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Online Gaming Addiction Part 3 – Coping Strategies

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This is a guest post by Professor Beej. Part 3 of 3.

So now we’ve looked at my experience with Online Gaming Addiction and the four primary signs and symptoms that indicated a problem in the first place.  Today, I’ll deal with a few methods that can hopefully help addicts manage the addiction and at least take a few steps on the road to recovery.

Go Cold Turkey

Just stop.  Cancel the subscription, uninstall the game, and go on about your life.  It’s that easy.

Okay, no, it really isn’t.  Despite the fact that this sounds like the easiest, most direct route to overcoming gaming addiction, this is also the method through which the most backsliding occurs.  The mental need for the game will still exist in the gamer because Online Gaming Addiction just that—an addiction. 

Going cold turkey might work for some people.  It requires a great deal of willpower to maintain the distance between the addict and the game.  I know from experience that even when the game is cancelled and uninstalled, it just takes a few minutes from the time the addict gives in to get everything back into working order.  I’ve heard some players say that they delete characters before leaving an MMO to take away the urge to return, but in World of Warcraft’s case, Blizzard will generally restore a deleted character with relative ease, making that argument effectively worthless.

From my own personal experience, I think going cold turkey is the wrong way to go about ridding this addiction.  Sure, there are people whom it can work for, but the mental nature of the addiction makes entirely giving it up in one shot much more difficult on the addicts themselves than other methods.  There is a reason that there are step-down methods for quitting chemical dependencies such as nicotine and alcohol because the body has to learn to function without the drug; MMO addicts’ minds must do the same thing.  To take a person out of the world in which he or she has spent potentially 14+ hours a day in would designate an entire lifestyle shift; the addict would be totally unprepared to deal with everyday situations without the safety net of being able to escape online.  Such a shift could potentially send the MMO addict into a sort of shock, and he or she would not be able to cope with the complete 180 life had taken and know no other way to cope than to seek solace in the very addiction being worked against. 

Take A Break

Along the same lines as going cold turkey, the addict can possibly just take a short break from the MMO to which he or she is addicted, coming back to the online world with a fresh outlook on how to find a balance between the real and virtual worlds.  Small breaks can help an addict realize that the real world can offer enjoyment and validation that can matter even more than the virtual world.  The possibility of returning to the game at any point might offer enough freedom for the addict to re-engage in other hobbies on a limited basis.

Taking a light break from the game has the possibility of allowing addicts to also re-invest themselves with their family and friends because, unlike going cold turkey, there is always the possibility of a quick fix of the game when symptoms of addiction like I mentioned last time—crankiness and negative interaction—become too strong.  Such a limited exposure to the game can help an addict deal with the “withdrawal” symptoms. Addicts can learn to adapt the MMO to their own lives because a simple break allows them to set whatever boundaries they think are necessary to limit their playtime. 

MMO Methadone, or Slow It Down

If going cold turkey or taking a small break doesn’t work, then perhaps what I call MMO Methadone will.  This is the method by which I am currently trying to control my gaming habit.  I call it this because it uses the MMO to which one is addicted like a heroin addict uses methadone.  The player will still play an online game just enough to “get a fix” and feel fulfilled, but log off before things get out of hand. This is really a step-down method that gradually reduced playtime until the minimum playtime desired is reached.

Using this method, the player continues to do play the game to which he or she has become addicted, just in smaller doses.  I don’t think this method should really impact playstyle at all. If you’re a raider, you can still raid.  If you’re a PvPer, you can still PvP.  The addict can play whenever and however he or she wants, just less.  If there are four raid nights a week, then begin by trying to only make three.  Do that for a while, and then try to only make half the raids.  After the step-down becomes habitual and the time spent out of game is easier to manage, completely cutting ties (or becoming acclimated to the reduced and manageable schedule) with the game will be significantly easier.

My personal dose of MMO Methadone is PvP in WoW.  I want to play WoW some, but I don’t want to have to schedule raids or really dedicate long hours to it.  I came to the realization that I could not do that with raiding, even PuG raids.  So I decided that doing a few battlegrounds here and there has completely satiated my desire to play.  I started out doing hours of them a day, grinding 10-20k honor in a sitting, making every Lake Wintergrasp that came up.  Gradually, I have reduced my playtime to where I log on to do the PvP daily when I get home from work, a Lake Wintergrasp if one is imminent, and maybe a Warsong Gulch or Alterac Valley.  I have not spent over an hour and a half on WoW in one sitting in a while, and I am quite happy with where I am managing my schedule.  I might not have a 2500+ Arena rating or competitive gear this way, but I have fun in-game and still have time to do things outside of the game that I enjoy.

This method is the most useful in overcoming addiction, I think, because it not only allows for players to actually still enjoy the aspects of the game that initially attracted (and thusly addicted) them, but to do so responsibly.  If this method is approached correctly and actually adhered to, addicts nothing regarding their desired gameplay experience, yet gain the freedom of at least working toward not being tethered to a virtual existence.

