11–20 of 204 posts
Is playing a social game where you interact with other people any different than going out to a club or bar? Joining a bowling league? A cycling group? A health club where you go to regular group exercise classes? The meme that video games are inherently evil needs to go away. Why is it socially acceptable to join many clubs and spend time with those people all the time but not "people on the Internet"? Like the Inte…
As someone who has played and stopped WoW for significant times over the past years. I think the article has some valid points about the addictiveness of WoW, on the other hand I feel that the choice between "real" work and WoW as presented here is a false dichotomy. "Real" work and WoW are not mutually exclusive. The writer says he started playing he has spend his time working out. I started swimming for 40 minutes…
>I started swimming for 40 minutes each day while playing WoW Waterproof laptop?
Exactly why I don't play these, also why I don't try crack or heroin.
In the guild I'm in now and a guild I was in in the past I see both: players who are quite literally on welfare or unemployment and just play WoW and other games all day (colloquially "living the dream", mostly tongue-in-cheek), while others have what I would consider successful lives. One of our best priests works as some sort of company programmer or server maintainer/admin. Our best healing druid entered his first bodybuilding contest sometime in September of this year and plans on doing another next August iirc. Our guild/raid leader has an office 9-5 selling toys to retailers or something like that. Lots are in college, myself included. An old guild officer of mine was a Googler. A decent amount have wives/kids/gfs/main squeezes. etc.
I think the best argument of the post is the social obligations point. There are definitely some people who do "no-life" for the guild and such, but again, I think this is a some do some don't thing (as well as being limited to basically people in guild leadership situations). For every guild leader or officer I know who hasn't left a dead-end guild because of a feeling of obligations to the guild, I probably know twice as many officers who did left anyways, and 3-4x as many raiders who did as well. Anecdotally speaking, I left a guild where I was probably next in line to be guild/raid lead for a much better one, and am now debating doing some sort of ESL teach/travel program next year despite having been an officer in my new guild for roughly 6 months now.
I didn't want to quit altogether because there was so much more game content to check out (I enjoy the sights & sounds of WoW very much), and so many other classes to try. Up until then I played exclusively Holy Priest.
Blizzard must have somehow realized that players weren't able to get any further without hardcoring. The last years they have created more and more features for the casual player: the Dungeon Finder system, player-vs-player battlegrounds, cross-realm instances, other reward systems; all these have lessened the dependence on a guild.
I now sometimes fire up WoW, not everyday, and play a few hours. I still like it, after all these years (and 3 expansion packs).
As someone who has played and stopped WoW for significant times over the past years. I think the article has some valid points about the addictiveness of WoW, on the other hand I feel that the choice between "real" work and WoW as presented here is a false dichotomy. "Real" work and WoW are not mutually exclusive. The writer says he started playing he has spend his time working out. I started swimming for 40 minutes…
>I started swimming for 40 minutes each day while playing WoW Waterproof laptop?
Is playing a social game where you interact with other people any different than going out to a club or bar? Joining a bowling league? A cycling group? A health club where you go to regular group exercise classes? The meme that video games are inherently evil needs to go away. Why is it socially acceptable to join many clubs and spend time with those people all the time but not "people on the Internet"? Like the Inte…
In principle, sure, but the point is that WoW is indeed especially addictive in a way that a bowling league isn't.
Is playing a social game where you interact with other people any different than going out to a club or bar? Joining a bowling league? A cycling group? A health club where you go to regular group exercise classes? The meme that video games are inherently evil needs to go away. Why is it socially acceptable to join many clubs and spend time with those people all the time but not "people on the Internet"? Like the Inte…
In principle, sure, but the point is that WoW is indeed especially addictive in a way that a bowling league isn't.
Do you think it is any different on the social obligation side for somebody to show up for a raid in WoW versus showing up for the league match? Is there a lower social obligation for the bowler to practice between matches than there is for a player in WoW to prep for that raid?
Competitive social MMOs are the recreational sports leagues of this generation.
Exactly why I don't play these, also why I don't try crack or heroin.
Is playing a social game where you interact with other people any different than going out to a club or bar? Joining a bowling league? A cycling group? A health club where you go to regular group exercise classes? The meme that video games are inherently evil needs to go away. Why is it socially acceptable to join many clubs and spend time with those people all the time but not "people on the Internet"? Like the Inte…
In principle, sure, but the point is that WoW is indeed especially addictive in a way that a bowling league isn't.
(I'm not saying WoW is a sport, just to pre-empt a diversion in that direction).
What is morally superior about exercising an hour a day over playing WoW an hour a day, provided the lack of exercise doesn't make one dangerously obese or similar? Yet all rants like this one are based on that premise - 'I used to be such a loser, now I work out, I'm so much better than those WoW losers'. Usually from former players, too; just like former smokers are the most obnoxious about how awesome they are for quitting, the former WoW players seem to know something about self-righteousness, too.
Anyway, like anything, it's about moderation. If you play a couple of hours a week and don't let it take over your life, there's nothing wrong with it. I asked my girlfriend to set up the 'parental control' feature on my account, so I only got to play 4 hours a week. If anything, WoW at least lets you do that; I have yet to see the first skateboard or piano that has a lock like that, and there are many people who 'waste' (in the article's definition, not mine) much more than 4 hours a week on those.