Today I’m canceling my World of Warcraft (WOW) subscription. I’ve been playing WOW for about a year and a half now and have become completely immersed into the world of Azeroth.
My current boss introduced me to WOW while we were at a convention in Dallas. At the time I was playing Battlefield 2 a lot and had never even heard of WOW. My boss talked about WOW for 3 hours straight, the guy really loved this game. He sent me a link that night for a 10-day trial and I was instantly hooked. At first, I played the game maybe 5-6 hours a week, but as time passed and my Night Elf Rogue progressed in the game I found myself playing more and more. As time passed I became so excited about getting home to play WOW that I would often log on around 6:00PM and stay connected through the night, logging off around 10:45 (Can’t miss the Daily Show and Colbert Report @11).
Pros:
I’ll start off by saying WOW is a great game! Anyone with an imagination can play the game easily. Even though I’m canceling my subscription, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m excited about doing it.
Cons:
You can’t play for a few minutes. That’s what I HATE about WOW!! If you want a game that you can casually log on and load a saved game, WOW is not for you. I think that was one of the main problems I had with the game. Once you’re in the mid to high levels (45-70) it takes 5 min. just to get to your zone. Not to mention the time it takes to check the auction house (AH) and gear up with ammo or potions before you can go out and start killing mobs. Overall it takes me a good 10-15 minutes just to get the grinding wheels turning.
Instances are another thing that made it hard for my Real Life (RL) responsibilities. Instances are parts of the game that require you to group up with other players and work together to reach an objective. Once you are in an instance you CAN NOT leave. I take that back… you can leave but it’s highly looked down upon by your fellow group members. If you leave don’t expect to be asked back by those members for future groups.. I can remember several times that while playing through an instance my wife would come into my office and ask me if I could help her do something. My response would be “Sure let me finish this up and I’ll be right there” unfortunately, instances can take anywhere from 45min – 1 hour to complete. If you’re in a Raid (I never got high enough to experience a raid) it takes about 2-4 hours to complete and 24 other players relying on you as oppose to 4.
Why I enjoy it
It’s too fun. I love watching my characters level up and get better gear. I love learning my characters abilities and countering enemy attacks. I love Player vs. Player (PvP) battlegrounds! To this day when I fight it out with an opposing faction member my adrenaline pumps wildly through my veins!
WOW’s bad reputation
My wife occasionally sends me links that she has found on the Internet about how people have been getting divorced over WOW and how this game can be dangerously addicting. On that note I want to voice a few opinions on the topic of WOW’s negative rep.
First off, I hate nothing more than reading about people that blame WOW for the demise of their marriage! Think about it… If a married couple can let a game destroy their marriage it was bound to happen anyway. Whether it be WOW or a crazy stamp collecting addiction people are always going to blame someone or something else for their problems. They’ll blame everything except the true problem… themselves. It makes me sick! All these housewives crying and complaining about how WOW destroyed their relationship with their husband and vice versa (The wife has been accused of neglecting the husband in some cases). People need to look at the REAL problem. In my case… the problem is my need to be entertained constantly. I’m the type of person that CAN NOT AND WILL NOT watch TV (accept for the Daily show and Colbert Report)
TV is mind numbing for me. Some people (like my wife) can pass several hours watching Oxygen or WE channel and spend all day watching shows like Intervention, Snapped, Dr. Phill and Oprah. She passes the same hours watching TV that I would pass playing WOW. With that said… I’m still canceling my subscription to WOW today. I feel like canceling this game is a great step toward making my wife happier. I do not blame her in any way for my choice to cancel. Some people have a hard time understanding the “NEW” pass time. TV use to rule the American household and in some ways it still does. Hopefully in the coming years everyone will have a better understanding and tolerance for this new form of pass time. Until then it will be deemed a horribly addictive nuisance ruining relationships and the destroyer of marriages. At one time TV had the same bad rep. I remember the term couch potato being used to describe those hopelessly addicted TV addicts! Until some smart person realized that MILLIONS of dollars could be made from advertising on TV. Now it’s not that big of a deal.
My only regret is that I have decided to cancel my subscription ONE day before the launch of a much-anticipated patch that’s to be released (patch 3.0.2 “Echoes of Doom”) and one month before Wrath of the Lich King hits the shelf.
WOW is not the problem. Broaden your scope a bit and please don’t be so quick to point the finger.
I think addictions warp the behaviour of the person (take strong drug addictions – they’ll steal from family members). I think marriage involves regularly spending time to work things out with each other – almost all marriages would fall apart if someone stopped doing that for months. So I don’t think a marriage has to have a big problem in it, for an addiction to damage it.
I agree with how long it takes to do anything in WOW.
It’s rather silly design IMO, I’m sure there are ways of both them having you subscribe for months, and yet the player can log in and have done something within five minutes or less of logging in. Dailies almost seem to do this, but are kept as a high level only thing.
WoW rocks and i love the people i play with. But i wouldnt be able to play this (seriously) if i had a full-time “out of the hosue” job. I am glad i can work from home and play WoW “on-the side”…WAR is more for “casual” players, but then i dont like WAR.