Alter Your Playstyle

If you just can’t seem to kick the MMO habit through any other method, then perhaps the best way to do it is by altering your playstyle.  This is similar to #3 in that it might include stepping down one’s playtime, but it differs in that it helps players control their addiction by not allowing them to get sucked into the same part of the game over and over again.  The variety in playstyle might make the addict realize there is more to the game than the single facet that had been so overwhelming.  When transitioning to a new playstyle, addicts might be able to see the rut they had gotten into when otherwise they might have remained blissfully (or so it seems) ignorant of that fact.

For instance, if one is a raider and the scheduled raids consistently impact real life activities, then try PvPing.  Set a goal of a total honor to grind for each day, and then work toward that.  There is no set time to be online, and there is no pressure that one might perhaps be letting down the raid for not showing.  This is not to say that PvP cannot dominate one’s life, but if raiding is already doing so, then changing focus to something completely different like PvP will allow for raiding to take a backseat and perhaps the addict will see that other fun is to be had which might not have the same impact on his or her personal life.  This way is much easier to fit the game between other aspects of life because queueing for a battleground takes under a minute in most cases and can be done from anywhere.  With the PvP daily quest and the Wingergrasp weeklies, there is still a great deal to be done regarding casual PvP that still allows for immersion and character progression.

On the other hand, if the addict is a PvPer, then he or she might have the competitive nature of the system overtaking life or personality.  This kind of impact might call for a more laidback way of playing the game.  In this case, pugging a few raids or heroics might help ease the addict into a more casual playstyle that could mellow out the addiction.  Instead of being relegated to getting in a certain number of arena matches or maintaining a rating to progress one’s character, collecting badges and doing the daily heroic quest can be done with random people at one’s own pace.  There is little competition in this playstyle, and so a PvP addict might be able to find casual solace in instance running that would be impossible in the other playstyle.

Professional Counseling

If you or someone you know struggles with some of the signs and symptoms I outlined in my previous post, and none of these home-grown remedies and coping methods seem to be able to kill the addiction, then it is time to seek out professional counseling.  Online Gaming Addiction is a very real problem that therapists are trained to deal with.  There are also many online support group websites that can be Googled to begin seeking professional help.

Seeking therapy is not something to be ashamed of; I thought for a while I might have been in the position where I might have been forced to seek it out myself.  I was, however, able to control my addiction enough through the help of my family and friends that it never got that far, though it was a tough road.  Even without professional help, I was not able to keep my own addiction under control alone.  I did require others’ support to keep me on the right track.  Even as I write this, I had a discussion with my girlfriend earlier tonight about applying to a raiding guild in WoW for the 3 nights a week I generally have free, and she was able to help talk me down, citing these posts as an example of why that could be a bad idea.  I just could not do this alone, and I don’t know many people who can.

And don’t worry about money.  Yes, there are therapists out there who charge an arm and a leg and sometimes a first-born child for payment, but there are often professional counselors who can help for a nominal fee or for no fee at all.  If the addict is a college student, most universities offer counseling to enrolled students as a part of tuition.  All it takes is a trip to student services to find out how to make an appointment. For high school students, the school counselor should be able to help or at least find someone who can, and most public school districts offer a professional therapist for students in need. If the addict happens to be a non-student in the workforce, many corporations offer therapists and counseling as part of employee benefits, and many large companies offer free therapy to workers to maintain productivity and morale.  And again, remember that these are all generally free, and if there is a fee, it’s usually nominal.

Just don’t be ashamed or afraid to seek help.  If help isn’t sought and remedies aren’t tried, then the problem can only persist and the addiction can only get worse.

And remember that you’re not alone.  There are many people, myself included, who suffer from being addicted to online games to some degree or another.  These people might not even know they need help, but believe me, they do.  Through proper channels, this addiction is treatable and can, through work and perseverance, be overcome so that online gaming can become the social and fun pastime it was intended to be. 

Online Gaming Addiction Part 2 – Signs and Symptoms

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oga-signs

This is a guest post by Professor Beej. Part 2 of 3.

In my last post, I chronicled my ongoing experiences with Online Gaming Addiction that have led me to the point where I am now—I’ve realized I am addicted, and I am trying to rid myself of the problem.  Today, I intend to go through the signs that initially helped me realize that I was (and still am, but to a lesser extent) addicted to the hobby in which I have to this point invested eleven years of my life.

If you think that you or someone you know might be addicted to online gaming, then ask the following questions. These are the four points that predominantly signaled that I had a problem.

Has your personality changed?

It’s a given that over the course of our lives, we all change, and sometimes that change is for the worse.  Online gaming addicts, however, change for the worse in a very dramatic way, albeit one that might be gradual enough that it goes unnoticed by the addicts themselves.  The personality change will probably appear stress-related or just mild crankiness for the first little while, but it might actually stem from a “withdrawal” from the game world.  If the personality change persists and grows steadier while the person is away from their game, yet appears perfectly normal while logged on, then it could be a sign of online gaming addiction.

