News Watch: Addicted or just retarded?

So I came across this rather riduclous article (imo) http://tinyurl.com/l3577x

Apparently World of Warcraft (WoW) is so addictive that its being compared to things like drugs... and as such similar measures like having clinics to stop 'WoW addiction.' How utterly ridiculous is this... there are millions of people playing WoW, does that mean all of them have this addiction? Sure in some cases, people probably do get addicted which causes bizarre things like the case mentioned in the article about a Korean couple who left their baby alone to die, while they went to an internet cafe to play WoW. Its obviously an unfortunate case, but it doesnt mean its going to happen to every couple who plays WoW... which is what I find comparing WoW to drugs is trying to imply. Drugs are naturally addictive... like nicotine as an example. WoW is not like that, otherwise a large portion of this world would be sitting in front of their computers all day leading a self-destructive life of pure WoW.

Yes there are a number of cases where people take the game to the extreme and cause it to destroy their lives. But its not like its some kind of epidemic... I know tonnes of people who play the game, but never to an extreme. These extreme cases are a small minority of gamers. By all means help the stupid people who neglect everything except WoW, but don't go on trying to make it sound like the next plague or something.

On a lighter note, the article mentions a 'disturbing case' of someone who 450 total played days over a 3.5 year period. I wonder what they would think about Stian from Destromath (US). For those who don't know who I'm talking about, he is actually the main person worldwide to make a case about improving the Balance tree and thus getting Blizzard to develop Moonkin druids. However thats not the reason why I mention him... the reason is because after about 1.5 years since classic came out, he posted a screenshot of him hitting 365 played days on his druid alone. It may not have been exactly 1.5 years real time, but we ended up calculating that for him to have reached 365 played days in that time... he would have to have bought the game the day it came out, and played 16-18 hours a day, every day of the week without a break until he posted that screenshot. The funnier thing is... I've never seen him go AFK. He also completed the grind to Grand Marshal (the honor system was very different back then... although he wasnt very good at PVP, just burnt a lot of time doing it) and apparently completed every possible quest in the game and had exalted for every possible faction. Talk about dedication....

The end of one era, and the beginning of another

Hi everyone. For my first blog post I think I'll talk about WoW, which I have recently quit. I've played wow since the first week it came out many years ago and its been a very big journey for me. I spent a lot of time playing classic, and both expansions... and it was about time I call it quits. I had 2 main reasons for quitting... 1: most of my friends have either quit or were going to quit, and 2. the game had been dumbed down too much since classic and it just wasnt fun anymore.

I've been through a lot, starting off on Destromath alliance and raided with the top guild on alliance side and going through all of the classic content... then switching to Barthilas horde with irl friends, and converting a casual friends guild into a strong raiding guild that went through all of bc content minus sunwell (not really a huge achievement, but we did start raiding quite late)... and then completing ulduar 25 (minus most hard modes and algalon).

Also had a strong pvp scene, in classic, was 1% away from rank 11 (the rank that u got the mount) and then all the ppl I was pvping with at the time had stopped so I didnt end up getting to finish off the grind. Then in BC, I got to 2200 rating in season 3 with warlock + priest combo (i was the priest) but missing out on gladiator rank cos the top spots were filled with wintraders (screw u wintraders!).

Anyways, RIP my characters:

Horde
Yuumi - 80 BE Death Knight
Califa- 80 BE Rogue
Libidinous - 77 Troll Shaman
Lascivious- 70 UD Warrior
Maliciousx - 70 UD Priest
Lumiya - 70 BE Warlock
Skillbloom - 70 Tauren Druid

Alliance
Nymphie - 70 NE Druid
Amber - 60 Human Paladin
Cammy - 60 Human Mage
Elumani - 60 NE Priest


P.S yes I had a lot of characters =\