WoW versus Life

CamomileCurt

Anyone find that WoW can become a bit of an obsession - or even more? My better half keeps telling me about stuff on the radio goin' on about WoW addicts. I think that's mainly b0ll0x :mad: but just wondrin how much time do yee all spend? At home? Or even - dare I say it - at work?

DRakE

at the peak of my obsession.. i;'d say probably about 60 hours a week?

TechnoPool

ye i one stage i was easily knockin out around 6-8 hours a day.

its madness!

Nehaxak

People sat and still sit in front of a TV for hours on end and it's somehow deemed ok to do that. As far as I'm concerned, Wow (or games themselves) have just replaced the TV as the choice these days for a lot of people.

I'm sure if there were no dvd/video/Hard Drive recorders (or Sky+ even) then you can bet many a person would put their favorite TV programme ahead of other things if it meant them missing the latest episode of whatever it is. Same with a Wow player who gets moaned about putting a raid or whatever ahead of something else.

You can sit and have fun playing Wow or another game for a few hours or sit and watch shíte on the TV for a few hours ?
Or you could go out and get drunk in a pub instead and somehow fit in with the expected social life aspect of Ireland (which is basically just go out and get pissed) ?

In the grander scheme of things to do in Ireland at least to fill the free time you have available, there's worse things you could put forward that are done by the vast majority in Ireland to mess up your life than wow, yet people don't complain about those much at all.

You're Irish ffs, you're supposed to go out and spend all your free time getting piss drunk or drugged to the eyeballs, pick up some ugly bird, probably get the clap as you're not supposed to wear a condom in Ireland either.
Then drive home plastered and play the national pasttime of seeing how far you can drive the car in the middle of the road without killing someone, stop off to grab a manky curry chips then sit in front of the TV, fall asleep on the sofa and wake up the next morning with curried puke caked all down your front.

Or you can tell people to piss off and mind their own business, leave you alone to spend your free time however you please (playing games or otherwise), even if it is different to the pre-conceived idea's of what you're supposed to do, the "accepted norms".

It only becomes a problem if what you're doing is hurting others or you end up neglecting everything else in life, but that's the same as anything else you might spend your free time doing.

Drink, drugs, etc., etc., yadda yadda, they're all fine in moderation but if you seriously lack any type of self control then anything can have an overbearing effect on your life and others around you.
Again though, the only person you're really hurting by playing games too much is yourself (if even!) and it's not something you can become physically addicted too.
If you find yourself thinking for some reason that you are probably playing too much, then it's easy, just stop playing, cancel your sub if you have too.
Try stop as easily as that if you've otherwise spent all your free time with drink/drugs as the vast majority of others do in Ireland.

I just have a hard time accepting there's anything at all wrong with playing games, wow or otherwise.

It's like you almost half expect to be labelled as a nerd, a geek, probably a virgin, might even be a "gay" if you spend your free time playing games rather than the accepted norms :rolleyes:

Seriously, some people need to just piss off and get with the changing times, or don't and eventually become and minority themselves for everyone else to take potshots at. Live and let live, leave gamers the hell alone !

/rant off - generalised toward society itself btw, not anyone on here.

Karl Hungus

I don't play any more, gave it up in January sometime. But the whole 'addictive' thing is a bunch of nonsense. People banging on about it being an addiction would just rather blame the game than cop on to themselves and realize that if you're playing a game all hours of the day, it might just be a problem with you.

john__long

I used to play it at work. That was long time ago.

I've been clean for about 2 years now! I stopped playing in the Tier4/5/6 era. Last dungeon I ran was Black Temple.

That summer I used to come home from work, eat dinner (6pm) and sit there until 1am at night.

Wasn't so much an addiction as I just wanted to finish it!!!!!

Some fun times I'll admit! Tanking a max of 15 adds in Shad Labs heroics with some mates from England!!

Paladin tank ftw!

