Karen and I met Bob and Kathy at an ante-natal class. The four of us sat in the back row and sniggered like a bunch of skoolkids throughout the class. Bob was possibly the first person who I had met in the last 3 years (with the exception of people who I have met through the Internet) who laughed at my jokes.
The following week, we bumped (no pun intended) into them on a tour of a nearby hospital. After the tour, as they were walking back to their car and us to ours, Karen and I quickly agreed that we should invite them for a coffee. I changed direction and offered them our invitation, which they accepted. We met up at a pub an hour later, and coffee became a few pints, which then became a curry, and before you knew it the day was over.
This was just the start of our friendship. After the children were born, I’d go to the pub with Bob once a week, where we’d devour pints of beer and talk about blokeish things.
The last such outing was a couple of months ago. Bob was telling me about their new laptop, and how he was going to get broadband so that he could play World of Warcraft, because he’d played it at his brother’s house and it was ace.
“Right, the thing is, Bob, ” I started “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but please heed my warning. WoW is addictive. Seriously, seriously addictive. It dangles the carrot of fake accomplishment in front of you, making you believe that you are actually achieving something, when in fact you are chasing a moving target. It’s fine as entertainment, but don’t let XP rule your life.”
Bob nodded, and seemed to understand. Conversation moved onto other matters.
In subsequent weeks, Bob and I struggled to find a mutually agreeable date for our weekly pow-wow. Each week, one of us would suggest a day, but the other would be unavailable, and such negotiations ended up with stalemate. The following week, discussions would be opened by the other party, which seemed like a nice arrangement which meant that neither of us was doing all the running.
Until I found myself doing all the opening for a few weeks in succession. My text messages were increasingly going unanswered. When I phoned up, if the machine didn’t pick up, then Bob would say that he was a bit busy right now and would call me back later. Deep down in my heart of hearts I knew what was going on, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. A month ago I invited him for a beer in no uncertain terms, to which I got the rib-tickling response “sorry beenreallybusy”. The omission of spaces had a positively comical effect.
I replied “Okay, drop me a line when things quieten down, or if you need an evening to get away from it all.” or words to that effect. Since that message, there has been nothing.
Today, Karen and Bernard went round to visit Kathy and her baby Martin, who is exactly the same age as Bernard (±2 days). The truth was revealed, and it’s exactly what the eagle-eyed reader has, by now, deduced.
Bob has been playing WoW to a worrying degree. Every evening, after Martin has been put to bed at 8pm, he plays. He plays at the weekends, leaving Kathy to feel like a single mother. He would rather play this game than enjoy an evening of sparkling conversation and fruity ales at a local tavern with me. With me! HE IS CLEARLY STARK-RAVING INSANE!
So what to do now? Should I do something? Should I help? Does he even need help? Is it selfish of me to do nothing? Gah.
17 replies on “Widow of Warcraft”
I think you should turn to South Park for advice. Their World of Warcraft episode is probably available on yuouTube
Yours, too lazy to find links,
The Doctor
Sadly, it’s not. Comedy Central went round the big video hosting sites, including YouTube, serving takedown notices to the lot of them. They did this to try and endear themselves to their fans. Strangely, it seems to have had the opposite effect.
It’s still available on the Pirate Bay, but that lacks the convenience of the whole inline Flash video player arrangement.
(we did get to see it, though)
Answer is easy. Join his server as a sexy night elf, seduce him, arrange to meet him in a pub to discuss your Breastplate of Stamina and his Sword of Lifestealing, enjoy a few pints in embarassing silence before promising not to tell his wife and every now and again send him a screenshot to remind him its his round this week.
Heh. Nice idea. Sadly, I was looking for a suggestion that wouldn’t require me to get my own account.
Comedy Central are idiots. Stone and Parker have publicly said they don’t mind people sharing their shows for free, after they’ve aired, and that they don’t care what Comedy Central think about that.
In other news, my other half has become a “Widow Of Zelda” this week. It only happens every three or four years though, and only lasts a few weeks.
How long before we see “WoW anonymous”?
