Wrath of the Lich King

[Nick Mame]

You presume too much.

You are a very casual player. Your play times are by no means the standard. I am quite confident that a significant portion of the WoW population has far more than 10d played.


You cannot compare TF2 and WoW. TF2 places its focus on teamwork with a bit of individual skill on the side while WoW stresses character development. Stressed character development could cause you to become attached to your character and have a strong desire to progress them towards the highest tiers. Since WoW has a rather high cap on progression, that desire could keep you playing for a very significant period of time. Since TF2 does not stress character development, you are less likely to get immersed.

Thus: WoW is much more prone to addiction since you could get stuck in one of the many game's grinds.


I would also recommend that if you wish to theorize on human addiction, you do so in a much less personal manner. A bias against a game is a much less hostile response on a forum than something which seems to directly attack a portion of the community.

Remember: respecting other players is a part of TheVille. So respect, please.

[Cpt._Keyes]

last time i checked i had about 1.5 years logged in wow...im done with wow

edit: whoops i need to watch my fingers on the numpad...i didnt have 2.5 years...im not that bad;y addicted

[Yahoo!!]

I have logged in over 77 days on WoW. Think about that, it is nearly 8 times more than TF2. I was actually considered very casual in my guild. Our guild leader led all of us with a whopping 400 days played. His net worth in the game was in the millions due to rigging the righteous orb market for himself.

You play much more casually. I will admit. However, the excessives of WoW are much much more real and much more widespread than say CS or Starcraft. The excesses of WoW will far exceed ANYTHING I have ever seen at the ville. NAVX may play a lot, but he still doesn't come close to the worse I have seen in WoW.

I can rag on WoW as much as I want because I have the experience, the scars, the knowledge of a high end raiding guild. Mandatory Raid Attendance, DKP, Loot Council. Extremely high end pvp in Arena as well. You have no idea how hard it is to keep up. I spent probably over 50g a night on raids to load up on potions, flasks and such to make sure I was up to speed with everyone else. I had addons galore, you wouldn't even know that my interface was from the same game.

Hell, I even played addons to play with server latency so I could get the measly 0.3 seconds cast time off my spells as a mage. I had to do research on boss fights.

Here is a question for you grey, how many raid bosses have you killed. I have killed everything in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Zul'Gurub, and all the way to C'thun in AQ 40. Then, we cleared out Karazhan in a matter of hours and blasted through serpentshrine lair and the (the blood elf place, I forget what is was called) to the Astromancer. I literally had my grades drop and all sorts of problems with trying to keep up with others. I had actually spent nights being yelled at and just being killed over and over and over and over again to the same boss (record is like 20 attempts on A'lar alone)

The scariest part of all, I was the casual one. I was the actual casual one compared to the others who literally farmed gold, resources and potions to support the guild.

[Greyed]

[quote="Nick Mame";p="126621"]You presume too much.[/quote]

As do you.

You are a very casual player. Your play times are by no means the standard. I am quite confident that a significant portion of the WoW population has far more than 10d played.

Sorry, you would be wrong. My wife and I have been a part of 3 raiding guilds and have in times past put in 3-5 nights a week ofraiding. Also you missed that I said my average character, of which I have multiple is 10d. That means, some are less, some are more, and the total sum would obviously be greater than 10 days.

You cannot compare TF2 and WoW.

Of course not. They're different games. But one can directly compare time played since the very definition of "addiction" that is tossed about is the amount of time a person puts into play the game in question. That is all I compared.

Thus: WoW is much more prone to addiction since you could get stuck in one of the many game's grinds.

While I disagree with the statement priot to this about the difference on the games I'll just leave it be. This, however, needs addressing. Again, I stress, I was comparing playtime which is entirely legitimate. I'm sorry, but when someone puts in 55 days into a game in the span of just over a year that is no different than someone putting in 220 days into an MMO released 4 years ago. Both are averaginh 55 hours/year. So if one is "addictive" the so, too, is the other. Simple as that.

I would also recommend that if you wish to theorize on human addiction, you do so in a much less personal manner. A bias against a game is a much less hostile response on a forum than something which seems to directly attack a portion of the community.

