Someone else has to have gone through this:

I recently decided after 5 years of it to abandon my predominant game fixation: World of Warcraft. I've literally been in 'Azeroth' longer than I've been a citizen of my current country. My reasons: social decay, I felt I was giving up on living my life to play video games (not that there's anythign wrong with that, just in moderation). Having a passionate hobby is one thing, but when you pass on advancing your career because the offered job might conflict with your 'raiding' schedule, I'd say its something to regret in 10 years.

Unfortunately now I'm all messed up because I've manually chucked out something that, at minimum, consumed 2-4 hours of my day every day or the half a decade.

Has anyone gone through this kind of gamer's withdrawal? Any advice or encouragement would help. Oh and 'I always feel better after buying forum members things on Rendo' is not a valid answer.'

Oh, and 'smoke a pack' and 'drink yourself numb' aren't valid options. Islam isn't very well engineered for depressed video game junkies. lol.

Take walks in the park, preferably with a dog.
Get involved in a local charity.
Hide the remote and read a book.
Participate in your place of worship.
Play chess, but only with real people face to face.

Hope that helps :)

Get yourself a job in the games industry.  That will kill any interest you have stone dead.

@SamTherapy- Lol, yeah, my current job did that for magazines. I'm pretty much incapable of looking at a page in print media without becoming lost unpleasantly in the layout, identifying the techniques, and (worst of all) chronically identifying fonts.

In line with my theory, I do feel a lot better now that I've gotten some brief sleep. It's amazing how odd the brain works sometimes.

I've decided to do this in comic format.

Actually I work out quite a bit, mostly because my job is painfully sedentary. I am thinking of joining a couple extra classes though. Thanks for the advice.

I used to play a medieval MMORPG game about 10 years ago.

I didn't play it for as long as you played your game, but I emersed myself in it for hours and hours a day. When I was at work I could hardly wait to get home to play it, and on my days off I played it pretty much all day long.  I did that for about 4 years.

About 2 years in, my best in game friend left the game, and while I continued to play it just wasn't the same without my friend to hang out with. Also, so many game changes over a short period of time affected the characters I played and my playing style in a negative way, that a lot of the enjoyment that I used to get from the game started to diminish. Yet I still played within the narrow scope that my playing style allowed me to.

By the time I stopped playing, my mindset had started to change. I began to come to the reality  (like you seem to have), that I was wasting time in the game instead of spending it.  Those 2 are completely different.

To waste time is to throw it away. Which is what I ultimately realized I was doing.

Once I came to that realization it was pretty easy to quit the game.  Sure I missed it but not as much as I thought I would.  I think I stopped playing in 2004. I uninstalled the game from my computer and left the game community.

Between the time I stopped playing and now, there have been some times where it has crossed my mind to start playing again.  During the LoTR movies, it was particularly bad!! But not impossible to resist.

In the spring of 2010 I was doing some intense house cleaning and getting rid of clutter. I came across the game. I thought about putting it back on the shelf "just in case", but a few minutes later I scratched up the CD and placed it in the trash box. It's now somewhere in the landfill site.

Why did I scratch the CD before throwing it away?  Well, I always do when throwing out a CD that has anything on it.  Plus if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that part of me didn't want someone to get their hands on the CD and possibly hack into my old account and mess with my beloved characters.  I know it's stupid, but I am still very attached to the characters I created in that game.  I came to love them because each represented a different part of my personality.

Will I ever go back to that game or another online one? Nah!  I realize that I am attached to memories....ghosts. And that's ok.

I hope my own story will help inspire you.

Thanks, that's inspiring. I know it sounds silly to put so much stock in a game. I've decided to spend a  week away from all games in general, pretty much only using my computer for work and mulling over forums, I 'move on' on things very quickly once I get over a certain bump in the road it seems.

Of course my husband is like "Drink yourself stupid!".. the man isn't a font of wisdom, but I knew I wasn't exactly marrying a sage lol.

Gee , advice for a married woman.. nope none.  I would have suggested Men, but you have one and he might not like you collecting others. Wild monkey sex would be an option but you might do that anyway .  I suppose that leaves typical womanish stuff , like knitting, crochet or cooking.  I hear that crocheting bottle covers that look like poodles is a dying art, perhaps you could revive it ?

** The above explains why asking me for advice is risky **

If the game is taking away important things from your life, then by all means quit it.

 Me? i don't have a girlfriend, much less kids and since i don't have anything better to do, i need to focus my attention to something, so i play video games, in fact i have been playing Final Fantasy XI since 2003. (almost 365 days of actual "playtime", yea i have no life lol)

I spent 5 years of my life in the Dark Ages of Camelot, then I replaced it with Poser. Now I just waste time in the forums.

