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

Odd Request: slowing down a computer

Making the game slower will probably not do anything if he's OK with 2.5 fps. And of course he'll know something's up.

I don't think you have any real option except to remove his Mac account so he can't play, or remove the funding for his WoW account. This is clearly an addiction which he is unable to manage on his own.
 
yippy said:
I was just thinking if there is a way to run a background task, like a terminal command but without needing terminal open.
Click to expand...

Maybe you could type "yes > /dev/null" into the terminal, and then save it as an application or something like that (but don't keep the app in the dock).
 
I'm sorry to hear about his problems.

It obviously runs a lot deeper than a video game.

Cutting off the video game seems to me like a quick fix, who knows what else he could turn to for escapism, but I'm sure he could think of a few more traditional destructive avenues.

Cutting off the game may make things worse.

but it's a start.

maybe WOW should come with a disclaimer....a GAME SHOULD END at some point!

His problem is real, and I feel for you and your family.

:(
 
Assuming you can get him to log in for you, his WoW account settings web page (here) has integrated parental controls where a restricted play-time can be set up. The parental controls are protected using a separate password which you or someone else would create.
 
There are specific avenues available to get help for game addiction. Any means of slowing down the game can be easily thwarted. The best thing you can do is help him get professional help specifically for game addiction. Google for 'game addiction intervention'. Of course I know that help of this sort is costly, but the way you make it out to be is apparently very serious. Addiction in any form is a terrible destructive force - it seems like he will play WoW at any cost.
 
Up the dosage of Lithium and Valproic Acid. Maybe even add in some Tegretol to the mix. That will make anyone stop doing something. And also make them pay attention to other things
 
If it's destroying his education and his life and his friendships, then it's a serious issue.

A few suggestions:

- Talk to your parents about your concerns? This is the number one thing I would do if you still live with parents. Hopefully they are already concerned but not sure how to help.

- Fake a break-in and steal his computer? (make it look real, smash a window if parents agree? )

- Maybe the whole family needs to go cold-turkey and go without internet for a month? (cancel your subscription or something)

- Accidentally knock his computer over and break it? Offer to pay him back at 10 dollars a week or something.

- Turn it off, remove all the RAM (or the hard drive if not a laptop), then in front of him, knock it over. He'll freak when it refuses to boot. You can apologise, offer to pay for repairs, then in a month or so, return it to him in working order.

- Wait for him to leave it unattended and logged into WOW, then delete his character? Once won't help, but after the fourth or fifth time, he might start to get a sense of the futility of levelling back up.

- Ring his bank and cancel the WOW subscription? Again, you may need to do this several times.

You don't say if he's the only person to use the computer or if other people use it too.

Expect him to be angry / depressed for several weeks afterwards - it's withdrawal symptoms from psychological dependence.

Another issue is that maybe there is nothing in his life that is interesting enough to compete with WOW - or he feels a lack of control over his offline life.

Girlfriend / party / nightclub / friends / starting a new hobby / taking off and travelling can help with these.

It's not clear here what exactly is your relationship with him. How old are the two of you? Are you the tech guy in the house? Who owns the computers, who pays for household stuff?

If you give us more details, we can give advice that's better suited to you.
 
And some people mocked this thread.

I would suggest trying the approach that this clinic employs, but using some of the techniques suggested by some of the posters in this thread.


Gamers go through a "detox" period followed by a treatment regimen including group and individual therapy supervised by psychologists and psychiatrists who specialize in addiction. The aim is to "replace the fantasy excitement with real excitement," enabling gamers to discover new, healthier ways to spend their time.
Click to expand...


Here's the clinic's gaming page. There's some interesting reading there (and on the site generally).
http://www.smithandjones.nl/frameset.htm?page=/gaming.htm
 
You could always find a way of hacking the app file. If you right click on the WoW package, go SHOW PACKAGE CONTENTS, and muck around with some of the files (swap the file names round, change some contents in text edit etc...) and then try and boot the game. It will either not run (just return a load of errors) or give loads of really wierd glitches.

In terms of getting your brother back on track, try taking him places with you. Don't go to parks etc, that just gets people more depressed. I would know, I suffer from serious depression at times. Take him to really exciting places like bars (make him feel really cool). Try and get him friends. I always used to get more depressed if my parents asked me if I wanted friends round, but if they turned up unexpected, it made things a lot better...
 
Call up the company that runs WoW and tell them to ban your IP address. I don't know if they would do this, but if they did this would be a way for him not being able to play.
 
Originally I was going to say.. stop paying for the WoW subscription?

Just use the firewall to block outgoing IP traffic to the WoW servers.
His addiction is done.
 
Josias said:
No offence to you, but: What a loser your brother is!