When did I get personal? I am not here saying that anyone is addicted to anything. I have done nothing more than point out the hypocritical nature of other people's positions by showing that some members of this community would fall under their definition of addiction to a game but for the fact that they play a game the accuser likes vs. one they do not.

Remember: respecting other players is a part of TheVille. So respect, please.

Yes, it is. That means understanding that maybe those other players of TheVille play games other than those on TheVille servers. You just got all defensive because of a perceived slight on m part against players here. Now put yourself in my shoes as not only someone who plays WoW (and enjoys it) and is married to a WoW player (who also enjoys it) but met said wife in a third MMO and has played MMOs for the past 10 years. If you want to talk about respect then where is the respect every time WoW comes (or other games) up certain people have to get down on it and, thus, by extension, the players of said game? If you're upset that I legitimately showed how the argument can work for many of the TheVille players and calling for me to respect then, please, do the same for those people as well because it is clear that you find the behavior offensive.

And just to stress, I have not, at any time, put anyone down for the amount of time they have, or have not, put into a game. If anyone thinks I did I invite them to reread what I wrote and notice that I only applied what others have written to this situation and then, at the end, called for them to dismiss such notions. So it is clear where my respect is.

[Greyed]

[quote="Yahoo!!";p="126626"]I have logged in over 77 days on WoW. Think about that, it is nearly 8 times more than TF2. I was actually considered very casual in my guild.[/quote]

Actually, it is more like 2 times that of TF2. Remember, you're comaparing a game that has been out for ~4 years vs a game that has been out just over 1.

Our guild leader led all of us with a whopping 400 days played. His net worth in the game was in the millions due to rigging the righteous orb market for himself.

And he is the average player?

You play much more casually.

Quite the contrary.

I will admit. However, the excessives of WoW are much much more real and much more widespread than say CS or Starcraft. The excesses of WoW will far exceed ANYTHING I have ever seen at the ville. NAVX may play a lot, but he still doesn't come close to the worse I have seen in WoW.

With 9 million+ customers worldwide vs. TheVille's dozens of thousands (most of whom are 1-off players) this is not surprising. It would be surprising if it weren't true. The larger sample would of course produce extreme cases.

I can rag on WoW as much as I want because I have the experience, the scars, the knowledge of a high end raiding guild. Mandatory Raid Attendance, DKP, Loot Council. Extremely high end pvp in Arena as well. You have no idea how hard it is to keep up.

Actually, I do. Which is why I made the concious choice not to participate in enforced attendance guilds. There is nothing in the game that requires you to subject yourself to that. Even so I did, for a time, raid 3-5 times a week. My current guild has anenforced 3-nights-a-week attendance. My wife is a raider in that guild, I amnot.

I spent probably over 50g a night on raids to load up on potions, flasks and such to make sure I was up to speed with everyone else. I had addons galore, you wouldn't even know that my interface was from the same game.

Considering the fact that I believe the customization that the embedded LUA language provides for MMOs and believe more MMOs should provide customized UIs using similar, of not identical, methods, you would be wrong again. I've been averaging over 60 unique addons for a few years now. Most are turned on for all my characters but some are class specific.

Hell, I even played addons to play with server latency so I could get the measly 0.3 seconds cast time off my spells as a mage. I had to do research on boss fights.

While I have never played into the latency game I am well aware of that addon. In fact I was aware of the behavior prior to the addon and aware that the client now allows casting earlier to account for network latency. Anyone who has done any of the instances has researched boss fights. That's nothing, really. I dare say that a good portion of the people here have probably discussedclass specific tactics for TF2 more than a few times.

Here is a question for you grey, how many raid bosses have you killed. I have killed everything in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Zul'Gurub, and all the way to C'thun in AQ 40.

All of MC, started on BWL, all of ZG (in fact I have a video of one night's speed run where I went from cat to balance to healingand ended up tanking, pre-TBC), all of AQ20, started on AQ40 but BWL/Naxx and AQ40 were shadowed by a guild implosion, server switch and TBC. Of TBC I've completed Kara up to and including speed runs (<3 hours, all bosses), all but one of SSC (Vashj) and could get into TK/Hyjal/BT. For all of my TBC raiding I have had 2 raid capable characters; a Feral Druid for tanking and an Enh. Shaman for DPS. Both of which had an open invitation to respec to Resto if needed; which I did many times.

