Is All the WoW Hate Really Neccesary?

[factorydirect]

Here me out folks, I'm fairly certain this isn't a case of denial. Well even if it is, this is still a valid argument .

I just read the "Wow detox" thread that is floating around on this board and frankly I don't think its very realistic. It seems to me that WoW is getting a very bad rep for the immature actions of a very small percentage of the games community. Its comparable to social networks such as MySpace and Facebook; sure people use the sites to get in touch with friends, meet new people and, in a sense, create their real or made up "E-Life". But the terrible side to these seemingly harmless websites, that is occasionally brought, up is the fact that there are sick pedophiles that troll other peoples profiles with the sole intent to molest their "prey". Its safe to say that not everyone that visits on Myspace or Facebook is going to get raped or become a child molester, but still people have the false perception that if you play WoW then you will become addicted to the game and throw your life and everything you worked for away.

A second thing that is obvious, yet people fail to realize is that *most* WoW players have plenty of self control, not everyone is obsessed with "looting the phat purplez" as you nay-sayers believe, not everyone plays till 5 in the morning just be cause they are submissive to the will of their guild leaders not everyone needs to live up to their guildmates standards, in fact most people that do these types of things do it just to be in the company of their buddies. This brings up the fact that you can meet some really cool people in this massive community called Warcraft, I know first hand and so do thousands of other players.

Another point I emphasize in a debate like this is that I as well as countless others play the game not only as a hobby or to pass time but also to keep in touch with old friends and to hang out with friends they know in real life, when not actually *in* real life. This may sound weird to anyone whose not familiar with the gaming lifestyle but I personally did it myself and know many others that do. Is this game a cult or just a new form of having fun? Thats for you to decide.

Obviously I can't sway your perception of this game or gaming in general if you have already made it up but I think some of you might want to hold your tongue next time you badmouth a WoW player and automatically judge them as an addict that has or soon will throw away his life. Because the fact of the matter is that WoW does not gobble up peoples life, the person does that to themselves because of either lack of self control or a serious need of something to do. Hehe but seriously people, don't knock this game unless you know someone first hand who has gone through a silly addiction or has been through it before and certainly DO NOT base your opinion by exaggerated anecdotes of people that are just looking for something to hate!

Thanks for the read, all comments accepted. My apologies if this topic has been gone through already, which I'm sure it has, and the run-on sentences / wall of text .

-Andrew,

 

[justinmcg67]

While I personally read that whole thing, I disagree entirely. I know a fair amount of people who play or used to play World of Warcraft, myself included, I can say without any shadow of a doubt that it is addicting, by the very definition of the word. A lot of things are addicting, some good, some bad. World of Warcraft personally sapped my social life for a solid 4 months, and once I realized that a game was gaining control of my life, it was START>CONTROL PANEL> ADD/REMOVE>World of Warcraft and that was that.

To address the issue of why people play and the percentiles used in that argument, I would disagree a little as well. While there is no percentage listed, thus leaving it to be up to the reader to decide how many people actually play for friends or family, is entirely up to them. I played with friends at first, and than a family member of mine, and that it became a quick reality that I was re-rolling different classes on different servers all by myself. So yes, it is true that people play for friends and family and the "social" aspect of it, the truth of the matter is those are all features, not the reason behind playing the game.

Allow me to state one thing here: if a game, specifically ONE game, out of all the games out there, is getting all the heat for being addicting and no other game currently on the market is, than what do you think all those people are claiming? Fact, fiction, perhaps neither? There is a fact here, people are making ways to cut the addiction to WoW, and for what? Rep? No, because the game IS addicting, why it is addicting it entirely subjective, but the fact remains that people complain about WoW as an addiction more often than anything else.

World of Warcraft players themselves will admit to addiction, I've personally read it on the /1 Global Chat and /4 LFG channels. It's there. I mean for goodness sakes they make apparel with WoW > RL on it! What does that tell you?

Does WoW deserve to be badmouthed? I don't know, but than again, does it deserve to be talked about so kindly?

 

[GarmaZed]

On a personal level, I hate WoW. I've lost one good friend to the game, he's dropped out of school and lives at home with his parents working as a busboy. At the age of 28. After three years of college. I've nearly lost two friends to this game, this addiction.

