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Breaking a WoW addiction

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Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#91

Post by javert »

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.

World of Warcraft isn't meaningless.

I didn't claim that it was meaningless. (I don't think that it is.) I don't really care about WoW. I was just responding to somebody's sad claim that "life is meaningless."

doing well in WoW allows you to achieve happiness

Doing well in WoW will not give you self esteem; it will not help you successfully deal with the real world (for example, providing for yourself materially and intellectually via a meaningful career). Successfully dealing with reality is a prerequisite of achieving an overall, lasting sense of happiness as a human being.

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'm not here to write a dissertation to prove my original claim--that you can find happiness in life, and (relatedly) that it has meaning, but that is objectively true. If you haven't or won't put forth the intellectual effort to discover this for yourself, that is truly sad.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#92

Post by JanezStupar »

scotty79 wrote: post #67
JanezStupar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a substantial difference between improving your physical life and your Avatar. The illusion of success is there and almost tangible - if you didn't have to "wake up" to your neglected real body and nonexistent/handicapped real life. And most people I know don't play WOW due to nihilism or at least not initially. They play it just for opposite reasons - it makes it easier for them to achieve something . Discl…

If you are leveling in real life sometimes you wake up and see emptiness of this all. Sure, what you achieved in life provides comfort for your body but body is relatively easy to comfort if mind is happy. If you are playing game all the time there is not much time you have to be "awake" and you may even never be fully "awake" to notice and appreciate your handicapped life. People can have handicapped life even when…

Indeed - human mind is capable of creating many elaborate delusions.

Nihilism being the worst of them all. One has to recognize that indeed, there are no supreme values, that there is no guaranteed path to salvation. And that in spite of this terrible truth one must form his own set of values that guide him on a journey that doesn't really lead anywhere specific, but one must travel the journey else he becomes damned.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#93

Post by scotty79 »

awt wrote: post #77
scotty79 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You picked home ownership and you pick food according to your income. If you fail at your job you will starve and loose your home because you entangled your burdens with your paycheck. Perhaps his friend choses food and roof far cheaper then he could afford in order to have more time to spend freely not on paying for those.

His wife supports him.

Then last sentence of my comment does not apply to him. Just me. :-)

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#94

Post by BrandonM »

javanix wrote: post #82
BrandonM wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the idea, but why does WoW need to do this? Any game could do it. A fitness club is especially well-placed to accomplish it. Hmm... I think it could also work well as a Facebook app. I'm going to mull this over and see what I can come up with. This could really drive society to improve itself in all kinds of ways.

I think people's participation would be much higher in such a program if the rewards were linked to an existing platform. People have been trying to game-ify real life for years and its never gained much traction. I think this is because people have to sign up for something additional, and at that point (unless the program gains a lot of steam with a lot of people) there's not much tying individuals in.

Right, but that platform could just be "social bragging" through Facebook, other websites, and other methods entirely. It's as simple as showing off to your friends the cool things you're learning while encouraging them to do the same. Meanwhile, those same friends are able to observe the changes to you on a personal basis. It's inherently social and viral; I don't think it really needs to leverage an existing platform at all.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#95

Post by scotty79 »

JanezStupar wrote: post #92
scotty79 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are leveling in real life sometimes you wake up and see emptiness of this all. Sure, what you achieved in life provides comfort for your body but body is relatively easy to comfort if mind is happy. If you are playing game all the time there is not much time you have to be "awake" and you may even never be fully "awake" to notice and appreciate your handicapped life. People can have handicapped life even when…

Indeed - human mind is capable of creating many elaborate delusions. Nihilism being the worst of them all. One has to recognize that indeed, there are no supreme values, that there is no guaranteed path to salvation . And that in spite of this terrible truth one must form his own set of values that guide him on a journey that doesn't really lead anywhere specific, but one must travel the journey else he becomes damne…

Why not just accept that is pointless after becoming aware of it but just stay for the ride?

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#97

Post by dy »

dreeves wrote: post #23
roel_v wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, the same social pressures don't apply in other team sports? Try to play any sport at a high level and miss a few trainings because you'd rather read a book at home. You'll get bad looks the first time, yelled at the second time and kicked out the third time. (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 a…

I didn't realize that about using the "parental" control. Great example of a commitment device! And that's what I really mean about the difference between WoW and most other hobbies and social activities: WoW sucks you in in a way that makes you regret the amount of time you spend on it. I sometimes have the same problem with Hacker News, hence this: http://beeminder.com/d/hn

This is brilliant. I think people here can rail against addictions to WoW while lurking/posting on HN for hours a day. It's all part of the same addiction for points/prestige/social validation.

"Posting all these years to get higher karma, reading the source articles, reading the comments, for what? To help another person who thinks they have an innovative startup idea? They're all just going to get bought by Google anyway. Life is meaningless!

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#98

Post by jshen »

I think people are primarily motivated by social status (after basic needs are taken care of). The deal with WoW is that it becomes your social status to the people you spend most of your time with, the other people in WoW.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#99

Post by stcredzero »

cletus wrote: post #65

I'll add my perspective to this as someone who was addicted to a similar game. I started playing Everquest (EQ) soon after launch in 1999 and leveled pretty quickly hitting the max level cap at the time (50) not long before the first expansion came out. At the time played wi an American guild (I'm Australian) and the time difference stopped me doing things with them most of them time since I had a 9-5 job. My server…

Even now I think all these games are fairly formulaic with the same basic mechanics and psychological devices (compulsion loops, etc).

Basically, MMOGs are all like resort casinos. There's some spectacle and entertainment. The driving mechanic is the addictive variable schedule of reward.

I'd like to make a game where true exploration is the base mechanic. There would be no storyline, just exploration. All content would be either procedurally generated, created by the users, or evolved through genetic algorithms.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#100

Post by stcredzero »

ramanujan wrote: post #64

What WoW needs to do is start hooking in-game rewards to real-life rewards. For example, a deal with 24 Hour Fitness where you need to attend for 30 days in a row to unlock some kind of sword. The biometric system at 24 Hour is now sophisticated enough to permit this kind of tracking [with your permission of course]. I'm completely serious. This is an inversion of the Zynga model in which real life money is exchanged…

Reminds me of this:

http://xkcd.com/189/

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