As I grew more engrossed in World of Warcraft’s world, I became more of a jerk to those around me.  I was more snide, more sarcastic, and I had very few pleasant things to say about anything or anyone that was not directly related to my success or enjoyment in WoW.  It was really like the nice guy I had been all my life had been transplanted with a completely different personality.  The more time I spent away from my virtual life in Azeroth, the less amenable to reality I became.  As soon as I was logged in again, however, I was chipper and happy and joking all night long.  I would ignore friends during the day, yet I would pester them for instance runs later that evening.

Those around me every day never really noticed this behavior.  I just seemed occasionally grumpy to them.  It was my parents who noticed it growing worse and worse on my visits home from college.  It took my mother saying “I don’t like who you’ve become since you’ve gone to college.  You’ve really become a smartass” to really make me look at my life and realize that I was going in a direction that I hadn’t even noticed, nor had anyone else.  My personality was worsening too gradually for friends who saw me on an everyday basis to really see, but when my parents only saw me every three weeks or so, they would notice that I was getting surlier with each visit.  My time away from WoW was becoming less and less pleasant, and my demeanor showed it.

Do you interact with your family and friends in a different, more negative way?

Online gaming addiction not only affects the addicts themselves, but also the people with whom they interact and how they interact with them.  If a person becomes addicted to an online game, real life can begin to seem like a distraction, and he or she can begin avoiding or cutting short responsibilities and engagements just to get a little extra time in the virtual world. In addition to my being cranky with my friends and family, I would also interact with them differently than I ever had before I became so engulfed by the game.  Gaming addicts’ interactions with others are often limited to online chats and channels without their realizing it.  If you or someone you know has stopped most offline socialization and typically only communicates through the game, then there is a good chance that person might be experiencing some level of addiction.  I’ve been in this situation before. 

In college, friends would rent or buy DVDs and bring them over to my house to watch as a group; I would be in the back room alone playing WoW while they occupied my living room, laughing and having a good time.  If my friends wanted to go eat dinner, I had to make sure it didn’t conflict with raid times or something else I had scheduled in game, otherwise I would not go.  I figured I could get all the socialization I needed in-game.  I would miss birthday parties, barbeques, and weekend road trips because I had a raid scheduled or just would have rather been playing my game than doing something that wasn’t WoW.  When I went home to visit my parents, I would set my laptop up on their coffee table and raid, barely paying attention to them (even as my dad recovered from heart surgery), because I could not stand to be offline and miss a raid for any reason.

The culminating incident occurred after I graduated college.  The girl I was dating at the time moved back in with her family who lived over three hours away from our college town.  I decided to spend one last summer at college instead of moving home.  She wanted to come visit me and stay with me a lot over the summer, but I told her no.  I told her I wanted to “spend time with friends and just play my game.”  She would ask over and over again, but I would still refuse to see her.  That summer, I would spend on average 15 hours a day on WoW, really only leaving the house for food.  I never even realized until afterward what was going on and that I was alienating my closest friends.

When I said I wanted to “spend time with my friends,” I meant I wanted to instance and raid with them.  My real-life interaction with friends and family dropped to nearly non-existent, and when I did see other people, I was unfriendly and always thinking about being back online.  Combined with my sour mood that had been slowly developing over time, some friends got fed up with me, and we still do not talk that often.  Other friends stuck with me, and I eventually was able to patch up relations when I realized how badly I was affected by this addiction. 

Have other hobbies been tossed to the side and forgotten?

I mentioned this briefly in my previous post, but it has always been one of the prime symptoms that made me realize I was addicted to online gaming rather than simply mismanaging my time.

One of the primary qualifiers of an addiction is the physical or psychological need to place it over other aspects of one’s life, no matter the consequences.  In the case of online gaming addiction, this “hobby” can entirely overshadow other hobbies and interests to the point where the addicted person simply has no other life.  While not as damning as impacting one’s base personality or social skills, online gaming addiction can lead to tunnel vision where the gamer thinks that nothing else is worthy of his or her attention.

In my case, I stopped reading any books for pleasure or, really, for school.  I would Sparknotes anything I had an assignment for in order to make as much time as I could for gaming.  Not only was my school reading impacted, but I see gaps in my journal of books I read for entertainment where there are months on end where no new entries are made, and I feel bad about that because I was an English literature major in college.  Reading has always been one of the things I do for fun.  When I became addicted to WoW, no book could even hold a candle to the entertainment I thought I was getting.  I claim to be a huge Harry Potter fan, even wanting to dedicate part of my doctoral research to the series, but when books 5 and 6 were released, it took me a good week to two weeks to finish them instead of the hours or days it took most of my friends.  I just couldn’t stand the thought of doing anything but being on WoW.

It wasn’t just books, either.  I mentioned earlier how I would avoid watching movies on DVD my friends would rent because I couldn’t justify not being in-game for those two hours.  TV was no different.  I could not justify the time to actually sit down and watch any shows.  I thought a DVR would fix that once I left college, but my DVR is filled even today with TV shows I refuse to set the time aside to watch because I spend so much time on various MMOs.

Even though this aspect of gaming addiction only directly affects the addicted players themselves, it can have far reaching consequences that can impact others when the addict’s habits and interests are shared with friends and family, as in my previous example.