 

[justinmcg67]

Funny that you say you had a friend drop out of school to play WoW, I personally had two friends do this. They claim it's because they hated school, which is true, because it took up their WoW time. They one time skipped their finals to go home and play WoW. It's sad really...

 

[ouroboros]

It's not directed solely at WoW, just that WoW DOES consist of the vast majority of MMO players. That being said, yes this "hate" is necessary if it might wake some people up to start limiting their playtime or simply step away from it entirely. Sure, before WoW there was EQ and before EQ there was the infamous chat room for online socializing. The same people online in the same place every night, gathered together without ever having to leave the comfort of their home. Games like MMOs simply have the added entertainment of shiny graphics and gameplay as well as the socializing.

As I just posted in Detox thread: When people start losing sight of their other interests and hobbies then they need to step away from the keyboard for awhile. Sad thing is that it's almost as if I were advocating for that video game addiction clinic... scary thought.

 

[spuddyt]

what do you do if you had no other hobbies to begin with? (save, perhaps reading books...) then you end up with no social life, and nothing to do.... (no, i'm not referring to myself :lol

 

[justinmcg67]

Looking at this again, I don't think anyone is in any position to tell WoW players that they're addicts, or how to live their own lives; but I do think it should be made aware that the game they are playing has addictive traits, and should play at some amount of warning or caution.

 

[MarkG]

It's not directed solely at WoW, just that WoW DOES consist of the vast majority of MMO players.

Indeed: WoW gets the hate because it dwarfs all other Western life-stealing MMOGs of the past; EQ1 had assholes and people who let the game take over their lives, but had maybe a tenth as many players.

 

[factorydirect]

Funny that you say you had a friend drop out of school to play WoW, I personally had two friends do this. They claim it's because they hated school, which is true, because it took up their WoW time. They one time skipped their finals to go home and play WoW. It's sad really...

First off, I'm not saying that this isn't disgusting horrible behavior, because frankly it is, thats most likely one of the worst things that a game can do to somebody.

You are entitled to your own opinion, but should you really be basing your entire view of a game on the actions of two of your college buddies? Meh, maybe the argument your making has more evidence than mine, but I'm a firm believer that the ratio of people that have thrown their life away to the game is smaller than that of people who maintain it as a healthy hobby.

 

[surrealdeal]

you are either severely uninformed, or in denial. Do you have any idea how many psychiatrists blizzard can hire to engineer that game to be addictive? ~8 million users x $15/Mo = lots of cash = lots of soul less manipulative psychologists for sale. Don't deny it boys and girls. I've lost friends as well, even family members, why as i'm writing this i can here the bickering.. "dude, i p0wned that guy" at the other end of the house. BTW, one of my classmates dated someone on face book and contracted HIV. How's that for user friendly?

 

[surrealdeal]

factory direct said:
"but I'm a firm believer that the ratio of people that have thrown their life away to the game is smaller than that of people who maintain it as a healthy hobby. "
... I ask: at what cost to quality of life?

 

[ouroboros]

surrealdeal: I truly hope you meant that post in jest. Otherwise I'm thinking you may need to take a step or two back from that keyboard yourself. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of people addicted to WoW, EQ*, CoH/V, EO etc. Just that these are people that would become addicted to practically anything that allowed for an anonymous personae in a social environment with little or no repercussions in real life. WoW is popular due to the simplicity and ease of its gameplay. I SERIOUSLY DOUBT that Blizz hired a team of shrinks to create an addictive game for the sole (soulless?) purpose of bilking $15/month out of countless bank acc'ts...

...although now that you mention it, it's not a bad idea. Hmmm, I need to get to work on this. Thanks

 

[surrealdeal]

Right, because tobacco companies never did anything like that either... They only deal in billions... Comcast customers, did you know? the first step in indoctrinating somebody into a cult is by taking everything away from them, and leaving them with nothing. Much like the fact that there is absolutely nothing but rocks and valleys in WoW. And nothing to do. So the mind bends itself all out of shape looking for some 'meaning' some depth. it can't find any, breaks, and comes up with an internal rewards system, with beating things with sticks the order of the day. It IS a conspiracy.

