How to quit an MMORPG
by David Nelson 
Oct 16th 2006 at 5:00PM
One of my WoW playing friends sent me a link to this article over at Life Tutorial this morning. The title? How to Quit an MMORPG. After assuring me that he wasn't trying to give me a hint, I went ahead and read the article. While these kind of articles are a dime a dozen these days, and yes, the piece does have a few typos, and some of the advice seems drawn directly from a psychology 101 textbook, the article does have an interesting suggestion towards the end...the author actually recommends playing other videogames to help you break a potentially destructive MMORPG habit.
One of my old guildies, who I still keep in contact with, did exactly that. He realized WoW was taking up far too much time, but he didn't have another, less involved, time waster to take its place. What did he do? Having never owned a console before, he went out, bought an XBox 360 and just started playing fun, low commitment games. He said he enjoys messing around for an hour at night with Ghost Recon or Geometry Wars, then he goes to bed. No guild runs to commit to, no 24 hour community to worry about.
Is playing other videogames the easiest way out of a MMORPG addiction? Do you know anyone who has quit recently after having realized WoW was playing havoc with their priorities? Any tips for people that might be thinking they are playing too much?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, How-tos
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Unkle Oct 16th 2006 5:49PM
I really just play for the pvp, so time commitment is not an issue for me at all.
For someone who is letting the game run his life, I would reccomend to either just quit all together, or make it clear that you cannot commit to things anymore, and just do stuff when you can.
Skidrowe Oct 16th 2006 7:04PM
Reading a book can help you break the habit. I haven't had a lot of time to play in the last month due to work and *gasp* an overly active social life. In addition, I just started reading a good book and when I have that thirty minutes to one hour break in the evening, I have been finding myself going to the book much more often than I have my keyboard. I have no intention of quitting though, so this may be bad advice.
-Skidrowe
E Oct 16th 2006 7:57PM
For the poster above, if you say that you play for pvp only, that would be the biggest time sink. If you trying to rank up, it means you cannot afford to miss any time because your rank would go down next week if you don't play.
Hopefully in the BC that will fix the problem, since you will be able to take a week or two off from pvping and still keep your "honor points."
manji Oct 16th 2006 8:44PM
I started playing Second Life instead.
renegadeofunk Oct 16th 2006 10:40PM
Make a twink. You'll probably play the same amount until you're character's fully twinked, but after that you can just jump on to PvP without any commitment since you'll have the best gear available and rank is unimportant past 2 (which you'll get in a week or 2 anyway).
xfr3386 Oct 17th 2006 10:46AM
I think most players of world of warcraft would be fine and not considered addicts if guilds and raiding didn't exist. I refuse to let this game run my life, and as a result both my hunter and warrior are without epics.
But it doesn't bother me. I know that i am God's gift to warriors and would be incredible in a raiding situation (ever since tanking in FFXI i've been told so anyway) but I will not allow myself to log into a game every single night and neglect my wife, dog and social life so i can group up with 39 (or even 24 or 19) people in a video game for 3-5 hours.
You don't have to quit the game to break your addiction, you just have to learn to focus your efforts elsewhere, and in this game be willing to be without epic gear.
If you can't deal with the idea of playing without epic gear, you're fully blued, but you don't want the game to run your life but you're sick of the 5-10mans there is a very simply solution, stop playing. You have basically beaten the game, and there's no reason to continue playing if it's detrimental to the rest of your life.
Melf Oct 27th 2006 11:49AM
Like methodone, a console can help wean you, I'm sure :)