Is it hard to concentrate on anything not involving the game?

Online gaming addiction is a mental addiction rather than physical, obviously.  There are no drugs being ingested and no body chemistry alterations, but the mental pull that online games have on the addicted is just as powerful.  A surefire sign of gaming addiction is when a person is participating in an activity entirely unrelated to the game, yet constantly draws parallels and references to it.  This symptom can also lead to diminished performance in other aspects of the addicted person’s life because he or she simply cannot (or will not) put forth the effort required to excel at anything but gaming.  Since no other aspect of life is as fulfilling to the addicted, why exert the energy required to concentrate? 

Sometimes, it’s not an active lack of concentration, though.  When I was in my worst stages of it, I could not help where my thoughts led.  I could have been in the middle of class, and I would be writing out gear lists or talent specs I wanted to try out.  I might have been at dinner and interrupted the conversation with yet another WoW related train of thought, even when the discussion was nowhere around it.  I could not concentrate on other aspects of my life, even when I tried.  When I did try, I was trying to relate them to the game so I could increase my enjoyment.  If I could not relate them in any way, I would consistently have my mind drawn back to the game because that was where I would have preferred to be.

Just like an addict’s social life, academic and professional lives are also at risk from being too engrossed in an online game.  Productivity and GPAs can severely drop as a person falls unchecked into an MMO.  I was always a student at the top of my class, with more A’s than B’s and never anything lower than that.  When I was at my worst, however, for the first time in my life, I began making C’s.  I just didn’t care that I hadn’t studied for that German vocabulary quiz because I had finally been on top of DKP and earned my Tier 2 shoulders.  I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate anyway even if I had studied because I would be thinking about having to farm consumables or which alt to level or any of a hundred other things that made WoW more appealing than homework (or any other part of my life).

Jobs are just as easily lost from lack of attention as grades; being too engrossed in writing out specs, checking forums, and reading MMO blogs are easy ways to waste time at work that could jeopardize one’s position.  If those aren’t available, then simply having one’s mind elsewhere, concentrating on the game and what “needs” to be done there when the working day is done, can severely limit productivity.  In the worst case scenario, lack of concentration at work can cause one’s job to be lost because the work being paid for is not being done.

If you or someone you know constantly references an online life more than their real one or is consistently distracted when outside of the game only to rush to log in whenever the day is done, that person might be addicted to a game.

Conclusion

These are only a few of the ways that Online Gaming Addiction can affect a person’s life and those around them.  These are the four most prominent in my case.  This is, by far, not an all-inclusive list, but the ones where I have experience recognizing that something is wrong.  I have personal experience with each of these four symptoms, and through the help of my friends and family and a good bit of willpower, I started to figure out that there is a wide world outside of my computer that really is more fulfilling on every level than the “life” I had thought I was building for myself online. 

And therein lays the problem.  Recognizing that I had a problem was not the same as actually doing something about it.  No matter how much I knew I was addicted, I was still addicted and had to do something about it.  So the next and final post in this series sorts through a few methods of reaching a sustainable balance between gaming addiction and a functional life.

Image courtesy of sundstrom.

Online Gaming Addiction Part 1 – My Experience

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oga-part1

This is a guest post by Professor Beej. This is part 1 of 3.

I wrote an article a few years ago regarding my experience with online gaming addiction.  Last month, I even posted that I had cancelled World of Warcraft yet again, and now I am backsliding again.  My main problem is that I absolutely love any game that is massively multiplayer online (MMO), and I have since I was 15.  These games give me a sense of growth and community that I adore. I just cannot find that in single-player games.  The driving force in these games is a quantifiable increase in the power of your character through various types of progression (weapons and armor or abilities) that appears to affect the game world itself. Unfortunately, most MMOs directly link this character progression with time spent in-game, thus making casual gameplay impossible if a player wishes to experience the highest levels of the game.  With my schedule these days, I generally can’t justify scheduling massive amounts of time to raid or PvP; however, I find myself still logging onto World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online even after I convince myself that it is in my best interest to cancel my subscription.

In the last month alone, I have reactivated my subscriptions to World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, as well as started new accounts with the Free2Play games Luminary, Free Realms, and Runes of Magic. I know I don’t have time to play a single MMO to its fullest, yet I have been hopping back and forth through 4 (RoM is still downloading, and I have yet to try it), trying to get whatever fix it is that I feel I need. While it’s not a physical addiction, it is a mental one; my thoughts constantly and involuntarily wander to these games and things I “need” to do in them, even when I am out doing something entirely unrelated.

And that’s the crux of it.  It is an addiction I have little control over.  I always think I can control the amount of time I spend in an MMO, but when I log in and start chatting with friends and seeing all the good times I’ve been missing out on, I set new goals in my head that I start working toward when I know that I have no reason for or time to realize. I am so set in a certain playstyle in World of Warcraft that even when I try to play it casually, I can’t.

