck in her room, has failed collage, bumming off family, and dose not even try to get a job. her room smells like someone took a dump in there, since she dose not even have the time anymore to shower. If we don't feed her, she dose not eat, and when she dose, its something like a tub of ice cream. something lazy, so she dose not need to take time away preparing a meal. since she dose not need it anymore for school, i think its about time to just take her computer away. They all want to hide, they don't want to deal with real life. I know very well, since i was addicted myself to an MOORPG. its a horrible thing to go threw, and people should pay a lot more attention to there family and friends, and stop putting it off as a joke.

Well I am a 70 priest now. I used to have a giant addiction to WoW and well it's coming back. I used to be in a guild that well is now top horde guild in the US. I used to raid day in and day out 8 hours a day just cause well i though i had to. It's the social aspect that i find addicting. it is so nice to be with people on vent. I eventually quit my job and sat there wasting my life saving for 1 months doing nothing but playing WoW. Finally I just picked up and reformated and never installed. Finally 1.5 years later i decide to install BC cause i was bored and it was a free trial. BIG MISTAKE. Next i found myself buying it and having to lvl to 70 to play with my old friends again. I head back to the army in a week which will severely limit my time to play. I am glad though cause its the only way i can quit.

Okay, I can see why people have addictions to the game. I myself have recently joined the WOW family. I have to admit, it is one hell of a game. I have only been playing for almost 2 weeks and I have finally achieved level 20. I am very proud of that achievement. I have also met some cool people in the process. During this time, I have thought of the game an awful lot and when the time avails me, I am definately playing the game. On the other hand, people are complaining that their wives or husbands are addicted to the game….first, if that was to happen, something was missing from the start. Just food for thought, as I should know.

hm……..similar story, i was a good student but a bit anti-social, people were always very mean to me so i never really had any friends, me and girls were oil and water we NEVER mixed so then my uncle introduced me to computer games and then i waz gone, 1st it was command and conquer and then he started WoW, and I of course followed suit and got addicted. My grades fell, i got to school late all the time, basically i would sleep in school so i could stay up at night, pitiful, yes i know. But then my genius mom realized what was happening and lock Wow From me for a long time. So then i sorta got over it, though i would at least once a week check up on what was happening. I became a bit more social and self-restraining but then i slowly worked WoW back………and now i have it, i kept it in check for a while, as i had a girlfriend and surprisingly prefered her over WoW, but recently we broke up and its back to square one…..Now i am addicted to WoW to the point where like I call it World of Warcrack, if I dont have it I go crazy and have destroyed a few relationships with people i cared about……….oh well I guess at least I still have my character

I do believe that Wow can be addictive. I stopped playing myself for a bit. WOW for me was an escape and a hobby. I enjoyed the social interactions as well. It was entertainment for me when I could not get out. Being in school and a stay st home mom , it was perfect. It started to get in the way, so I prioritized. I play only a couple days a week , pay more attention to the kids, and generally just do things in a different way now. Anyone can choose to change, just a matter of trying.

If you have more friends in the game than in real life, I can see the interest.
I can't seem to connect with people in the game so it ends up meaning nothing to me. I have a few real life friends who play but they are loners like me and do their own thing, we do nothing together. So the game ends up just being a boring grind fest and has little appeal.

But if you make game friends, it's an easy way to waste hours. It's like hanging out on the corner or in a club, but on a really lazy level. There's no dressing up, spending money, etc. All of the human interaction for very low cost. And everyone looks so attractive and appealing. Real life is full of faults. The reality is real life can't compare. Real life is work, plain and simple.

It sounds like you really do have it bad. That game is not worth your marriage. Those people you game with need help as badly as you do. I hope you can get serious about getting free from the game. Ask you wife for her help, then listen to her. She has a lot at stake here too. Good luck! You are in my prayers.

my brothers both play wow for 120hours a week probably more if they can, they have a complete lack of respect for anybody, don't wash for days on end, the only time they come away from their computers is when they are hungry and even then its only 4 1minute. If you take the internet away from them they get violent so what can you do??

I recently quit wow, after playing since release. My pride and joy was a 70 Hunter or Warsong. It soon become obvious, to me, that I was addicted to the game. My guild would raid three days a week. I would plan my work schedule and life around raiding. My obsession became those purples. I was utterly addicted, I bought gold numerous times to buy that "must have" item or enchant or gem. I feel bad that I got this addicted. It happened, but I beat it, hears how…

One day, I decided not to log on. I was still surfing and logging onto WoW-related sites. I saw this site that allows you to sell your character for real money. I saw my way out. I sold my hunter, Iberium, and do not regret it. My body has returned to normal, not weight-wise, but in other ways. I didn't gain much weight, but I stopped chugging energy drinks and eating bad food, when I found time in-between raids and/or farming.

I am so happy this is over…and I wish that others can see the light…and get out.

man, starcraft is way better than wow. and wey addicting. da only reason im not playing right now is because my dad got mad and broke my cd. fuk. i play nonstop and dont count hours. I only play for days and forget to eat.

Sad, oh so sad you people are.