C'mon, he dropped out of High school and spent many of the states and probably also your money just because he's lazy and wants to play World of Warcraft.:mad: Get the boy off his drugs by simple buying him an old laptop running Win 95/98...... Remember, he's like a kid or animal, you have to gain his respect to make him obey you. You have clearly lost all his respect by: 1. Bribing him to quit Wow. 2. Faling in every other method of parenting, since he's turned out so.

I'm sorry to be so harsh on you, but it's sad a human should sink so low.
Click to expand...


Wait WAIT WAIT.

I'm quoting Josias not to pick on him/her, but to highlight a theme in all these replies.

Look at the OP's original comments!!
He is on anti-depressents been through 4 councelors and was walked though high school by the special education program.

I think that spending all his time on WoW is the last of his concerns!! If one is depressed and lacks the motivations and will power to do anything, it is VERY common to turn to something that one feels they can be good at and accomplish. Many other people turn to drugs, alchohal, or any number of other unhealthy things to stamp out the pain of lonelyness and uselessnes. Likely he is quite good at WoW, and has players there that accept him and work with him.
One of my 21 y/o Co-Workers is in a 200+ person Wow clan, he says he is one of the youngest. He thinks the youngest is 20 or so, most are late 20s to mid 30s, and there are a number of couples. This isn't a kids game past a certain level.

Everyone here thinks that WoW is the root of the problem. I'm going to seriously bet that there are far deeper problems here, and that WoW is an outlet for an already troubled mind.

No, I am not a WoW player, nor do I intend to be. However be careful if you argue with me without knowing the severe effects of Depression, because I do know them.

I'm not sure taking WoW away from him is going to cure anything. The deeper problems need to be solved first.
DO NOT try and lure him away from WoW by getting him involved with girls or parties, that will get him in FAR more trouble. You can trust me on that one too.

To the OP: You are unlikely to understand fully what is goin gon with your brother. That is okay. But try not to be angery with him too much or take revenge on him or try and force him out of it. Your brother is sick, and needs to be well again.

God bless this kid.

~Tyler
 
I'm sorry, but I find it hard to have any sympathy. This sounds almost too ridiculous to be true.

Dropping out of school to play a video game? Strict parenting is your friend!

I'd slap my kid if he even suggested dropping out of school to play a video game. I'd ground him from the computer, in fact make it so he couldn't even use the computer by password protecting it. I'd put him on curfew at like 10:00. And personally drive him to school in the morning, or have someone I trust do it. Slowing down his computer isn't going to solve anything I'm sure he'll figure out what is going on.

Try and find him new hobbies.

My kids are going straight to kiddie soccer, football, or baseball when they turn 5. A wholesome *normal* upbringing is the key to a normal child in my opinion.
 
dpaanlka said:
I'm sorry, but I find it hard to have any sympathy. This sounds almost too ridiculous to be true.

Dropping out of school to play a video game? Strict parenting is your friend!

I'd slap my kid if he even suggested dropping out of school to play a video game.
Click to expand...

Did you read my post directly above yours? Thank the Lord you weren't my parent. Perhaps I have it backwards, but from my point of view, the lack understanding here is frightening.

Well intentioned I'm sure, but if I'm interpretting the OP correctly most of the ideas listed here would screw the poor kid up even more.
 
install the ati driver, and then turn on anti-aliasing on to 2x or 4x, and anisotrophic filtering to 4x. it will run considerably slower on games, and won't affect 2d applications like mah jong, safari, word, and such.
 
dpaanlka said:
I'm sorry, but I find it hard to have any sympathy. This sounds almost too ridiculous to be true.

Dropping out of school to play a video game? Strict parenting is your friend!

I'd slap my kid if he even suggested dropping out of school to play a video game. I'd ground him from the computer, in fact make it so he couldn't even use the computer by password protecting it. I'd put him on curfew at like 10:00. And personally drive him to school in the morning, or have someone I trust do it. Slowing down his computer isn't going to solve anything I'm sure he'll figure out what is going on.

Try and find him new hobbies.

My kids are going straight to kiddie soccer, football, or baseball when they turn 5. A wholesome *normal* upbringing is the key to a normal child in my opinion.
Click to expand...

It is different though when you're depressed, believe me. Being a strict parent will just make things worse...
 
steelfist said:
install the ati driver, and then turn on anti-aliasing on to 2x or 4x, and anisotrophic filtering to 4x. it will run considerably slower on games, and won't affect 2d applications like mah jong, safari, word, and such.
Click to expand...
Its an nVidia card-good points though.

