What a MMO can do to some people

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2006/10/view-from-top.html

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The View From the Top
The top of what you ask? The height of World of Warcraft greatness.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine quit playing Warcraft. He was a council member on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world, the type of position coveted by many of the 7 million people who play the game today, but which only a few ever get.

When he quit, I asked him if he would write a guest blog post about the experience. What follows is a cautionary tale about the pull an escape from reality can have on you.

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60 levels, 30+ epics, a few really good "real life" friends, a seat on the oldest and largest guild on our server's council, 70+ days "/played," and one "real" year later...

Mr. Yeager asked me to write this "guest blog" for him. I figured I should oblige him this request - it was none other than Mr. Yeager who first introduced me to (begged for me to buy, actually :-p) the World of Warcraft. It was the "perfect storm" for me; a time in my life when I was unemployed, living at my family's house far from my friends, and had just finished my engineering degree and was taking a little time to find a job. I had a lot of free time on my hands and WoW gave me a place to spend it.

This could be a many page epic tale, but I figure I'd give you the brief history and pertinent information. The guild Mr. Yeager got me into and with which I became an officer is the oldest and largest on the server I played on. It is around 18 months old and extremely well-versed in endgame instances. I was both the "mage class lead" and an officer. I have many very good friends I met through WoW (in real life - no kidding) and even have been "involved" with another councilor in real life (yes, I know, I'm weird for meeting girls through an online video game but honestly, ask Mr. Yeager, she's head and shoulders better than all the girls I met DJing, waiting tables, in college, and bartending at clubs in Philly). But I digress...

I just left WoW permanently. I was a leader in one of the largest and most respected guilds in the world, a well-equipped and well-versed mage, and considered myself to have many close friends in my guild. Why did I leave? Simple: Blizzard has created an alternate universe where we don't have to be ourselves when we don't want to be. From my vantage point as a guild decision maker, I've seen it destroy more families and friendships and take a huge toll on individuals than any drug on the market today, and that means a lot coming from an ex-club DJ.

It took a huge personal toll on me. To illustrate the impact it had, let's look at me one year later. When I started playing, I was working towards getting into the best shape of my life (and making good progress, too). Now a year later, I'm about 30 pounds heavier that I was back then, and it is not muscle. I had a lot of hobbies including DJing (which I was pretty accomplished at) and music as well as writing and martial arts. I haven't touched a record or my guitar for over a year and I think if I tried any Kung Fu my gut would throw my back out. Finally, and most significantly, I had a very satisfying social life before. My friends and I would go out and there were things to do every night of the week. Now a year later, I realize my true friends are the greatest people in the world because the fact I came out of my room, turned the lights on, and watched a movie with them still means something. They still are having a great time teasing me at my expense, however, which shows they still love me and they haven't changed.

These changes are miniscule, however, compared to what has happened in quite a few other people's lives. Some background... Blizzard created a game that you simply can not win. Not only that, the only way to "get better" is to play more and more. In order to progress, you have to farm your little heart out in one way or another: either weeks at a time PvPing to make your rank or weeks at a time getting materials for and "conquering" raid instances, or dungeons where you get "epic loot" (pixilated things that increase your abilities, therefore making you "better"). And what do you do after these mighty dungeons fall before you and your friend's wrath? Go back the next week (not sooner, Blizzard made sure you can only raid the best instances once a week) and do it again (imagine if Alexander the Great had to push across the Middle East every damn week).

What does this mean? Well, to our average "serious" player this equates to anywhere between 12 hours (for the casual and usually "useless" player) to honestly 10 hours a day, seven days a week for those "hardcore" gamers. During my stint, I was playing about 30 hours a week (and still finding it hard to keep up with my farming) and logging on during my work day in order to keep up with all the guild happenings and to do my scheduling and tracking for the raids. A lot of time went into the development of new policies which took our friendly and family-oriented guild further and further away from its roots but closer to the end goal. Honestly, what that end goal is I'm not totally sure - there is truly no end to the game and every time you feel like you're satisfied with your progress, another aspect of the game is revealed and, well, you just aren't as cool as you can be again.

There are three problems that arise from WoW: the time it requires to do anything "important" is astounding, it gives people a false sense of accomplishment, and when you're a leader, and get wrapped up in it, no matter how much you care or want people to care, you're doing the wrong thing.