It happened with Everquest. It will certainly happen here.

I was addcited to wow once, then we moved house and i found out that the only internet we could get was dial up.
i tried playing wow on dial up but it was so lagy that i could only play for 15 seconds befor getting kicked of the server.
i managed to get to level 30 after loging in about 2000 times.
now i just dont bother, i rly want to play but right now i just think…. whats the point.. i have a good secure job that earns me heaps of money and a girlfriend who is kind and caring.
i just brought a brand new TV which i use for a screne for my computer, it is 42" and i rly rly rly rly want to see how wow looks on it but i quit…..

……………………..i rly wanna play………….

My wife divorced me because she got addicted to World of Warcraft. Although I hated the game, I played it with her just to be with her. She was across the country planning to move out to be with me, but also cheating on the side with her guild leader. It got more and more confusing over time, because at first she was just "depressed" and playing the game all the time, but it progressed to her dropping out of school, quitting her job, and not talking to anyone except me when I'd try to chat with her in the game. I figured out later that she'd been played about 50 hours a week for 4 months straight. So finally I was completely baffled and called her (the first time I'd gotten through on her phone for several months) to ask if I could see her and she said "no because I'm going camping alone," right, and so I flew to her place anyway because I wanted to get to the bottom of the mess and she told me she wanted a divorce first thing when she got back from driving to see her guild leader 1600 miles away. Due to an unpaid phone bill, I found that she'd talked to the guy for 45 hours in a week. Months later, she isn't talking to anyone, not any of her relatives, not me, not anyone, and a friend tells me (I quit the game) that she's just playing Warcraft all the time with her guild leader.

My school studies suffered as a result; I was severly depressed for several months because my wife who I had newly married and who I was willing to die for was just telling me to "shut up" and "leave her alone" all the time in the only place I could find her (Warcraft) and also telling me that she didn't want me to fly out to see her.

My wife and I were as close as any two people can be. We'd known each other for 8 years, dated for 5 years, married for half a year. She changed so suddenly and so completely that to go through the process of grieving for her I now just tell myself that the old her is dead, because that's essentially what happened. There's a new person with her name and looks and financial troubles due to failing to pay all her bills from playing Warcraft too much, but that person lies, cheats, and deceives everyone; it isn't the person I married. If you have to play Warcraft to be with your significant other, then something is wrong. It doesn't matter who they were, or whether you had true love, or how close you were even a month ago. Force them to go to counseling or else leave them.

After reading all your comments I am starting to realise myself my own addiction. The thing that makes quitting so difficult is that there are so many good, despite the bad things that come from playing WoW.

I am a 19 year old girl currently in my second year of uni. I have always been a perfectionist, although always been able to focus on only one a few things at once. So before I started playing wow I was preoccupied with studying intensely to maintain my GPA for a scholarship I had and purging my food from almost everyday from stress and to avoid gaining weight. With the crossroads I faced from leaving highschool, many of my friendships which I had once relied upon so much had broken and drifted, I felt alone and depressed. That all changed when I was introduced to wow when my brother came home with a trial cd. The first time I played, I met some really cool people, had alot of fun, and without even realising it I had played through the mornng. I had closed myself off from others so when I played wow it seemed like the perfect source of fun. I was able to focus on just leveling and getting gear to satisfy a missing sense of achievement that seemed to be missing in real life. Soon enough, the purging stopped, I no longer felt as depressed, and I was allowing myself to have fun for once in my life. I had found something i really felt excited, so I immersed myself in the game playing as soon as I woke up and right before I went to bed.

I had started playing at the beginning of this year, causing me to score a failed attempt on one of my subjects. Realising I was not happy doing the harder part of my double degree I made the decision to decrease my workload, and now in my second semester I feel emancipated and happy for once. Not only this but I started to mend and maintain friendships with RL friends who also played and I did not feel as lonely. However now I am starting to realise I am neglecting my family and non-gaming friends, spending less time bonding with my siblings, skipping uni to stay home and play wow.

However I am not blaming wow for my addiction, some people play to help them deal with problems they are experiencing in real life, and in the short term it isn't always a bad thing. Like most addictions, it is there to ultimately play a role, whether it's a temporary anti-depressant, a cool off period, a realisation about your life or a wake up call. It definitely varies from person to person, but people need to stop blaming the game itself, and stand back and take a look at their life.

I personally have stopped enjoying the game, yet I get up every morning and play because I feel compelled to, it just seems force of habit to want to log on. I do not know what I am striving for in the game anymore, because the objectives never stop. I am going to make my third attempt at quitting and delete the game from my laptop so I can take a breath of fresh air.

Wish me luck.

Well, like someone else said… if your husband/wife/bf/gf becomes so addicted to the game they are neglecting their relationship, then something definately was missing from the start if that's the case even if you don't like to admit it. There are no 100% perfect relationships, people change, feelings and life change, nothing is stagnant.

If you realize you are addicted and quit because of your current spouse, then good for you, you found out that the relationship was a tad more important than a game and gave you a tad more enjoyment but nevertheless, to allow yourself to get to that point where you are forced into a realization, it means something is definately missing.