Kiith

I'd call it an obsession rather then an addiction for most people.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Kiith wrote: »

I'd call it an obsession rather then an addiction for most people.

I call it a past time

The whole "lol you play wow, you have no life" is a load of bollox... and it's pretty annoying too. Some play it a lot, others don't, so what?

OP, every can get addicted to anything.

Magill

If you have an addictive personality then yeah.. diffo, you can agrue that its just a past time instead of watching TV but i think it gets alot more serious than that for alot of ppl, it is anti social in the sense that its unlikely you'll ever meet the people your playing with or continue to be friends with them in 5/10 years time like you would with other hobbies (Sports etc). It also takes up an insane amount of time (If your in a serious guild), im sure there are ppl on these boards that have probably well over 100days played on there main characters alone(Myself included).

But yeah... in this country, theres not much else you can do besides going out and getting plastered !

Thankfully tho... the game is pretty boring these days.

TechnoPool

Nehaxak wrote: »

People sat and still sit in front of a TV for hours on end and it's somehow deemed ok to do that. As far as I'm concerned, Wow (or games themselves) have just replaced the TV as the choice these days for a lot of people.

I'm sure if there were no dvd/video/Hard Drive recorders (or Sky+ even) then you can bet many a person would put their favorite TV programme ahead of other things if it meant them missing the latest episode of whatever it is. Same with a Wow player who gets moaned about putting a raid or whatever ahead of something else.

You can sit and have fun playing Wow or another game for a few hours or sit and watch shíte on the TV for a few hours ?
Or you could go out and get drunk in a pub instead and somehow fit in with the expected social life aspect of Ireland (which is basically just go out and get pissed) ?

In the grander scheme of things to do in Ireland at least to fill the free time you have available, there's worse things you could put forward that are done by the vast majority in Ireland to mess up your life than wow, yet people don't complain about those much at all.

You're Irish ffs, you're supposed to go out and spend all your free time getting piss drunk or drugged to the eyeballs, pick up some ugly bird, probably get the clap as you're not supposed to wear a condom in Ireland either.
Then drive home plastered and play the national pasttime of seeing how far you can drive the car in the middle of the road without killing someone, stop off to grab a manky curry chips then sit in front of the TV, fall asleep on the sofa and wake up the next morning with curried puke caked all down your front.

Or you can tell people to piss off and mind their own business, leave you alone to spend your free time however you please (playing games or otherwise), even if it is different to the pre-conceived idea's of what you're supposed to do, the "accepted norms".

It only becomes a problem if what you're doing is hurting others or you end up neglecting everything else in life, but that's the same as anything else you might spend your free time doing.

Drink, drugs, etc., etc., yadda yadda, they're all fine in moderation but if you seriously lack any type of self control then anything can have an overbearing effect on your life and others around you.
Again though, the only person you're really hurting by playing games too much is yourself (if even!) and it's not something you can become physically addicted too.
If you find yourself thinking for some reason that you are probably playing too much, then it's easy, just stop playing, cancel your sub if you have too.
Try stop as easily as that if you've otherwise spent all your free time with drink/drugs as the vast majority of others do in Ireland.

I just have a hard time accepting there's anything at all wrong with playing games, wow or otherwise.

It's like you almost half expect to be labelled as a nerd, a geek, probably a virgin, might even be a "gay" if you spend your free time playing games rather than the accepted norms :rolleyes:

Seriously, some people need to just piss off and get with the changing times, or don't and eventually become and minority themselves for everyone else to take potshots at. Live and let live, leave gamers the hell alone !

/rant off - generalised toward society itself btw, not anyone on here.

haha the clap, good stuff !:D

TheDoc

I log on every day on average and probably play about 5 hours.

My lowest playtime is on Monday and Tuesdays since I'm not raiding and I'm levelling alts which I put maybe 3-4 hours into.

Its not an addiction for me or an obsession, its just the time I want to spend having fun.

