Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How to prevent WOW addiction?

Give all your kit away you can, convert the rest to gold, pass to a friend or clan.
Then sell the discs, or bin them. But admit it's an addiction first. get something else lined up to do instead as well. Oh, and make sure you thoroughly delete your accounts.
 
zebraman said:
Yup ive decided not to go back. Im getting more into drawing which i left years ago. Its one of my strongest talents. Im actually reading now which is pretty rare for 15 yr olds these days to do XD (reading 1984 atm) Also ive been going to the gym even when i played WOW but i guess im gonna go more often to fill up more of my spare time.
Click to expand...

You can read ...

You have an imagination ...

You actually leave the house ...

Wow, I'm stunned. I thought all teenagers asses were glued to a cushion.

Didn't know what a book or gym was.

And had their imaginations burned out with an electron gun fired at them by hollywood directors.
 
In regards to going back to WoW, just don't. I also played for quite some time. I started on release day and played for around two years. I quit once due to changes to classes and such, but mainly it was also realizing that it has inherent flaws to it. I went back for a bit, mainly because my wife still wanted to play ( we played together ) . Then, while on our honeymoon we both decided to quit, since we found so many other things to do. ;)

In regards to what to do with your summer, man I'm jealous. It would be nice to be a teenager again and to have that free time again. Since it is the summer I would do as much outside activity that you can. I saw you mentioned biking, drawing, reading and other activities. Those are great. Continue to do those more. Also, yes, spend time with the girlfriend, I'm sure she is much more worthy of your time.

When there are bad rainy days, do the reading and drawing. If you do have to play a game, what about board games with family, or card games?

Then, when you do get though the summer, Spore will be out, and I would recommend that one. Why? Well, it's not an MMO, but more sim/strategy based that will engage the brain. The best part though is you can walk away and not worry about missing things. The game will be in the same spot when you left it.

Seriously, though, you're young and have time. Enjoy it. It doesn't come around again.
 
I'm a gamer addict so to speak. I love MMOs though they tend to be so repetitive, and many other addictive games.

I try and regulate my game "nutrition" by playing certain days a week, or other kind of regulations, but for the moment my general MMO regulation is to install it in bootcamp (that way when I am working I can't easily access the game XD) and I play, if available, in "private servers" which have a high rate experience ratio. That way I get to, for example in WoW, lvl 70 in a couple of hours, play some instances and I'm satisfied for a while. Then if the urge to play that particular MMO appear I just can retake that account and either make another character, or just keep playing with the old character for another couple of hours.

But anyways, MMOs have their pros and cons. A pro is that you get to interact with other people who share a particular interest that you have.

Of course the cons are lead by the fact that it steals your time mercilessly.

If you do play balance it out with other things, that's my opinion. No need to focus on doing it or not.
 
NAG said:
(...) Do you see the implication here? Do you see how that sentence basically says "alcohol is always bad but less bad than crack." Can you rationally support this kind of statement? If so, then you really have a negativity problem.
Click to expand...

Where did I compare a MMO to actual drugs? I didn't.

What you basically said in the post I replied to is that MMO addiction isn't quite as serious as a drug addiction. I definitely agree with that, but I pointed out that it isn't benign either. Can you rationally say that a MMO addiction has no consequences on your life?

It doesn't mean it is evil and people can extract no enjoyment from it either.
Click to expand...

As I mentioned earlier in another post, I used to play WoW, and I still enjoy gaming when I can. The way I see it, gaming is just a choice among others for your leisure time, no better and no worse than anything else : whether you decide to play, read a book, go to the movies or go fishing, it's your pleasure, period. But the subject was addiction, not some kind of ranking contest among hobbies.
 
boz0 said:
Where did I compare a MMO to actual drugs? I didn't.

What you basically said in the post I replied to is that MMO addiction isn't quite as serious as a drug addiction. I definitely agree with that, but I pointed out that it isn't benign either. Can you rationally say that a MMO addiction has no consequences on your life?
Click to expand...
Again, you're speaking right past me. I suggest you reread my posts and think "is an MMO only an addiction or can it be other things." You're categorically stating an MMO is an addiction. That is like saying alcohol is categorically an addiction.

boz0 said:
As I mentioned earlier in another post, I used to play WoW, and I still enjoy gaming when I can. The way I see it, gaming is just a choice among others for your leisure time, no better and no worse than anything else : whether you decide to play, read a book, go to the movies or go fishing, it's your pleasure, period. But the subject was addiction, not some kind of ranking contest among hobbies.
Click to expand...
And I was not making it about ranking of hobbies. You were. I was talking about how people were treating wow as categorically bad. That is silly. Read the article I posted if you want more info on the subject I was actually talking about.
 
gfoster610 said:
In regards to going back to WoW, just don't. I also played for quite some time. I started on release day and played for around two years. I quit once due to changes to classes and such, but mainly it was also realizing that it has inherent flaws to it. I went back for a bit, mainly because my wife still wanted to play ( we played together ) . Then, while on our honeymoon we both decided to quit, since we found so many other things to do. ;)

In regards to what to do with your summer, man I'm jealous. It would be nice to be a teenager again and to have that free time again. Since it is the summer I would do as much outside activity that you can. I saw you mentioned biking, drawing, reading and other activities. Those are great. Continue to do those more. Also, yes, spend time with the girlfriend, I'm sure she is much more worthy of your time.