I literally had my grades drop and all sorts of problems with trying to keep up with others.

I don't deny that you have had this happen. My point isn't that it doesn't happen. Quite the contrary; I acknowledge that it does happen. My point is that in the course of human history this problem, an obsessive compulsion to pursue an activity to the detriment of other facets of one's life, is not unique nor confined to WoW. Not even in the realm of Video Games is it confined to the genre WoW belongs to (MMOs). If you gambled people would say you had a gambling addiction. If you skateboarded people would say you had a skateboarding addiction. Notice that both of those activities are equally lambastes as you are of WoW and yet, like WoW, there are millions of people who gamble and walk away after their "play" money is gone. There are plenty of skateboarders who haven't shunned all other activities (like school) just to continue persuing that passion.

IE, as I have been saying, if the same behavior is playing out over and over and over again across many generations and many different activities (which is, you'll note, why my previous messages stressed that words over "games") with the only constant being asubset of people showing signs of addiction then it is unlikely that the latest activity de jour is really any more "addictive" than the thousands of those before it.

The scariest part of all, I was the casual one. I was the actual casual one compared to the others who literally farmed gold, resources and potions to support the guild.

Yes, that happens. But that is certainly not the norm. I have participated in raiding, as the above paragraph suggests. I havebeen in several raiding guilds and decided that those behaviors are not for me. Yet the guilds I've participated with were in the top 20 on whatever server they are on. The top guilds? No. But we saw more of the game than we did not. Most of the guilds around us had similar policies. Only the top 3-5 guilds per server really get out there. Those guilds are normally small numbers and hardly represent a significant minority of the WoW players much less a majority. A majority of WoW players do not exhibit thebehaviors your describing. A significant majority don't. Because of this I stand by my statement that the activity is not to blame. If it were there would be a far larger percentage of problems. There aren't.

[Reipin]

I'm not getting into arguments or anything like that but before I quit WoW I raided 6 nights a week from 7PM till 1 AM. I had one of the best, if not the best geared hunter in the world when I quit. I had every single piece of gear a hunter could desire out of the Black Temple and MH. I was the only hunter in my guild.

WoW is by nature set up to keep drawing you back. I won't call it addicting but it is designed to keep you playing, especially since it is sub.scription based.

I was going to write something else but then I realized it is going to turn into a 75 page essay.

I'll second the opinion of "don't get it". Especially if you raid.

I quit smoking 3 times, 2 times for 3 months each, and the last for 5 years now. I have no problem quitting stuff.

Lets just say though, when new cigarettes come out, I don't run to try them and see how much better they can be then the old cigarettes I used to smoke.

Started another diatribe about the differences between TF2 and WoW, stopped myself again!

[Yahoo!!]

[quote="Reipin";p="126710"]I'm not getting into arguments or anything like that but before I quit WoW I raided 6 nights a week from 7PM till 1 AM. I had one of the best, if not the best geared hunter in the world when I quit. I had every single piece of gear a hunter could desire out of the Black Temple and MH. I was the only hunter in my guild.

WoW is by nature set up to keep drawing you back. I won't call it addicting but it is designed to keep you playing, especially since it is sub.scription based.

I was going to write something else but then I realized it is going to turn into a 75 page essay.

I'll second the opinion of "don't get it". Especially if you raid.

I quit smoking 3 times, 2 times for 3 months each, and the last for 5 years now. I have no problem quitting stuff.

Lets just say though, when new cigarettes come out, I don't run to try them and see how much better they can be then the old cigarettes I used to smoke.

Started another diatribe about the differences between TF2 and WoW, stopped myself again! [/quote]

Exactly Reipin

My mage was one of the top on the server. I had it all. Spellstrike, trinkets, the works. I was clocking in a huge amount of damage.

Like you said, if a new kind of cigarette or slot machine showed up, I wouldn't suddenly go and run for it.

Greyed, whether you like it or not, there are quite a few former addicts on the ville alone and I know several in real life. This game has some special quality to it that no other game has. It sucks you in.

For example:

We all like to play a game of playing cards. There is nothing wrong with that.
Some of us can gamble within our limit. There is nothing wrong with that.
Some of us however can get sucked in so much that we lose our house, family and our shirts. This is why I would not never gamble, because I know there is this chance of being taken in.