I was talking to my roommate about this a week or two ago, and we came to the conclusion that it stems from that we (my close-knit group of friends) have always taken gaming seriously and consistently stay at the top-end of any game we decide to play seriously. We generally don’t game to have fun; we game to win.  And that’s fine as long as one’s lifestyle can facilitate it like ours could in college, but now, we’re out of school and have professional careers and other responsibilities which make scheduling twelve to fifteen hours of weeknight raiding almost impossible.  I’ve played WoW since the first week of release in November 2004 on the same server with the same people, and I have become deeply rooted into a certain playstyle in those four and a half years.

Simply “going casual” (at least in WoW) is not an option for me. I assume this is the case for many MMOers who are struggling with finding the balance between their chosen fantasy world and real life.  I want to try Runes of Magic because I will be starting fresh in a game, thus allowing myself to dictate a new playstyle, as well as not feeling compelled to get my money’s worth from the subscription fee.  If a Free2Play game like RoM doesn’t do the trick, then I will likely PvP on WoW in hopes that the mysterious battleground revamp in Patch 3.2 will allow for more casual progression.  If not that, then I am going to have to rethink my MMO career.

I don’t know about other people, but I know how I became conscious that MMOs are an addiction for me.  I found this out through a few painful years where my social life and family life started going to hell. The prime reasons that brought my MMO addiction to light were that I would limit time with my family and friends based around a raid schedule, or I would ask my girlfriend to stay away from me for a few days while I would grind out the rest of my PvP armor or get my new alt leveled.  I haven’t regressed that far in around three years, thankfully, but I am sure there are people who still struggle with this on a daily basis.

These days, I know I’m still addicted because I truly enjoy myself while I’m playing, even losing track of time because I am so immersed in the fantasy world, but when I get finished and log out, I feel hollow and unfulfilled. I think of a dozen other things I could have been doing that would have been more productive.  I even sometimes get a sick feeling in my stomach that stems from disgust in my having given in yet again.

MMOs keep me from really enjoying my other hobbies and interests, too.  I keep a journal of all the books I read.  I started when I was in college, and I think it’s something interesting to keep track of.  In this journal, there are sometimes months-long gaps in my list where I don’t have any new books listed at all except for audiobooks (which I listen to while I drive to and from work/school, so they don’t get affected by my online gaming at home). For an English teacher, I think that’s pretty pathetic. I joke around with people that those are my WoW breaks from life, but the sad truth is that they are.  This particular sign of my addiction doesn’t affect anyone but me, but the effect it has on my ego is actually pretty significant.  I’ve been reading the same 400 page paperback for at least three weeks because I’ve been up too late playing an MMO of some kind than to even read my customary chapter before bed, much less spend part of an evening reading for entertainment.

On the other side of the media spectrum, I feel my MMO playtime impacts my enjoyment of television and movies.  I sit down occasionally to watch a movie at home, but I feel bad because even though my roommate goes and rents at least three movies a week from Blockbuster’s new releases, I rarely sit down and watch even one.  I am usually too involved in something online, most likely an MMO.  My DVR will sit idle during my stints on World of Warcraft, piling up hours of television I want to watch but can never dedicate the time to.  I end up deleting shows off my DVR to make room for other shows that I might or might not eventually get around to watching.  And I always feel bad about this because I hear other people talking about how fantastic so-and-so show is but cannot join in on that conversation. And anyone who knows me realizes how hard it is for me to stay out of a conversation.

Right now, there are thirteen episodes of C.S.I. and eight episodes of Pushing Daisies on my DVR waiting for me to watch them.  Not to mention the library of one-shots and documentaries I record because the guide info makes them look interesting.  I still have half a season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to finish, too.  Yet lately, when I find myself not writing, I am on an MMO doing something inane and pointless instead of catching up on things I had previously decided I would use my summer for. 

What a lot of this boils down to is willpower.  I’ve tried going cold-turkey on my MMO addiction, and I can’t do it.  Some people might have been able to break the habit like this, but seeing as how it is an entirely mental addiction, I don’t think I’m strong-willed enough for that path.  My mind always drifts back to healing an instance or a battleground if I’ve been “sober” too long, and I end up reactivating my account and feeling like I’m an awful human being for it.  I put in my information to re-subscribe, and I immediately get that sick feeling in my gut.  But I log in anyway, and start chatting and healing, and I lose myself for a few more hours.  If I can find a game that fulfills me on a casual basis and doesn’t make me neglect the life I am building for myself or make me feel bad about myself for giving in to the addiction, I will likely stick with it for a while, using it a step-down method of ridding myself from the addiction, rather than the cold-turkey method that just does not seem to work for me.

Because the fear of falling back in too deeply exists with any MMO I play, even free or casual ones, I always have to be vigilant for the signs that I am going too far in once more.  The entire reason for writing this post is because I can feel myself falling too far in already, and I needed to take a step back and think about my problem objectively before it gets bad enough to begin affecting my outside life again.  I don’t see a good reason to completely cut myself off from MMOs right now, as everything seems to be under relative control, but there is every reason to guard myself and place regulations on how much I play, which is why I am looking at the battleground revamp in World of Warcraft for casual gameplay or F2P games in general.

