World of Warcraft addicts

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 4:39 pm

Does anyone here know a WoW addict? Are any of you WoW addicts? Just wondering because this game is starting to drive me mad.
My housemate plays 7 or more hours a day, even more on weekends and I think he plays that game more than he sleeps. I'm moving back home when our lease is up on account of WoW alone.

For those that don't know what WoW is, it's a highly addictive online computer game. It turns its people into addicts and has earnt the nickname "World of WarCrack" for this reason.

Sorry to vent this out here, but it is part of the reason I've been on these boards more lately.

chubby37 · Post by **chubby37** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 4:59 pm

and here we are thinking you love us.... 8O

MUDRAT · Post by **MUDRAT** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 5:45 pm

I played Star Wars Battlefront through GameSpy for a bit, but really there's far more important things to do with your time than sit in front of a computer.

Why is WoW so good?

BaronVonChickenPants · Post by **BaronVonChickenPants** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 7:54 pm

To the average person it's not, there's just the odd lemming who gets sucked right into it, then you account for the amount of odd lemmings in a world full of people and you have enough of a market to fund yourself selling lemming addicting World of WarCrack as it were. [/crazy lunatic rant]

Jordan.

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 9:10 pm

BaronVonChickenPants wrote:To the average person it's not, there's just the odd lemming who gets sucked right into it, then you account for the amount of odd lemmings in a world full of people and you have enough of a market to fund yourself selling lemming addicting World of WarCrack as it were. [/crazy lunatic rant]

Jordan.

Well said. The biggest problem with WoW (and other MMO's!) is that they are not a game you can finish. There's no ending - it just keeps going! Plus with Blizzard releasing new content every week, the addiction keeps going.

Sad stuff, it truly is.

smoov · Post by **smoov** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 10:33 pm

I was addicted to Warcraft, and Warcraft II....

not so much the game itself, but back in the good ol' dialup days, we'd dial up each other and play games over the modem and phone...

don't know exactly what it is about it... just so soothing!!

maybe perhaps it was the whole procrastination from studies...

now i'm avoiding all those sorts of games, so i don't become addicted again!!

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 10:39 pm

I've played more Warcraft 2 than I'd wish to tell...

The thing about World of Warcraft is it is an MMO (massive multiplayer online) rather than an RTS (real time strategy). This game doesn't have an ending, it just keeps going. Tides of Darkness had an ending, and you could get bored of it.

Just saddened to see someone I formerly considered my best friend sucked into something so life destroying. I almost wish he'd taken up a more 'common' addiction, that way there'd be a simple resolution.

All I can do in the meantime is keep the downloads up and lag him out.

Suby Wan Kenobi · Post by **Suby Wan Kenobi** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 11:15 pm

Having had a Nephew up here all weekend, i do see where his next step in his evolution could lead him, he is an avid Warhammmer addict as well as pretty much most video wargames. At least until he leaves home his parents shall be able to limit his online gaming to a reasonable level

MUDRAT · Post by **MUDRAT** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 10:10 am

Yes, I had a friend at uni that was totally involved in Warhammer 40,000. He said it was so good because you could loose yourself in the fantasy, forget about your real life.

I tell you what, it's an expensive habbit too. Those little metal men aren't cheap.

QikRX · Post by **QikRX** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 3:08 pm

One of the guys who works with me plays it about 8 hours a day on average, has reached level 60 about 4 times now...
He only gets about 4 hours sleep during the week due to his gaming habits 8O

Suby Wan Kenobi · Post by **Suby Wan Kenobi** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:19 pm

They are very exxy those metal men but he spends every dollar he get on them and also makes his own from scratch

Subaru_Nut · Post by **Subaru_Nut** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:06 pm

Wifes cousin is addicted to it. You walk in the room and say "how you going" and you get a good thanks response 10 minutes later. All he does is goes to work and the pc. He used to have a life before that game as in party hard every weekend. We get to see him on tuesdays when the server is down reloading new content. He has reached level 60 and now is doing another character lol. Weve told him we are going to shut the power off in the house and he's reponse was "its ok ill go and buy a back up genarator". lol crazy if you ask me

8O

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:50 pm

I can relate. My housemate uses the Tuesday server shutdown a little differently, he goes to bed when it shuts down and wakes up early Wednesday and plays when it all comes online again.

My latest thing I'm trying to organise is a load of little square stickers. They'll end up looking similar to this:

This is close to how the in-game item info boxes appear. That is, when you pick up an item and look at it, this is the box that appears.

