Does World of Warcraft Ruin Your Social Life

AbsoluteDude · November 2006

A guild in Guildwars

Said wow will ruin your social life cause it gets you too addicted

Knightblast · November 2006

The issue is that endgame in WoW is raiding which equals a lot of time commitment and *that* can interfere with real life in general, soclial or otherwise.

Aelfinn · November 2006

Any game can, WOW simply gives you massive incentive to be on, uninterrupted, for 8+ hours at a time.

Kurush · November 2006

If you're a hardcore MMORPG player with an already frail social life, any MMORPG will ruin it. If you're a casual with a healthy social life, no game will ruin it because you'll likely drop anything that requires enough time to do so. I think it's more about the player than the game.

Is WoW particularly addictive in the beginning? Not really. It's fun to play for both casuals and hardcore at first. It features decent combat, lot of quests, and a lot of zones, many of which look very different and have interesting landmarks. In that early stage, though, you can definitely put it down when you need to and pick up where you left off later. Most casuals will only really experience this part of the game, which is why they don't burn out on it.

There is a second game inside WoW, though, and that is the endgame. Pretty much everything you need to hear about it has been said. In short, it's a ton of instance grind, and you need to put down a huge time commitment to finish an instance. If you really MUST get involved in that kind of thing, it can kill your social life.

WoW is so item-centric that you'll need some uberous gear to be on the same power level as the vets on any server. You will not need that kind of stuff at all, though, to just wander around the game world doing quests. Of course, at 60, you're going to burn through the remaining challenging quests pretty quickly, at which time you'll have nothing left to do but endgame grind.

Ask yourself these questions: Do I have to be in the top tier of players? Does a MMORPG get boring to me if I don't really have any avenue of advancement? If you answered yes to both questions, this game will either eat up your social life or get boring when you hit 60.

Slntasn · November 2006

It can ruin your social life.. but so can anything else.

neuronomad · November 2006

Only if you let it. Most likely though if you play it you don't have much of a social life to start with. j/k.

PlanoMM · November 2006

hell, single player games and tetris can ruin your social life. just have to know how to prioritize.

daymare1 · November 2006

what i think is once u use the words "noob, pwn, owned, leet, anything with numbers etc." online , ur social life is ruined.. trust me , i kno ppl

PlanoMM · November 2006

Originally posted by daymare1

what i think is once u use the words "noob, pwn, owned, leet, anything with numbers etc." online , ur social life is ruined.. trust me , i kno ppl

this from a guy with a 1 in his name, lol. j/k, i got 1 2, lmao, sometimes i kill me.

Nierro · November 2006

Yes, WoW does ruin your social life, so does every other mmorpg except Guild Wars because it isn't one.

JennysMind · November 2006

I really don't think WoW ruins your social life. My guess is that most players who play hardcore really never had much of a social life to begin with (and that goes for all who play video games to access). If a person wanted a social life he would go out and find one. An MMO is just a video game except with greater commitment. Yet ultimately it is the player who chooses to go this route and creates his own unbalanced life. Heck anything done to excess can be detrimental to a person's social life.

Knightblast · November 2006

Originally posted by Alekhin
I really don't think WoW ruins your social life. My guess is that most players who play hardcore really never had much of a social life to begin with (and that goes for all who play video games to access). If a person wanted a social life he would go out and find one. An MMO is just a video game except with greater commitment. Yet ultimately it is the player who chooses to go this route and creates his own unbalanced life. Heck anything done to excess can be detrimental to a person's social life.

Yes, but there is a point in WoW where in order to advance you have to play with groups of 40 people for 5-8 hour stretches. Now you can decide to not do that, and plenty of people do (either by quitting WoW or rolling another character and levelling that one, because levelling is a lot less intensive than raiding), but if you want to see all the *content* in WoW, it will take over your life pretty fast at level 60.

Meon · November 2006

No, i have many friends that casually play World of Warcraft, but they still have enouh time to study, go out, and meet their family.

