The whole gaming thing seemed weird to me since the days of Dungeons and Dragons. Even as a kid I preferred running around in the woods ? and still do. I seriously think this is a sign of a decadent culture on the skids.
WOW is just not condusive for the casual player. It is like 40 hours a week, or misery.
Pick up groups suck in most dungeons above level 40, and in ALL dungeons at level 60. And those are 5-10 man raids. A 40 man pick up group going thru molten core, or Onyxia (famous high level dungeons) is unheard of.
Fuck Blizzard.
yeah I’ll stick to my playstation 2 or some other type of game to eat up those last 1 or 2 hours of the day while I wind down for bed.
I liked the game Diablo, that was cool.
[quote]StevenF wrote:
I liked the game Diablo, that was cool. [/quote]
It was cool, but I felt hackers messed that game up totally.
I was playing and some clown with hacks came in and killed me for no reason. I then started hacking and ruined it for me.
Wow cannot be hacked, but does not allow the solo/casual player that Diablo allowed.
[quote]Burnham wrote:
The whole gaming thing seemed weird to me since the days of Dungeons and Dragons.[/quote]
I roll my Saving Throw vs. Insult… <roll 20-sided dice>… and make it easily!
Your pitiful jab bounces off my Nerd Armour.
Next round, Initiative roll!
[quote]engerland66 wrote:
I have a sessile suitemate who is addicted.[/quote]
I’d never seen “sessile” used outside of a Larry Niven story before.
Kudos.
Its all true. It was true even when i was heavily into gaming.
I loved ad&d, magic the gathering and warhammer. But the computer games just made it so much worse, the first two warcrafts, diablo, command and conquer/red alert… the weirdest memory was my mum, dad and the principle of my school coming to the highschool computer lab at 7.30pm to get me and the 30 other boys (and the cleaner) and put a stop to us playing after school. A move we countered by being the “technical” students that got asked to fix em… Which we just learnt to play instead of going to class.
nowadays, at 25, ill goto a bar and play pool around 7pm… grab a bite to eat at 11, then just as everyone is rolling into the clubs we will roll out and off to the inet cafe to scream at the 16 year old boys who we know by name, drink and play counterstrie, starcraft, diablo 2, day of defeat… its warped our fragile little minds… then wonder home by 9am. Strangely enough, its safer, more fullfilling, more social, cheaper, better for my health (none/less drugs) … its just weird.
But it can only be maintained long term during summer. =)
I was addicted to pay for play for years.
Not really bad, but if I got some free time it usually ended up there.
I haven’t played one in a long time now, have since discovered weight lifting and am a much more productive human being now.
That type of game is designed to foster addiction.
I played it for about a year or so, and during that time it was definitely the most fun game I have ever played. Even better than Half-Life.
However, I never really got into the raid play, just played with a few mates of mine who lived across the country, so it got less fun as you leveled up.
It is one of those annoying games that you can’t complete, so you never really have an obvious time to stop playing, other than just giving up all together.
Playing Gears of war in high def in recent weeks has made WoW seem like a distant memory though. Even if the whole stinking game takes just 4 hours to finish.
I still play, have 70 days worth of play time on my character. Since these days I play for a set amount of time a week, its either WoW or the Wii, but I can tell you right now that other gamers that mock people that play MMO’s are morons.
My roommates literally spend 20+ hours a week each playing a dynasty in NCAA football/backetball on the 360, add into that some call of duty 3 and Gears of War and they spend probably twice as much time gaming than I do.
Its fun, I enjoy it, I play it when it doesn’t interfere with my real life obligations. The expansion comes out on Tuesday, looking forward to it, it is supposed to lower the playtime at the end-game which is gonna be real nice, I hate 4 hour dungeons.
I logged 75 days PLAYED thats 75 x 24 hours lol… that was on Dark Age of Camelot. I was obsessed. I tried to get into world of warcraft but I saw myself getting to the point where that would be all I wanted to do so I quit.
Now I just play counter strike source… AKA: I get so pissed that I beat up shit in my room and repeatedly smash my keyboard against the desk like a caveman.
What? Everyone runs faster with the knife… duh… cs players will know what I’m talking about haha
These type of games have been my kryptonite for probably 10 years. It started with Gemstone III, a text-based MMORPG back when AOL was still based on hourly charges. After that: Everquest, Final Fantasy Online, and World of Warcraft. Each time, I told myself it would be different – I’d control myself and enjoy it in moderation. Yeah, right.
My name is Leafblighter and I’m a MMORPGaholic. I’ve been sober now for 1.5 years.
Regular games are no problem for me. Something about the societal aspect of the online games really sinks its talons in me.
And for the record, skill does play a major role in the game. Don’t get me a wrong, a well-equipped average player can often beat out a talented one with average equipment. But all things equal, it makes a huge difference.
[quote]Ren wrote:
I still play, have 70 days worth of play time on my character. Since these days I play for a set amount of time a week, its either WoW or the Wii, but I can tell you right now that other gamers that mock people that play MMO’s are morons.
My roommates literally spend 20+ hours a week each playing a dynasty in NCAA football/backetball on the 360, add into that some call of duty 3 and Gears of War and they spend probably twice as much time gaming than I do.
Its fun, I enjoy it, I play it when it doesn’t interfere with my real life obligations. The expansion comes out on Tuesday, looking forward to it, it is supposed to lower the playtime at the end-game which is gonna be real nice, I hate 4 hour dungeons.[/quote]
Does it require you to buy the expansion? Or will you be able to take advantage of this without the expansion?
At 51, WOW seems like a waste of time to me, but my youngest is really into it.
He is a raider in the Elitist Jerks, also has a bit of notoriety becasue he actually got laid because he was an EJ.
Good story, but not one i can share here.
As to the addictive aspect - oh yeah.
He was telling me a few weeks ago that he was logging off because his gf just got home from work and wanted to fuck - and some of the guys in the guild were on vent and giving him a hard time because he would rather fuck than play that game.
WTF???
I played the game for 3 months. My playtime was about 4 days. On the last month, I logged on probably once or twice. Then I gave my account away because I really couldn’t care less about fighting monsters to become the best.
My mom told me about a friend of hers who divorced her husband because of his addiction to the game.
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
Does it require you to buy the expansion? Or will you be able to take advantage of this without the expansion?
[/quote]
You are still able to play the game, but you cannot fully interact with players on the expansion. You’ll obviously not be able to take advantage of the things the expansion offers as well. At least that is what my younger brother says 
My brother couldn’t pick his 5 year old daughter up from school because he had to raid Molten Core. He had finally built up enough DK points to roll on some decent gear and he “couldn’t” pass it up. So our mother had to go pick her up.
I love MMO’s, but the people at blizzard are sick motherfuckers.
I used to play a lot of EVERQUEST and DAOC, but the second something in real life came up, I was out the door.
It is possible to play the game for 3+ hours a day and still have a completely social and active life. Just don’t be an idiot. Don’t cross that line.
[quote]Shaved wrote:
It is possible to play the game for 3+ hours a day and still have a completely social and active life. Just don’t be an idiot. Don’t cross that line.[/quote]
True, but it’s also possible to consume alcohol or smoke pot in moderation. Some people, however, lack the ability to regulate themselves with these things and need to flat out stay away from them.
Personally, I think MMORPG’s lend themselves very easily to achieving “Flow” ( Flow (psychology) - Wikipedia ) and that can be addicting.
[quote]Leafblighter wrote:
Shaved wrote:
Some people, however, lack the ability to regulate themselves with these things and need to flat out stay away from them.
[/quote]
Absolutely