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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: WoW vs. Real Life
by David Bowers 
Jun 3rd 2007 at 8:00AM
For my part, I mostly made one of those unconscious choices a long time ago, that if this sort of thing happened, I would usually choose to leave Azeroth and go experience real life. I had realized that it's too easy to lose oneself in the imaginary world and then come back to real life with a sense of emptiness. But with the right kind of moderation, I feel like both my time on Earth and my time in Azeroth are full and enjoyable.
What do you do when someone says "do you want to go hang out with us?" when you had planned to play WoW? Do you usually choose one or the other, or does it totally depend on the situation?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
smbcomix Sep 3rd 2011 2:48AM
Real life does not offer me anything but grief, misery, and boredom from my experience. Azeroth is better imo and I'll always choose WoW over real life. I'd rather be happy and living in a fantasy world than miserable and living in a world where everyone really IS out to get you.
Tumples Jun 3rd 2007 8:12AM
Friends and going out always over WoW, I play WoW as something to do in my spare time, just as a computer game, not to take over my social needs.
neoplasmax Jun 3rd 2007 8:23AM
I choose to play WoW... Who is to say friends aren't just as important in a game? They are NOT imaginary even though the chars and the game are fantasy, the people behind them are real... And after playing for years, they can be some of your more commonly talked to friends, over vent, doing stuff with them... Beats watching reruns of TV shows not having no friends... I work on computers as it is all day, I have a healthy lifestyle in that I love to powerlift and make time for it few days of the week, but I have some of my closest (even real life) friends on playing on the game... We have a lot to discuss and lot in common in the game... One thing I have definitely noticed is that I have gotten in way less trouble too staying in... Haha
Mats Jun 3rd 2007 8:45AM
Well, it all depends. I will chose to cancel a raid signup if I get to it in proper time to be with friends. I will leave a PuG who is building to be with friends, but I will not leave mid-run to be with friends, I would rather just ask the friends to give me 45min to finish this thing up, and I'll be there.
When you join a group or a raid, you have made a deal with those people, and they are real people too. If you suddenly say "screw you guys", and close the game as if it was a single player game, you will be hated by those guys you just went on a group with. This is a social game, as much as it is anything else, and if you start treating it like something less, the same thing that happens in real life will happen, you get kicked from the guild, the raid and you wander around with no friends or chance to group.
Krishan Jun 3rd 2007 9:37AM
Well, if I planned something because people in WoW are real people I would honour my promise and tell my mates I'll be out when I'm done, but I treat WoW as any other console. When I get a call saying want to come go skateboarding, I'll usually say okay or something, but everynow and then I prefer playing WoW to going out in the rain ^^.
But I haven't lost my social life to WoW, never play on Friday nights :P.
But I got GCSE exams now so I'm cutting down a bit and breaking promises for revision.
IRL>WoW tbh.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Jun 3rd 2007 10:18AM
Ah, this thread reminds me of the time I ended up organising a complex and intricate series of events to ensure I could make my guild's Thursday night Strathome run, even though I was at a conference 500 miles away from my home at the time...
A social engagement's a social engagement. If I've said I'll be there, I'll try my best to be there, whether the people in questions are in my hometown or 500 miles away, and whether the venue's a nightclub or the Blood Furnace. Actually, "Blood Furnace" is a pretty good description of some clubs I've run away from in the past, but that's another story.
Having said that, there are always priorities. If a friend calls and says "fancy a pint?" when I'm about to go on a guild run, I'll be going on the guild run. If they say "aargh, my mother's in hospital and I'm really freaking out", my guildies will just have to get another hunter to plug Baron Riverdance. But the same would be true if I was in the pub or working on a film.
Madcatt Jun 3rd 2007 10:27AM
Rather than the standard 'I always take RL over the game' speech, I'm going to offer a different perspective on the issue, one that may sound quite familiar to a lot of you. I warn you that it's a bit 'relationshippy'.
I spend a considerably large amount of time playing this game, though I've started to try to regulate it better.
To be specific, I've actually made some changes to my game time because it was affecting my relationship negatively. Basically what happened was that one day (a Monday to be specific) I was about to start a group that had been put in group calendar for numerous days prior, and the other people were almost ready to go also. We were actually having an important discussion about the direction of the guild at the time, as we were having quite a few problems relating to people leaving the guild, and in general the guild management situation.
My partner called me while the discussion was going on and I said I couldn't talk at that time. She got quite upset at me. I thought it was because she was being anti-WoW and I was equally annoyed at her because at the time I thought she didn't want me to do anything that didn't involve her. One of those relationship misconceptions that can only be helped through talking. :P
We later had a talk about it and she had something she wanted to talk to me about that was completely unrelated (it was positive), but she didn't say anything on the phone. I told her that I couldn't read her mind, and it would have been easier if she had have said that the phone conversation was important to her when she called.
It was through this happening that I decided I didn't like setting so many days in the week for group/raid times, and that I would rather drop out of a group altogether than upset her again.
Since then the guild I was in disbanded, and I've told the officers of the new guild I'm in that I will only be available for raids two days of the week (which are all but set in stone) when my partner is most likely to be busy.
I actually enjoy the game more now. I don't feel a great deal of pressure to be on every night so the guild progresses, and she knows when I'll be busy so she doesn't give me a hard time about being harder to contact on those days. She's also a lot more understanding about how much I enjoy and value the time I spend playing WoW because we talked about it (also in part to the fact that she's now a semi-regular player of the game too, entirely of her own volition), and knowing that I'm not so tied up during the week has been good for both of us.
