Post by Zeli on Dec 14, 2006 16:50:37 GMT -5
source: Forbes
LINK
LINK
Chasing The Dragon
John Giuffo 12.14.06, 9:00 AM ET
I'm a junkie. I admit it. But my drug of choice isn't heroin or meth--it's World of Warcraft, a devious little endorphin-stimulator that is available in retail stores. I am not alone. Warcraft is the most popular massively multiplayer online game in history. Seven million people are hooked, both adults and children. WoW, as it is known, is my favorite pastime, my most reliable friend. It's my own, my only ... my precious.
I get home from work around 8, ditch my bag and hit the laptop power button so the game starts up by the time I settle into my nighttime sweats and pour myself a drink. I drop onto the sofa, double-click the blue-and-gold "W" icon on the desktop, enter my account name and password, and wait the agonizing 30 seconds for the login process to complete. Connecting ... Familiar worries about my finicky wireless connection flash through my head. Authenticating ... My knee twitches violently. Handshaking ... I try to I distract myself with a repeat of a Daily Show I only half-watched the night before because I was grinding for enough gold to buy a mount. Authentication Successful!
I can stop anytime I want to. I just don't want to.
That's not to say I've never wanted to. I knew going into this that I would have a problem regulating my time in Azeroth, the fictional setting of World of Warcraft. I've had plenty of videogame obsessions over the years, but they were always brief; hot trysts of limited duration--the focus of every waking thought for a few days or weeks, then forgotten like yesterday's news. When Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was released in late 2004, I had already spent a month poring over the smallest of the game's details leaked online. Cool--you can dress up C.J. in more outfits than Gangbanger Barbie. And when it came out, I took some time off from work and pounded that controller silly, day and night, until we were both sore. But after I was crowned San Andreas gangland king, I was done. I haven't picked up the game since. WoW, however, is different.
For one, there's no end to the World of Warcraft. Like most massively multiplayer online games, it's designed as an open-ended adventure with no discernible conclusion. You play until you don't want to play anymore, but you never finish. There's always another piece of gear to earn, another dungeon to explore, a new quest to complete. Blizzard, the game's maker, has designed into the game a system of incremental rewards that keeps you playing ... and playing ... and playing.
I scared myself last January when, during a weeklong work trip to the Caribbean island of Curaçao, I found myself using what limited spare time I had playing the game in a darkened hotel room instead of sitting out on the beach, or swimming in the pool, or doing anything that wasn't playing videogames indoors on a Caribbean island in the middle of winter. I vowed to exert more self-control. To take back my life. To not go down this dark path. And I did good for a while. I started pitching and writing more articles. I tried not to play it around my girlfriend as much, who viewed the game as a man-stealer. I worked overtime to save money for a planned three-month trip around Europe. I kept playing, but I had it under control. At least that's what I told myself.
Then, one ugly day in June, while I was realizing my dream to live on a canal boat in the middle of Amsterdam, spending my days writing and drawing, I logged back in. I found myself rationalizing things: You can write tomorrow. You don't really need to see The Hague. It's just a bunch of lawyers and bankers anyway. After all, for as cool as the Netherlands is, there aren't any dragons flying around. It was only at the end, when my bags were packed and my time in Europe was over, that I wanted to kick myself for spending so much time playing that same stupid, mindlessly repetitive damned videogame.
They say addicts don't get help until they hit bottom. For me, that was the $4.13 bottom of my bank account, drained dry by the Eurotrip, and unable to keep up with the $15 monthly subscription fee. No pay, no play--so when I got back home, I decided to view my lapsed subscription as an opportunity to focus again on work and to not waste any more of my life scouring caves for Dark Iron Dwarf droppings. No, none of that for me. I was off the junk.
Then Trey Parker and Matt Stone did their entire season premiere episode of South Park as one long romp through the World of Warcraft. I laughed at the jokes a little too hard. I missed that stirring theme music a little too much. And the next day, I renewed my subscription. I had three months clean.
But maybe I'm being too harsh on the game. Maybe it's not wasted time. After all, waste is such a strong word. Seven million people can't be wrong. Not for nothing is it the most popular game since Pac-Man. It fosters teamwork. It's a communal game, not a solitary session with the PlayStation. You make friends, and some of them might even be the girls they claim to be.
More important, I had stopped playing when my main character reached level 51, a mere nine levels away from the level cap of 60 and the endgame. That is really what World of Warcraft is designed for--the 20-person raid dungeons, the epic mounts and gear, becoming the ganker, no longer the gankee--and it's what I had been working toward for months, through a number of abandoned characters. It would be a shame to waste all that hard work leveling myself up only to ditch the game so close to the goal. Level 60. Just saying it to myself warms me down there.
There's work to be done by January, when Blizzard releases a long-anticipated expansion set, The Burning Crusade, that will open up new lands to explore, new weapons and gear to spend hundreds of hours earning, and a new level cap of 70. And, oh yeah, flying mounts.
I want to see you earn your way up to dragonrider and tell me you want to stop. All I'm saying is, don't judge. There but for the grace of Elune go you.