First off, let's go back to the time it takes to accomplish anything in the game. To really be successful, you need to at least invest 12 hours a week, and that is bare minimum. From a leadership perspective, that 12 hours would be laughed at. That's the guy who comes unprepared to raid and has to leave half way through because he has work in the morning or is going out or some other thing that shows "lack of commitment". To the extreme there is the guildie who is always on and ready to help. The "good guildie" who plays about 10 hours a day and seven days a week. Yes, that's almost two full-time jobs. Funny, no one ever asks any questions, though.

The worst though are the people you know have time commitments. People with families and significant others. I am not one to judge a person's situation, but when a father/husband plays a video game all night long, seven days a week, after getting home from work, very involved instances that soak up hours and require concentration, it makes me queasy that I encouraged that. Others include the kids you know aren't doing their homework and confide in you they are failing out of high school or college but don't want to miss their chance at loot, the long-term girl/boyfriend who is skipping out on a date (or their anniversary - I've seen it) to play (and in some cases flirt constantly), the professional taking yet another day off from work to farm mats or grind their reputations up with in-game factions to get "valuable" quest rewards, etc... I'm not one to tell people how to spend their time, but it gets ridiculous when you take a step back.

The game also provides people with a false sense of security, accomplishment, and purpose. Anyone can be a superhero here if they have the time to put in. Not only that, a few times I've seen this breed the "rockstar" personality in people who have no confidence at all in real life. Don't get me wrong, building confidence is a good thing and something, if honed appropriately, the game can do very right. But in more than a few cases, very immature people with bad attitudes are catered to (even after insulting or degrading others "in public") because they are "better" than the rest. Usually this means they played a lot more and have better gear. I'd really hate to see how this "I'm better than you attitude" plays out in real life where it means jack how epic your loot is - when you say the wrong thing to the wrong person it's going to have repercussions and you can't just log out to avoid the effects of your actions.

And people put everything on the line for these accomplishments with which they associate much value. I know of children and spouses being forced to play and grind for their parents, threats of divorce, rampant neglect, failing grades in school, and thousands of dollars spent on "outsourcing" foreign help. For what, you ask? Honor. The desire to be the best for at least one week. To get the best loot in the game. What do these "heroes" receive? Why, cheers and accolades of course as they parade along in their new shiny gear... which is obsolete the first time they step into one of the premier instances. The accomplishment and sacrifice itself are meaningless a few days later. Then it's usually off to the races again.

Finally, when you're a leader there is a call (or more appropriately a demand) for success. Usually those you represent want to keep progressing. They want to keep improving. They want more access to the best things. It is on you to provide it. In my experience, when you fail to progress fast enough, waves ripple throughout the guild and people become dissatisfied. It's your fault, no matter what. Everything you've done to keep things fair and provide for everyone does not mean a damn thing. A few will stand up for you, but when you have 150 people who all want 150 different things, you end up listening to 150 voices complaining about the job you're doing. This volunteer job usually takes at least 10 extra hours a week (on top of regular playing). Towards the end of my year of service, I apparently couldn't do anything right with my class. I had to rotate people to make sure everyone was getting a fair shot. I wrote actual mathematical proofs the allowed for fair and effective (yes, both) raid distribution according to efficiency, speed, and guild class population. I even rotated myself more than any other class member. People still took it upon themselves to tell me what I was doing wrong (constantly) and how their way was more fair (usually for them).

The thing that kicked me in the ass more than anything else was I really cared if my guildies were getting what they wanted out of the experience. I truly thought my efforts would make them happy. I wanted to make a difference to them. The greedy and socially phobic high school kid I thought I could help through the game, all of the couples (both married and not) who were falling apart because of the game I thought I could rescue, the girl who was deeply wounded by a guy who left her for the game but was herself addicted I thought I could save, not to mention a host of others, I thought my efforts were helping. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: I was providing them with an escape from their problems and nurturing the very thing that was holding them back. Oh yeah, it hit me like a ton of bricks after I had changed so much and lost enough of myself that the most wonderful girl I ever met broke up with me.

I remember clearly after fumbling around life for a few weeks that I dragged myself into the bathroom to get ready for work. I was tired because I was up until close to 2 AM raiding. Every week I read though email or I would run into one of my "real" friends and I'd hear "Andy, what's up, I haven't seen you in a while." I looked in the mirror and in a cinemaesque turn of events and a biblical moment of clarity, told myself "I haven't seen me in a while either."

