The radio station I listen to on the way to work does a daily advice piece, to help someone solve a dilema they are having.  It's usually a humourous little skit, offering advice to people who are faced with two women madly in love with them, or have a wonderful partner who is terrible in bed, and don't know how to broach the subject.  This morning however, a man emailed in about his World of Warcraft addiction.  He plays day and night, and when he isn't playing he thinks about it, and when he sleeps he dreams about it.  He knows he has a problem but doesn't know how to deal with it.  The presenters, obviously having never played an MMOG gave advice to the best of their abilities, and it was a funny piece no doubt, but I don't think the poor chap in question will really have got any help from it. 

People who have never played a MMOG like World of Warcraft simply don't understand why we play.  They certainly don't understand the hours we put in.  They don't understand the feeling you get when you level, or down a raid boss for the first time, or get the epic you have been coveting for months.  It's pure adrenaline, and the buzz you get is akin to taking drugs.  It feels awesome, and it's addictive - even more so when you are on teamspeak or ventrilo with your guildmates, sharing the joy.

World of Warcraft Addiction

I used to play World of Warcraft.  When I say play - I mean live: I used to eat, sleep and breathe World of Warcraft.  I cancelled appointments with friends because I was required to raid, I rushed home from work and didn't eat anything until after midnight because I was raiding.  Even when I was at work and unabel to log in, I was planning raid setups, working out what gear I needed and how to achieve it, what order to go for it in to get the optimum upgrades, thinking about different specs and spell rotations to boost my DPS and reading various sites to keep up to date on everything.

 I understand what it's like to need to keep playing - "just 6 more arena matches before I can sleep, just 2 more Alterac Valley marks before I can get a drink, just one more mining gain before I can go to the toilet, just this last quest, just one more attempt on this boss, just one more..."  World of Warcraft addicts set themselves goals, or targets.  They need to achieve them before they can stop for the day, otherwise they lie awake at night worrying about how they can fit in all the other goals they need to achieve before Friday's Illidan attempt, or Tuesday's Arena matches.  Unfortunately, Blizzard have not helped matters with one of the additionss in their latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.  In a cunning scheme which will undoubtedly further snare hardcore and casual gamers alike they have introduced an Achievements system which physically rewards the meeting of arbitrary goals and achievements with points, that the player can spend on trophy items.

Virtual Friends?

Aside from the buzz and feeling of achievement created by these self-set goals, the other main pull is the friends you make.  People who have not played World of Warcraft or a similar MMOG don't understand how you can form lasting friendships with people you meet online, who aren't even in the same country.  However, World of Warcraft is heavily geared towards teamwork and when you are working towards new goals, you do have to coordinate your actions very closely via voice chat programs in order to achieve your targets.  When you have regular contact with someone not just through typing, but by actually talking to them, you can become quite close.  On a personal level, I met my boyfriend in an online browser game, at which time he lived on the other side of the North Sea.  8 years later and we have been living together happily for the past few years, and have regular contact - both "in real life", on the phone and online with a great many of the other gamers we have met during our online career.  These are real people behind the computers, and when you make a real friend, you don't want to let them down. 

And this is the other main cause of addiction.  As I mentioned, World of Warcraft is heavily biased towards group play, as many of the highly coveted epic items are achievable only through raids of 25 people.  My boyfriend and I lead a casual raiding guild for a little over a year.  We called ourselves casual raiders at the time, because we "only" raided for 4-5 hours a night, 4-5 times a week.  It's only looking back that I can see how hardcore we actually were - "casual" in World of Warcraft is a relative term, as there are many guilds around that are far more hardcore even than this, expecting over 12 hours of play time a day, every day of their members.  It takes a lot of effort to coordinate 25 people to be online at the same time, in the same place, for the same purpose and having experienced it myself, I fully understand both the feeling that you are required and will be letting your friends down if you don't turn up and conversely, the frustration of a leader whose guild members don't turn up on time.

The way the game is set up, the first times you do an encounter every single person and the individual skills their character brings to the raid are vital - you will not succeed in killing the boss whilst still learning an encounter unless you have the correct team.  The pressure to be there is enormous.  However, if you decide to leave, what is the worst thing that could happen to your friends?  They might have to skip a particular fight for a couple of weeks while they recruit another player of the correct class to replace you.  They may go through a few trialists before they find one good enough.  But there are 11 million active subscriptions to World of Warcraft at last count... you are not indisposable!  You can be replaced if you want to leave!  Your friends may be disappointed but there are dozens of ways to keep in touch.  In our case the guild simply dissolved as we were its leaders - many people were relieved and took the opportunity to quit as well.  Others started playing casually, and a few went on to even more hardcore guilds.  Either way, it was not the huge disaster we had feared.  It was sad, but we set up an external forum where the former guild members both who do and don't now play are all active and still chatting with each other 6 months after having quit.

Life After World of Warcraft

You will almost certainly feel a void in your life when you stop.  You'll probably keep reading the various World of Warcraft forums and news websites to keep up to date.  You will have strong urges to log in to fill the empty space that was there before - but you need to fill this with other things.  Personally, we have bought an XBox 360 and gone back to single player and coop gaming together.  We're spending a lot of time gaming still, but there is an end to the game eventually and the fact that the world isn't persistant means there is no pressure to play every day.  We can go out with friends, visit family and do all the other things we used to put off because of World of Warcraft commitments.  We read again, and relax watching Tv and movies, I've even learnt how to knit!  I'm happy to be living in the Real World again, instead of the World of Warcraft.