Gaming addiction is a very real problem, and I have seen firsthand how it can all but ruin a person’s entire life.  I have always been involved with gaming in some fashion, and I guess I always will.  It’s up to me, then, to realize the difference in reality and fantasy and put my real life ahead of my virtual one, and even put my other hobbies ahead of this one.  Anything to give this addiction less power over me.  It’s up to me to distance myself from the aspects of MMO gaming culture which have been harmful to me in the past.  I intend to use casual gameplay and Free2Play MMOs as a way to finally ween myself from my online gaming addiction like heroin addicts use methadone.  I may always play an MMO of some kind because I do truly enjoy for the genre, but I hope that eventually the impact the games have on my outside life is minimal compared to what it has been.

And that’s where I stand today with my problem.  It is definitely an ongoing battle.  I am even writing this with WoW idling in the background.  I am not trying to come across as someone who has beaten this addiction, far from it.  I want to come across as someone who realizes this is a very real problem for some people, and I would like to put my story out there in order to maybe help save someone the problems I went through.

So this is the first in a three-part series I am writing dealing with Online Gaming Addiction.  Part Two will focus on Signs and Symptoms I went through that should help easily identify gaming addicts.  Part Three will cover methods of beating the addiction (or attempting to, at least) once it’s recognized.

Image courtesy of stokfoto.

On Exploits: A Philosophical Musing

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a chivalric engagement

There’s been much talk lately, on WoM and elsewhere, of in-game “exploits” and their proper punishment. Most recently, Exodus has been censured with a 72-hour suspension for taking using Yogg’s mechanics to their advantage. A while back, Karatechop of Vek’nilash received a permanent ban for using the god-mode Martin Fury shirt. Even further in distant memory, Ensidia publicly admitted to using a buff from Freya trash to complete a “mathematically impossible” hard-mode Hodir. In this post I am going to muse about what is right, what is fair, and what is permissible in the World of Warcraft. Let me make clear that I don’t condone cheating, but it does make me sad when players get punished for actions that they don’t realize are wrong, especially when there’s no clear rule or precedent.

On Play

In such ambiguous cases, I almost always sympathize with the so-called cheaters. To explain why, I’ll share a few thoughts on the philosophical bent of World of Warcraft. First of all, it presents itself as a game. In any ludic world (ludic being a fancy pants academic word to describe an environment in which play is permitted), the “rules” are relaxed. Don Quijote, for example, operates in a ludic world of his own creation. Thus, the self-styled knight is exempt from rules that apply to “normal” people. Don Quijote has created his own “rules” as he plays at being a knight–according to him, he no longer needs to eat or sleep, he doesn’t have to pay when he stays at an inn, his wounds will magically heal when he applies a mixture of rosemary, olive oil, and salt to them, and windmills and other giants of industry deserve a good beating.

The World of Warcraft is by definition ludic, and no one, least of all Blizzard, should be surprised when people do things that aren’t exactly normal. In fact, I’d say that gaming encourages players to test the limits. Is theorycrafting an exploit? I should say not. But when players of a game optimize, they tend to do so to the limit of their abilities. I would say Exodus’ kill of Yogg+0 was pretty darned clever, even though it’s been ruled illegal. I’m sure I wouldn’t do the same thing myself–because I’m both too dumb to figure it out and too fearful to follow through with it. Without a precedent to tell me them that the technique was wrong, how was Exodus supposed to know? What they did falls under the aegis of being creative on a boss kill. Sure, I’m much more likely to do things like Wowwiki says I should, but how do the pioneers draw the line between brilliance and exploit? After all, the word “exploit” is used just as often in a positive light, to mean a great deed, as it is to indicate taking unfair advantage.

On War

The idea of the “exploit” as a masterful feat brings me to my next point. We all play a game called World of WARcraft. Notice the war in Warcraft? While the old proverb claims that “all’s fair in love and war,” most educated readers probably realize that warfare does in fact have rules. It always has, from ancient times until now, and these rules are culturally determined. The rules of war work to preserve life, particularly among civilians and other innocents, but also among soldiers themselves. However, these rules of engagement are always changing. For example, the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan is helping to establish new parameters for warfare–for better or for worse.

For me personally, I am a pacifist. No one is ever going to convince me that there is glory to be found in killing and maiming other human beings. However, I’m fascinated by battlefields. They bring out feelings of sadness, loss, and anger at the stupidity of humanity–and yes, I’m just the kind of person to wallow in such melancholy imaginings. I recently stopped at Gettysburg on my drive from NY to NC–there are few things that bring me to tears, but reflecting on human suffering on a mass scale does it every time. As a southerner and a passionate advocate of equal rights for all, any Civil War battlefield evokes in me a mixture of guilt and nostalgia that I can’t quite get anywhere else. Since my Gettysburg visit, I’ve been reading up on the different generals whose names I saw on the monuments. I can tell you based on even a little reading that in times of war, I’d rather serve under a general who pushes the boundaries than one who does not. If I have to be an ordinary Confederate soldier, I’m probably going to be killed or mutilated anyway, my amputated limbs stacked up like cordwood outside the makeshift camp hospital, but give me Longstreet over Lee any day as my commander. In the case of the Civil War, an ignominious, guerilla-style defense kept people alive where a gallant frontal attack would get them killed.