That did it. I wanted to do the things I wanted to do again and be with the people who appreciated me even if I abandoned them for a year and sucked to high heaven as a friend. The prodigal son returned and my friends were happy. The best advice I got was from the girl who dumped me for being a jackass (and after I decided to really quit and be "myself again" became one of, if not my best friend in the entire world), who said "your real friends like you even when you screw up." It's true.

Funny side note was the reaction I got from the guild that I spent a year pouring my heart and soul into. I made my post in the guild forums saying I was leaving (half of it RPing - something that doesn't happen after you start raiding) and that it was time for me to move on. Three days later I didn't exist any more. The machine kept on moving without this gear. A few people asked me over email (and when I logged on to clean out the old bank) when I was coming back (I'm not going to). There are a few others I keep in contact with and am planning on going to visit sooner or later so I can hang out in person and they can finally meet me. But in the end being forgotten about so soon after still left a bittersweet taste. But one that was a lot easier to swallow than the one I chugged down every day for the better part of a year.

Don't get me wrong, WoW did a lot of things right. At times it was a fun game that allowed me to keep in contact with friends who lived far away. More importantly it introduced me to some of the best real life friends I've ever met. However, it did take an undeniable toll on me and is taking a far greater one on many, many people when taken too far.

posted by robustyoungsoul at 10:36 AM

[stray]

One good thing about so many people playing WoW is that many will envitably come to the same conclusions as this guy (the same conclusions some of us came to from playing past games). More recruits for the anti-catass brigade and whatnot.

[Morat20]

Yes, it's World of Warcraft's fault. They coat the disk with crack and MAKE you play. Jesus, if you substitute "drinking" for "World of Warcraft" there, it actually sounds a little more sensical.

It's really simple -- if you're an obsessive personality who will ignore real life to play a game 40+ hours a week ---well, you're going to ignore real life to play a game 40+ hours a week. Odds are your work, personal life, and health might suffer from playing games forty fucking hours a week.

I'm in a raiding guild. I have epics and level 60s and shit. I play 5 hours a week -- at most -- because I have a full-time job and take two grad classes a semester. I spend most of my weekends either doing homework, or hanging out with actual friends. Life is priorities. What I see there is someone unwilling to take responsibility for his choices of priorities, and blaming a fucking game for it.

The people that lead my guild? They spend a lot more time at it. But it's their fucking choice, and their fucking time, and for them it's more of a hobby than a game. More power to them. When they burn out -- and some do -- they either step down or quit, and we wish them well either way.

If you're a catass, you're a catass -- it isn't the game's problem, it's yours.

[Riggswolfe]

His conclusions are very similiar to why I quit WoW as well. I think my catass days are behind me for better or worse.

[stray]

Yes, it's World of Warcraft's fault. They coat the disk with crack and MAKE you play. Jesus, if you substitute "drinking" for "World of Warcraft" there, it actually sounds a little more sensical.

It's really simple -- if you're an obsessive personality who will ignore real life to play a game 40+ hours a week ---well, you're going to ignore real life to play a game 40+ hours a week. Odds are your work, personal life, and health might suffer from playing games forty fucking hours a week.

I'm in a raiding guild. I have epics and level 60s and shit. I play 5 hours a week -- at most -- because I have a full-time job and take two grad classes a semester. I spend most of my weekends either doing homework, or hanging out with actual friends. Life is priorities. What I see there is someone unwilling to take responsibility for his choices of priorities, and blaming a fucking game for it.

The people that lead my guild? They spend a lot more time at it. But it's their fucking choice, and their fucking time, and for them it's more of a hobby than a game. More power to them. When they burn out -- and some do -- they either step down or quit, and we wish them well either way.

If you're a catass, you're a catass -- it isn't the game's problem, it's yours.

Since it's the popular thing to do lately:

[Rasix]

Yep, true or mostly true on all accounts.

I've mentioned this before, the WoW endgame is the only portion of the game that I will not longer participate in at a high level due ot the real life impacts.  I'd like to go on a raid every once in a while because some of the encounters are genuinely fun, but to get back into the 3-4 night a week, 2-4 hours a night routine is murder.   I can honestly say the greatest strain on my marriage has been when I tried to hang with the big boys in WoW.

