In-game treatment for WoW addicts

My grandkids play the game alot but I would not say they are addicted well maybe a little. I have to keep there computers working so they can play it.

Consult the WoW episode of South Park. If you or others have striking similarities to that episode, you are addicted and need to get laid. :-)

I have seen young people in my family that do nothing but play this game and work. One wouldn't even clean his apartment and it was an absolutely disgusting, filthy mess. He has a cat and the litter box was a mess because he wouldn't clean it for weeks and his cat had pi$$ed all over his new furniture. His girlfriend left him over it and he couldn't have cared less. I bet the number of divorces this game has cause would boggle the mind.

This game is a complete time waster & is a sign of things to come

WoW ... you need to get somewhere and do something ...
You spend 1hr travelling there, 5minutes doing it, and 1hr travelling back.
But now you have 10 more things to do .. each one with tantalising rewards, which pale in comparison to what you've just done

My sister called me the other day and told me all about how she was farming for money... and I'm thinking "WoW! She's actually got a real job" .. and then she mentioned gold ... OMFG!

5yrs and counting, methinks
Time wasted, money wasted ... electricity wasted ... Games need a carbon tax

I don't want to play a game that costs me 15 bucks a month to play, I have enough real bills without continuously paying to play a damned game.
I know people from work that spend any down time talking on the phone about their next WOW game session
He told me but you pay 50 bucks for a game, then after a short time it's done, this you can always play.
I'd rather pay 50, have a week or two of fun, then have some normal time till the next update or new game catches my fancy.

I am curious, how much would a hard core WoW player spend to play that game over the course of a year?

I played WoW, on a cracked server ( so no money). Yeah sue me.. Boohoo..
I didn't like it. It's quest hunting like any other RPG, but somehow WoW is magic to a lot of people. I couldn't find out why. Same applies to Second Life.

If you want to know what it might feel like go watch some anime of the Dot Hack series. They pretty much explain what can happen in the near future to such people.

I like RPG's, but i like them for their stories. I loved Planescape The Torment, Neverwinter Nights 1, Blue Dragon, Star Ocean, etc. . I play a lot of games and a lot of them are RPG's.

But i'm not gonna lose myself in some weird online world such as the World Of Warcraft MMORPG which has no good story at all. I like my RPGs as a nice good fantasy book.

In Oz, official retail for 60days for $40au, which you can get down to $32 using ebay.

365/60 = 6.083
6.083 *$32= $195au /yr
That's approximately $156US (@$0.80us->$1au).

Not bad for a 5yr old game that you had to pay for, but now have to buy 2x $50 expansions

Directly from Blizzard:

That is the standard rate for any top tier subscription based MMO game.

So whats stopping the therapists from getting addicted. Isn't that like giving a social worker a discounted bag of crack so he can relate better to the crackheads.

All kidding aside. These therapists are gonna get so flamed. I think i might get a WOW account just so I can witness this for the laughs.

WoW is pretty much of the greatest single blights on civilization where not only do you lose you social life and self to utterly useless and trite accomplishments but to add insult to the whole fiasco you debt your account each months for this obvious negative addiction. Its unclear how many friendships and marriages have dissolved because of WoW but its like any addiction - it robs you of far more important and cool life-experiences you are removing yourself from until you are too old to do them.

LIVE DAMN IT! The REAL WORLD is far more interesting than some BS-derived fantasy park that only wishes to deduct from your account and further make your sociably-bankrupt. MMORPGs simply siphon "life time" from you -- gawd what a complete waste.

Thanks for the info. I guess it is cheaper than smoking.

A few people get "addicted" and the news world runs around with it's hands in the air going "OH NOES" and then the rumors start around the internet and we end up with comments like the ones on here lmao......I think more than the WOW players need to "get a life" ........btw did you hear the one about Obama NOT being born in the USA?!?! *Sarcasm*

Lol!

It's a pretty sad states of affairs when people are playing a game solely for "Gold Farming", or paying real money for "virtual items" in auctions, and my personal favourite is .. being hussled out of the gold farming business by organised crime syndicates which happy to hand out death threats, like candy, to competitors for market space

So .. now that we're getting over the whole sweatshop/slavery thing for cheap, but tangible items, now the western world is enslaving the third world for .... bum fluff ....

So anyway ... there are I am thinking ... What could be more useless than paying for ringtones, which are excerpts from songs, except that they cost MORE than buying the songs on physical media anyway. WoW!

Everytime I think I've seen the stupidest thing ever, the universe surprises me or more to the point, the human race surprises me we just keep coming up with new & improved idiots.