I am not here to put anyone down for playing wow, I need help my boyfriend of six years is completely addicted, he plays 16 hour days when he can. we set up a game schedule because the game was becoming a huge issue so we agreed that he could have two full 24 hour periods that he could play as long as he wanted to, he switched his work schedule not to long after that so that those were his days off, which meant that we didn't have a day off to spend together and he played those days without exception. he has turned into a different angry person after that and I don't know what to do, I was pregnant back in February and was having horrible cramping and bleeding so I asked him to come to the emergency room with me, he said he didn't want to and then asked me if I was going to make him come, I said no and drove myself I sat in the room for hours by myself they poked me and ran tests, I was terrified that I was going to have a miscarriage again (had one back in september the year before that). It did end up that night that I had miscarried another baby. I came home from the hospital and he didn't say a word to me or ask me what happened so I came in a little upset and yelled at him for not being there for me, I thought that would really make him guilty and that he would stand up out of his chair away from wow and hold me comfort me something… but he didn't he told me to stop my bitching and get over it he didn't want the baby anyways, I told him when I found out I was pregnant that when the baby came we were going to be a family and the WOW was not apart of it he would have to quit or just play occasionally like once or twice a month he wasn't into being a dad so much after he learned of the sacrifice he would have to make he refused he told me I could take the baby and leave if I wanted to he didn't care if he ever seen his child or not. I laid in my bed and cried myself to sleep the night I miscarried and many following nights for the next couple of weeks, he still to this day has not apologized for that (this was the second baby of ours that we had lost it gets harder every time apparently only for me though).

when I met him on new years eve 2001 he was amazing we never fought it was always fun from the start my grandpa died one year after we met and he laid in bed and talked with me the whole night every time I cried he would wipe my tears. He was gentle, absolutely hysterical,and very laid back everything just rolled off his back that was the first years of our relationship. then we bought this new computer and he became a man obsessed he played very little at first and then gradually more and more his friends would come and sit at our house for days just playing video games and I would make their meals and fetch them pops, until it got to be too much they would stay at my house for a week or more trash my house and suck up all of my boyfriends time so I said this has to come to a minimum.

He started setting his alarm and getting up in the middle of the night sneaking out of bed to play this game is was every night of the week then he would come home from work sleep and as soon as I went to bed he would wake up. I told him that it has to stop and told him to choose wow or me, he chose wow and I didn't leave, recently I have been trying to put my foot down and say that enough is enough so I tell him to get off he gets really angry when I say this and he becomes violent and throws things yes even at me, he yells in my face calls me names and blames me for his rage saying it is all my fault, he hasn't hit me I don't think he would but he has thrown things at me before and hurt me. one day we were supposed to be going to my parents for my dad's birthday and he wouldn't get off the game we were already late so I cut the power supply to his computer room. he got really angry and shoved me hard clear across the room the whole time he is telling me how awful and controlling I am then he punches out a few picture frames blames me for the fact that he is bleeding and leaves for days in my car cause his friend borrowed his, I didn't get to see my dad for his birthday mostly for the fact that when I fell I scraped up my face if my dad knew or my brother knew they would kill him for hurting me. over the past few months I have acquired many bruises that I have had to explain to people he threw the remote at me hit me in my chest I had a huge bruise that went from one side of my chest to the other, most recently he was playing with one of his friends on a different game it wasn't his day to play but I was being nice and letting him play for a few hours at about dinner time after he had played for five hours I asked him to quit he freaked out one me yelling and screaming all this time his friend is listening in on voice chat I flipped the power so his friend couldn't hear us fighting he got up walked into the kitchen and pulled a knife out of the drawer set it on the counter and said "why don't you just use that knife and kill yourself we would all be a lot happier and make sure you use it the right way" then he drew a line down his wrist with his fingers and said cut it this way. I don't know what to do anymore this is really affecting us I know the man that I love is somewhere in there I don't wanna give up on him, I want to help him but I don't know how! He has been addicted to games since he was a kid, I think he was trying to avoid dealing with his alcoholic father who didn't provide for his family, he was the only boy and had six sisters all younger and felt that he had to help out his mom because of his dad. about the time he started playing again his dad had a relapse after years of being clean. what do I do? should I turn my back on him too just like his dad did? I am sick of walking on egg shells and crying almost daily, he doesn't even feel bad anymore when he makes me cry! Help me please! he can't afford therapy I have to figure out a way to help him!

Shannon, that is a heartbreaking story and it looks like his issues go deeper than just game addiction. Someone that would hurt you like that is not worth your time, effort, and love. Even thought you care for him, you need to remember to care for yourself. You need to leave, walk out asap, and who knows, by leaving him you might not just be helping yourself, but it will also give him time to realise how terrible he has been acting.