I dont sleep much, I'm unemployed so I have stupid amounts of free time and I like putting it into wow.

Still is the best game I've ever played.

Shougeki

Nehaxak wrote: »

You're Irish ffs, you're supposed to go out and spend all your free time getting piss drunk or drugged to the eyeballs, pick up some ugly bird, probably get the clap as you're not supposed to wear a condom in Ireland either.
Then drive home plastered and play the national pasttime of seeing how far you can drive the car in the middle of the road without killing someone, stop off to grab a manky curry chips then sit in front of the TV, fall asleep on the sofa and wake up the next morning with curried puke caked all down your front.

I feckin KNEW someone was following me last weekend. And people thought i was just paranoid....

To answer the OP question. I work till 6/7pm-ish during the week and when i get home i log into wow for about four to five hours.
I dont play that much at the weekends, except recently when i had nothing better to be doing.

Id rather be playing wow and being on vent with what some would consider complete strangers than sitting in front of a TV. [For this reason i dont actually have a TV in my apt].

that being said, im planning on using some leave when cataclysm comes out to play it. I know that might sound sad, but i have avout 30odd days left, and my leave should be used for something i enjoy. I enjoy WoW.

TechnoPool

Shougeki wrote: »

I feckin KNEW someone was following me last weekend. And people thought i was just paranoid....

To answer the OP question. I work till 6/7pm-ish during the week and when i get home i log into wow for about four to five hours.
I dont play that much at the weekends, except recently when i had nothing better to be doing.

Id rather be playing wow and being on vent with what some would consider complete strangers than sitting in front of a TV. [For this reason i dont actually have a TV in my apt].

that being said, im planning on using some leave when cataclysm comes out to play it. I know that might sound sad, but i have avout 30odd days left, and my leave should be used for something i enjoy. I enjoy WoW.

did u get the clap doh?!

molloyjazz

TechnoPool wrote: »

did u get the clap doh?!

there was a shammy in his grp!

Shougeki

molloyjazz wrote: »

there was a shammy in his grp!

Touchè

Evac105

Being playing WoW since European release pretty much - started the same day I quit smoking :P Since then convinced my two oldest/best friends to start playing and it's how I keep in touch with roughly a dozen old mates since we dragged them into our guild (on alts or whatever) as soon as they started. I've met my guildies (or a fair portion of them) 5 times over the last 4 years, hosting one of the gatherings here in Dublin in February when we took 25 foreigners and the Irish in the guild into Inchicore as an adventure :P

Far from closing my social activity I chat with 3-20 people whom I've met repeatedly in real life every night, meet up with 2 weekly in RL and the two old mates will travel from their respective locations for my wedding in May, when without that game I mightn't even be in contact with them any more since geographical considerations would have been a problem.

But hey - maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule

Ivan

Oh boy, here we go again...

me-skywalker

Gerry Ryan must be looking for new(rehased) material for his new Sat night slot.

CamomileCurt

....jayzuss it's half six - better grab some shut eye before work - late yet again... Maybe I do have an obsession - but I'm obviously not alone; sher life's a bitch and then yuh die.:D

Jonny7

Odd comments here

WOW has had one positive effect, its kept a big group of lads/nerds in contact with each other..

The negative effects are too long to list, faarr too many relationships down the drain, even marriages

One or two hours a day is grand, but raiding.. jesus christ.. if u can hang on to a nonnerdy girlfriend and raid at the same time I'm impressed

To all the people who think its somehow 'social'.. try to picture going on holiday to sunny spain with all your nonnerd friends and then sitting in a dark room for 5 hours every evening.. yup

2 Espressi

You forgot the "Better than Telly" effect...

Evac105

Jonny7 wrote: »

Odd comments here

WOW has had one positive effect, its kept a big group of lads/nerds in contact with each other..