Just a coda on all this (aside from thanking you for the help despite this being highly OT) I felt I should share this phone convo I just had, as I find it funny:

Andrew (Husband): Hey, how's the whole quitting WoW thing going? Feeling a little better?

Sooraya (Moi): Okay enough, it's a little tough.

Andrew: You should do what I did when I needed to get off smoking.

Sooraya: What was that?

Andrew: A lot of weed.

Sooraya: Not helping.

Hah I played WoW... way too much after the recent expansion however.. yeah I walked away I freaking had it. But before that I was entrenched in raiding in a soul sucking, social life destroying way playing with one of the big guilds on a european realm.. so their raiding times and my times did not even really fit very well but I had started on EU servers before I moved to the states.

When I was not raiding I was crafting consumables or competing in the arena whenever I had a minute to spare ( good thing I got a kid and work to take care for so I did not totally get lost in the damn game )

Then one day when the server first enter cataclysm raid boss here message flashed over my screen and the voice-com errupted in cussing and much drama because my previous guild had gotten it a few minutes before we downed the boss ourselves it hit me... what the hell am I doing here wiping on this stupid boss for the 45th time today... I said afk... eventually got disconnected and never returned, I guess if you really want to stop missing something you previously really enjoyed is to overdose on it. Now I feel nauseous if I hear anything resembling the music from Twilight Citadel or Black Rock...

And gosh I am loving all the time I can spend in the pool and doing daytime stuff because I no longer have to raid at euro times!

I did the same with The Sims 2 and then with The Sims 3. Then, like SteveJax, I moved on to Poser. Just as addictive. I just accept that I need the recreation.

Try horseback riding.  Find out first though what a rider should do if their horse rears up on it's hind legs.

Fill those extra hours with a part time job. 

Learn to play guitar, if you don't already.

I understand your conflict TC.  On a lighter note, have you seen the YouTube video of the teenager freaking out when his mother canceled his WOW account?

I myself have been playing Final Fantasy XI online for almost 7 years. I recently started playing again after about a half year break.  Instead of doing the time consuming party thing, now I just do solo fights/quests.  

If you don't want to play WOW at all, but need something for the withdrawals, you could play a console game like Oblivion.  It is a similar style game, but not as demanding on your RL time.

Thanks for all the commentary ^^. 2 Days later now, feeling a bit better. Decided to fill the time learning Marvelous Designer 2.

Quote - Decided to fill the time learning Marvelous Designer 2.

Now you are spending time instead of wasting it!!! :)

I went through the same. I played WoW for over a year while I was in college. I was adicted, period. I would play 6, 8, 10, up to 12 hours a day. Lost that year in college, lost my girlfriend and lost some good friends.

I don't remember the exact day I stoped, but it was hard at first, even today when I read news about the game and the new expantions I feel like playing. But just thinking I'd have to quit social life again, quit Poser (can't handle two addictive activities), quit console gaming and any other kind of gaming in general, keeps me from joining again.

Now that I think about it, the way I feel nowdays when I look back or consider starting to play again, is that now I'm "free", no raiding scheduels, no farming for mats, no farming for items. I'm much better off without it.

Poser is adictive, but I can stop any time, for any number of weeks or months or years, and when I come back my stuff wont be outdated, nerfed or otherwise.

Zugzug!

Quote - Poser is adictive, but I can stop any time, for any number of weeks or months or years, and when I come back my stuff wont be outdated, nerfed or otherwise.

Zugzug!

Famous last words.

Lol, yeah. But it's true though! I haven't render a thing for weeks, due to lack of time, without any side effects to my emotional well being.

I might render something today, or might not. Try telling your guild you might or might not raid tonight... 

Lol, the only time i went a week without a render (or more normal in my case, making a mesh) was because my computer went soo far into crash-and-burn territory that I had to boot it with a thumb drive.

I was cured of my video game Jones years ago, but I can't attribute my kicking of the habit to anything but boredom. Games seem to have devolved into nothing but a series of sequels and unispired copies of something that's been done a hundred times before.

I still play the old classics on Mame. It's a perfect way to relax for half an hour, although Ms. Pac Man can still make me want to throw my controller at the monitor.

While a lot of sequels are crap, some companies are really getting the stride for it these days. Thankfully the ones I play are single-player and non-addictive.