I mentioned this once to someone in my guild and their response was "get divorced, I've never been happier."  This coming from a 40 year old who gets to play "weekend dad" to his teenage children (he ignores them and plays WoW). I suppose if playing 40-80 hours of WoW a week is what makes you happy, then so be it, but I've always been a person that enjoys the company of my wife and the prospect of little Tom-lets running around.

You got to see a lot of this disfunction that was clearly caused from the game and the lifestyle these folks had chosen.  The guy touched upon all of that.  The most disturbing were the parents who ignored their children during their 7+ hour WoWathons or treated their children's visitation days like an impending rectal exam.  Young losers are easy to reconcile, neglectful parents are not.  I really admired the fact that my old guildmaster had taken long, long breaks from the game to be with his family and especially around the birth of one of his children.  He didn't just scale back his time playing, he handed off the reigns and let someone else take over.

Of course, that never stopped the guy from forgetting about all of that once he got back into the full swing of things. Whenever we'd hit the inevitable roadblocks in advancement, things would start getting scary for those of us with actual real life commitments.  First the requirements to stay active were just attend 3 raids a week every other week. Only needed to be there for 1 hour of raiding.  Then it went to 3 times a week, every week strictly enforced.  Then 3 times a week and 6 hours must be learning new material.  Then the new material requirement was 10 hours a fucking week.  People who were minutes late would often be benched for the entire raiding night. 

The message was clear, you're either as hardcore as us or you are no longer needed.  Plus, there were issues of people blaming failures on officers, an officer being exposed as 8 years younger than he advertised and going off on power trips (the guy told me to shut the fuck up and quit talking to him after we had a discussion on shaman talents), and other veteran members making power plays for officer positions.  There were guild bank issues: favored members got their stuff with rapidity and others kept being brushed aside. 

They ended up moving to a pvp server.  A move that was intended to fix the problems of the guild.  Well, your room doesn't get truely clean by sweeping the mess under a rug, the mess is still there.  They didn't last long on the new server and dissolved.

It all comes back to Pardo's donut.  The center is an empty place.  A part of the game that is taken from the nothing and shaped by us into these juggernauts called "raid guilds".  They live on momentum. 

Like the dude in the blog, I'm just done with them unless they can find a way to a non-intrusive part of my life and not a parasitic being trying to replace my awesome tennis forehand with 8/8 tier 2.

[Merusk]

If "WoW destroyed" your life, it's because you let it.  You simply found something you let get inside your head and run your life into the ground and showed no self-restraint.  The same can be applied to Television, Internet Message Boards, biking clubs, whatever.  These people have a disfunction and if the internet or WoW weren't there to fill it, something else would.   From the sound of it, the guy did the same thing with DJing and his other activities.  Lacking the discipline to pull away from anything isn't healthy.

[Krakrok]

I can't pull away from your avatar. What should I do.

[pants]

The irony of course is that if someone spends 30-40 hours a week towards, say, their sport of choice, then they get lauded as being 'dedicated' and 'having put in the hard work for their success' and all that type of stuff.

People are obsessive-compulsive, life is full of inconsistencies, news at 10.45.

[Morfiend]

I love how a guild formed in WoW to these guys is one of the "Oldest guilds in the world", as if there was no life before WoW.

[Rasix]

I love how a guild formed in WoW to these guys is one of the "Oldest guilds in the world", as if there was no life before WoW.

The guy that introduced him said the "world" portion. The guy actually writing only mentioned server.  Tangentally, with 7 million players, a lot of the player base has WoW as their beginning, not another notch on the timeline.

[stray]

The irony of course is that if someone spends 30-40 hours a week towards, say, their sport of choice, then they get lauded as being 'dedicated' and 'having put in the hard work for their success' and all that type of stuff.

People are obsessive-compulsive, life is full of inconsistencies, news at 10.45.

There are more benefits to the person who dedicates his life to athletic activities than the guy who dedicates his life to foozle whacking. That should be pretty obvious.

A good heart, a far more functional body, a good chance of achieving extended life, higher degree of attracting the opposite sex (err..or the same sex for that matter) > having permanent ass sores and no friends.

[ajax34i]

A bit melodramatic.  I think that getting absorbed in a game and having to scale back, everyone goes through that process.   I'd hope that most people realize it and scale back before RL hits them in the face, but I guess we only hear from those for whom it's a big wakeup call for whatever reason.

