"My name is Shawn and I used to be addicted to World of Warcraft."
This is my confession to the world and I'm making it now because it has officially been 1 year since I pulled the World of Warcrack needle out of my arm and quit the game. This might not sound like such a big deal, but you have to understand I was one of those hardcore WoW players. I started playing the game before it was even officially released. The first day it came out I took off work and started playing the game at 10AM and didn't stop till 4AM the next day. I don't even remember stopping to eat anything that day.
As the game continued on I eventually joined one of those hardcore raiding guilds and would go on the 40-man raids to the high level instances like Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and AQ40. My life was dominated by this game. I would come home from work, walk my dog, eat a quick dinner, and then be logged in by 6:30 to jump into the 40-man raid beginning at 7PM. Then the raid would go all night, typically till 1AM, at which point I would finally go to bed, only to wake up and do it all over again. We raided 3-4 nights a week and when I wasn't raiding I was PVPing or running 5-man instances. The game pretty much became a 2nd job for me.
When the expansion, "The Burning Crusade", came out I of course immediately bought it. By this point I was such an addict that I was not only playing the game at home, but I was playing at work as well. I easily was putting in 4 hours a day of playtime during work hours, on top of the already 6-8 hours I would play once I got home at night. I was crazy addicted. Eventually though some bad things happened to me personally in the game, that I won't discuss here, and I decided it was best to quit. After 2 1/2 years of playing WoW I officially canceled my account.
Quitting WoW was one of the hardest things I ever did. You might think this is a joke and that I'm crazy, but if you have played the game and you were addicted as well then you understand. WoW wasn't just a game, it was practically a second life. I put 60+ days of playtime into that game. It wasn't just the game itself that was addictive, it was the social aspect of the game. I would log in most of the time just to play and chat with the friends I had made over the 2 1/2 years. And there was absolutely nothing sweeter or fulfilling then getting a new piece of epic gear to wear and flaunt about.
In the end though I had to give it all up and walk away. I couldn't just cut back on playing, because I knew that wouldn't suffice. Some people could, but not me. I was even all out or all in, and I decided it was better to be all out. It has been a little over 1 year since that day and I haven't once reinstalled and played the game again. I am 100% WoW free!!!
And since the day I quit my life has never been the same .... but that's a story for another time ...
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I have sort of a love-hate relationship with that game. I keep telling myself I'm not going back and then I get suckered in some months down the road. Even now I'm starting to reconsider my inactive account after reading up on Death Knights...
I understand you perfectly, though I was not as addicted as you were it still pained me when i was force to cancel WoW since life got in the way of the game. I can understand how hard it is to quit. It's easy to view WoW as just a place but in the place a second social life opens up allowing you to break free from the mold of life you are inside of in the real world. I almost relapse recently since I have a summer to waste and I'm trying to battle that want to go back. I just hope both of us can forget about our want to play WoW and instead be able to look back on it with just fond memories and not a feeling of needing it back.
Wow, that's intense! I never got into WoW, infact, I thought it was kind of boring. I've realized though that I think I just don't like MMOs in general.
Congrats on being WoW-free!
Play Age of Conan, its what got me to quit WOW
I used to be a wowhead but I didn't quit because I thought it was a problem. I thought it got boring. And I was level 65 in a clan made up of all my friends. I quit but they stayed in that stupid stupid game. I hardly ever see them. I fucking hate WoW. The only reason I played it was because whenever I hanged out with them they were playing it. Fuckheads.
I must admit that when Wrath of the Lich King was first announced I was very interested. For a while I said that this expansion would be the only thing that could bring me back to WoW. However I have reconsidered that recently and I don't think that could bring me back either. Something miraculous would have to happen to bring me back to WoW.
@silverdragon
Maybe i don't know... An involving fighting system? WoW could never bring me back. It doesn't compare to any game in terms of gameplay.
Dude, good job on quitting :) Thanks for better explaining the attraction of the game too. Are you definitely happier since you quit?
I tried the free WOW demo but could not get into it, guess that was a good thing! (I agree with Respectable Gentleman, it is the combat system that totally turned me off)
Ninja I am 1000% happier since I quit. I actually just wrote a post about what I've been doing since I quit if your interested. But the short of it is I have finally got back into Console gaming and it feels GREAT !!!