Shannon i have gotta say i am really sorry but this guy isn't the one, i am going through a similar problem my self, though in a MUCH earlier stage i couldn't stop playing this game it has been 24 hours since i last played and i ant stop shaking i feel like a heroin addict right now, u gotta leave him, there WILL be someone out there for you and he will never hurt you, i have found a GF who has been a friend for a long time she's now helping mer through my problem, but ive seen the same happen before and he's gone too far in, you have 2 options you can either try and get every person that cares about you and him to help him through the first t here days with out it, make sure theres someone who can hold him down if things get bad, in the first days of quiting i tried to attack my bedroom wall out of anger, but after three days things will get easier, your other option is to move out and go back to family, they will look after you and your baby, think if this is how he treats you do you REALLY want a child to grow up like that, his father had alcohol, he has video games, your child will end up the same if you don't get outta there, but if you leave then you can find a man who can look after you and your child the right way. but its a proven fact unless you do something a family repeats the traits, you child will take the addiction up with something else and it will follow on, so best advice is to GET OUT as soon as possible.

Hey guys,=D,I would just like to say, thank you for sharing this personal information it tells me a lot about world of warcraft…Here's my story: About a year ago my uncle got a new game called "World of Warcraft" my cousin started playing also, and he advised me to do so also. A few onths later i created my account and logged in for the first time, the graphics where great, the gameplay was fun, but most of all, the fact that you could socialize apealed to me the most. I started playing with my cousin, but as the time passed by he passed me by in lvl's quickly so i started playing with others. Everyday i became more and more hooked, the fact is about the game is YOU CANT BEAT IT!!! Blizz just making the game longer and longer so you can try and be the best but its something you can never get too i finally realized that. School was becaoming harder and harder (I was taking advanced classes) and my grades where going down from A's to B's to C's. I had to start making excuses to play the game, excuses not to go places just to have a hour or to to gain some xp. Soon the game started to become a routine. I would come home, eat dinner, do my HW (poorly) , and then play the game for the rest of the time. I also gained probably 20 pounds ever since i started playing >.

Sorry i got cut off…some easy ways to quit WoW
1. Cancel your acount ASAP
2. Get a game staion that plays games run by cd's so that it will curve your WoW addiction a bit, and dosnent have that mezmerizing playstyle. (make sure it dosent have a social structure so its easier to make RL freinds)'
3. FInd a nobby you love and do it everyday so your not stuck at home doing nothing.
4. YOUR DONE =]

this is horrible stuff guys, what are people gonna do when the game is gone?? if you aren't cured before then your gonna go into a massive problem with your life. suicides at the end of a video game, people if you cant afford help then go to the help centers there are thousands of free mental health centers, there re thousands of rehabilitation houses in the world, and these places aren't for drugs alone, they are there to help all addicts get out of there hiding home, and to find the X factor that caused the addiction then cure that. people get help NOW, put a parental lock on wow so it only works for 0mins a day and get a friend who mealy wants to help to make up an impossible password out of it NOW!

I am addicted to wow. I played 70 hours a week or so, I finally quit 2 weeks ago… Its all I can think about It's all i want to do.. Is just play wow. But i wont let myself. call me a nerd or whatever. But its like what i dream about i sit and think of all the memoerys ive had in wow and how i want to keep playing. THIS GAME RUINS YOUR LIFE. Never play it…

I have quit once before and then started playing two days later..that was 4 months ago..I have now got a level 63 druid and am wanting to quit again.

The main problem for me is that i love the guild i am in and feel guilty leaving them, as i have helped a lot and have a lot of respect from the members. I would definatley have given up this game earlier if i had not joined a guild.

I agree with so much that has been said above - the effect on family life and work can be horrendous, and it really is a viscous circle, the more you play the worse your problems become, then you try and hide in the game instead of sorting things out in real life.

It may be that some people do have a tendency to addictions, if you feel that could be true of you, avoid this game like the plague!

Now i hope i can get back to real life and spend some real time with my growing children and lovely wife…

WOW ~

My girlfriend of 3 years left me because of a relationship she had in WoW. she used it as a form of escape from stress, but she slowly got more and more emotionally invested into that stupid game. She would PVP and role-play with this one guy all the time. any time I would come over and massage her back she would minimize the window or call me nosey. I tossed my feelings up to jealousy because I never wanted to be that kind of guy who didn't want his girlfriend to have any friends.

Well time rolled on and she kept getting more and more distant. We had been living together for 2 years and she would turn her friends down to go out, and eventually she started turning me down to go out anywhere. Anytime I would bring it up she would get mad at me for making her feel guilty and call me paranoid.

Well one day I couldn't take it. while she was in the shower I snooped in her MSN chat logs and found she was planning on cheating on me with the guy on a college trip she talked me out of going. she told me I would have work and it would be too much money for me (because I graduated) but she was just manipulating me. I also found she was doing shit on the camera, and to top it all off this guy doesn't even live in our country! he lives in Canada for gods sake.

I confronted her and she said she fell out of love with me and loved him. but of course she fell out of love with me, her experiences in the game became more important to her than real life, and she barely spent time with me. Anytime I would try to get her off she would yell at me. so she left me for a guy she never physically met, in another country, who only have a camera, msn and WoW to build on their relationship.