“Hi, my name is Bob and I have NO life” 🙂
(that’s a reference to the South Park episode, for those who haven’t seen it, not a slight against Bob)
How is he with IT? Sneaking round and helping Kathy put some time-based rules in his firewall might buy a few weeks spent looking for an ‘intermittent fault’ that isn’t there.
If he’s on the right kind of server you could get a big load of the opposing faction to beat him to a pulp all the time, until he gets bored of it and decides to read a book instead. That’s what they do to me.
Make sure you don’t fall for any plan that involves playing it yourself though. As well you’ve described, it’s a slippery slope…
We bumped into Bob and Kathy in town on Saturday – he was looking a little pasty-faced, and we teased him heavily. He then looked at his watch and said it was time to get home. Kathy says she has resorted to unplugging the router on one occasion. Once again I’m reminded how lucky I am.
I have not ventured into WoW. Primarily because my PC struggles to run Second Life and THAT was pretty boring anyway…
As for Bob. I’d probably just go round to his house with a few cans of beer. Even if he still sits at the computer you’d probably be able to talk him round to returning to normal society.
Maybe… your jokes aren’t THAT funny.. 😉
My mind struggles to deal with Second Life. No matter what the sunday broadsheets tell you, it’s not an MMOG and is not the way of the future.
I’d also poo-poo the idea of signing up as a Night Elf too. If he’s like me, he’s probably on the Horde side and would kick your skinny blue arse all the way across Azeroth.
Signing up is not a bad idea, provided you can do it in moderation. It keeps me from going down the pub, that much is true, but as I can’t actually afford to go down the pub much, it’s a bonus. It’s better (and more involving) than most of the television on at the moment and I never let it get in the way of quality family time. It’s also quite a sociable way to spend an evening, provided you meet the right type of people. And, what’s more, it’ll give you something other than poo and feeding to talk to Bob about.
Hi all.
**Matt:** Your comment got flagged as spam, which is why it has only just appeared. Link’s Awakening was one of the first games that really blew my mind. Zelda will always have a place in my heart, for that reason. If any game is going to tempt me to buy a Wii, it will be that one.
**QE:** Interesting suggestions, but ultimately rubbish. The firewall trick will just increase his urge to play.
**Gordon:** At one point, I did briefly consider getting a trial period with Second Life. Until it turned out that to prove your identity, you had to either (a) send a text message from a US-based mobile phone or (b) give them your credit card number. I decided that they could fuck off on both counts. I could try taking beers round to Bob’s house, and then hold them precariously out of reach so that he has to step away from the computer to reach them. The old “carrot and Uber Stick Of +5 Smitage” approach.
**Dragon:** Bob’s quite a gentle fellow in real life, so you’re right that his in-game avatar is probably a twelve-horned, nine foot behemoth with blood-encrusted talons.
Signing up strikes me as a very bad idea. I’m reminded of the Red Dwarf game Better Than Life, as portrayed in the novel. For the benefit of those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Lister joins a total-immersion video game which basically gives you everything you ever wanted. However, he doesn’t know that he’s in it, and starts to waste away in reality. The other crew members of Red Dwarf, one by one, join the game to try and pull him out, but once they enter the game they forget that the real world ever existed, and eventually they are all trapped, until some Deus ex Machina comes along (if memory serves correctly).
So no, I’m not going to join. Not under any circumstances. I agree that it’s better and more involving than television, and this is an argument that I have myself used to justify playing computer games more than once. I agree that it’s a more sociable activity than most people imagine, but it’s still only about half as sociable as watching television with the person sat next to you on the sofa.
I don’t have any problem with people who play MMOGs for entertainment value. But the people who play because they believe that they are achieving something, because they believe that their character’s level actually matters, because they believe that if they can make their character stronger then it will improve their life in any way – they’re tragically and woefully wrong.
There are many such tragic tales here.
Obviously the same can be said about any obsession or addiction. MMOs are by no means unique. If you’re avoiding playing them because you’re afraid of becoming addicted then I guess you don’t drink for the same reason.
> If you’re avoiding playing them because you’re afraid of becoming addicted then I guess you don’t drink for the same reason.