[Yoru]

It's only a matter of time before someone starts WoWAnon.

And just wait until the media get ahold of THAT story...

[Nija]

Yep, true or mostly true on all accounts.

You should have played hard with us and been done with WOW by Feb. See the sights. Taste the local dishes. Get the fuck out.

Repeat a few years later.

[lamaros]

The irony of course is that if someone spends 30-40 hours a week towards, say, their sport of choice, then they get lauded as being 'dedicated' and 'having put in the hard work for their success' and all that type of stuff.

People are obsessive-compulsive, life is full of inconsistencies, news at 10.45.

There are more benefits to the person who dedicates his life to athletic activities than the guy who dedicates his life to foozle whacking. That should be pretty obvious.

A good heart, a far more functional body, a good chance of achieving extended life, higher degree of attracting the opposite sex (err..or the same sex for that matter) > having permanent ass sores and no friends.

You forget the drugs! Don't forget them drugs! Them athletes sure go at it.

Oh, and the fact that many of them have ruined bodies when they're in their 30s, depending on the sport.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine quit playing Warcraft. He was a council member on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world, the type of position coveted by many of the 7 million people who play the game today, but which only a few ever get.

If by "many" you mean 'not that many at all really' then... yeah.

[Chenghiz]

It's funny that you should post this not long after I came to a similar conclusion, though not to quite as an exaggerated degree. My social life didn't really suffer due to WoW, and I never really get a lot of exercise anyway, but as BC approached I started to realise that the reasons I was running raid instances (gear) would soon be pointless and that my choices were either 1) log on occasionally to pvp, 2) raid hardcore to see the last bits of aq40 and naxxramas before expansion, or 3) quit. Since I can get my 'pvp' fix with counterstrike-clones or DotA, and I simply don't have the time to raid 'hardcore' anymore, I quit, and I'm sure it was the right decision. Especially at this stage of my life, I was wasting time in WoW accomplishing things ingame when I could have been spending that time getting better at the things I want to do when I graduate from college in a year-ish.

Sure, I'll buy Burning Crusade and probably level to 70, maybe even take part in the arena, but I no longer have any interest in doing the crazy raid instances. It's too much of a life investment for a ridiculously minimal reward, and once you've seen it the first few times it gets old.

[lamaros]

It's funny that you should post this not long after I came to a similar conclusion, though not to quite as an exaggerated degree. My social life didn't really suffer due to WoW, and I never really get a lot of exercise anyway, but as BC approached I started to realise that the reasons I was running raid instances (gear) would soon be pointless and that my choices were either 1) log on occasionally to pvp, 2) raid hardcore to see the last bits of aq40 and naxxramas before expansion, or 3) quit. Since I can get my 'pvp' fix with counterstrike-clones or DotA, and I simply don't have the time to raid 'hardcore' anymore, I quit, and I'm sure it was the right decision. Especially at this stage of my life, I was wasting time in WoW accomplishing things ingame when I could have been spending that time getting better at the things I want to do when I graduate from college in a year-ish.

Sure, I'll buy Burning Crusade and probably level to 70, maybe even take part in the arena, but I no longer have any interest in doing the crazy raid instances. It's too much of a life investment for a ridiculously minimal reward, and once you've seen it the first few times it gets old.

It's people like you, those who were fuleing the misguided raid mentality of Blizzards devs in the past, who are now waking up and hopefully making the game more of a friendly fun place.

So thanks, in a way.

Or maybe it's people like me, who were quitting the game and complaining about how it was a raid farce, who have caused the incomming changes and have made you realise you're wasting your time in raids.

So thank me, in a way.

Either way we can all agree the situation is changed for the better.

[Yegolev]

I love how a guild formed in WoW to these guys is one of the "Oldest guilds in the world", as if there was no life before WoW.

Reminded me of the Southpark WoW episode, where the Blizzard execs kept pausing after "world", and I mentally added it into the text.  "This could mean the end of the world... of Warcraft!"

[damijin]

Do people overplay MMOs? Sure. Is it rewarded instead of penalized? Most of the time. Can it be fixed?

Uh, I dunno. Maybe if you design the game to encourage RMT so people can come to the conclusion that the most efficient way to play is not by catassing, but instead by getting a promotion at work and spending their newly earned wage on phat epics. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt if that RMT somehow gets a bit skimmed off the top by Blizzard!

