Thread: Is World of Warcraft really as addictive as crack?

Originally Posted by Govtcheez

>I wouldn't say that it influences any of my serious actions, but I definetly did skip school (pretended to be sick), stay up all night (even on test days), didn't do homework or study or .. read, or go out and have a life... almost ever (I went out once in 3 months).

How do you reconcile the first part of this sentence with the rest of it?

It doesn't. I actually meant to write that it hasn't influenced me to have any serious problems like depression or suicide, but went off onto the effects of playing.

One question Dae. Where the heck were your parents / guardians?

When my mom felt I was spending too much time on the computer she took steps to stop me because that was her responsibility.

I moved out, they disturbed my precious WoW time . Naw.. Thats how it used to be, when I was in grades 6-9 or so. I used to have a limit of 4 hours/day or so to play the computer, in grade 7 (which I spent on Diablo II), I actually didnt bump that up to 8 hours/day until nearly a year later. Like many teens, I begged for no bed time, and for grades to be my responsiblity. I've always been capable of getting A's easily in school, like a lot of people, but I pretty much eased from grade 4-12 on C- to C+ and sometimes A's. Mostly that was because I didn't ever ask for help on anything, and didn't like to spend ..well.. any time on homework (like most, but I took it to the extreme). Becuase I was still able to carry myself, I guess they didn't see any problem with it. My routine wasn't noticeably different from my normal one anyway. I usually always was in my room anyway. I don't know how I managed to get them to allow me to be in my room all the time (maybe its because they know I'd be going into computers as a career). So with that, and my addiction to computers over the years, and being almost 18 years, its pretty easy to see how they could let that happen. I keep saying their crazy, but they have high hopes for me, even with me taking half a year off, and still think I'll get where I want to be in life.

The whole go to bed at 5am, and get up at 3pm only happened on weekends, and after I took half a year off. It took me a few months to lower my addiction to MMORPGs. I'm doing fine now, that was a typo in the last post - it should be "get my head straight ( which it is now".

Well it's the same with me. I'm into computers and have been for over 10 years. My parents would allow me to go on the computer all day if I wanted to, since it was something I enjoyed it didn't hurt anyone.

ok he thing is the following: 5 million people play this game and the probability of anyone of these guy to have mantal problems or some hart problems is quite high

I really don't see how someone could play videogames with such persistance, hell I have to get up and walk about every hour or so because my ass starts to numb and my eyes go dry.

Sure I've been addicted to games, but not in such depth that I'll sit and play it for hours on end. I think the most I've played a game in one hit was about 4 hours, when I got call of duty 2 the week before last - I think I was on for 2 hours, lunch then played for another couple hours.

How the hell can you block out hunger and thirst while playing a game? The furthest I go with online playing is refusing to leave during a match of CS:S for example; the same for raven shield (the only 2 games I really play online). I mean if I need food / drink or if my Ma asks me to do something, I wait until the next round and go spectator, but that's as far as it goes.

This isn't to say that I have much of a social life, however. I rarely go out if I don't need to, and yes, I have skipped school / college in favour of a lazy morning watching the comedy (7:30 till 9:00 woot) and then some tapping at whatever I'm working on programming wise (if at all) and then maybe some pr0n. The only times I do socialise is during college lunch times (I have a really f'd up timetable with massive breaks some days ).

Letting video games rule your life is the deepest depth of sadness. Really.

EDIT: Besides I haven't got the patience for RPG's. The most I stuck one out for about a week - Runescape. Got to level 13-ish and just got bored. I mean the whole concept of having a vast open world to explore is fine 'n' dandy, just in practice I find them monotonous.

Runescape? That stupid MiniClips game?

No Jagex, but yeah it is stupid: www.runescape.com
It sounds the kind of thing most of the gamers at cboard like though...

Yeah, this game is hosted by miniclips now. It's less of an RPG and more of a well... crappy online flash game.

Originally Posted by ahluka

No Jagex, but yeah it is stupid: www.runescape.com
It sounds the kind of thing most of the gamers at cboard like though...

I completely agree that its sad to let a computer game rule your life. However, you might not have the addictive personality to RPG's and MMORPG's that so many other people do - and could never understand. Especially if you are playing games like Runescape. I have not seen one person on these forums say they like Runescape. I have not met anyone in life that likes this game. I've seen it dissed on these forums, and in real life, though. Its a very old Java game that was more recently ported to "3D" - which is pretty bad 3D btw. I played the game for 1 hour and the personality of the people I saw in these games were children that needed easy access to a free game to talk to their friends, or adults who dont know anything about computers so they need to play a java applet. I don't think I could find myself trying to be a programmer to make games if Runescape is a game I play even semi-frequently.