The point is that the rules of war are not fixed. What worked for Napoleon won’t work for Lee, and what seems most “honorable” is often most stupid. In our World of Warcraft, the designers should expect people to be constantly testing the limits. That’s why I don’t support banning people for exploits–essentially, you’re banning players for an excessively winning strategy. It’s hard to argue that Karatechop’s magic shirt technique was a failure, though it certainly was a cheat. However, killing a virtual robot without hardly trying does not seem like a “war” crime to me–no innocent bystanders, after all, were injured in the course of said illegal kill. In cases where malice is not present, what I would do is suspend rather than ban the player. Why would Blizzard want to ban people for using the best strategem available in their personal “war” against internet dragons?

On Honor

Along with play and warfare, I’d say the third principle that the World of Warcraft depends on is honor. We’re encouraged to seek out “honor” and “honor points” through PvP–which means the brutal killing of “enemy” players. Many quest texts also appeal to our sense of personal honor. “Honor” however, is not one singular concept but rather something that is both culturally and individually determined. Before commenters chime in that I have no idea what honor is, I’d like to say that in my day job as an academic, I study chivalry. This means, among other things, that King Arthur and his very honorable knights might as well be my best buddies. I think I have a good idea what honor is in the chivalric sense. It means a sort of personal integrity, an adherence to a code. However, for the Knights of the Round Table, this code is rather idiosyncratic. Certain parts are common to all. For example, an honorable knight aids the helpless, shows mercy when his opponent yields, keeps his bargains, and behaves himself when he is a guest in someone else’s home. However, for some knights, honor comes to include not only these secular virtues but also religious ones like purity and chastity (Percival or Galahad), while for others, “honor” is pretty close to the aphorism that might makes right (Yvain or Tristan). “Honor” also sometimes means defending oneself against real or perceived insults, often with bloody results. Honor is always idiosyncratic, and it has always caused social trouble–just ask Desdemona how she feels about the concept!

Now, since “honor” in World of Warcraft is tied to the PvP system, isn’t it closer to the “might makes right” model? How then, are we supposed to know how to be “honorable” when it comes to in-game bugs? I’d say there are some serious philosophical conflicts in WoW. The case that most stands out to me is the Martin Fury shirt, probably because the two players involved, Karatechop and Leroyspeltz, play on my old server Vek’nilash and are both acquaintances of mine. Leroy and I were in the same casual guild for about a year and were co-officers for part of that time. I can testify to Leroy’s lack of malice–he’s the kind of happy-go-lucky casual player that Blizzard is usually happy to support. In fact, my first response when I saw the story was not “Leroy, you cheater!” but “Leroy, how could you be so stupid!” My feeling is that Leroy, and probably Karatechop too, are innocent victims of their own failure to understand how Blizzard works.

On Fear

In a game where one earns “honor points” for randomly killing people whom they have no reason to fight as they’re trying to finish their Hodir dailies, how do I, as a player, know what I should and should not do? I do, in fact, wish to be as “honorable” as Galahad …but it’s hard to figure out what that means in WoW. I’d have to say that my code of personal honor in WoW has to do with how I treat other players (kindly, of course) rather than how I approach game mechanics. As for my philosophy on PvE, I turn to Machiavelli, who tells us that if one wants to be an effective leader, it is far better to be feared than loved. I fear, rather than love, the Blizzard developers. I have spent quite a lot of time building Syd and developing an in-game social network. I couldn’t bear to lose her. In the whole Martin Fury debacle, the only thing that bothers me from the players’ side is Karatechop’s cavalier attitude toward getting his guild and raid members suspended. I would be furious if I were a victim of such shenanigans. I would be grieved and regretful if I had inadvertedly deprived anyone of their character for any length of time.

Because I fear Blizzard, I take a pretty hard line on cheating and exploits for myself. I won’t buy gold or fight a boss in a doorway because it’s easier, even though neither of those actions seem “malicious” to me. Sure, on Prince Malchezzar my raid spent quite a lot of time figuring out the best “spot”–but I can also tell you that we never found the magic nook or cranny that made Prince beg for mercy and give us our helmets for free. If we had, I probably would have insisted that we take him back to the middle. I’m all for innovation, but I err on the side of caution–not because exploiting feels “wrong,” but because I fear the consequences. Heck, I even worry if I make a lot of money in the same day on the AH. Sometimes I get lucky to the tune of a couple thousand gold, and I find myself looking over my shoulder. I do the same thing whenever I see a police car on the highway, even though I never speed.

On Right and Wrong

Many things that I feel are “wrong,” like corpse camping a lowbie or shouting racial slurs in General chat, are never punished in game. Many actions that seem less dishonorable, like gold-buying or using an item one received in the mail, result in permanent bans. How am I to tell what is right and what is wrong? My internal standard for good and evil doesn’t seem to work when it comes to WoW. The Terms of Use itself is rather vague, and it cannot serve as my guide to virtue and prosperity. As a player, I try to do my best by others (you’ll never catch me ganking Horde) and err on the side of caution when it comes to the Terms of Use. After all, the TOU pretty much declares that whatever Blizzard decides is wrong, IS wrong. That sounds pretty Machiavellian to me.

