I have a serious problem at the moment. I’m suffering really badly from an addiction. I’ve tried talking to my doctor, but it seems he has it too. I’ve tried talking to my boyfriend and he’s the same, I’d call my friends but they’re all distracted by the same addiction… Warcrack. God help me, I’m addicted to World of Warcrack.
It all began a few years ago, one of my friends had it installed on their PC and invited me to have a go. I made my first character, which I think was a troll, simply because of the awesome hair. I noob’ed about and didn’t really think much more of it. Then it started, I’d be sitting doing nothing, playing another game, eating my dinner, travelling on the bus, and I got the urge. I wanted to play.
Not long after this, I bought my own copy of Warcraft and ran it on minimum settings on the terrible family laptop. Hour after hour I’d sit and play with my friend and his guildies. Not long after that, I found some of my other friends played, so I set a toon up on their server and began the grind again. At this point, things were bleak. I literally had no time for any other game. I worked and studied full time and had a long way to travel to get to and from there so any spare gaming time HAD to be spent levelling on WoW. Hours passed, Days passed, Weeks past, my played time was getting bigger and bigger, and by this point, I’d played almost every character of every class up to level 20 and beyond.
News stories started to come in about people dying because of Warcraft. A baby died in China after her parents had left her alone at home to go play Warcraft at an Internet café. A 28 year old man from Beijing died while preparing for an end-game battle, not long after, another game enthusiast died from DVT after playing too long. Then came a suicide that had apparently been brought about by the game. China introduced a gaming restriction, whereby after 3 hours players would get booted from the game (this now only applies to gamers under the age of 18, but the “rest bonus” system is now supposed to be the deterrent from addiction). It is said that 40% of Warcraft players are “addicted”. So at least in that sense, I am not alone.
But i have a very love hate relationship with the game. I’ll go for months without playing it, then I’ll be sitting in the car minding my own business when I’ll just need to play. Back home I will go, game time will be added, I’ll log in and another month of spare time will disappear. When Burning Crusade was launched, I had my copy ready and installed waiting for the dark portal to open. I was one of the first characters on my Server to take a Draenei over to Ironforge.
I stood there, in my blue glory with players gathering around me, marvelling at the new race. A matter of days later, level 70 Draenei and Blood Elves were everywhere. People must literally have been levelling constantly since the launch.
I can honestly say right now, I have NO IDEA why I play the game. It’s not my favourite game, it doesn’t give me any sense of achievement, a lot of the friends I used to play with have now either moved on or are in very serious raid guilds, but still I keep crawling back. Earlier this year, while suffering from a bout of Warcraft addiction I decided that there simply have to be better MMO’s out there. I couldn’t accept that this mindless grind-fest simply was the be all and end all.
First off, I tried Guild Wars. I forced myself to play this game for days, but I just couldn’t get into it. The graphics are gorgeous, the Game mechanics are fine, but it just wasn’t Warcraft. So I did a bit of research online, and decided to sign myself up for a few beta’s. I forget what most of them were called, but they just seemed to be grind-fests. The only one I actually remember the name of was Requiem : Bloodymare which I can’t help but think is a really silly name anyway. The character customisation was excellent on these, and the graphics were gorgeous, but the semi-neon lure of Warcraft brought me back. So then I tried Age Of Conan. Aside from the fact it really seemed to offend my laptop it was good. Interesting combat mechanics, wonderful graphics (again) but still, it just didn’t have that WoW factor.
Right now, I have about 10 games for my Xbox 360 just sitting waiting to be played. I have No more Heroes and Trauma Centre on Wii to complete. I want to get stuck into Virtua Fighter 5 today, and yet I know full well, the second I finish writing this I’ll be on Warcrack again.
So here’s to the next time I have a several month Warcraft Hiatus, and here’s to the Players who manage to break the addiction.
But you know the really sad thing?
I don’t even have a level 70 yet.
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