If you like something and have read half the features that some of these new next-gen games will be implimenting, then its the perfect combination for addiction. One game I'm quite interested in atm is Darkfall. Great physics, do what you want, pvp with whoever you want, be a rebel or manage a city, etc. You should see the 6 vid previous of the upcoming Oblivion if you want to see a real next-gen game. Its about.. oh.. 2000 times better than Runescape, and thats no exaggeration. Taking into consideration the AI, music, sounds, graphics, physics, dynamics, and purely 3d of it. Then theres the fact that every entity in the game reacts to its environments with an AI feel: the dog smells food has been put out and goes to eat it, the dog is being hyper so the annoyed lady yells at him and eventually casts a stun spell on him, she reads, lights a fire, does things to pass time according to her AI; then theres real time generated plush forests, that look almost at nice as the movies; and news is passed by people in towns hearing news and spreading it - literally talking to eachother, and you can eavesdrop, try and get information by bribing/joking/intimidating/etc.; if you shoot an arrow at a tree, the arrow goes in the tree, if you shoot an arrow at metal, it bounces off, force is transferred, newtons laws are accounted for, etc; wind, sky, water, etc are all there. Runescape... ... ..... ..

As far as getting up and walking around - I've never felt I needed to. I never resist hunger, or thirst. I loved my chips and pop.

I agree completely. Oblivion sounds brilliant, it really does, but when I play games like that I can't stick them out. I borrowed Morrowind from a mate the other day and was interested for about an hour or so, but the game just got boring.

I think I've narrowed it down though; I prefer games in which action is there from the start, but the action is "well done". RPG's / MMORGP's have the action, and sure I like the way it's done, but it really isn't there from the start and doesn't give me the satisfying feeling. Counter Strike is opposite, but way too far opposite. The action is there from the start, but it's not really interesting action - at least not until you put several weeks of play time in.

Timesplitters; the action is there from the beginning, easy to pick up, hard to master. Same for Raven Shield, Max Payne, UT2003 - the list goes on (as does my stack of CD cases). I'm a confessed "interesting action junkie".

The graphics of a game really don't bother me that much - sure I'd like to play every game in 1280x1024 with AF, AA and an FPS > 30, but I've gotten used to always having a PC that's 3 years behind the times. I'll gladly sit down to a game of Quake 2 or any of the Half Life series (opfor, blue shift, hldm, tf) and put up with the grainy textures and lack of antialiasing etc - the gameplay is more important. It's always nice to see a good looking game though.

Sadly, I do know around 4 people who religiously play Runescape. One of my classmates talks about ALL THE TIME - how he "pwned a lv23 n00b" - and he's got friends who are just as bad. Is there any hope for them?

The next game I'm positively vibrating in my chair for is Hitman: Blood Money. Big fan of the series, love the gameplay, but I will need a new graphics card to get a framerate above 10 FPS

EDIT: In case you're wondering, I've got an FX5200 128MB. Want to see it cry? Play Quake 4, and just try to use the special effects

Sounds like you would be a 007 fan. Maybe not the single-player, but the multi-player I would think.

Yeah, I have a radeon 9800 128 mb and 1.4 GHz :-/ I'll have to upgrade sometime next summer when Oblivion comes out, and pick up Quake 4 too. Or maybe I should get an Xbox 360 - hopefully they aren't burning up by then.

Yeah I've played a couple of the 007 series, they were pretty good.

Sounds like that upgrade is going to be expensive (if you're upgrading your processor too). I've got a 3.0 GHz so I should be alright there, although I would prefer an Athlon 64 instead of this Pentium. I'm looking to get a 6800GT / GS, which should be a bit cheaper by the time I plan to upgrade (June next year).

I'm not much of a console fan anymore. After I started playing games on the PC I really started to prefer it; better graphics, moddable games, larger communities, etc.

I've got a PS2 (it's my second one actually) that I keep to play Timesplitters: FP. I've still got my PS1 too - I bought it in 1996 and it still works fine, whereas my first PS2 broke down after 18 months or so with the infamous "Disc Read Error"

As if that isn't bad enough, the new PS2's (slimline) sold between August and December of 2004 are being recalled with an AC adapter problem (it overheats or something).

As far as I see it there are generally more problems with consoles.

There's nothing wrong with the game(s) - what I find hard to believe is that somebody could go as far as starving themselves. I think everybody enjoys video games of some sort and I know some people sacrifice social lives and normal daily activities, but death? Seriously, there must be something mentally wrong with anyone who can actually do that; proving yourself at a game doesn't mean you should take it that far.

Otherwise yeah, my hat comes off to all the developers of the world - even the bad ones, and especially the less known ones. Game development is hard work and rewarding, but I wouldn't be all that thrilled knowing I'd killed someone with my work, as flattered as I would be that they played it that much.

I completely agree.

As an addict, I can say I was fully aware my actions.

Games don't kill people.

If an idiot died playing a game, he probably would have died otherwise from not looking both ways when trying to cross a highway.

Originally Posted by Dae

I completely agree.

As an addict, I can say I was fully aware my actions.

Games don't kill people.

If an idiot died playing a game, he probably would have died otherwise from not looking both ways when trying to cross a highway.

Couldn't have said it better myself.