...

But, without sounding silly, the only thing anyone can really say is that gaming, like everything, needs to be practiced in moderation. Maybe it's best that some people discover that while playing WoW instead of addicted to something that cant be turned off with the press of a button.

[Venkman]

It's amazing how a generic blog post about EQ... oops, WoW... can inspire the same debates we were having at Waterthread version 1 and Ltm before it. New people learning old lessons indeed

The irony of course is that if someone spends 30-40 hours a week towards, say, their sport of choice, then they get lauded as being 'dedicated' and 'having put in the hard work for their success' and all that type of stuff.

Hehe exactly. I long ago decided MMORPGs were my hobby. That makes all the difference in everyday conversation. Some people woodwork. Other people golf. In my spare time, I MMORPG, whether playing the game or talking the subject to death and back again. I think a lot of us treat it the same way actually. Few of us here consider these as "just games", as that implies this is something we casually do in our spare time. No, we make time for this stuff, the essence of "hobby".

[stray]

You forget the drugs! Don't forget them drugs! Them athletes sure go at it.

Oh, and the fact that many of them have ruined bodies when they're in their 30s, depending on the sport.

I wasn't talking about professional football players who spend the majority of their time getting their knees smashed in or boxers who spend their day being punched in the head. I'm talking about people who would rather surf or play tennis, go out and skate for several hours a day, or go to aerobics class rather than "succeed" in an MMO. People who, when posed with the situation, find more benefit in doing a hundred pushups rather than spend the same amount of time camping epic spawns.

Hell, this goes for just about any other hobby or recreational activity for that matter. This guy was doing more with his life as a DJ than he was as an epically equipped World of Warcraft Mage. I do more in my life with 20 minutes on my guitar than I do with 20 minutes in an MMO. A chef does more with his life cooking a dish for 2 hours than the guy who farmed a hundred gold in 2 hours.

These aren't merely different activities. They're better activities. There are many secondary benefits associated with them.....While MMO obsession carries virtually none.

Furthermore -- Even the person who spends their time "catassing" in single player games is doing more for themselves than the person wasting all their time in an mmo. They might have the same problems of being physically and socially bereft, but at least they're mixing it up a bit. At least the games they play challenge their brain more often with various kinds of puzzles and patterns -- Their minds are sharper than the guy or gal who sits around repeating the same boneheaded actions and games over and over again.

[Rasix]

Yep, true or mostly true on all accounts.

You should have played hard with us and been done with WOW by Feb. See the sights. Taste the local dishes. Get the fuck out.

Repeat a few years later.

It'll take roofies for me to play on another PVP server in a level based game.  Sorry, AC2 was bearable because we exploited at a level that only Turbine ineptness would allow.

[LC]

Someday we will see ads like this:

[lamaros]

These aren't merely different activities. They're better activities. There are many secondary benefits associated with them.....While MMO obsession carries virtually none.

You're comparing well adjusted people with obsessives.

Know anyone who was obsessed with surfing and dropped out of 'life' and became a bum?
Know anyone obsessed with their career (maybe a chef) who burnt out on that?

Idiotic comparison. To imply that playing tennis for 2 hours a week does more for ME than playing a game for two hours is just stupid. I hate Tennis. I relax and get a lot of pleasure from playing games. I also get pleasure from playing soccer and squash, and playing card games.

There are no rules to life, stop trying to make them.

[stray]

Lol, rules.

Replace tennis with something else then. "Tennis" is not the point. I'm not that fucking rigid.


Replace it with "Soccer" if that's what you like. The point was that for every second to every month you spend "obsessing" about any one of these other activities, you'll find yourself better off, whether in mind, body, and general social well being, than the person who obsessed about mmo's.

Secondly, you don't have to defend your desire to play games. Stop being a shithead. This is F13. Duh.

I'm talking about comparing an obsession with mmo's with an obsession with other activities (in response to pants' post).

[Tale]

It's time to stop saying "it's not the game's fault, it's your problem" whenever someone posts about compulsive WoW behaviour. Yelling at people who have a problem, generally doesn't help them at all. It has the effect of intensifying the problem, forcing them to retreat further into their escape.

It's an involuntary move, an instinct to do what gives you relief. Compulsive MMOG playing is the same problem as compulsive gambling, exept it consumes time instead of money. Some people have a susceptibility to it. I'm one of them.