Eventually, the human race will end up not knowing how to breed ... assuming they can tear themselves away from the computer ...

Although, I remember seeing a show recently, where a couple had been married for about 10yrs, and had called up a radio chat show for sex advice ... not because they wanted to spice up their sex life ... but because they didn't understand how to have sex at all!!!

You gotta see the movie "Idiocracy" if you haven't seen it already. It's a very funny movie about our future stupidity.

We can clone.


Back on topic:

I don't think it's fair to think all people should log out of WoW immediately. It is a nice game. It is very well maintained and has a multitude of options and assistance to make sure you are not becoming too addicted. Parents can guard their children as well.

But it's not a game for me, since i like a multitude of games, not one game with a multitude of options.

Yeah, I keep telling everyone they have to watch it too

But who will man the controls ... or idiot the controls?
And will the single "clone" button be idiot proof? And what happens if they break the button?

Maybe it should be legislated that MMORPG games provide break warnings every 1hr, and then a final warning after 8hrs, and a then an enforced kick-off after 10hrs ... with a maximum of 10hrs play time allowed in any 30hr segment of time?
10hrs in 1.25 days is a pretty hefty addiction

While I am sure that someones going to pipe up "Why are you only doing it for MMORPG games?", I'll point out that MMORPG games require central servers, which can police the 30hr limit. While it can be implemented for standalone games, policing it will be a problem, as a few days after the game is released, someone will find a flaw & provide a crack/patch to get rid of the timer.

I'm also sure that someone will point out that these draconian measures will infringe peoples civil liberties. To have civil liberties, you need to be part of society, and people stuck in a virtual world aren't providing any positive contribution to society, nor are they acting out any part in society.

If, as you suggest, some people will find cracked servers which don't enforce these measures, I'd suggest that some people are just a lost cause.

Besides, spending all day sitting down, without exercise means these people are likely to be either malnourished, obese, and otherwise a burden on society, either sucking down resources (do I hear cries of carbon pollution), or medically within a few years

Cruel, but true.

You mean until this day everything has been governend with absolute sanity?

In fact, the Chinese government already has made this mandatory for WoW

Civil liberties in a virtual society maintained by a single company and governed by the local politicians in that particular country... I can see at least three very wrong things in that sentence


Where there's demand, there will be supply. Not a single government has ever been capable of outbanning all evil things. They never will. They never should.


Actually most die of dehydration or malnutrition. You could say the problem solves itself.

Like any game, the popularity off WOW will eventually die off. Its a problem that will take care of itself.

I like self correcting issues

Unfortunately, the whole humans destroying the earth issue worries me slightly, despite the fact it is a self correcting issue

Only because they're people on this planet you slightly care of.

Don't worry. You won't be able to feel a thing when the nuclear warhead hits your frontal lobe with 6000 mph.

You forget they continously add new content to it. Unless people become self-aware and suddenly think "what the hell have i been doing with my life!", they won't stop.

The new star wars or star trek mmo will come out in 2010. If that doesnt put a dent in wow numbers, then we have a problem.

I bought and played WoW when it first came out. Like the first week it hit the stores. I quit a few years ago then picked it up after about 6 months and played it for another 4 or 5 months then quit again. I haven't been back again since then. WoW can be addictive, I certainly remember some all day marathons.

There are certainly different levels of addiction. UTR's post of family/friends being so addicted that they wouldn't even clean, work or take care of themselves is an extreme addiction. I can't fathom letting a game take over your life like that. I would be disgusted to let that happen, but it does happen with regularity to a lot of people that get sucked in.

WoW however is a dying MMO and blizzard IS losing subscribers and they know it. Over the years I've seen WoW go from a great MMO to one that has been nerfed and twisted so much that they've sucked all the achievement, distinction and satisfaction out of the game. The best word I can think of to describe whats happened to the game is homogenization. It's bland... sure, there is tons to do and gear to get. But no skill or effort is required anymore to get it. No significant distinctions of benefits to classes exist.

So, what will happen? WoW will become too old, but continue to limp along. Blizzard will release their new MMO that is already being designed as we speak err. type.. . Most existing WoW players will then buy the new lauded MMO and everything will start anew.

You will see "Blizzard Bucks" or something similar. Similar to what Sony does with their games. You pay a flat "subscription fee" for time in any one of their MMO game. It has an ingenious side benefit for Blizzard. They can charge the same high monthly fee for both their new MMO as well as their old WoW MMO. If Blizzard didn't develop a new subscription based game they would eventually have to drop monthly charges or risk losing mass customers. This way they get to keep existing customers at the same rate plus sell them yet another $50 new game, and $50 expansions etc etc..

*All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again*