 

[zahan]

Ok time to get this off my chest, I dont play WoW much but I do play FFXI alot. The thing that irritates me the most is people telling me what I CAN and CANT do with my life. I'm 30 years old, have a wife and kid, work 60 hours a week and play MMO's to relax. Now as for the people saying your addicted if you play, go home to your mama's before I stick a G.Axe up your A**. My wife plays with me so we spend time together and my son is to young to play but he wants to. I also play GTA and you dont see me killing everyone around me. Dont belive the media hype that video games kill everything it touches, you make it what it is. Parents control your kids times for games <MMO's or and any kind> and the Night Owl players of any MMO's are 90% people that work late jobs like I do, we get off at midnight and play till 5 am cuz we cant sleep. Educate yourself before shouting and pointing blame. Peace . BTW Warcraft sux Long live FFXI Bahamut Server.

 

[DannyBoy27]

I have lived with my brother ( 1 yr older - 27 now ) for more than 2 yrs in London. He has played WOW for just under 2 of those now ( he is the guildmaster of one of the biggest clans in the world "apparently" - christ I believe him as no other human on the planet can play as much time as that, like 15-20 hrs a day!! ). He started after my mate bought me the game and he watched me jam it for a while. I had a lvl 18 dwarven sniper before I lost my mind with boredom - just couldnt kill 1 more boar with a click and 1,4,5,2 key combination. He moved from being a halo2 xbox addict to jamming WOW alot on my pc. I noticed him getting so aggressive from the start when i tried to boot him off. Anyway, so after already establishing that he has an addictive personality, I have written him off as a family member after the RIDICULOUS fights we have had. He reverted into some dirty pikey - he stacks up like 30 2lt coke bottles and his room is a shambles. He holds the record for smoking the quickest cigarette in the world and everything, including making tea, is a rushed affair like his life depends on it. He has segregated himself from my entire family. He has no reallife friends, hardly sleeps, has NEVER cooked a meal on the hob in the house we moved into, lives off coke and pizza, never cleans the house, and is a disgusting pig. He currently only works part time like 3 days a week and even then he is always taking sickies and days off for stress or depression or headaches or some other crap.

The thing is wow is a tough game not to get addicted to if you are a normal gamer but for someone who has a predisposition towards being addicted to these kind of things and enjoys controlling a guild as they are weak skinny losers in real life and get a god complex rush out of it - it makes heroin look like a mild caffeine high ( slight exaggeration). The game is designed to NEVER end and is so perfectly engineered to keep you coming back for more its scary. Talk about preying on the weak willed.
WOW is the devil and is just a plain evil formula of explotation and depravity.

I love the craft and diablo and blizzard has made arguably the best games on the planet but its paints a scary future for gaming and future generations of technologically enthused kids...

 

[deathblooms2k1]

gaming is an addiction more so then WoW. I for one spend waay to much playing games then I should. I think many of the WoW haters are previous players who are spiteful for the time they themselves wasted playing the game. I played it, will never play it again but I have no regrets. It has its pro's in cons. On the flipside of the article people defending it use the excuse I connect to rl family in friends, having played the game with friends before I can tell you its harder then hell to maintain the same lvl characters in order to play together on top of the fact the only times you play together is when your schedules don't conflict... SO what happens? You end up doing your own thing spending endless ours on the computer.

 

[calyth]

I don't agree with the OP at all.
I've known plenty of WoW players who goes in and out of addiction, some of them takes a nose-dive in academics (we're Computing Science at a University). Most of them are smart enough to see the sign, and try to "pull-up" before they crash into a mountain.

Sure, gaming in general can be an addiction. For the longest time in highschool, I was addicted to the C&C franchise; and now that I'm working at a mindless job they call a co-op work term, I spend a lot of nights playing TF2, but at least I'm not addicted enough to give up my real life to it. However, I've seen enough to indicate that WoW is a different animal, and you've heard posters here that has seen it happen too.

Also, I find the idea of grind stupid in a game. It's the very reason why I stopped playing Diablo 2. But that's a very subjective view about a game, and has very little to do with the addictive properties of WoW on many people.

If you like WoW, and don't have a problem with it, go nuts. No one's here to stop you. I've seen enough to believe otherwise, and I'll, according to the OP, hate WoW as I see fit.

 

[justinmcg67]

First off, I'm not saying that this isn't disgusting horrible behavior, because frankly it is, thats most likely one of the worst things that a game can do to somebody.