It's not a matter of self-control, because while you are free to walk away at any time, you find it fucking impossible to do that. Even if you manage to, there's a worse challenge in stopping yourself going back to it in a weak moment. Being tired or depressed or drunk or lonely or having time to kill, checking your email and just popping into the game for a look ... and it's on again. The things you lose, the things you play at the expense of, are things you want to stop losing. But the struggle against the instinct to escape becomes amazingly difficult.

Whether it's compulsive gambling or compulsive MMOG playing, you need to get your head around the fact that there is a subsection of the population for whom these things are happening. Whether the game or the person is to blame in your mind is irrelevant. There is a real problem around these games, like poker machines or casinos, and you can't make it go away by claiming you have greater self-control.

[EDIT: This is in the past tense for me. That's what it was like though. The vulnerability to it is still present tense.]

[stray]

I'm speechless.

I'd suggest the idea that you can still play them without making them a high priority in your life (i.e. you don't have to scare yourself into some all or nothing scenario).....But my guess is that isn't very helpful advice to the people you describe in your post.

[Margalis]

People can be obsessed with anything but MMORPGs encourage it.

The more time you spend the better you get. This is not true of nearly anything else in life, past a certain point. In sports you can overtrain and become injured. *Just* putting in time doesn't make you better at anything in life, but it does in MMORGs. Putting in time, thought, effort and energy - yes those are required to be good at anything. But to be good at WOW you don't need thought, effort or energy. You can't grind away in soccer to become better. No matter how much basketball I practice I'm not going to be as good as someone with real skills, and in addition there are greatly diminishing rewards on training. The same goes for mental excersizes- your brain can also suffer from overtraining. In a game like WOW you can't suffer from overtraining and time spent does not give diminishing rewards. (A little but not much) It is hard to find many activities where time spent correlates directly to overall ability.

With the glacial time-scale games work on, the repeated content with random rewards, the games encourage addiction. Furthermore they teach no transferable skills.

I can understand an 18 year old spending tons of time, or adults spending their free time. MMORPGs aren't worse than TV or light reading. But people ignoring their kids and skipping work and that sort of thing - you would think once you hit 25 or so you have a bit more perspective. Those people make me sad.

I don't think I could live with myself creating a game where I not only expected but hoped and encouraged people to spend time in it to the detriment of everything else in their lives. That to me is the biggest problem - devs encouraging (actively or passively) people to turn into the fatass players from South Park.

[bhodi]

I fail at searching. Insert the onion's article from a while back "Man has healthy relationship with girlfriend, plays World of Warcraft" where when questioned the girl says uncertanily "Is that that video game he plays sometimes? I don't know, he doesn't really talk about it. It's not really a big deal."

[lamaros]

You guys are mad.

People who need help with gamlbing need help; they don't need gambling to be illegal.

People who need help with .... computer games need help; they don't need different computer game/etc/whatever.

The glacial time-sink nature of WoW encouraged me to Quit playing it, not play it more. The fact the World of Warcraft is changing so much in the Expansion is, I assume, due to the fact that people find the time sink aspects of it boring and would be inclined to stop playing it if it remained the same. If everyone was hooked and addicted so easily as you say then there would be no need.

Compustive and addictive types will find something to throw their life away at regardless; don't blame the games. Just try to give those people the support and assistance they require to deal with their problems.

I mean seeesh.

[Jayce]

I don't think it's time to stop saying it's the people's problem.  I feel for people who become obsessive and lose perspective, but the fact is that it is those people with the problem.  Not that yelling at them will, as stated, do any good, nor do I mean to belittle it as a problem or claim that it's easy to fix.  But the problem IS with the person, and blaming it on the fact that a fun game exists doesn't get them any closer to breaking free of it.

The OP also seems to indicate that it's an automatic thing and if you play too much you will eventually catch epic fever and be lost.  There are plenty of people who play and have fun, and even sometimes raid, but also still exercise, hold down jobs, have families, etc.

I for one would be glad to see a concept like WoWAnon to help those people, but insinuating that the game is to blame for all those wrecked lives he goes on about is really missing the point.  At some point they have to take responsibility for their addiction and do something about it.  Sometimes life sucks and you have to make hard choices.  That has always been the case and will always be.  Saying that we have too many good and fun things, and if we just eliminate them all, then we will all live happily ever after is unrealisitic, not to mention silly.