I'm going to make a whole load of stickers and put them around the house. For instance, on his breakfast cereal:

Corn Flakes
Use: Restores Health and Fatigue. Must be seated while
eating. If you eat too much you may become larger than you
were.
Cooldown: 1 sec
Charges: 1 (expendable)
Sells for 10 Copper to Vendors
Item Level 1

I'm thinking of making them up for cereal, beer, the kettle, toaster, his shampoo bottle, razor etc.

The other thing I was going to do for him is buy him a T shirt.
http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp ... ductID=576

Subaru_Nut · Post by **Subaru_Nut** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 8:07 pm

Give us some stickers aswell! LOL

schultzie · Post by **schultzie** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 11:08 am

i played WOW, only played it bacause all of my friends played it, i got to level 40 and got bored of it. this was before my mates wife would play from the minute she got home from work till 3-4 am in the morning, get up at 8am play for a bit then go to work. then do it all over agin. the house is a complete pigsty every one on the house played wow and were addics, were 5people... but one at a time got bored of it.

any way my mates wife left him after 6 years because he accused her of being an addict and moved in with another WOW addict, we did try and stop her from playing it but no luck... no one in out group has an account any more... we resorted to physical vilolence with one guy and he stoped as well... this game ruines lives.. there is even a support group of yahoo groups for the family of a wow addict.

the game is fun for a bit but gets boring...

GIVE ME GT4 any day.

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:28 pm

Interesting read Schultzie. I am a member of that Yahoo group, its called WOW_Widows.

Over the last few weeks I have read literally hundreds of very similar stories regarding WOW addicts. Schultzie's post pretty much sums it up, this game really does screw up marriages, friendships and even lives.

I want to make one thing very clear though, and despite what it might sound like I can assure everyone I'm no hypocrite:
I am a gamer. I play a lot of video games.
It's true. I have a SNES, N64, XBOX and two PC's, and each of these systems has seen use in the past month. I like to play all sorts of games. My favourite at the moment is Command and Conquer: Zero Hour, but I'll play anything (except Everquest and WOW!!)

The difference between someone who plays a lot of games and someone who's addicted to them is how the games affect lifestyle. I play video games, but this hasn't stopped me riding 106km on my pushbike this week. It hasn't stopped me kicking the football around nearly every day and it hasn't stopped me visiting my sister in hospital and seeing my family. Or visiting these boards for a chat

.

WOW has stopped my housemate from eating dinner.

Does anyone know if I can request that my ISP block certain ports? I want to block WOW's access to the net as my first measure to bring my mate back to reality.
Alternatively can I block the ports via our router? Our PC's are connected on a LAN using a D-Link DSL504T router to connect to the internet.

Cheers.

schultzie · Post by **schultzie** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 3:48 pm

yeah block the ports on your router, but wow uses a fair few ports, dont forget to create a user name and password so he cant change them back.

and or you could find out his wow password go in to his accound and delete all his characters. we did this to my mates ex wife as soon as she left, she got the characters back but all money was gone and everything in her bags.

get really trickey and download over ur mad downloads if your with optus because then your speeds are capped and it isnt possibable to play any longer, there are so many way to hurt an addict.

but yeah it is really hard being around some one that is addicted, they bring every one else around them down.

any way enough of my crying..

im a gamer i have got original nintendo, ps2, xbox, Gaming pc, laptop (can play wow), i kite surf, i work on my car's, and i have a life... these rpg's do ruin lives...

everquest ey tim now that is a fun game... and warcraft 3 frozen throne... mmmm

BaronVonChickenPants · Post by **BaronVonChickenPants** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:41 pm

If he isn't real cluey on computers you could alter his "hosts" file to redirect all references to the warcrack servers to 127.0.0.1 that way he won't be able to connect.

c:\windows\drivers\etc\hosts

eg: "127.0.0.1 server.warcrack.com"

127.0.0.1 is a loopback address to his own computer.

Jordan.

tim_81coupe · Post by **tim_81coupe** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:20 pm

Cheers guys, will try that. He's a little bit cluey on computers but not up to scratch on the workings of windows and certainly behind the ball on networking.

I'll try the hosts file first, he won't find that in a hurry. Isn't there a similar entry to this in the Registry? I must admit I'm not that great with XP Pro, back when I was a turbonerd everyone was using 98

.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 3:55 pm

The other way is to block the two WOW ports in your Router. I did this to my sister - very funny