You are entitled to your own opinion, but should you really be basing your entire view of a game on the actions of two of your college buddies? Meh, maybe the argument your making has more evidence than mine, but I'm a firm believer that the ratio of people that have thrown their life away to the game is smaller than that of people who maintain it as a healthy hobby.

Oh I'm not disagreeing at all. I'm just simply sharing my own experiences that I've had with the game. And in my previous post I was mainly finding the fact that GarmaZed and him having a friend drop out of school and me having two friends drop out of school for the game was very bizarre.

My opinion of the game is this: It's fun, very fun, but it's also addicting.

 

[deathblooms2k1]

You should hate human nature. The fact that these people don't have enough self-control to know when to stop. By hating WoW you should also hate: cigarrettes, coffee, sugar, boos, ice cream, adreneline rushes, shopping, etc. It comes down to basics do your friends have enough self-control and care to stop what they are doing? And is it right to hate a company based on the fact that they exploit human weakness? If they wern't addicted to WoW would they be addicted to some other game? I'm inclined to say yes as history dictates that addiction was a large problem in Everquest so much though that there were sitings in the news of people committing suicide over events that happened in the game. I think its a bigger problem then WoW, and obviously its not a good thing but I don't think you can blame blizzard for trying to maximize profits since that's generally the goal of most companies. If you look around you will see there has been an outburst of MMO production since it's such a success so you better start hating some more. WoW happens to be the most popular at the moment but if it wasn't around your friends would just be feeding an addiction some where else, perhaps vanguard, tabula rasa, guild wars, lord of the rings, everquest 2, star wars galaxies, etc.

Like I said WoW just takes the heat for being the most successful at what every other MMO out there tries to accomplish.

 

[surrealdeal]

deathblooms2k1 said :" And is it right to hate a company based on the fact that they exploit human weakness? " ... uhh... is it right to **** someone if you know they are incapable of saying no? the homeless? drug addicted prostitutes? No it's not. Is it right to hate that which takes advantage of people? Yes it is. Stop blaming the victim.

 

[thepinkpanther]

wow i play mmorpgs (guildwars) and im lazy as hell but i still manage to study for school at rare times, i cant play mmo's for more than 2 hours a day and can manage to live with out playing them for days at a time. I love pc games but wow i have a very fruitful life as compared to the other gamers u people are talking about. I remember last year studying for finals i didnt play games 3 weeks straight and came second in class. Thank you people for sharing your friends stories about games makes me feel alot better!! is WoW that addicting? good i dont have a credit card...yet.

 

[deathblooms2k1]

I'm not blaming the victim although I can see where you think it sounds like I am. I didn't specify blame because I think it's far more complicated then that. Maybe their parents got divorced at a late age, maybe their father walked out on them. Maybe they wern't popular in school but are now popular in the game, or maybe they had friends who cared enough to identify the problem but not enough to help out with it. We really don't know without more information. What we do know is that addiction is rooted in more places then one, that blizzard isn't the only company feeding on it and that hating blizzard isn't going to solve anything about it, in effect its just more publicity that most likely will make it more popular, take the south park episode for example... For those of you who didn't see it basically trashed everything about WoW and how rediculous the game can be, and yet blizzard took no shame in publisizing it all over their site. Why? Because in the end publicity is publicity good or bad it doesn't matter.

As I stated in my previous post I don't think blizzards strategy is a good thing, however I don't blame them for it, they are making millions in profit every month which is exactly what any business strives to do.

 

[zahan]

I guess I'm the screwed up one, I play wow and FFXI-Work 40 to 60 hrs a week-raise a family-smoke-drink-and dont care for family members outside my own house. #1. Teach your kids the difference from Gaming and reality. #2. Keep the media out of your kids life. #3. Be responsible with your life. and this goes to all those Gamer Haters out there that wanna complain about everything I'll tell you the same thing I say to music listeners, IF YOU DONT LIKE IT- TURN IT OFF -OR SWITCH TO SOMETHING ELSE!!!!!

 

[surrealdeal]

ahhh... ****. i really am sorry. i completely misread that last post.

 

[justinmcg67]

Surrealdeal you need to shut the f*ck up. You have no damn right to insult a guy who works his ass off and provides for his family. Gaming is his hobby and he plays World of Warcraft as his game. He has three basic principles to parenting and life. All of which are accurate and teach many other things.

Please, log off, you're time as a douche bag has expired. Thank you.