Sometimes I think I should retitle this blog "Life During WoW" because let's face it, I'm doing a bloody awful job of staying cold turkey. Stephen King (my idol) described one of his heroin-addicted characters as doing "cool turkey" because he was still doing heroin, just not quite as much as he used to. Well, I guess I'm doing cool turkey then. Or slightly heated up in the microwave, luke warm, likely to breed e-coli turkey. In a nutshell, I'm playing again. Quite a lot.
Blizzard have made it easier than ever to get good gear without raiding now, and it's just too tempting. It's so easy to get home from work, tired, and slump on the sofa with my laptop, tap-tapping away. I still maintain I'm not as bad as I used to be. My login sessions are pretty short these days (1 hour at a time max) and I break it up with a bit of housework, TV - I even manage to go to the occasional yoga class.
Still, I feel guilty that it's the first thing I feel like doing when I get home. The trouble is, I have a bit of an "all or nothing" personality. When I quit, I have to quit 100% otherwise I just can't feel truly free of the WoW demons.
Anybody watch "Everybody Loves Raymond"? I'm obsessed with it, I've probably seen every episode about 10 times. There's one episode where Marie, the interfering Mother, offers up some wisdom as to why one of the twin boys is refusing to go to school: "You want me to tell you what the problem is? You give them all these computer video-tronic games, and after that, school is just boring to them. It's just an old lady talking". Well, maybe she's right. If you spend your spare time destroying demons and flying above incredible landscapes on giant dragons, real life is bound to feel a little empty.
So that's where I am at the moment. Scared to completely uninstall WoW as I'm not feeling all that fulfilled by real life currently. Do you think I'm ok carrying on like this or do I need to get that luke warm turkey and drop it in the deep freeze again?
Hello, I don't know you, but when I started my blog a few months ago and I found that I had been previously following your blog on my email account.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as to your problem, I think you really need to contemplate whether your current playing is having a positive or negative effect on your life. It's really easy to fall into habits without thinking if they're really making us happy.
I suppose when you put it like that, it's not really doing anything positive for me. I mean, it stops me exercising, or doing anything truly constructive. Hmm, you've given me something to think about there...
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteWhen I quit playing WoW I didn't get cold turkey. I played game about 6-7 years. I quit playing because I realised that playing WoW didn' t give me this "feeling" of adventuring and "magic" anymore. WoW had become more like a job.
I dont miss playing WoW...I miss that feeling.
What a great comment. For me, I stopped being so interested because the puzzles of the bosses increasingly became an exercise in reverse engineering programmed patterns of movement and attack. it didn't seem 'human' enough. that was the magic that was lost.
Deletei still miss that feeling but every time i've gone through the effort of re-loading, the first time i have a frustrating boss battle i find that same "why am i trying to reverse-engineer some silly puzzle a programmer coded..." feeling.
grats on the yoga! i love yoga! =)
......huge heals from a recovering holy priest
^Haha, nothing like seizing an opportunity eh? A blog for people trying to quit WoW and you're right there luring them back in. Fair play! Thanks for the comment though.
ReplyDelete8 Years in World of Warcraft, 8 miserable years: losing job twice over the game, dumped by GF twice and also I gain weight and I look like a Jabba the Hutt… Never imagined it was possible to actually quit WOW. But Im sober for 1.5 months now lol I play restaurant and cooking games (it actually helps) and I’m hoping for the best. NEVER AGAIN!
ReplyDelete