How I Escaped the World of Warcraft

I loved World of Warcraft for the 8 or 9 months I played. It was an extremely addictive game with endless things to get engulfed into (much like the Internet in general).

My experience
I was introduced to it by a friend we’ll call Duke. Duke was introduced to it by our mutual friend Dragon. So I played World of Warcraft nine months before the Burning Crusade was officially released and stopped about 2-3 months before it’s launch. I played nearly everyday for a couple of hours, but never let it interfere with my actual life. I didn’t log on to hangout with any online friends, I logged on in order to level to 60 and then raid with my two real life friends, Duke and Dragon.

I was able to level 3 Elves to level 45 before I burned out. I took a lengthy break, only  logging on occasionally. One day I was hanging with Duke and Dragon on a Saturday night, waiting for them to finish their 40 person Molten Core segment (you can run it in portions, since running it in it’s entirety would be an epic journey). I came over at 9, just before they started, and they finished around 12 or 1.

“Are you serious?”

Now my friends were doing what they were suppose to, but they had people in their raid group who kept mucking it up and it would cause “wipes” (when a team is obliterated by a boss). So I thought to myself “Do I every want to be a level 60 in a 40 person raid on a Saturday night from 9pm to some arbitrary ending time?

NEVER

Now, this game is phenomenal, stupendous, damn near perfect. It takes Diablo’s hack and slash and RPG elements and a truly thriving community. Design work is near flawless and the system of leveling is great in my opinion. It even had it’s own uncontrollable plague that had to be fixed by the Blizzard developers. People even scheduled funerals and wedding through and even in WoW.

I’m happy I escaped WoW when I did. I never read about it or keep up with it. It really is addictive if you let it.

Have you played WoW? What’s your story?