A plus side to getting hooked on this game after 14 years

So I've dabbled in WoW since Mists of Pandaria, then again a bit in WoD, but it never really stuck with me. My first MMO was SWTOR and it felt on the surface too similar to that. GW2 had more appeal to me. Plus I was worried about getting too addicted to it as I've heard some horror stories to that end and I was already not very social of a person with addictive traits so I never pushed through.

Fast forward a 4-6 years and now Im 28, happily married with a stable job. This past weekend my wife and I were watching tv being lazy and I just turned to her and said, "You wanna try WoW? I think there's a free trial version or something we can dabble in..." She chuckled and gave a slightly hesitated "...sure" so we downloaded it on our pc's. It finished around 4pm and I'll summarize the rest of our Saturday with this. Around 9pm my wife looks across our desks and remarks, "wait...its dark out?" Enough said. This continued for part of Sunday as we had other plans with some friends we couldn't just play it all day again.

This is usually the part of the story where I got worried when reading other people say things like that about the game. I know I have an addictive personality and thus try to avoid things that can make me skimp on my more important responsibilities. Something was different this time though and it's my point to writing this.

Before, I was antisocial, unconfident, and dealing with some severe emotional issues. WoW felt like a game that would just exacerbate all of those traits. Now, being able to share it with my wife, us talking about it constantly the last couple days, trying to figure out our roles in group content and laughing at each failure, its become something thats building us and drawing us closer. Its interesting how something potentially really damaging to a person and his life can suddenly be something that actually improving that life.

Not really any question that needs answered here, just wanted to share that.

@squidc00kie: I'm glad you two are having a positive experience.

As a gentle warning, please do yourselves a favor and just keep an eye on how you prioritize the game. World of Warcraft is a skinner box designed to hook you, and I've seen some bad things. The worst was 20 months ago (November 2016, I think) when I was running a raid with the guild I was in. Out of nowhere came the sound of a child in anguish. Apparently the guild leader's son had burned his hand on the stove for the first time and had no idea what to do. The kid sounded completely terrified and freaked out.

I assumed the guild leader would call the raid and help his whimpering child, but no. He told the kid to talk to his mother because the raid was about to make another attempt on some plant-tentacle thing. To my amazement, I heard the kid's crying fade silent... and then grow louder as he went to his mom, who was the guild leader's wife and one of our healers. She had even less patience than the father, and told the kid to run his hand under some cold water at the sink because the guild was about to crush a boss and move on to Cenarius.

Neglectful lunatics, the both of them. Was the skinner box really more important than their own freaking child? to them, yes. Clearly yes, and no one in the guild even cared. If anything, they were annoyed that the kid was delaying their chance to get a pair of new shoulder-pads with slightly higher numbers on them. I was so horrified that I quit World of Warcraft for almost two years, and while I have come back to see this expansion... I'm keeping the game itself at an arm's length in terms of my commitment to it. I'll probably stick around for a month to see the new raid on "looking for raid" difficulty and get the PVE content done, and then I'll leave until the next update a half year later. I've also refused to join a new guild, because I have no desire to engage in that again. Ever.

But yeah, I'm glad you are having a great time together. Just... be careful, fellow duders. WoW can take a heavy toll if you don't keep an eye on its influence.

That's awesome to hear!

I think it's definitely something one can appreciate more when they're older and have a better perspective on what's important in life and responsibilities.

I started in High School, about a 2 or 3 years after it came out and I can definitely remember the irresponsibility, staying up till 2am consistently on school nights haha. But some 10 years later it's a great escape when life just has me down.

Welcome to the community!

@lazyimperial: Completely agree with you. I've heard some stories, not sure how true they are as I cant remember the sources, that were similar to that. Like single parent just full on neglecting their kid and the kid ends up dying. Thankfully we don't have kids yet so thats not a direct concern, but still things like getting a call that a relative is in the hospital could pose a similar situation. Although we have both been involved with gaming basically since birth, we both realize the importance of turning the screen off the second it becomes important to do so.

Being in that situation you described, I don't know how I would have reacted. I feel like I'd end up yelling at the dude to go take care of his kid and if he didn't -which you said he didn't- just leaving the call and raid that second. But then I wouldnt be able to stop thinking about if that kid is being treated for his injury well, let alone the fact that that situation happened in the first place he's probably not being taken care of very well at all in general. i don't know dude, it's not like he'd tell me his address so I can call an ambulance...can you even call emergency services to a location you aren't at? Likely even out of state? I dont think thats a thing right? But I know I couldn't just drop it.

That's a rough situation dude. Sorry you went through that.

@squidc00kie:

Oh, it's all good on my end. I'm sorry that the kid went through that. :-P

Also, you're a far kinder soul than me. I didn't even bother to try and get the guy to take care of his kid. It became immediately apparent that the child was at the bottom of his life's totem pole, and I left him and his wife to it. I just dropped the matter completely, quit the game, and moved on.

@reap3r160: Thanks dude!