I sent her an email listing all we have done for eachother and all we have been through and compaired them to what he and she have done. she called me days later to try to reconnect. she wants to be single to figure things out, but she still plays wow, she still turns people down to go out, and still turns me down for it.

So a word of wisdom to any guy out there with a girl playing WoW, either play with them (which I did, but couldn't afford the time anymore because of College) or make sure to keep a close eye on her. be a part of what she is doing, and if she isn't allowing you to or pushing you away, you have alot of talking to do. Don't wait like I did, don't blame yourself for feeling paranoid. it is a two way street, and both sides have to give.

I'm kind of addicted to WOW, but I just pulled my wife into it too, so at least we're playing together. She now has a lvl 63 character. Mwahahaha!

My fiance and I play wow together, it was a way we could share common ground and do something together because we had been having alot of issues… At first it went well, and then he left the guild we were both in and joined a raiding guild… Now hes quit his job, and plays wow all the time… we arent living together right now because of a rental situation and he comes to visit, when he comes over and visits he gets on my computer and plays wow, when we are on wow together he completely ignores me or bails on me if we actually do something together for his guild… its wearing me down and he doesnt even see that he is doing it

hi my name is crystal and im 17 and i know im addicted to WOW!! i got addicted cuz i have no friends because they all think im a slut because i do crack and stip and give blowjobs to pay for my WoW account. my family doesnt care if im addicted, my mom is a crack addict and my dad is in and out of prison. i have a brother but hes in college and rides a motorcycle. i want to get rid of my addiction but i cant cuz if i do then what else is there for me? i used to weigh 110 pounds but now i weigh 80 because of the crack and lack of food cuz im not realllly hungry when i play WoW. i met this guy on there he has a 54 hunter, he usually doesnt play a lot of the game just reads and writes on the forums he can be a little violent sometimes but i think me and him will meet up. he said when we meet up were gonna have kids and go to hawaii for our honeymoon. maybe then i can quit wow cuz ill have someone with me to take care of me and i will get rid of my crack addiction and eat more often to gain back my lost weight. its a tough fight but i think i can do it, addiction is like a raid boss u need to have a team to help u fight it or u will never get rid of it i think its like level 90 eliteor something might need 3 tanks and alot of healers maybe a lot of dps with a shaman in every group for bloodlust and totttteems, ya thats how hard addiction is…k gotta go farm.

for the horde,

Alot of you guys say man, these people are pathetic. Or it's now WoW, it's an addiction. WoW is addicting because of it's ability to immerse people in a nonphysical, emotionally binding way. You become socially immersed in a game where you've made, and I use this term loosely, friends, that expect you to come and play. You are expected to come raid when you're in a guild, and you literally feel its a responsibility to go because of your social integration into the game and the people you are involved with or know that play. All MMO's are like this (socially), so then it becomes the grade of the game and its constant need of attention that keep you playing that brings games like WoW to the media forefront for the amount of addiction (based on target audience) because the amount of addiction is exponential based on how good the game content is alongside the social impact. When you start playing a new game, that's the times you play the most (its fresh and different) and you may start losing your real life friends in the process, whereas they're getting replaced in the game. This is a double edged sword; if you stop playing, you have lost most of your friends or may be considered a loser or have a long trek to replenish what was lost; or you can keep playing and have the best friends ever in the game and no job or no real life. WoW is a parasite that feeds on the real social world and slowly benefits itself in the in-game social world. When games are developed, the company behind its creation was constantly asking itself "How can we maximize and sustain 15$ from our users every month?" The answer to that is by making the player never feel like the game is 'complete', always giving you new things to do along with, you guessed it, the ability to make lasting friendships. Also, the social atmosphere with guilds is another way to enforce/guarantee 15$ from all the players who aren't as addicted to the game as much as they are to the PEOPLE in the game. My friend was once in a guild in EverQuest that required people to buy expansions as they were released and that same guild raided every day and had an minimum hourly rate for raid attendance each week. These players are the committed ones (socially and gaming wise) and Sony will always be happy / expect their money like a drug dealer expects his buy. Guilding/immense social interaction in a game is a virtual black hole, and I bet, no I guarantee you, that companies like Blizzard and Sony like the idea of guilds way more than the players do.

Quit a week ago, and still feeling anxious to log back on and carry on playing.

To those saying "something is missing" if Wow causes you to break up a good relationship, I disagree completely. I was avoiding going out with my boyf because I'd prefer to play Wow. At one point, I was seriously considering leaving him so I could play more and not have the "inconvenience" of having to spend time with him… You can have the greatest relationship ever, and have Wow completely obliterate it.

I'm so glad that I've managed to quit before it was destroyed.

I do agree that Wow wasn't the problem, the problem was with me and my personal hang-ups. Unfortunately escaping from the issues make them worse.

To those whose significant others are addicted - if they're so far gone that their personality has changed, short of them *wanting* to change for your sake or their children's sake, I don't see them getting out of it short of professional help.

hi, i have a friend who plays world of warcraft. i got him off it a few times but he keeps going back to it. i think that this time he won't quit it. all he does now is talk about world of warcraft to his friends and i. he has now developed a curved back from playing it too much. he never wants to do anything but play world of warcraft. i wish he would stop so he would come surfing with us again. he was really good.