[Kail]

Do people overplay MMOs? Sure. Is it rewarded instead of penalized? Most of the time. Can it be fixed?

I think so, yeah.

MMOs are designed to give you rewards based on time played because that way you stay subscribed; to get the next uber whatchamadingle you need to spend a week paying them to let you play the game.  It's a way to ration out content so you don't see all of it too quick (and run out of things to do) or too slow (and get bored).

But you don't have to correlate rewards with time played; you can just as easily do it with time subscribed, and achieve the same results (from the publisher's point of view, anyway).  Blizzard doesn't give a rat's ass if you're playing ten hours a day or ten hours a month; you're paying the same fee (so ten hours a month might even be slightly preferable, since you're eating fewer of their resources).  Log in when you feel like playing, log off when you're bored/frustrated/whatever, and you'll still hit that next milestone eventually.  This would be hard to do with a game as item-centric as WoW, but you could probably turn it into a game that would fit this model with just a few tweaks.

[damijin]

Do people overplay MMOs? Sure. Is it rewarded instead of penalized? Most of the time. Can it be fixed?

I think so, yeah.

MMOs are designed to give you rewards based on time played because that way you stay subscribed; to get the next uber whatchamadingle you need to spend a week paying them to let you play the game.  It's a way to ration out content so you don't see all of it too quick (and run out of things to do) or too slow (and get bored).

But you don't have to correlate rewards with time played; you can just as easily do it with time subscribed, and achieve the same results (from the publisher's point of view, anyway).  Blizzard doesn't give a rat's ass if you're playing ten hours a day or ten hours a month; you're paying the same fee (so ten hours a month might even be slightly preferable, since you're eating fewer of their resources).  Log in when you feel like playing, log off when you're bored/frustrated/whatever, and you'll still hit that next milestone eventually.  This would be hard to do with a game as item-centric as WoW, but you could probably turn it into a game that would fit this model with just a few tweaks.

TBH the real problem is the goals in the game, not the way they're attained. Whenver people talk about the differences between MUDs and MMOs... it's right there. Did any of you play a MUD to reach the endgame and slay the dragon?

I didn't.

What the hell went so wrong that beating an "unbeatable game" somehow became the focus of our goals? Fix that, and you fix the issue. But uh... I don't think you'll have 6 million subscribers.

[Slyfeind]

Okay, THIS IS WHAT I FLIP OUT OVER.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine quit playing Warcraft. He was a council member on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world, the type of position coveted by many of the 7 million people who play the game today, but which only a few ever get.

This STUPID oversimplification that is precisely the same as "Jerry McNeall reached the highest score of Bejewelled, the type of position coveted by many of the 10 million people who visit Popcap Games, but which only one person will ever get."

There is NO LONGER ANY REASON TO BE THIS STUPID. Many of the 7 million people who play WoW DO NOT WANT TO BE A COUNCIL MEMBER ON ONE OF THE OLDEST GUILDS IN THE WORLD. This is not a coveted position, this is stupid stupidhead writing that must be stopped for fuck's sake for the children and all that! I'm flipping out because ten years ago, this is what we said. Today, what we say is "He was a high-ranked player in World of Warcraft."

AND THAT'S ALL YOU FUCKING FUCKFUCKS. People understand games. They understand ranks. They have understood this since Ancient Assyria and Babylon, when they played chess. This is something that is hard-coded in our forefathers of old, and we can say "high-ranked player in World of Warcraft" and even my grandmother will understand it.

Holy shit. This stupid-fucking-shitfuckery reminds me of a Douglas Adams story. He was watching the news fifteen years ago. The newsguy was also a fucking fuckfuck. He said "Go to www-DOT-bbc-DOT-com." And Douglas Adams said it in a way that made you know, that the newsguy was over-emphasizing things, as though to say "I don't understand it, but maybe you do, it's so crazy and foreign to me, your new technology ways!"

Because the seven million people playing WoW don't give a rat's hemmorhoidal ass about the oldest guild in the world. They just want to kill their ten rats in peace.

The people who care about the oldest guild in the world are, STRANGELY ENOUGH, the people who don't play, and read articles like this, and shake their heads at the shame of humanity, because oh-emm-gee it's finally come to this.

Next our kids will be playing pool and saying words like "sure" and "swell." RIGHT HERE IN RIVER-FUCKING-CITY!!!