i'm fairly new to WoW, but with my new years resolutions, i figured it'd be more healthy to kill time with WoW than downtown drinking. i'm on a free private server at http://epicwow.org
world of warcraft is not a good new years resolution my advice: quit the game now sincerely, the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude thats played WoW for 4+ years
I have heard some pretty terrible things about WoW and am staying away from the game. Besides that, it doesn't seem like much fun anyway.
My fiancee's brother plays this game 16 hours a day (and played at least 8 hours a day for 3 years). He is 19, but has the social skills of a 10 year old...not to mention he doesn't know how to do anything useful (cook, do laundry, etc). But yeah, what a great game.
I graduated from a 4 year university with a degree in finance and landed a full time job working 40+ hours a week 2 weeks after I graduated. I make it to the gym 4-5 times a week and play basketball 2-3 times a week with a group of friends. I can cook, clean, do my own laundry, and believe it or not wipe my own ass. And imagine this, I did all this while still finding time to enjoy a pretty good video game. Blaming a game or any other form of media on a person's inability to function as a normal part of society is just stupid.
Generally people who fall into that addictive cycle will replace their addiction of one thing with another, so I don't know how blaming the game works all that well... they'd just find another way to fill the hole. I played around original release, while it was damn fun, and wholly addictive (read: highly replayable), I'm glad I quit... the game is way too large now and too regulated anyway.
I'm not saying it always affects an individual - and I agree that an addictive personality will always grab one thing or another...nonetheless, the whole culture of World of Warcraft requires addiction for one to do extremely well...and with millions of people on the game it has become a dangerous thing for younger individuals who have yet to learn "balance". Every kid overdoes one thing or another - for me it was basketball. But if a kid grabs hold of WoW at a young age, it's much more difficult to turn it into a hobby over a life - especially when such a large part of your social life and "friends" are in the game.
I'm proud to say I played only 3 min of the game, then quit and uninstalled it. I've seen others become addicted too it. It's dangerous man!
I played and gave up WoW about 2 or 3 times in the past few years. I didn't bother getting the Wrath of the Lich King expansion because I got bored with it. I've played other games since that bored the hell out of me after a while, too... EVE, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, Guild Wars... they all seemed inferior to WoW. They were superior maybe in some aspects, but the negatives were far more. I just get bored with MMORPG's... give me a good single-player RPG, which is what I hope Dragon Age : Origins will be...
You keep talking about the "kid". Does the "kid" own his/her own credit card? Is the kid working and earning an income in order to make the monthly payments required to play the game? No. Enter parents.
Well, actually I wasn't talking about a specific kid in the section you quoted. And in my other post I already stated that my fiancee's brother is 19. He has his own credit card and worked for 6 months a while back and didn't have any expenses (doesn't drive, refuses to pay rent, etc) so he has money saved up. There are many things the parents could have done better along the way, but they are an extremely loving family and don't deserve what has happened. But hey, if you love WoW and can manage a healthy lifestyle with it then that's great...unfortunately there are thousands of kids and youth that cannot.