I choose not to be in a relationship because of my WoW addiction. Yes, I am a responsible person, unlike these noobs who mistreat their significant others. I will say, though, I am scared for the day when WoW goes away…

Ive been addicted to WoW before and it is not good. Everything about your life deteriorates. I started in maybe my 2nd year of college. My GPA fell like a rock. My social life plummeted as I could not hold any meaningful conversation with friends who did not play WoW. Eventually, I had no friends other than those who also played WoW. My physical condition was pathetic. And I had completely lost my ability to meet new girls. I was unemployed and all i ever thought about was WoW. What drove me to stop? I found another, more healthy addiction–Rock climbing and weight training. And I started just in time as I was almost kicked out of school for poor grades. Immediately all of those aspects of my life began to improve. I had always told myself that i'd renew my subscription once once BC came out. But what do you know? Blizzard released a patch which significantly improved my class. So there I am, slowly becomming more addicted. Luckily, graduation was right around the corner and I had a job waiting for me. So at that point, it didnt matter how poor my grades were. Then BC came out on my first working day at a real job. I had stayed up till 4am on a first day. Not a very smart thing to do but I didnt care. Things continued to become worse and I realized it. Obviously rock climbing wasnt cutting it. Luckily, all the rock climbing that ive ever done has been locally. So now I climb outside of my local area. And whatever sanity I had left allowed me to find someone special to share this hobby with. This probably put the nail in the coffin for WoW. And to gaurantee that WoW will never consume my life ever again, we've picked up many other outdoor activities, essentially smothering the WoW addiction with other addictions. Life is much better without WoW.

I am a 13 yr old boy who was addicted to WoW . i used the moves on my sisters and in school, i got too addicted, met a girl, and then quit wow on the 9th june i keep on finking about it but then i went on a private server and after that it wasnt all too bad :/

basically,

GET A CHICK

ps: my girl cheated on me and now i dono what to do i keep finkin about WoW

A game like WoW knows no age boundaries. It is immersive, and by its very nature, sets up a dependancy and acquisitory desire. Just one more mining run in Nagrand, just one more Instance, a new enchantment, the tier 5 pauldrons… it is insidious on so many levels.
I joined in December 2006, looked around in July 2007 and realised I couldnt remember much of the 6 months that had passed in between.
I solo`d my way to a lvl 70 NE Hunter with 3 amazing rare pets, and had a string of other Alts of varying race and class.
I killed them all.
"Delete"
Tens of thousands of gold and items, months of my life..erased.
I am a 45 year old male who has raised three children into their late teens and early 20`s.
I am not an illiterate n00b kid, nor a spotty nerdy geek teen with no friends and just a darkened bedroom to retreat into a fantasy world.
Addiction knows no boundaries.
As my addiction drew to a close, I conjured in my head a saying that summed up all I had seen and experienced of these "real people" playing in this virtual world.
"WoW makes Villains out of heroes, and whores out of angels"

You may think my overview is a little extreme… you may be right.
But if you are a level 70 male, how do you play your character?
If you are a level 70 female, how do you play yours?

I started my NE Hunter with lofty ideals about nobility, honour, integrity and heroism.
The World of Warcraft has little room for these ideals, and to succeed, you will need to sacrifice such aspirations.

Do I blame Blizzard?
Not at all.
Just as I dont blame Ford or Chrysler for road accidents, or Budweiser and Coors for beaten wives or abused children.
Do I want the game banned?
Nope, not at all.
I`m merely posting an opinion here.
WoW is addictive… and if you have any minor flaw in your real life personality, any chink in your armour, and issues with self worth or self esteem, you are far more likely to end up losing vast areas of your precious life as you play a game like WoW.

My name is Chabal,
I am an addict.
It has been 12 weeks since I last played World of Warcraft… and I STILL dream of my flying mount soaring above the lush green scenery of Nagrand.

I hope you dont "Lose" a chunk of your life , like I lost mine.
Good luck.

Dude i sympathize. im 13 yrs old and i was an addict! 45 hunter.. ive had 4 dreams about him. WoW = Addiction. i had a craving. i went on holiday to madrid and i cudnt stop finkin bout WoW! Its an addiction. its an incredible game. i asked my mum 2 days ago if i cud play. she sed No u dont need that. but the fact of the matter is. I Do. i need WoW. i need it b4 i do something that i will regret.

Miss u hunter

lol

How to kick a wow addiction.

The main reason people get addicted to WOW is because of a competition well in a sense they want to be 70 with the best gear. And its as simple as private servers, right now i play private servers. Its instant 70 and instant epic/legendary gear and after playing for a week or two you find out being 70 and the best isnt so great. Its a good way to realise being 70 isnt going to get you anywhere in life except for being cool in the eyes of people you dont even know.

take heed if you need help ask for it from those closest to you. It helped me, I still play but about 4 hrs a week. spend the rest of time helping family aswell as friends.

