Breaking a WoW addiction • Hacker News Board

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#181

Post by forensic » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 10:16 AM UTC

forensic wrote: post #157

loup-vaillant wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone will eventually die anyway. Oddly enough, not everyone agrees with that. Some of them are even working on that problem.

But what's the point of immortality anyway? Life is just a meaningless sequence of cause-effect relationships. Immortality would mean being trapped by life, eventually you'll explore everything there is to explore in life and be drawn to explore death. The experience of death is more meaningful than life - it is true adventure. Taking a peek for yourself, seeing what's more. Life is pain, so immortality is an infinit…

loup-vaillant said:

"You believe we have souls. In that case, the death problem has already been solved by Mother Nature, God, or what have you. Current evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the non existence of souls. therefore, death isn't a possible adventure, it's nothing. About the meaning of immortality, I recommend the Fun Theory sequence at lesswrong.com"

No I don't believe in souls. You are assuming beliefs that I don't have.

Nihilism does not require a belief in anything supernatural. I do believe that death is real, and therefore I believe that dying is something that happens to people. The point is that you can't prove in any objective way that death is less meaningful than life.

This is not really due to the nature of life and death, it is due to the nature of meaning itself.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#182

Post by astrofinch » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 11:11 AM UTC

slyn wrote: post #179

astrofinch wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems worth noting that many people are able to take cocaine on a regular basis without it screwing up their lives as well.

I guess, but I don't really see how that pertains to the discussion unless you have some extra moral or philosophical objection to recreational drug use that you feel also applies to this video game. Its a hobby. I think some people get sucked in and take it too far, but I also think the vast majority don't. I'm just offering a perspective from the "don't" category.

It's generally accepted that it's a good idea to avoid cocaine unless you're really sure that you can take it without getting addicted. Similarly, I think it should be generally accepted that it's a good idea to avoid WoW unless you're really sure you can play it without getting addicted.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#183

Post by zumda » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:01 PM UTC

slyn wrote: post #179

astrofinch wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems worth noting that many people are able to take cocaine on a regular basis without it screwing up their lives as well.

I guess, but I don't really see how that pertains to the discussion unless you have some extra moral or philosophical objection to recreational drug use that you feel also applies to this video game. Its a hobby. I think some people get sucked in and take it too far, but I also think the vast majority don't. I'm just offering a perspective from the "don't" category.

I had a friend who literally forgot to go to work for two days because he was so busy preparing for a soccer match. Or I'm sure we all know a guy/gal who was/is drinking all too much.

My point is, you can take any hobby too far, it doesn't matter what it is. The interesting thing is, no one blames soccer or alcohol (most of the time it is some deeper issue thats the problem, not alcohol), but everyone is blaming WoW. The problem isn't WoW, the problem is the person who can't treat it as a hobby.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#184

Post by zumda » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:11 PM UTC

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?

I heard and read about multiple marriages resulting from WoW. There are also a lot of people who have learned to program or make a decent side income with addons. One can also learn a lot about leadership and determination, since a lot of times you will fail horribly but you still continue (and have to keep everyone motivated). Another thing is communication. For example if you are with 24 other people inside a dungeon and you make a mistake, everyone will have lost 10 minutes or more. So you have to handle that and be honest that this was your fault.

Me personally? I actually got a free holiday in the Netherlands, since someone I know from the game invited me. And of course don't underestimate the fun that can be had in the game. Oh and nearly forgot: I learned English. It's still far from perfect, but before I could barely read English...

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#185

Post by Hoff » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:12 PM UTC

forensic wrote: post #154

Hoff wrote: post #56

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! 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…

What's the point of saving someone's life when they are just going to get old and die? ("Meaning" is not something that you can prove to others. Many people would find your job meaningless, while you may find it highly meaningful. The point is that each person's search for meaning is very individual.)

Meaning? There's an existential discussion or two buried in there somewhere.

Which leads into existence, and whether all of us are merely a figment of the viewer's imagination.

And the point of saving someone's life? That discussion can go anywhere from existential to darwinian to whether you'll choose bluepill or redpill.

As for one trigger of these sorts of introspections, burnout can happen in EMS and medicine in general, and other environments that cope with chaos and death, too. Getting burnt is not fun, regardless of whether EMS was the trigger, or working in a high-stress startup, or whatever.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#186

Post by rsheridan6 » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:14 PM UTC

silencio wrote: post #162

rsheridan6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I disagree. I think a lot of people that play with others geographically close to each other already know each other in some way and the reverse would not necessarily be the same. I mostly play with two "real life" friends, and most of the groupings of people I know in my guilds are couples, friends from college/home, coworkers, and similar. It's usually not "oh we know each other after we found out in-game that we'r…

>I mostly play with two "real life" friends, and most of the groupings of people I know in my guilds are couples, friends from college/home, coworkers, and similar. It's usually not "oh we know each other after we found out in-game that we're geographically close".