I mean, Mass Effect 2 was amazing and the idea that a decision made in the plot of the first game can effect the plot majorly even onwards into ME3 is so inventive. Bioshock 2 was touching. Sadly too is trash these days.

i used to play a lot of video games - but lately between work, home renovations and repairs, woodworking, household chores and gardening i dont have time anymore. the last game i played was a short campaign of Shogun 2: Total War about 3 months ago.

the disturbing thing about games like WoW is that they were engineered from the ground up - and with each update - to be as addictive as possible.

just like any addiction you simply need to immerse yourself in work or some new pursuit for a few weeks in order to break the cycle. then youll look back and think wtf? why was i wasting my time grinding/raiding for a chance at marginally better loot in that pointless game?

@Warriorpoet, totally right, I LOVE Mass Effect, and once you play through it, which is not that long (even if you go for it a second time), it's over, which in terms of the issue at hand it's a good thing. Can't wait for mass effect 3!

@Blackhearted, well yeah I do feel that way, I look back and realize I was wasting my time big time. But I can't deny it was fun, some aspect of the game were boring, true, like grinding, but most of the time it was fun, enternaining, and full of new stuff and events. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people playing it. The cost is too big though, like any other addiction.

I figure it's better than watching tv, because it is interactive.

And I just plain like my Tarutaru character.

^wtf is that thing? haha

Attached Link: Tarus on YouTube

Let's go to the video tape!

Quote - And I just plain like my Tarutaru character.

Must fight urge to "Squee".....

@Hioushi: Yeah, ME2 was great. I only get about 2 playthroughs of each:

Female Infiltrator Shep: Character I identify with, more or less full-time Paragon except for brief moments of misjudgement. Lost Grunt, Jack, and Legion on suicide mission (Okay with that, Jack was a nutter, I knew Legion for all of 10 minutes, and Grunt is Krogan, dying is a cultural occupation).

Male Biotic Shep: Case study in video game cruelty potential. Basically always Renegade except when Paragon choice effected later mission better. Full survival of team on suicide mission (thanks to a piece of note paper and the Mass Effect wiki). Slept with Tali despite being such a jerk, I wanted to punch him and I'm the player.

I played as:

Male Biotic Shep: full-time Paragon, not a single exception, basically Mr. Nice Guy who would even do your laundry if you ask him too LOL. Well, if you count sleeping (or trying to) with pretty much any female human or asari on the ship as renegade, I guess he did break his vows.

Female Infiltrator Shep: A real bitch, she has a scar in her left cheeck and really nasty actitude, cross her and get hit in the face (hello news reporter). 

Ya, Mass Effect 2 was a blast! One thing I didn't like was my allies in combat were a little too helpful, but that seems to be the norm in most games now-a-days. Martin Sheen did an excellent character portrayal as the Illusive Man.

Anyone here ever have a Dreamcast? I used to play a lot of Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena online. Sixteen players per map on a 56k baud modem, and lag was fairly rare.

The SOCOM sereies on the PS2 was fun, too. I killed many terrorists as Col. Mustard, then the hackers ruined it.

Hehe, I played those on Dreamcast too, loved that console, I still have it around.

Quote - Try horseback riding.  Find out first though what a rider should do if their horse rears up on it's hind legs.

Pray for rain?

This is beyond interesting, I can't stress how much I appreciate you sharing your story..... You are a brave one indeed.

I thought I was bad, I remember "back in the day" playing Phantasy Star sometimes thru the entire weekend w/o sleep, LOL!!!

1st and foremost, do NOT feel bad, from my understanding, this is common for WoW players, not that that makes it any better, but you could find others who share your feelings and talk w/ them.....

Best of luck, and chin up =D

Thanks ^^ I'm suprised people are still posting on this. I've mostly gotten over it by playing non-commital 1-player games (cus while I wanted a lot of the time I was blowing on WoW for poser work, I still do ENJOY videogames and can't cut them out all together)

Thankfully, Portal 2 and Mass Effect 2 replays are a good drug.

ive been a World of Warcraft player for 6 years, ive been playing far less this year, maybe 3 or 4 hours max a month compared to probably 20 hours a week before that. I cant say im missing it overly much, the time im not spending on WOW ive been spending being creative with Poser which I decided to finally invest in end of last year.

Many of the scenes I make in Poser are inspired by my WOW characters and from playing that game.

Generally a game addiction is normally solved by just finding some other activity to occupy the time you were spending on the game.