I am 13, I just quitted wow yesterday, I am reading some of your problems, and mine is not that serious compared to yours. But it was a problem. I skipped temple to play wow, I skipped trick or treating to play wow, I skipped everything I love to play wow, it was my life. Good luck to the person trying for the third time, took me three tries too.

dude, im from Gibraltar, same age as you .. sometimes quitting means being able to realise the best!! dotn worry .. like sports? chicks? anything just DO sumthing .. screw WoW basically man .. it took over my life and despite the fact that i would play if given the chance, it messes you up!!

5 PPL DIE EVERY YEAR PLAYING WoW

DO YOU WANNA BE ONE OF THEM?!

It took me five months to realise the game was gear based. That's sad. Now I just quit a returning Diablo 2 binge…pretty much the same thing; Yet again, Blizzard. This beside the point, I will tell you I have two really good friends that have been playing that game for 19 months EVERYDAY for around 14 hours a day if they are not working and if they are…well, the rest.

The most dissatisfying thing of all is that we had a killer friendship, but that game somehow takes precedence over everything. They are married husband and wife. They have two DELL computers…which seems to be redundant and somehow stay together I suppose because they are on the same server. They don't mind people coming over, but they will just stare at that game and barely say anything except to their WoW buddies. I feel like a total faliure of a friend.

The worst thing is that even when I was smoking weed and popping acid, at least the conversaions were more of a cutting edge addiction then those lame dells. Thanks Blizzard, I'd rather get cancer for 5 years then spend the rest of my life as your mindless drone.

I am a veteran MMO player since 10 years, and accompanied by my wife most of those years. We have been leading several huge guilds in a couple of MMO games, and I have always felt like I am standing with one foot in reality. We decided to quit WoW not too long ago after two and a half years. I think I stayed a little bit longer than I really wanted to for my wife, I feel like I was finished maybe at the beginning of this year. We had a lot of players that we called friends that we wanted to settle before we parted, and so we did. Our guild is majorly cut down in numbers today and we actually found a way to play it casually without demand time that people do not have.

The problem with WoW is that it is item based and also that it has such high demands on the players when performing raids. The large raiding groups before the expansion earlier this year was a big problem if you wanted to play casually. The 40-man raids were too time consuming, and we did organize it besides actually playing. We typically spent an entire weekend pulling off a weekly 40-man raid. We were allied with other guilds, in which we saw how things tended to affect people, and we did eventually withdraw from being allied with other guilds that way. We were assaulted very harshly verbally in various ways as we were critizised for deciding things like this, but we always stood up for our cause and what we believed in.

As we betatested the game expansion The Burning Crusades the word was that these large numbers of players needed for raiding was being cut down, but I saw one problem being exchanged for another with smaller groups, and later on we found out that in order to do these new raiding instances it demanded a special mix of classes, which in some cases demanded of people to start and level new characters. Today, if one expects to see any of the end game content, it means putting down ones entire free time if one is working. In order to maintain these raids, even if they are cut down from 40 to 10 and 25 people, takes an endless grind besides the actual raiding in order to get potions, gems etc.

The reason we quit WoW is since we don't think that it is necessary that a computer game should take up so much time of a persons life in order to play it and have fun. It is the way the game developers made it, and one has to realize that it is a business for them. I agree that if you are a person that has problems IRL as we call it, you are at a greater risk of becoming addicted. I think I did the same thing when I first started, I had a bad relationship and escaped into the game for two months. However, I chosed to end my relationship, and it wasn't for the game, it was because it was shot way before I started to play. Also, when I first started out 10 years ago, it was one of the first MMO and I think that its legit to get lost for a little while. A normal and sound person realizes this after a while and look at it to decide if it's worth putting down time playing it or not.

I feel like I seen it all during the years in WoW. I seen people get lost, I have made discoveries such as guildmembers going on medication. I have always been a spokesman for never loosing grip of reality and just shutting off the puter and take a break. Sometimes I have adviced people to quit totally. In all, I don't like what I have seen, and eventually, I decided that I don't want to take part of it anymore. Neither did my wife. So we quit. Still, we love to play medieval role playing games online. So we are looking to try to find a world where the decision is up to us rather than the game in itself about how long we play.

I am in charge of my spare time, thank you very much, definately not a game company. And we are many others with similar thinking.

wow tahts crazy the kid thats in TAG im in a program called TAG to!

Look guys WoW iz deadly quit now! .. i quit and i was thinkin bout it for 3 months but first u gota get ur head round to the point that u DONT want to play!

I've ready through all the addictive stories people have submitted and completely agree that WOW can become an obsession. There are, however, things that Blizzard has done to try and deture people from spending every waking moement at the computer…and for me, personally, I think its worked.

The number one thing Blizzard did is to reward people for not playing. What I mean by this is that when your not playing your character and he's parked in an inn, he's gaining critical rest time. Anyone that's played WOW knows you always log off while your guy is in an inn. When you come back on, all the experience you gain from killing monsters or whatever is then doubled for a length of time. The longer your guy sits unused in an inn…the longer the length of double points will be when you finally do play again.