[Greyed]

[quote="Yahoo!!";p="126712"]We all like to play a game of playing cards. There is nothing wrong with that.
Some of us can gamble within our limit. There is nothing wrong with that.
Some of us however can get sucked in so much that we lose our house, family and our shirts. This is why I would not never gamble, because I know there is this chance of being taken in.[/quote]

Yes, I can respect that. But do you also actively tell people who enjoy poker to "not do it" because they could become "addicted" and the game "suck you in" while regaling them when testimonials from other people about how poker ruined their lives?

I'm betting not yet even though all of that is entirely accurate. That is exactly what has happened twice now when WoW was brought up by people who enjoyed the game and wanted to talk with other people who enjoyed the game. That is why early on I asked, politely, that Mr. S give respect to those who do play the game and enjoy it. That is all I am asking of other people.

[Nick Mame]

I'll do a brief on the differences between TF2 and WoW for you, then!

TF2 is very much a casual game. You could invest ten minutes into playing it and leave satisfied; there's not much more to it other than running around and killing people.

WoW is not so much a casual game. It's true you could invest ten minutes into playing it and then leave satisfied. However, unlike TF2, you will leave with a feeling of there being more to do. Your TF2 session ended, it had a proper conclusion of one team winning or another losing. With WoW, there is no conclusion. You are motivated to come back to continue gearing your character, raising your arena ranking, maxing out your reputations, or grinding honor. Very few people reach a sense of conclusion because there is always more to do in the game.


WoW has mechanics which are more likely to lead to addiction than TF2. That's the difference.

[Greyed]

[quote="Nick Mame";p="126717"]I'll do a brief on the differences between TF2 and WoW for you, then![/quote]

Begone. Take your holy crusade elsewhere. It is clear you have no desire to show respect to others.

[Cpt._Keyes]

Ive almost lost track of this argument...but Nick is right...
WoW is designed to suck people in "Yay i have the best item!...oh a new item!" with a constant treadmill of better items that require a constant grind of instances for a chance to aquire it.

TF2 Doesnt have that, and wont have that...you can hop in and play for 30 minutes a day and still be on the same level as a "hardcore" player

I left the game with over 1.5 years played...thats over 1.5 years /played (and to further prove my masochisim...I was a paladin for those 1.5 years) I wasnt in a raiding guild on my server...i was in the Top raiding guild on my server...with all my time devoted to either farming matts for the raid raiding, standing on the ironforge bridge showing off my gear (I was also quite the elitist) or dueling outside IF.

I have done and beaten every instance in that game and im sick of it...im done and done....no more...no im not getting WotLK...ive almost ruined my life from that game...THATS how addicting it is

[Greyed]

[quote="[HALO]cpt._Keyes";p="126726"]I have done and beaten every instance in that game and im sick of it...im done and done....no more...no im not getting WotLK...ive almost ruined my life from that game...THATS how addicting it is[/quote]

That is how addicted you were. There are thousands of other activities that millions of other people will say the exact same thing about. Furthermore while you, and Yahoo!, were drawn in that doesn't mean that everyone will to the same extent, that the game is evil, nor that you, he, and others, need to drop into every related topic to warn people off.

No, Nick isn't right because my argument isn't about WoW or TF2. It is about the disrespect shown by him, Yahoo! and now you to players who enjoy a game you have issues with.

If you honestly respected the players know what you would do? Not read the topic and not reply. Is that too hard?

[Cpt._Keyes]

[quote="Greyed";p="126730"][quote="[HALO]cpt._Keyes";p="126726"]I have done and beaten every instance in that game and im sick of it...im done and done....no more...no im not getting WotLK...ive almost ruined my life from that game...THATS how addicting it is[/quote]

That is how addicted you were. There are thousands of other activities that millions of other people will say the exact same thing about. Furthermore while you, and Yahoo!, were drawn in that doesn't mean that everyone will to the same extent, that the game is evil, nor that you, he, and others, need to drop into every related topic to warn people off.
[/quote]

Then take it to PM's

[Greyed]

Uh... what? Are you honestly suggesting that people should not talk about a game they have in common because you disagree with them?

[Cpt._Keyes]

No im saying if you are going to complain about me and yahoo jumping in and saying our bit...take it to PM's