^why even bother for just a couple hours a month?

the amusing thing about WoW is that i know people who are not even playing for FUN anymore.  they log on every day just to check their auctions and do their dailies.  its like a job - that they pay Blizzard to do.  they get caught in a cycle where theyve amassed so much crap that they are simply playing so as not to lose it and/or their advancement.

star wars galaxies (a fun game during a very brief window of its development) was the worst for that. you had to log in to pay maintenance on your home, pay maintenance on your vendors (otherwise both would disappear with all your stuff), survey for resources, check on daily spawn mobs, place harvesters on new resource nodes (which appeared/disappeared on a daily basis - if you missed a day and that day copper or aluminum with amazing characteristics spawned on a planet, and you didnt get to place harvesters down on it, as a crafter you were SOOL).

the entire game was designed from the ground up to get people hooked and in a position where they cannot even take extended breaks from the game for risk of losing their homes/possessions/advancement in the game. and then there were further time sinks like the jedi system (early on). you had to just start randomly mastering professions and fulfilling a bunch of unknown criteria until you finally unlocked a jedi.

the extent to which these games are designed to addict and trap people in an endless loop of grinding/crafting/auctioning/gathering/daily questing/etc is disgusting. wow is just as bad as SWG ever was. Blizzard would argue otherwise, of course - if you take a break you get 'rested XP' afterall - but big #%@$ing deal, all it does is encourage people to create alts and waste even more of their lives in the game.

they remind me of experiments where rats will keep pushing a button all day long to the point of exhaustion - getting shocked in the process (to the point that their skin is scorched), neglecting to eat or sleep, just for a micro dose of cocaine now and then.

...except MMOs are even worse than that. you have to pay for the privilege - not just your monthly fee (and those of alt accounts/spouse accounts) but also the money they now charge for every basic service in the game such as name changes, realm transfers, etc. plus the new rash of otherwise unattainable content locked behind micro-transaction stores like pets, mounts, character customizations and other vanity items. 

part of the hook from MMO`s is you meet people online also playing them and to a degree thats what keeps you going back, if these games were solo player they just would not hold most people for anywhere near as long, If Wow for example was a solo game It would have probably held my interest a few weeks.

Although for me MMO`s have always been a platform to go roleplay with others, rather than play the games to get the epic gear etc which was much more of an also do to me.

 My first game addiction was Marathon (space game ancestor of Halo). Marathon actually got me into Poser (game character mods).  When I was a kid there were NO video games. In college "Pong" came out-then Space Invaders (in arcades next to pinball machines).

 Many years later I got my first home computer- a Mac. My first game addiction was Marathon (space game ancestor of Halo). Marathon actually got me into Poser (game character mods). Later it was Jedi Academy and it's ilk. Few games on the Mac back then.

 Then came Halo- and my Xbox. Online games against real world friends. Gradually lost interest in online shooters.

A colleague suggested I try an RPG. So I got Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic! STORIES! Character Development! 

  Yep! Mass Effect1 and 2. Excellent!! 

I was quite addicted to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. The next installment comes in November!

Quite into the Dragon Age series as well. Never got into FableII- although I did get hooked on FableIII- so maybe I should revisit FableII

 The only "shooters" lately were Star Wars- The Force Unleashed I and II. Fun-but not addicting- good story-but brief and linear. Most of the DLC is aimed at the Dark Side character- and I played the Light Side endings.

Stay away from Fable II, in my experience, it's full of bugs that can ruin the whole thing.

Get a family (bug, family gets stuck and wont interact with tou), move your family to another house (bug, you get a duplicated family and both stop working), get a few properties (bug, you stop getting  money from your properties), everything you do can lead to a bug. It was so anoying I was afraid to play Fable III, good thing they fixed most of the previous game issues.

I can't wait for Skyrim! Oblivion is one of my favorite games, I still play it from time to time, so many mods. Fallout is great too.

Dragon Age is "ok", I enjoyed the first one more than I did the second.

Quote - The only "shooters" lately were Star Wars- The Force Unleashed I and II. Fun-but not addicting- good story-but brief and linear. Most of the DLC is aimed at the Dark Side character- and I played the Light Side endings.

May as well anyhow, LucasArts generally sticks to it's "light side ending is the canon" one anyhow. I liked how in Mass Effect they dodge the whole good/bad thing by making it more 'Robocop v. Die Hard'. Don't get me wrong, Renegard!Shep is a JERK, but its admittedly funny watching him resolve problems by threatening EVERYONE.

Consider getting one of these, it'll pretty much consume every waking moment you have.  Be warned, they're very addicting.

Heh, I already have a macaw that swears. When one of your pets already needs a profanity filter, you need to consider how qualified you are to raise more.

Quote - Heh, I already have a macaw that swears. When one of your pets already needs a profanity filter, you need to consider how qualified you are to raise more.

hmm, are you saying, Warriorpoet2006, that if you got a dog you would be able to teach it to swear? I mean talk?!

I'm more saying that the fact I let a bird pick up profanity is proof that the less living creatures I have an effect on, the better. (though my husband is mostly to blame, he's the only one of the people who live here who swears in english, of which Shippie, my parrot, prefers to do)