Because of this, I've found that I can keep from playing excessive amounts. I'll play until the double points ends…then log out, come back a day or two later and do the same thing. If people use this style of play they'll keep from losing focus on real life events and still be competitive in the game by keeping your characters moving toward the desired 70 mark. Basically, it means less time online with the same end result in the game. Its a win/win.

Granted this is more or less for people that are just trying to level characters and really has no affect on those that are at the highest level already. Blizzard has done a few things to limit play time for the level 70's, mainly in the raid settings, by allowing a particular raid to be reset only once a week….or atleast that's what I can recall. Hence people's obsession with the weekly raiding events other people have talked about. But even still….a once a week comittment doesn't seem unreasonable, so I think Blizzard was right to do this…..though I doubt their main concern was keeping people from addiction. It had more to do with keeping people from cruising through raids 2 or 3 times daily (for those that are completely and utterly obsessed)…and thus conquering the game before Blizzard has had time to make any kind of expansion.

This is just my two cents. I do think a small but justified nod in Blizzards direction is fair for putting atleast something in the game to help curb peoples' addictive nature. Its more than any tobacco or liquor company has ever done.

6 months tomorrow that i quit WoW … i cnt stop thinking bout it, but its the wrong road, i cant play… but sumday.. i will enter azeroth agen

I was in jail because of a wow addict my girlfriend kept telling me to quit
one day i was raiding then my gf walks in starts yelling at me when i was in the
middle of the biggest raid she turned off my computer i stood up punch her so hard
grabbed her threw her in the wall threw the chair at her face broke her nose
was it worth 2 years of my life in jail? no but at the time it was i am glad i hit her to get it over with but i had to pay the price WoW is a huge addiction
because i let it be one it was really all i had expect for my gf no friends
and now from this day i dream what would i still be doing if i wasnt in jail?
good thing i stopped but i play other rpgs like everquest, runescape just started EQ
but im lvl 126 in rs in 3 years everything 99 noobs follow me around its funny but i like runescape and im going to max out in EQ. thats my story i went through hell
in MMORPGS but they are really really fun.

lol im downloading th e10 day trial in a attempt just to see how addicting it is i may even make the a full 3 month experiment

im the kind of player who just plays wow for fun with his friends….one of which im worried about. i play the game casually, when my friends invite me to something (rarely) , i go. when i got school stuff, i take care of it, etc. every now and then, my friends crack a "lol dude u got no life" joke on me, and it irritates me, they sometimes say "dude u dont go anywhere, u never hang out with us, ur always playin wow" i always tell them, "dude, maybe if u f***in invite me somewhere, id go. sometimes one of my best friends is always hanging out with another friend, for very retarted reasons, (ill save him the embaressment lol) and sometimes frown upon me for playing wow. i play it as stress relief. im not a very violent person, i dont think its right to go beat the crap outta someone cus they pissed u off. im not addicted tho, when im stressed out, i log on and take it out on some trogg or a fire elemental. sometimes i get upset because i feel i could lose my friends. and to make things worse, i quit wow once, and they begged me to start playing again, i had 00bur 13337 skillz lol.

now for my other story. one of my friends plays wow casually with me. but when he hits 70 (he sometimes goes all night on the game, sometimes when we hang out he'll go a couple hours while i play halo), im worried about him. he wants a ton of gear from BT, kara, and crafting. i dont want him to become addicted to getting this stuff. he thinks raiding is some easy thing, u go in, kill some bosses, and go out an hour later. when he sees how hard it is, i dont want him to blow off life for some "Staff of Infinite Mysteries" or the "Ashes of Al'ar" or some crap, any ideas on what i should do?

hi i'm 13 years old and i play WoW..
ive got 2 lv 70s and plan on getting another character to 70
I wouldnt say im addicted, i play maybe 90-180 mins daily, but it's becoming a problem real fast :/
im glad that i havent got into raiding though, i was in a raiding guild for a week, the guild raided 3 times a week at 6PM-9PM but that was seriously stressful and not fun, plus id much rather be playin ping pong or something
PvP doesnt take as much time at all though!
My 2v2 team is now the 4th best on the realm and 1 hour of PvP each day sure beats 3 hours of raiding!
Grumble, 70 druid Nagrand

Another addict here. I'd say the addiction started back with EQ1. At the time it was my first MMO, and it didn't quite capture me. I played quite a bit, I was a 55 Paladin by the time I quit (back then the cap was 60). The only reason I quit is because I've been a Final Fantasy fanboy forever, and heard rumor that Final Fantasy XI (an MMO) was to be released in about 6 months, so EQ didn't give me that same feel anymore. Once FFXI released, it was on.

I was painfully addicted to FFXI. In FFXI you can change your job class for one character at will, and my main character had amassed over 500 collective job levels. I had several Lv.75 (cap) job classes, and raided sky, gods, sea, and anything you could think of in game. I played all day and night, I was single and in the military so all I had to do was show up for work for 8 hours a day and they would leave me the f–k alone for the other 16… Eventually I knew what was coming. I wasn&#