Me? I can stop playing anytime I want to. But who wants to?
John Giuffo 12.14.06, 9:00 AM ET
I'm a junkie. I admit it. But my drug of choice isn't heroin or meth--it's World of Warcraft, a devious little endorphin-stimulator that is available in retail stores. I am not alone. Warcraft is the most popular massively multiplayer online game in history. Seven million people are hooked, both adults and children. WoW, as it is known, is my favorite pastime, my most reliable friend. It's my own, my only ... my precious.
I get home from work around 8, ditch my bag and hit the laptop power button so the game starts up by the time I settle into my nighttime sweats and pour myself a drink. I drop onto the sofa, double-click the blue-and-gold "W" icon on the desktop, enter my account name and password, and wait the agonizing 30 seconds for the login process to complete. Connecting ... Familiar worries about my finicky wireless connection flash through my head. Authenticating ... My knee twitches violently. Handshaking ... I try to I distract myself with a repeat of a Daily Show I only half-watched the night before because I was grinding for enough gold to buy a mount. Authentication Successful!
I can stop anytime I want to. I just don't want to.
That's not to say I've never wanted to. I knew going into this that I would have a problem regulating my time in Azeroth, the fictional setting of World of Warcraft. I've had plenty of videogame obsessions over the years, but they were always brief; hot trysts of limited duration--the focus of every waking thought for a few days or weeks, then forgotten like yesterday's news. When Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was released in late 2004, I had already spent a month poring over the smallest of the game's details leaked online. Cool--you can dress up C.J. in more outfits than Gangbanger Barbie. And when it came out, I took some time off from work and pounded that controller silly, day and night, until we were both sore. But after I was crowned San Andreas gangland king, I was done. I haven't picked up the game since. WoW, however, is different.
For one, there's no end to the World of Warcraft. Like most massively multiplayer online games, it's designed as an open-ended adventure with no discernible conclusion. You play until you don't want to play anymore, but you never finish. There's always another piece of gear to earn, another dungeon to explore, a new quest to complete. Blizzard, the game's maker, has designed into the game a system of incremental rewards that keeps you playing ... and playing ... and playing.
I scared myself last January when, during a weeklong work trip to the Caribbean island of Curaçao, I found myself using what limited spare time I had playing the game in a darkened hotel room instead of sitting out on the beach, or swimming in the pool, or doing anything that wasn't playing videogames indoors on a Caribbean island in the middle of winter. I vowed to exert more self-control. To take back my life. To not go down this dark path. And I did good for a while. I started pitching and writing more articles. I tried not to play it around my girlfriend as much, who viewed the game as a man-stealer. I worked overtime to save money for a planned three-month trip around Europe. I kept playing, but I had it under control. At least that's what I told myself.
Then, one ugly day in June, while I was realizing my dream to live on a canal boat in the middle of Amsterdam, spending my days writing and drawing, I logged back in. I found myself rationalizing things: You can write tomorrow. You don't really need to see The Hague. It's just a bunch of lawyers and bankers anyway. After all, for as cool as the Netherlands is, there aren't any dragons flying around. It was only at the end, when my bags were packed and my time in Europe was over, that I wanted to kick myself for spending so much time playing that same stupid, mindlessly repetitive damned videogame.
They say addicts don't get help until they hit bottom. For me, that was the $4.13 bottom of my bank account, drained dry by the Eurotrip, and unable to keep up with the $15 monthly subscription fee. No pay, no play--so when I got back home, I decided to view my lapsed subscription as an opportunity to focus again on work and to not waste any more of my life scouring caves for Dark Iron Dwarf droppings. No, none of that for me. I was off the junk.
Then Trey Parker and Matt Stone did their entire season premiere episode of South Park as one long romp through the World of Warcraft. I laughed at the jokes a little too hard. I missed that stirring theme music a little too much. And the next day, I renewed my subscription. I had three months clean.
But maybe I'm being too harsh on the game. Maybe it's not wasted time. After all, waste is such a strong word. Seven million people can't be wrong. Not for nothing is it the most popular game since Pac-Man. It fosters teamwork. It's a communal game, not a solitary session with the PlayStation. You make friends, and some of them might even be the girls they claim to be.
More important, I had stopped playing when my main character reached level 51, a mere nine levels away from the level cap of 60 and the endgame. That is really what World of Warcraft is designed for--the 20-person raid dungeons, the epic mounts and gear, becoming the ganker, no longer the gankee--and it's what I had been working toward for months, through a number of abandoned characters. It would be a shame to waste all that hard work leveling myself up only to ditch the game so close to the goal. Level 60. Just saying it to myself warms me down there.
There's work to be done by January, when Blizzard releases a long-anticipated expansion set, The Burning Crusade, that will open up new lands to explore, new weapons and gear to spend hundreds of hours earning, and a new level cap of 70. And, oh yeah, flying mounts.
I want to see you earn your way up to dragonrider and tell me you want to stop. All I'm saying is, don't judge. There but for the grace of Elune go you.
Me? I can stop playing anytime I want to. But who wants to?