« World of Warcraft Addicts »

You know when you have been playing too much WoW when…

More than a few such thought cross my mind from time to time, so I trawled a lot of forums etc for more and editted the entries to come up with some of the funniest and sadly true one-liners about Warcraft addicts.

You want to Hearthstone home from school / work to get back into the game.

You cut yourself and mentally try to click 'Flash Heal', then curse because that spell is on your alt, before your brain finally registers, Damn, I'm actually bleeding! Ow, Ow Owwwwww!

You wonder why the jewelry store can't craft a ring with an agility bonus for you.

When you think or heavens forbid actually say "lol" in real life conversations.

When someone trips on the street, you silently think to yourself "Noob"

You look forward to the weekly server updates so you can wash the dishes.

You walk outside and the sun burns your eyes after days in your darkened WoW environment.

Your mobile phone has a Murloc ring tone.

When choose Domestic Science as one of your college options because you want to level up your cooking.

You think I wish I was a Gnome for my racial bonus during your Engineering exams.

When your partner asks you to put the vacuum round the living room and you want to know what the quest reward is.

You ask the bank teller: How much gold have I left in my account, please?

Your daughter has finally stopped asking for a pony for her birthday - but can she have 600g for her epic mount.

Your car runs out of petrol and you think, "Ah begger, OOM"

You are in a garage showroom and ask car salesman how many MP5 it does.

In varying degrees I may have been guilty of a few of the ones above, though I have not yet descended into the depravity of some of the nutters that play. The scary thing is at least one or two of the following are very probably true!

Your partner dumps/leaves you and you don't notice for four days because you are grinding honor for S4 gear

You stand outside WH Smith / NatWest Bank in a tatty robe begging, 1g plzz!

You shout down to your wife: What!? You can't be going into labour, we are at Kael'this!

When you want to loot the corpse in funerals

(To be continued)

Joking aside…

Warcraft and games like it can be addictive, addictive beyond the point of obsession and off into the scary realms and genuine risks of destroying your health, schooling, job, career, relationships, marriage….

I know how bad I am, but that's me, I understand if it wasn't this it would be another obsession. Ideally I am turning this around and using it develop my site again, something productive for a change. The psychiatrist that treated me recently had a number of methods but the one I liked I think of as tick-tock, goes the clock and imagine the game draining my life away, like some Warlock ganking me with fear and life-drain.

It's a real term by the way. 'Task Interferring Cognitions' and Task Orientated Cognitions' are thoughts and feeling than distract you from or help you focus on the things in life than matter.

I know I'm obsessed with this stupid game, but compared to the 'hard core' raiders I'm browsing a magazine on the shelf in comparison... Many will be addicted because it's in their nature, many more will be hiding from reality and lifes woes. And some of the more psychotic nutters will murder over this games. Its insidious addiction destroys lives, marriages, careers all around the globes, minute by minute. Yes, I know, I'm going on, and on and, ummm, on... Once a week, for a few hours, the servers go down for maintenance. There are sites set up to help players cope with the stress and withdrawl symptons! [ http://www.wikihow.com/Cope-With-World-of-Warcraft-Maintenance-Day ] Personally I look forward to server downtime 'cos I get so much work done! Anyway... If I was you, as a psychologist, I'd look at this from this point of view: A percentage of the players (a large number in real terms) relate to this more than the real world. If a rare item they REALLY want drops and someone else steals 'ninjas' it, or just wins the roll, they do go bonkers, swearing, smashing stuff up in the house, etc. For me, unless they break my rules (there is no red light), I don't care, it's just a game, but for some players... Every day thousands, probably many tens of thousands of players get their account hacked. Some will give up the game forever, many will rant and rave, probably for some time, the rest will snap. The trauma of having their character violated by some faceless mugger five thousand miles away (or a 'friend' sharing the dorm) is too much. I will help you look into it if you like, but next time you are in university, with classes etc, take a straw poll, see how many of the graduates play the game, how they feel about it. I absolutely, 100% guarantee you, you that if someone, somewhere, hasn't already submitted a PhD on the subject of addiction to and trauma caused by this/these games, they will in the coming months. If there was a bookie taking odds on this I'd put £1,000 to win on it. I know how you feel about online security, sensibly so in my opinion, and I'm am sure some of your patients will have come to you with online identity theft as either the main cause or at least a contributory factor in their case. Now imagine this for a player that will sit and play this game, their online persona for 16-20 hours a day, seven hours a week, 52 weeks a year. And to log on one day and find it naked, and/or the account banned for illicit activities committed while they slept. Up to a point Blizzard will restore characters, but generally not the lost items. On the subject of these items, for some players, you are talking about something that you can only try to get one a week, that only drops one week in ten, and that up to 40 other players also want. They will play this game to the exclusion of everything to get this item - then one day they log in and find someone for sold it to a vendor for 10g because, to them, 10g is 10 cents (5p) in their pockets and if you are stupid or gullible enough to allow them to do this well it serves you right, they are doing you a favour. It's never happened to me, probably never will, but I've seen how even lower level players react when they log into an empty account and it can be ugly. So... Has potential for you, no?