Anyway, I have the exact same card in my PC, and its solid (for anything but playing games). I can't imagine what it'd run like playing a game. Suggestions:
- Use parental controls-they are your friend.
- Remove some important component so it won't boot at all.
- Login, run crap loads of programs, encode a DVD using H.264, ect. Log out, and let him play. It'll run slower than it usually does-a LOT slower.
- Remove permissions to run the game, or block the ports it uses
- Turn energy saver to lower power (I'm ony my MacBook, so I'm not sure if desktops have an option like this)?
- If it has wireless mouse/keyboard, say they got "misplaced" (I KNOW this works :p)

Can't think of anymore right now. Good luck.
 
dpaanlka said:
I'm sorry, but I find it hard to have any sympathy. This sounds almost too ridiculous to be true.

[...]

My kids are going straight to kiddie soccer, football, or baseball when they turn 5. A wholesome *normal* upbringing is the key to a normal child in my opinion.
Click to expand...
This is a good plan if you have "normal," healthy children. If your kid has a mental issue (and I don't mean one caused by bad parenting, I mean one caused by bad brain chemistry that can no more be "parented in" than cancer), as several posters here have said, traditional "strict parenting" will do more harm than good.

That said, while I already offered my technical advice, I'm inclined to agree that the solution here has nothing to do with making the game less playable; the game sounds like a symptom, not the root problem. There are people with straight-out gaming additctions, just like there are people with gambling addictions, food addictions, and addictions to any number of other things that aren't "chemically" addictive for most people (including pot and alcohol--billions of people drink without becoming addicted). In these cases an intervention and "detox" is usually the way to break the habit, just like with other types of addiction.

Based on the antidepressant and counseling comment, it does not sound like that is the case in this situation. It sounds a lot more like somebody with some serious issues that just happens to be using WoW as an escape. If it wasn't WoW, it probably would have been something else, and frankly I could imagine more destructive things to be doing. Sounds like better medication and better therapy are a whole lot more likely to help--there are a lot of techniques and fancy new drugs out there that can do a lot of good.

I found this site amusing and informative about some of the current medications available: http://www.crazymeds.org/

Just a suggestion. I only have the most superficial experience in this area, but I thought I'd mention it, and that site might be interesting for people who aren't familiar with the good and bad of medications for your brain.
 
I was in a rush when I wrote my earlier post, but I forgot to mention that I lost a friend to WoW.

We all picked up WoW around the same time, it was fun to play together and a nice diversion after school and sports. We'd sit down in the evening, have fun, and go to bed.

Well, my friend lost himself in the game entirely. He started playing 10+ hours a day. Locked his friends out of his room so he could play, started cutting class to play, stopped sleeping or doing homework. He'd order delivery dinner to his dorm every night, so he wouldn't have to go to the dining hall.

He barely finished junior year, and when we came back in the fall, it was worse, he'd stay up almost all night, fall asleep at like 5 am and sleep through all of his classes.

WoW is definitely an outlet for other psychological problems. I fiended for WoW when I was trying to shut some other things out of my life, and when I finally came to terms with them, the stupidity of WoW became apparent.

Anyway, my friend was put on a medical separation from school when he accidentally (not sure if that's true...) punched through his window. He came back to school 3 months later and was gone after 3 weeks. I haven't seen him since, though it appears that he's still playing.

WoW is a vicious outlet for other mental problems, and it's not something you joke about.
 
WoW might be all those things, but at it's heart... World of Warcraft is a game. People should be able to monitor themselves.
 
I have to say that I agree with others that the easiest two solutions are to confront the problem head-on:

* If your parents are paying for the WOW subscription, have them cut it off.

* Port blocking on your router all the WOW ports would also make it unplayable. Make sure you change the admin password on your router as well, so only you and/or your parents can make changes to it.

I see what you're trying to do in terms of slowing down his machine, but a slow machine is still a playable machine. Better to do cold-turkey, especially where his education is concerned.

Good luck.
 
FoxyKaye said:
I have to say that I agree with others that the easiest two solutions are to confront the problem head-on:

* If your parents are paying for the WOW subscription, have them cut it off.

* Port blocking on your router all the WOW ports would also make it unplayable. Make sure you change the admin password on your router as well, so only you and/or your parents can make changes to it.

I see what you're trying to do in terms of slowing down his machine, but a slow machine is still a playable machine. Better to do cold-turkey, especially where his education is concerned.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

You honestly think that if they cut WoW out of his life things will get better and he'll pick school back up, and go on to finish with a 4.0?
Read his post again, especially the PS, along with the replies here on the second page.

Cheers,
Tyler
 
yellow said:
WoW might be all those things, but at it's heart... World of Warcraft is a game. People should be able to monitor themselves.
Click to expand...

Just as poker, blackjack and other forms of gambling are just games, right?

Nobody ever had a serious problem with those games, right?:rolleyes:
 
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