Monday Midnight Musings (Patch 3.2 and Exploits)

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It’s not often I do late night posts. They usually come out all funky and misunderstood or full of typos and other clerical errors. At the same time, the evening is when my mind is at it’s most active. This is going to be a fairly decent sized blog post about some big changes that have been announced.

Yogg Saron

Tonight we managed to kill Yogg-Saron on 25. It took us around 6 weeks (or about 12 hours total) to clock him out. Previous weeks involved the melee clicking and the ranged DPS still struggling or some melee players having portal difficulties and the ranged just killing tentacles one after the other. I’m proud to say that everything came together tonight. I believe that this was one of our most complete attempts and kills. I felt like a hockey GM in the week leading up to the trade deadline. Trying to add the pieces and classes that would help us cash in on a playoff run (Raid bosses are my playoff series). Syd did a beautiful job looking for diamonds in the rough. It took us two shots tonight. I’m extremely proud of the players in the raid tonight and grateful for the players who weren’t there but helped contribute to the learning process over the past few weeks.

Hard mode attempts begin this week. Leaning towards Flame Leviathan first. Just found out that it’s possible for a Demolisher to have a driver, a gunner, and a player loaded and ready to fire at the same time. This presents some intriguing possibilities.

One buys all

Universal armor tokens. I’m surprised this wasn’t reported earlier. My wow.com colleague Mike Sacco mentioned this during the day and it took me a few seconds to realize what it meant. You won’t have to fight specific bosses for specific tier tokens anymore. As in, there is no more head token, chest token, or shoulder token to cash in. You get one tier token of your armor set (Protector, Conqueror or Vanquisher) and then it can be used to buy whatever piece you like.

And I know someone’s going to come in here and say something about catering to the casuals. But hell, this caters to everybody. Loot council’s going to have a fun time assigning these tokens. Sacco presents some great arguments in his post that I will reiterate briefly here:

  • Upgrade sets at your own pace: Several players in Conquest have held out on tier pieces until they acquire a certain amount stating that they wouldn’t use them right away because their current items were better. This change allows players to specifically target which pieces benefit them the most.
  • No wasted tokens: Mix and match your 10 and 25 man tokens. You don’t have to feel empty for replacing your Valorous gloves with Conqueror gloves.
  • You’ll get your 4 piece… eventually: At the rate you’re organization is going, it really is going to be possible to get it.

Many of the Triumph and tier tokens are functioning as a partial gold sink. Not only do the tier 9 pieces require a Regalia token but you’re going to have to shell out some coinage to pick them up. They’re in the neighborhood of the 50 to 70 gold range. Doesn’t seem like the gloves have a monetary cost.

But, it’s the PTR and nothing’s ever finalized.

Priest tier 9 pieces

I wrote about that on wow.com. You can find my thoughts on it (and a history of the names) on there. Wyn seems disappointed at the 4 piece bonus.

Triumph vendor items

Here’s a few screenshots for you to check out. I think images are worth a thousand words.

shoulders-triumph trinket-triumph

Pair it with the Intellect trinket from Mimiron (Pandora’s Plea) and you’re good to go.

helm-triumph

Hit rating helm, I know. BoE though. If it wasn’t for the hit, it’d make a fairly juicy helm for Discipline Priests.

ret-libram

(Am I going to want that Libram on my Ret Pally if I have the one from Naxx that increases my Crusader strike damage or should I pursue other items with badges?)

rings

I managed to replace both of my rings tonight. Packing both Radiant Seal and Lady Maye’s Sapphire Ring now. I wonder who Lady Maye is.

Exodus exploit thoughts

Ingenious. The method used to down the boss was absolutely brilliant! The idea calls for something like a Warlock and a Paladin entering the brain room. You’re relying on healing aggro to cause the outside mobs to evade bug. So the Warlock soulstones the Paladin, the Paladin DI’s the Warlock upon transition from phase 2 to phase 3. Paladin pops up, warlock clicks off DI, starts casting Life tap like crazy while the Paladin bomb heals him for an insane amount causing the outside mobs (the ones that are piling up) to immediately aggro on to the Paladin (who is untouchable as he is inside Yogg) and trivializing the encounter.

There’s some comparison to the method that Ensidia used to exploit for their Hodir hard mode kill. It involved kiting and tanking plant trash from Freya to Hodir. Mages would spell steal that buff and proceed to use it in the encounter. While it wasn’t exactly causing mobs to bug out, it’s still an unintended side effect. Of the two exploits, I have to admit that the Hodir one is a little more impressive.

These upcoming weeks are only going to get busier. Actually, the next few months are going to be flowing with news and features. If the faction change is something they announce in a blue post, it makes me wonder what else could possibly be announced at Blizzcon.

Heading to bed. It’s 2 AM.