World of Warcraft is on a decline, as it often happens during this late phase of an expansion.  Content has been done to death, raid bosses have been slain, and people are spinning their wheels looking for something to do in-game.  Many have simply quit until Cataclysm comes out.  I wonder what WoW Addicts are doing now.

That’s something that hasn’t been run into the ground lately – video game addiction.  Remember the days when the mainstream media was all over World of Warcraft as the evil game that ruins lives?  It’s digital crack, online heroin.  Yet I find it so hard to feel bad for these people. Maybe that makes me a horrible person.  Maybe.  But not as horrible as some of the people I’ve been reading about on WoW Detox.

I missed my Sons 5th birthday party. I didn’t get him a gift or anything at all. I completely forgot about it. My guild setup a raid for the same day. I had been preparing for it all week. I’m the off tank usually and this time I got chosen to be the main tank as the other guy in my guild went on vacation. I was more excited about this than my own Son’s birthday. I forgot about it completely I was so busy studying and researching the dungeon and bosses. My wife told me I was supposed to pick up the cake and bring it to funtime Pizza at 12:00 on sat (like chuckycheese) but I forgot to I thought she meant next saturday. I spent the day wondering why it was so quite. Apparantly my wife took our two kids and their friends to the funtime pizza for his party. I turned off my phone and prepared myself for a day full of WoW. They all got back at 9:00pm my guild and I had just got to the 2nd boss. I’m sitting at my computer being the moron I am not paying attention to anything with my headphones on and my screen goes black. I look over and I see my computer in pieces. My wife knocked it off the table (to say it lightly).

When I looked at her I didn’t know why she was so upset. Untill she started screaming out about how I let down our Son and that I’m hardly ever there for him or her or any of our kids because I’m always paying attention to the game.

She explained to me how all the kids waited an hour for me to show up with a Cake and it never happened. I felt like pure crap. Worse than forgetting to bring a cake I forgot it was even his birthday. My wife was upset with me she had our kids stay over at their friends house just so she could discuss our future it was a long night.

I let this game eat up at me and destroy my marriage and my relationship with my children. Now I’m on the verge of a divorce.

I don’t blame my wife for hating me. I wouldn’t blame my kids if they hated me either. I hate myself for what I have done to them. I don’t remember a single time in my adult life where I honestly cried but that night I did before my wife.

It hurt so much to know what I was doing. My Son is always going to remember his father letting him down and not being there for him. How do I make something like that up to him? How can I get my wife to love me again?

My Wife was right “I did this to us”.

That’s an addiction.  That’s pathetic, like sniffing rails of coke off a dirty toilet seat.

Damn it!  I flushed my Authenticator!

I have no sympathy for those kinds of people.  You have people in the house, people you live with, but you give priority to online voices?  That’s grounds for a kick to the testicles.  But there are others, folks with a bit of a clue, that I find myself wanting to give a little hug to.

I was playing WoW for seven months. I felt it consuming more and more of my life.

It was the one place I really felt important. But I realized it’s only half a reality.

I think that’s why many people find themselves “addicted”.  They have such a low feeling of self-worth that anything they achieve in-game gives them the rush that real life can’t give them.  Hey, I’ve been there.  It takes alot of work to get beyond that point.  It isn’t easy, but it can be done.  But the first step is taking responsibility for your actions.  Not like this twit.

I got tricked into buying it (WoW) and got tricked into playing it. Then I get tricked into continuing to play it. Every time I brought up leaving people would beg me to stay. I just wanted to quite because I didn’t enjoy the game. I felt it was boring and annoying. Boring because you do the same things over and over again and annoying because of the selfish pricks you have to deal with while doing so.

Tricked into continuing to play?  Brilliant.  Yes, sinking money into World of Warcraft is clearly someone else’s fault.  What a brave soul, to finally walk away from the digital faces that continuously held a gun to his head and forced him to renew his subscription.

No.  Stop.  Save me from myself.

The ones who have a real chance, are the ones who have a degree of self-awareness about their situation.

The hardest part of quitting so far is knowing that in Azeroth I was pretty and popular and had lots of friends but IRL I’m shy and plain and lonely and nobody really likes me or notices me. I know though that I can’t get my self worth from a game. I have to find a life somehow while I’m young and can enjoy it. Two weeks clean after 6 months /played in two years and this is hard. I’m sad and lonely and starved for people like me to talk to. This site is a life saver though. I have been reading through all the stories every single day. It keeps me from reinstalling. That and warcrack widow’s blog. That made me stop in the first place.

World of Warcraft is known by the player base as being such a “social” game.  But for the socially inept who can’t forge relationships face to face, being able to wear the mask of a digital avatar can be a godsend.  It lets them connect with their fellow gamers.  These people soon find themselves unable to quit the game, because there’s no way they can go back to life without their mask.

I’m no addict.  I haven’t missed obligations so that I could play.  Given the choice between real life activities and in-game activities, real life always wins.  But I understand how people get drawn into World of Warcraft.  It gets comfy, like a big warm blanket.  Cataclysm is going to breed a fresh batch of addicts, guaranteed.  I just hope that more folks remember that, no matter how much of a “social game” World of Warcraft is, it is still a “game”.

This is Herculano.  Know when to draw the line.