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Breaking a WoW addiction

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Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#51

Post by henrikschroder »

awt wrote: post #37

Here's my perspective as the friend of someone who became addicted to WoW: I lost a potential programming buddy/co-founder. we used to collaborate on projects, but eventually WoW took up all his spare time. We both graduated with CS degrees, but he is now unemployable. He played WoW instead of working (he worked from home), and has never spent any time outside of work maintaining his skills. I say worked because he n…

What enables him? Why can he keep playing and not have to worry about paying rent or having enough money for food?

I play quite a lot of videogames, and I play wow, but I'm a grown-up, I have a job, I have a home, I buy my own food, I pay my mortgage, and if I fail at my job, I'll starve and lose my home and my ability to play videogames. Why hasn't your friend come to the same realization?

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#52

Post by DougBTX »

henrikschroder wrote: post #48
javert wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working all these years to be a paramedic, going to school, going to work, for what? To drive some people to the hospital? They're all just going to die anyway. Life is meaningless! Life isn't meaningless. Life is its own goal; doing well in life allows you to achieve happiness.

World of Warcraft isn't meaningless. WoW is its own goal; doing well in WoW allows you to achieve happiness. I think you have to make a more convincing case for why life has meaning and wow hasn't, you can't just spout platitudes and call it a day.

I've not played WoW, but I'm guessing that the arguments from this article apply: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/content/cultivated-p...

The gist is that Farmville isn't fun. Perhaps the problem is that WoW doesn't allow you to achieve happiness.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#53

Post by rsheridan6 »

forensic wrote: post #5

Caveat: it's very easy to extend the criticism of WoW to life itself. Working all these years to be a paramedic, going to school, going to work, for what? To drive some people to the hospital? They're all just going to die anyway. Life is meaningless! What the author is really saying is: "I find more meaning in the real world than in WoW." But this isn't necessarily true for everyone. Having said all that, I think WO…

>What the author is really saying is: "I find more meaning in the real world than in WoW."

That's probably true of the vast majority of people, including addicted WoW players.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#54

Post by hobbes »

hackerblues wrote: post #47
pmorici wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not of the opinion that video games are inherently evil but to say the social experience you get from playing a video game is some how equivalent to that of meeting people face to face is simply wrong. The key difference being body language. So much of successful human interaction comes from non verbal cues and if you're someone for whom that doesn't come naturally then socializing in WoW is not going to provide…

This is partially true but irrelevant. People don't join a club so they can experience body language. I assume they go so they can form a community and interact with people who share the same interest. If visual contact was essential for forming significant relationships then the blind would be unable to make friends.

How do blind people get impressions of what we see with our eyes? They use touch, as well as the other senses.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78553575@N00/321522242/

What can be learned by a blind person touching an avatar on a computer screen?

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#56

Post by Hoff »

forensic wrote: post #5

Caveat: it's very easy to extend the criticism of WoW to life itself. Working all these years to be a paramedic, going to school, going to work, for what? To drive some people to the hospital? They're all just going to die anyway. Life is meaningless! What the author is really saying is: "I find more meaning in the real world than in WoW." But this isn't necessarily true for everyone. Having said all that, I think WO…

Working all these years to be a paramedic, going to school, going to work, for what? To drive some people to the hospital? They're all just going to die anyway. Life is meaningless!

Ayup. But then I've brought a few of those folks back, too. Folks that were dead from respiratory or cardiac arrest, or were dying of anaphylaxis or severe asthma, or recognizing an impending fatal condition and just talking somebody into one of those drives into medical care. Pushing a med or defibrillating or whatever, and having them survive. Sometimes just helping somebody get back into their chair, and having a nice chat. That helps offset the ugly parts.

As for heroin, medical-grade opiates tend to be something folks can maintain and can tolerate, it's the random weird stuff and the wildly different purities that can be a problem. Nalaxone can help there, but if I was pushing that, that patient was in compromise or in respiratory arrest from a likely opiate overdose, and usually headed for dead.

And yes, mental issues in real life can extend to and can involve WoW, paramedicine or heroin abuse. Or worse.

edit: fixed some wording

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#57

Post by rsheridan6 »

slyn wrote: post #26
semipermeable wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You discuss how WoW either hold back life progress or doesn't. Have you (or anyone you know) encountered a case where WoW has helped someone?

Depends on what you define "helped" as. I don't know anyone personally who has say, gotten a job or learned a new tangible life skill from playing. I can say for myself at least that I have met a lot of people who I would call friends without hesitation, most of whom I would love to meet up with in real life someday. It has also made it easier for me to connect with RL friends as well. Half the reason I started playi…

>I can say for myself at least that I have met a lot of people who I would call friends without hesitation, most of whom I would love to meet up with in real life someday.

It seems like it would be a good thing if guilds could be set up based on the geographic location of the players. If you had a reasonable chance of making "real life" friends, a lot of the objections to MMOs that aren't made to, say, a ski club or a bowling league, would go away.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#58

Post by Fargren »

davidk0101 wrote: post #35
forensic wrote: post #5

Caveat: it's very easy to extend the criticism of WoW to life itself. Working all these years to be a paramedic, going to school, going to work, for what? To drive some people to the hospital? They're all just going to die anyway. Life is meaningless! What the author is really saying is: "I find more meaning in the real world than in WoW." But this isn't necessarily true for everyone. Having said all that, I think WO…

Why the fuck are you getting upvotes? Your hijacking of the points and arguments he makes doesn't even warrant a response.

He is showing the flaws in the argument of the OP, which at the very least help concider that myabe the argument is flawed and thus the conclusion is wrong. That leads to valuable discussion, so it's getting upvoted. Asking why "the fuck" he's getting upvotes, however, only leads to discussion about the discussion, which is a lot less interesting.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#59

Post by paraschopra »

patio11, we need you here. Where are you?

From what I know, Patrick used to spend a lot of time playing WoW. It will be interesting to know what he actually got out of the game and what made him stop playing the game (assuming he has indeed stopped playing the game)

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#60

Post by orp »

semipermeable wrote: post #24
slyn wrote: post #14

eeeeehhh. As a very avid WoW player of some years now, I would say WoW is something that can easily be something that holds your "life progress" or whatever you want to call it back, but it can also just as easily be played at a successful level (define that however you like) without that effect as well. 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…

You discuss how WoW either hold back life progress or doesn't. Have you (or anyone you know) encountered a case where WoW has helped someone?

A friend of mine got seriously hooked into WoW. She's still hooked.

However, she's made quite a few online friends that translated to real world friendships, and even met her husband in-game.

I guess that counts.

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