Yeah, but that's partly because when you meet a random person online, odds are that they don't live near you because any two random internet denizens aren't likely to live near each other. The point of geolocation would be that you could feasibly meet if you wanted to.

I don't see what the problem would be with opt-outable geolocation. You could set your location to private, or don't enter it at all, and join a guild/clan/whatever that isn't local to a specific area.

A game or a guild that geolocated should also be harder on creeps, banning people who were creepy and not letting in 15 year olds in the first place if that's not who they wanted. It would be more like a real life social group. If you don't want to hang around with someone in real life, you don't, and if you're not in high school yourself, you probably don't socialize with 15 year old boys who aren't related to you. I understand your concerns but I think there are solutions to them, and there will always be alternatives for those who want to keep it strictly anonymous and online.

>And really, I'm sick of the people that think that WoW can't be real life. I have come across some of my best friends online, and WoW is no different from IRC or AIM or email or any means of online communications. It is as real life as it gets without being face-to-face with someone.

But there are still some things you're missing without face to face. And having a social life centered around electronic communication with people you don't know in real life is almost as stigmatized as WoW addiction anyway.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#187

Post by rsheridan6 » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:18 PM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #68

rsheridan6 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Evidently not.

Why? The fact that they play WoW obsessively could mean that they find more meaning in it than in real-life activity, or it could also mean that they're addicts who regret the time they spend playing WoW, but feel a compulsion to play it anyway. It's not evident to me whether WoW addicts fall in the former or latter category.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#188

Post by zumda » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 1:20 PM UTC

hobbes wrote: post #29

bretpiatt wrote: post #4

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…

"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 clubwhere you go to regular group exercise classes?" The article makes the difference abundantly clear. This is what the writer learned by meeting the guild leader in real life: "She was perfectly nice, and an excellent cook. But it was hard not to notice ce…

This quote does raise an interesting point. Virtual settings are maybe better to get to know new people, because it doesn't matter if it is a he or she, if he is black, white, Hispanic, fat, muscular, it doesn't matter if they aren't dressed as nicely, it doesn't matter if they life in a dump or in a villa.

I know some stuck up people that wouldn't consider talking to someone without a bachelors degree. Since meeting some people from WoW in real life they changed their attitude.

These virtual settings allow everyone to meet people from all stages of life, people one would never meet otherwise. And this diversity makes life interesting.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#189

Post by flexd » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 2:48 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #99

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 wo…

You are actually describing what Darkfall is/was when i played the beta. The land is fixed but huge and basically all content is player created or dynamic. There is nearly no mobs anywhere but if you hang around a place for some time they will spawn if you are in the areas and if you kill them all they might go extinct in that zone. It's mostly a PVP game though with big focus on players interacting and fighting over zones. I haven't played since the beta since i am sort of tired of the whole genre but it seemed cool enough to play once a while.

Re: Breaking a WoW addiction

#190

Post by javert » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 4:27 PM UTC

forensic wrote: post #152

javert wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're wrong. The author's statement amounted to: "WoW is meaningless for me and negatively impacts my life." forensic's statment amount to: "Well, who's to say life itself is any more meaningful?" My response is: "Wait a minute, I think it is meaningful." And I pointed out that you can achieve happiness in life (and by that I mean genuine self-esteem, not some temporary hedonistic pleasure like you get from play…

Meaning is probably the single most subjective concept that exists. You can't tell someone else what is meaningful for them, which is what the OP is doing and you are implying. I guarantee there are people who find WOW to be far more meaningful than building a career in the health field. That's the nature of humanity. We all find meaning in strange and unique ways.

The way we're using "meaning" in this discussion is improper, and I regret not pointing that out earlier. It's improper because the word is not (and cannot) be defined.

I guarantee there are people who find WOW to be far more meaningful than building a career in the health field.

I can't argue that because "meaningful" is not well-defined. However, I can make a related statement, as follows. Building a career in the real world is far more valuable to a person, as a human being, than building a "career" in WoW, because it allows a person to achieve real values in life--e.g. monetary wealth, respect from peers, self-sufficiency, and ultimately self-esteem and the genuine, pervasive kind of happiness that self-esteem makes possible. Wow does not allow one to achieve those values.