When there are bad rainy days, do the reading and drawing. If you do have to play a game, what about board games with family, or card games?

Then, when you do get though the summer, Spore will be out, and I would recommend that one. Why? Well, it's not an MMO, but more sim/strategy based that will engage the brain. The best part though is you can walk away and not worry about missing things. The game will be in the same spot when you left it.

Seriously, though, you're young and have time. Enjoy it. It doesn't come around again.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks. Ive been dying for spore to come out and i used to be really into the sim and simcity games so i think ill love this one.
 
You can't

It's impossible. Just give in and accept WoW. Resistance if futile. :p No, it really is.

Anyway, I think of it as just another way to spend my time. If I want to spend my free time reading a book, I will. If I want to watch TV, I will. If I want to adventure in Azeroth with my brother and friends, I will. Yes limits should be made, but that's a personal decision. I played a lot more in between semesters of college (I waited to subscribe until Christmas break) when I was looking for a job than I do now that I have two jobs and a girlfriend. She's a lot more fun than my bro. ;)

Back to your question, you just have to have some self-control in order to not get addicted. All things in moderation. I do like the idea of using the "parental controls" of WoW's account page to limit your time. I know I've lost track of time and played more than I should have. But then again, it was nice to level up my fishing for hours a week while talking to my girlfriend on the phone (don't tell her).
 
I played since 05 and I recently quit my self. It took me 2 attempts to quit entirely. The first time I tried to quit I wasn't ready. the first time I came back was due to pvp I liked the idea (still kinda do, but its to much work to deal with). I came back and got heavy into arena/pvp, I got my pvp fill. Before I thought of quitting I did alot of raiding and alot of lvling. id say your best bet if u want to quit would be to do w/e u crave to do on wow to a extreme. If its pvp do 7 hours of straight pvp trust me after about the third wsg stalemate your going to be sick of pvp. Same goes with all aspects of wow. If its raiding go do kara in one night every week. Killing trash mobs sucks
GL with w/e u decide to do. Im much happier now that im off it
 
You all do know burning the discs wont solve his problem when its easily downloaded from www.worldofwarcraft.com right? ;)

I got into it at a request of my two best friends. I find it a fun and challenging game, much better than Guild Wars IMHO.

I'm not addicted at all. In fact, I havent been on in days because I've been so busy.

If anyone plays on Frostwolf, my character name is Hohenheim.
 
Just stop

I played WOW twice. First time very goal oriented and didn't socialize, no guild or anything. Got tired of it. Second time, eventually got into a good guild, had a blast, spent unconscionable amount of time in WOW. Decided real life was superior (even if I don't have spiffy armor and weapons) and quit again. Was a tough decision at first but never looked back.

So, just say no.
 
Simple answer-hard to accept. You have to walk away from any
addiction completely. Half measures don't work. You are only kidding
yourself otherwise.
 
NAG said:
And I was not making it about ranking of hobbies. You were. I was talking about how people were treating wow as categorically bad. That is silly. Read the article I posted if you want more info on the subject I was actually talking about.
Click to expand...

And you are completely missing or ignoring my point. I never said WoW in particular or MMOs in general were bad. WoW is an extraordinary game, and one I greatly enjoyed (and I one that I still miss, to be honest). I didn't say either that all players are addicted - I don't even think real addicts represent a noticeable part of the player base.

However, the OP specifically asked about WoW addiction. I am merely trying to address his point, instead of making general comments about WoW.
 
boz0 said:
And you are completely missing or ignoring my point. I never said WoW in particular or MMOs in general were bad. WoW is an extraordinary game, and one I greatly enjoyed (and I one that I still miss, to be honest). I didn't say either that all players are addicted - I don't even think real addicts represent a noticeable part of the player base.

However, the OP specifically asked about WoW addiction. I am merely trying to address his point, instead of making general comments about WoW.
Click to expand...

And you're missing my point. I'm saying comparing WoW to a physical (hey, i'm using bold, therefore I must be right! :p ) addiction is needless hyperbole. It is disingenuous to equate WoW to a hard drug because it belittles people.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back