I feel counterstike would be a better example, as i have a friend who plays 65 hours of Counterstrike per week.

h4x0rn4bsk1 · November 2006

It doesn't ruin your social life, well, not mine. I play WoW for a week now, and I made 1 new freind on school because I play WoW now.

He was a friend of a friend of mine, I knew him, not very good tough. When I said I played WoW he gave me his char name, we partied that day, did some quests, however he was level 60 already.

Now he is a good friend of mine, and we don't talk about WoW all the time.

Aelfinn · November 2006

Originally posted by h4x0rn4bsk1

It doesn't ruin your social life, well, not mine. I play WoW for a week now, and I made 1 new freind on school because I play WoW now.
He was a friend of a friend of mine, I knew him, not very good tough. When I said I played WoW he gave me his char name, we partied that day, did some quests, however he was level 60 already.
Now he is a good friend of mine, and we don't talk about WoW all the time.

Hmm, congratulations, you've played the game for a week and already know everything about how it affects you, even though the part of the game everyone else is talking about isn't untill you hit level 60.

olddaddy · November 2006

It doesn't ruin your social life, your social life just becomes the other players in a MMORPG.

Now, as to your sex life, well, you're going to have to solo play that....

Upload · November 2006

All addictions could ruin your social life. In my opinion: As long you have fun, it is ok for me, you only live once.(that does not count when you beleive in reincarnation)

Jade6 · November 2006

Doing more of anything means doing less of everything else; it's that simple really. I don't get this emphasis on social life anyway, getting drunk and chasing chicks gets old just like everything else. Maintaining a social life implies that you have something with lasting appeal which you can do with your social circle, but there really aren't so many interesting things to do in "real life". It's mostly just endless repetition, punctured by rare moments of joy and pain.

Sinitassu · November 2006

It is propably true, but any game will if played too much. Since you can play with your friends this might actually make your social life more active with certain friends. The problem with WoW is that it is made as a HUGE time sink to keep players sending cash. Since there is no need for that in non-fee games they tend to be better when time efficiency is measured. WoW is meant to have "content"(running) for a long time.

- Tassu

Briansho · November 2006

I say everything in moderation but something that requires you to be there for hours at a time is quite annoying.

Ambrosius · November 2006

When games ruin your social life (or any other aspect of yor life), it's time to pull the plug on the games.

Aquakitty · November 2006

I know people for whom WOW "IS" their Social life, they play 12-17 hours a day and do nothing else...my b/f's bro is L 70 in the beta with a flying mount and did this in under a week(although he could transfer all the mount money from other chars) I did this for a while last winter. its quite unsatisfying, but some how addicting. if you want to be #1 or top in any game, you have to play a lot.

Theres a lot of choices in WOW though. There are many many guilds who cater to "weekend" raiding, people who have other things to do and raid as a hobby. Theres always a way to do things. However, if you want the best loot the fastest, you have to play all day. honestly I'd rather play a game at home then go out drinking.

I think of gaming as a hobby,. I'll take time out to play a lot, but do other things too. No different then fishing or camping really.

I don't find social stuff much fun, like going to someones house and sitting around, or whatever. I snowboard work and play video games, but thats just me, What is social these days? Drinking? Partying? That used to be my social life.. lol

Aison2 · November 2006

its not only about you getting to addicted
my case is more like some of my friends are way to addicted
everytime i see them they start talking about wow
-shows how important it became for them, doesnt it?

Darktania · November 2006

Sure any mmorpg can ruin your life but WoW excels at it. Blizzard has perfected a game that sucks away at your time. Take the Darkmoon Faire for instance...I did a quest where I had to turn in like over 1000 scorpid bloods and those are uncommon drops. Dont forget about those 4 - 8 hour raids too.

ianubisi · November 2006

People choose to play instead of socialize. Stop being a victim.

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Does World of Warcraft Ruin Your Social Life

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