That’s a pretty weak argument. You and I both know that addictiveness is not black or white. However, if you had said:
> If you’re avoiding playing them because you’re afraid of becoming addicted then I guess you don’t **do heroin** for the same reason.
…then I would say “Yes, that’s absolutely right.”
Also, bear in mind that being addicted to X isn’t a bad thing in itself. It depends upon what the effects of X, and overconsumption of X, are.
Heroin’s a very poor example. For that matter, so is alcohol because they both stimulate physical dependencies. Not only that, but they overdosing on both will directly damage you in a very physical way.
The best comparison is probably to gambling. Both WoW and gambling target the brain’s reward centres. While there may be the potential for fiscal reward in gambling as opposed to the transitory and insubstantial reward offered by WoW, the psychological effects are comparable (and can be measured). One major difference, however, is that a normal addiction to an MMO is only going to cost about £120 a year (unless you’re a multiple account holder or play several MMOs in which case that will be more – but if you play Guild Wars, it’s consdierably less as there’s no monthly fee) which is less than the cost of a typical unused gym membership. And there’s no risk of losing out financially because of a run of “bad luck”.
The damage that you’re citing in your post (socially withdrawn, affecting relationships) is pretty much the effects of any addiction, whether it be MMOs, working out at the gym, stamp collecting, cleaning the house, blogging etc. From that point of view, it doesn’t matter what X is. Addictions of these sort have no physical effect beyond the promotion of a good feeling and sense of reward. Overconsumption of any of them can affect a persons life in such a way that relationships, work and even health can suffer.
The roundabout point I’m trying to get at is this: if you are afraid of getting addicted to an MMO, it must be because you have an addictive personality. An MMO (or playing chess or gambling or cleaning or whatever) in itself doesn’t cause a physical dependency and you won’t suffer physiological withdrawal symptoms. It is not to blame for someone’s addiction.
Your comparison to gambling has some merit. However, the barrier to entry with a MMO is lower – if you go to a casino and lose all your money in 10 minutes, you’re not really going to have the chance to get addicted. In fact, you’ll walk away with a very negative opinion of it. However, with an MMO, once you’ve paid that first £10, you’ve got a month before it runs out.
> And there’s no risk of losing out financially because of a run of “bad luckâ€.
That’s another reason why it’s dangerous. Once you’ve started playing, there’s no reason to ever stop. If you die, you respawn and pick up where you left off. At least with chess you have to go back to the start of the game.
> […] if you are afraid of getting addicted to an MMO, it must be because you have an addictive personality.
This is so incredibly oversimplified that it makes me want to scream and throw the computer through the window. I said in my last comment that addiction is not black and white, which you clearly don’t disagree with, but now you’re trying to argue that an addictive personality is boolean? What’s wrong with the theory that we are all susceptible to some things and not to others? I’m quite proud of the fact that I can recognise my own potential weaknesses and add extra defenses around them, thank you very much.
> An MMO […] in itself doesn’t cause a physical dependency and you won’t suffer physiological withdrawal symptoms.
Whose comment are you responding to here? Because I don’t think anyone here has suggested that it does / you will.
> It is not to blame for someone’s addiction.
Anthropomorphological pedantry aside, here’s the situation as I see it. People sign up for MMOs, either unaware of the risks, or under the impression that they are strong enough to resist it. Blizzard are in the business of making a profit, so they make their game as compulsive and bewitching as possible. Naturally, this involves a little bit of exploitation of human weakness, but such is life. They know how many lives they are ruining, but that’s not their responsibility so why should they give a shit.
I don’t think that regulation or litigation is the answer. Blizzard should have the right to sell an addictive game, McDonalds should have the right to sell junk, parents should have the right to decide whether a car seat is necessary for their 10 year old or not. A society in which nobody has to make any difficult decisions is destined to spiral into brainlessness. It’s just very hard to stand back and watch someone wrecking their relationships for the sake of a reward that vanishes as soon as you step away from the computer.
I know this discussion is all over and done with, but I have only just read it, and it does occur to me that while Pete joining WOW might give him and Bob something to talk about other than poo and feeding, that isn’t necessarily going to improve the quality of the conversation.
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