Check this out.
World of warcraft can ruin lives.
There's some really sad fuckers out there.

In my experience, the guys who wind up spending their lives on WoW didn't have lives that were that full and exciting to start with.

An online friend once told me that she agreed to meet up with some guy for sex and they took a motel room and the guy would fuck, then play world of warcraft for a few hours till he got horny again.

Thankfully my attention span for computer games lasts only a few months at best. Then I detox with some real life.

I play, but I'm not one of the obsessive fatbeards over it.  It's just a game, something to play for an hour or two when I get off work, or go out and kill things and take their stuff with my old D&D buddies.  Some people do get way too hooked on it.  One friend in paticular of ours we're getting worried about, he's *always* on and tends to get aggresive and bossy.  To the point that we're making characters and not telling him about them because we want to just play.  Sometimes I just want to go fishing and sell stuff at the AH, you know?

That article is horseshit.  You don't HAVE to do any of those things to enjoy the game.

You do not have to be an obssessive loon who spends 12 hours a day in the game to enjoy it.  

I very often don't play for days at a time, and when I do it's usually in short bursts, a few hours here, a few hours there.

Honestly, I think I have more fun taking it easy.  Anything will get old and boring when you're doing it obsessively 12 hours a day constantly.  

I have zero interest in the raid stuff, I rarely do instances, I just log on, do some quests, kill some things, and then log off and go do something else.  

This is just someone trying to place the blame for his own addictive personality on someone else.  He chose to play like that, the game did not force him to.

I keep coming back to a quote from the South Park season opener dealing with WoW.

"How can you kill that which has no life?"

Quote from: J ArcaneThat article is horseshit.  You don't HAVE to do any of those things to enjoy the game.

You do not have to be an obssessive loon who spends 12 hours a day in the game to enjoy it.  

I very often don't play for days at a time, and when I do it's usually in short bursts, a few hours here, a few hours there.

Honestly, I think I have more fun taking it easy.  Anything will get old and boring when you're doing it obsessively 12 hours a day constantly.  

I have zero interest in the raid stuff, I rarely do instances, I just log on, do some quests, kill some things, and then log off and go do something else.  

This is just someone trying to place the blame for his own addictive personality on someone else.  He chose to play like that, the game did not force him to.

This is true.  It more than possible to play for half and hour or an hour and still get stuff done.  The hours devoted to huge raids is end game content that only a small minority of players will ever see.  For most WoW players it goes like this

! I need to make bear-ass stew!  Go into the woods and get me ten bear asses, and I'll make you some!



! Thanks, those will do just fine!  Here's your stew and some XP!

The quests aren't exactly gripping, but you get a ton of them so you've always got something to do, and can always feel like you're getting somewhere even if you aren't an obsessive fatbeard.

Yeah... the problem with that article is, people that get addicted to WoW need to realize one thing:

WoW did not wreck their lives. They did.

You guys are absolutely on target. Every hobby attracts its share of nutjob obsessives, but how "acceptable" the hobby is to the overall public determines how much scrutiny said nutjob obsessive receives from the media and a bewildered public. There are just as many football-obsessed whackjobs here in my neck of the woods, but since "everyone" loves football, no one gives them a second look, even though they're major catpissmen.

I'm very thankful I never got into WoW or EverQuest.