Long post :P
Zins Jun 3rd 2007 11:44AM
Well, I agree that when you tell someone you'll do something, then you should honor that commitment, both in game and out of game. I think it's important to do both, but if my friend asks me to go do something that I wouldn't have fun doing anyway, then I'll usually make up some excuse and just stay in playing WoW anyway :P
Sylythn Jun 3rd 2007 12:14PM
I've got nights when I'm committed to my guild and WoW - those being our highest population nights of the week (mon,tue,thu). But any other evening of the week or on the weekends, I'll gladly step out of WoW for some real life adventure.
Hudson Jun 3rd 2007 1:32PM
This could also be interpreted as getting an invite to an instance that you've run dozens of times and then calling up a buddy so you don't have to go. (Healers, you know what I'm talking about.)
navalpha Jun 3rd 2007 1:47PM
I've always taken RL.
Simply because i get to do it a whole lot less then WoW.
squishy Jun 3rd 2007 1:48PM
There is NO EFFING =S= in LABYRINTH!
Once again, there is no efffing =S= in labyrinth.
Stop calling it labs. SLAB, or better yet SL.
krizoitz Jun 4th 2007 12:33PM
@squishy
Chill out dude, you need to relax
BenMS Jun 3rd 2007 8:31PM
Correct, there is no S in Labyrinth. However, it's possible the author, like a lot of us, and in fact like some of the pre-BC info releases referred to, a lot of people think the name of the instance is Shadow Laboratories. They're mistaken, but there was difinitely some vagueness about the name when it first came out. I have a screenshot at home that has AtlasLoot referring to it as Shadow Laboratory. Chewing people out over understandable confusion ftl.
Anon Jun 3rd 2007 8:46PM
Or if you're like me you will avoid going outside, there's really nothing for me to do there. Go see a movie? I hate seeing a movie, there are always 3 kids in the front row shouting stupid comments. Go to the park? I've been to that same park dozens of times before and there's nothing new or interesting there and it's packed with teenagers. The most I can guarantee people is I will come to your house, and you can come to mine. The only outdoor places I bother going to occasionally are the gym (which has a very nice steam room and a large pool) and a restaurant for food. I'm open to suggestions, if there's something better to do than hang out at my place and play games, watch shows, and movies I will do it.
I'm not a loner though, I do everything with my friends, I don't play WoW by myself, I don't play any games by myself, if it's singleplayer I prefer playing it when my friends have the game. I watch everything with my friends too, I just don't like going outside, it's much easier to do everything with friends than play WoW solo vs hang out with friends, I manage my schedule around my friends. Everyday I look forward to the time I spend with my friends. I also sometimes invite my brother to come visit me and play games and watch shows with me (I moved out).
For 2 years of my life I spent it exclusively outside, in public places or elsewhere, the mall, the movies, the store, the park, and It was fun but I burnt out on it.
Alcevious Jun 3rd 2007 11:59PM
Anyone that would choose to play WoW over going out in real life doesn't have any friends that would ask them out in real life anyways. Or so I would suspect.
David Bowers Jun 4th 2007 12:13AM
It's probably not fair to make generalized statements about what sort of WoW players have friends or not. I've actually really enjoyed reading about how most of you have the same loyalty to all people, whether you're interacting with them in the game or in real life: you'll go wherever you said you would in the first place, and keep your existing commitments. Too many people forget that others on the internet really are people too.
Regarding the shortening of "Shadow Labyrinth", I did know that it's not "Shadow Laboratories," but for some reason everyone on my server shortens it to "Shadowlabs" rather than anything else. I did the same not realizing anyone would care. At first, months back, I thought the instance was was Shadow Laboratories, it's true, but then I realized the truth, and just adopted "labs" as another shortening of "labyrinth" since ... well it's better than "Shadow Laby," right?
Anyway, if it's really important to you, we can compromise: in the next comic I draw, I'll just mention Shattered Halls instead. :)
ben1778 Jun 4th 2007 10:52AM
I'll never be a hardcore raider.
I like to go out with friends fri and sat nights. This is unacceptable to the raiding crowd since I don't know what i'm doing until a little bit beforehand.
Shortly after BC and getting keyed to Kara I had to leave the guild I had been in for about 10 months. It seemed like Bizzarro world in there after people got a whiff of Karazhan and went PvE crazy. They called Karazhan "raiding" -- which technically is correct, but in 2 months it'll be nothing more than a tuned-up UBRS with gear below Arena/PvP content (season 2 ftw).
I signed up for a team, but had to drop out after the 2nd week of raiding. Turns out I like to go out to bars and hang out with RL friends on fri-sat nights and that IS NOT OKAY (even with the "Casual Kara" team).
I go out on the weekend nights with my RL friends and some people actually thought they could make fun of me for that. It doesn't make sense, it's all backwards. I generally choose RL over WoW, and when I do, the hardcore WoW players mock me for doing RL stuff?
Who cares how nice your side-grade epic bracers are from Karazhan? I would always choose a date that ends the next morning over a bunch of 1s and 0s in a database somewhere (even if they code for phat loot).
Ragebull Jun 4th 2007 2:47PM
"Real life before second life."
I made this rule when I started and I stick to it. My guildies are cool about it even though I'm one of the main tanks and we just started Karazhan. Sometimes I do stay in Friday or Saturday nights to help out with the runs.
awender Jun 5th 2007 8:38AM
I say no.