The negative effects are too long to list, faarr too many relationships down the drain, even marriages

One or two hours a day is grand, but raiding.. jesus christ.. if u can hang on to a nonnerdy girlfriend and raid at the same time I'm impressed

To all the people who think its somehow 'social'.. try to picture going on holiday to sunny spain with all your nonnerd friends and then sitting in a dark room for 5 hours every evening.. yup

To paraphrase:

Watching soccer has had one positive effect, its kept a big group of lads/thugs in contact with each other...

The negative effects are too long to list, far too many relationships down the drain, even marriages.

One or two hours a day is grand, but watching domestic, UK and European games...jesus christ...if you can hang onto a nonthugish girlfriend and watch all those at the same time I'm impressed.

To all the people who think its somehow social...try to picture going on holiday to sunny spain with all you nonthug friends and then sitting in a grotty pub for 5 hours every evening.. yup.

Being fair both statements are as as true (or false), both have a pejorative thrown in displaying a contempt towards a group of people and both have nothing useful to say since the point of view they've been written from already has made up their mind and no amount of argument will sway them. They're both invective and not intended as a point of discussion or debate and only present a dead end to the thread.

For the record, I'm getting married to my gf of 10 years in May and she still refuses to try out either roleplaying or computer games. I play 4-5 hours games per weekday night. I'm 6'5" and a former bouncer which has given me a fairly dim view of pub culture and the people who celebrate it (drunk people are funny in each others opinion - to sober people they're just annoying) but I'm not the dude from the South Park WoW episode either, I prefer cool to hot climates (so I'm more likely to holiday in Canada then Spain thanks) and have found that I prefer the people I meet through games then a random cross section of 'normal' Dublin society which seems to have a lot more racists in it.

Jonny7

Evac105 wrote: »

For the record, I'm getting married to my gf of 10 years in May and she still refuses to try out either roleplaying or computer games. I play 4-5 hours games per weekday night. I'm 6'5" and a former bouncer which has given me a fairly dim view of pub culture and the people who celebrate it (drunk people are funny in each others opinion - to sober people they're just annoying) but I'm not the dude from the South Park WoW episode either, I prefer cool to hot climates (so I'm more likely to holiday in Canada then Spain thanks) and have found that I prefer the people I meet through games then a random cross section of 'normal' Dublin society which seems to have a lot more racists in it.

I've met some of the soundest people through gaming, quite a few normal resilient types, but lets not kid ourselves here, raiding most nights is gonna have more negative effects than positive.. I used to spend my spare time hacking up hills on bikes, getting fit, tanned.. now it tends to lean more towards getting pale, fat, lazy, self-indulgent and ultimately useless but awesome hand-eye-mouse coordination.. theres always exceptions though.. fair do's to them

pwd

I haven't played it for over a month because I've been too busy.
I don't find it addictive at all. I don't really see how people do, apparently, get so addicted to it.
I find that the people who play it, on my server anyway, tend to be friendly. Definitely the friendliest people I've encountered in an online game. Seems to be lots of Swedes so maybe Swedish people are friendly in things like this.

Nehaxak

pwd wrote: »

Seems to be lots of Swedes so maybe Swedish people are friendly in things like this.

In all honesty, Blizzard actually need to make a SWE?!?! only server if only to improve every other server where thos feckin' SWE!?!?!? nubs are. Every single sever they're on, they ruin.

ZorbaTehZ

Quite hilarious how these threads always degenerate into 2/3 posters trying their hardest to convince everyone else that they do in fact have a life outside WOW, and how particularly awesome it is...

][cEMAN**

And then people mentioning how they see the bigger picture and the pattern of of the types of people who post. Makes it sound like they're aware of more than they are, or that they're god and see all.

I AM actually god

pwd

Nehaxak wrote: »

In all honesty, Blizzard actually need to make a SWE?!?! only server if only to improve every other server where thos feckin' SWE!?!?!? nubs are. Every single sever they're on, they ruin.

either my experience with them is different or your attitude is based on snobbishness; I've found them very friendly, cheerful kinds.