How to Break a World of Warcraft Addiction
from www.wikihow.com
1) Admit you have a problem. This may be hard, but accepting that
Warcraft has taken over your life is the initial step into overcoming
your addiction.
2) Consider the following: Imagine the day that you first bought the
game. If you knew everything you did now, would you still have bought
it? Now the follow up question: Imagine yourself in two years, still
playing WoW, looking back on today when you are making the decision to
quit or keep playing. How do you feel about your decision to continue?
3) Find out what has caused your addiction. What makes World of
Warcraft (WoW for short) so appealing to you? Is it the fact that it
has different continents that you will never go to? Is it the fighting?
Is it your "unique" role as a tank or a mage? Is it the happiness of
'pwning noobs'? Whatever it is, try to minimize this happiness in WoW,
and make it a pleasure that you could also get in every day life.
• Take a martial arts class. Many gamers are very interested in
the martial arts, but never study it. Take up some sort of martial art
that is similar to your character in WoW. For example, if you use a
sword in the game, then take up fencing, Kendo, or SCA fighting. Your
sword skill goes up much faster in real life.
• Read. Novels have just as much excitement and adventure as WoW,
but you can expand other skills -- such as critical thinking and
vocabulary -- in addition to those that interactive storytelling and
game play will build. Try to equip gear that increases your reading
ability (Such as monocles), this will increase your WPS (Words Per
Second).
• Play a less time consuming video game with all of the rewarding feelings of WoW.
4) Burn yourself out by finding the ways to cheat at World of Warcraft.
Find a private server to play on, with ultra fast leveling/gold.
Cheating through the entire game in an hour will get you burnt out
very, very quickly. Some of them give so much xp they level you up 20
levels for discovering the first major city, and mobs start out
dropping 30g each.
5) Make it a joint effort. Believe it or not, many people play World of
Warcraft simply because their friends play it, and they find it
enjoyable to spend time with them in WoW. If this is the case, then
convince your friends to stop playing (with these steps, if needed), or
even better, find another game to play. Otherwise, explain to your
friends and family what you're doing, and ask them to help you stay on
track. When you can't trust yourself to keep away from WoW, you have to
trust someone else to stop you.
6) Set up parental controls for yourself. Make it so your play-time is
limited, and use a complicated password that you are sure to quickly
forget. Or, ask a friend or family member to set the parental controls
with a password you don't know.
7) Schedule other activities with your free time, so you won't have
time to play WoW. One of the most effective way is to get a part time
job and book every free time you have to work. Hang out with your
friends, play basketball, engage in extra curricular activities at
school (such as clubs or sport teams) or volunteer. The important thing
is that they keep you outside of your home, away from your computer.
You can find that there are many things that are just as exciting as
playing WoW. Remember, your "guild" online is no substitute for the
company of real friends.
8) Sell your account. There are many players and lazy people out there,
willing to pay for an existing account. This is a great way to stop
playing, because then someone else takes your character, and you won't
be able to control it any longer. This is a nice way to quit, but not
stop addiction.
9) Sabotage your WoW future. Get on your character, destroy all of your
items, and delete your character. Then go on the account management
page, remove your credit card info, and change your password to a
random string of text. Change all of your personal info, so it is
impossible to retrieve your password. If you have your CD key that came
with WoW when you purchased it, scratch it out, and throw it away,
making it impossible to retrieve your account. If you feel that it is
necessary, uninstall the game and snap the CD in half, too. Now, you
officially can't play any longer, and if you ever somehow get back on
your account, all of your in-game progress is deleted. This is the
hardest of the steps to do, but is the most effective.
10) Beat the game. When all else fails, play until you reach the
highest level possible. Many players get to the maximum level (at least
until Blizzard releases another add-on pack) then look back and realize
with disappointment that they've been following what is known by many
gamers as the 'role-playing game grind', or the extremely repetitive
and ultimately fruitless efforts of gaining gold, levels, and
experience. Because when it's all said and done, a dead man's
possessions are not important; it's the memories that count. So go out
and make your own, now, in the real world.
11) Do activities that are productive in the real world but allow you
to have the same satisfaction of leveling up like getting fit, learning
to cook, succeeding in school courses. Get your artisan cooking level,
first aid, and fishing skills up in real life. Maybe you can find
something useful to do.
Tips
• Addictions to video games trigger brain activity similar to any other
addiction. So don't be surprised if breaking the addiction seems
difficult at first.
• People play games because they seem to find reality is less
interesting, in reality, there are many more constructive things to do.
Find ways to make reality more interesting, that will help.
• Evaluate yourself to see if you are using your "WoW" addiction to
escape problems in your life. If you have problems at work, see about
improving your education (to get a better job). If you have family
problems, see about improving your relationship with them.
• You can also find support online. There are support groups on
Yahoo and Google Groups, and the WoW forums can sate your desire to see
what you're "missing" as you quit.
• Track the amount of time that you spend playing WoW. Associate a
dollar value with that time, for example: 6 hrs/day * 7 days = 42
hours. 42 * $5.5 = $231.00 per week. You can see that your time IS
money, and even working a job for minimum wage is a better use of your
time.
• Get a stopwatch and measure how much time you spend waiting in
the game (for guild members, flight paths, long walks, etc.) and
compare it to the overall time played. You may find that close to half,
or even a majority of your time is spent doing effectively nothing.
• Calculate how much of your time you spend doing nothing each month
against your monthly subscription fee, and see how much money you're
throwing away.
• If you use a router, block the port WoW uses to connect. This
disables your connectivity to the WoW servers. You can also block this
port with Windows Firewall or other firewall software, such as
ZoneAlarm. You can find this port in Blizzard's knowledge base for WoW.
• Remember that all of your accolades and achievements in WoW are
virtual and do little for you in real life. While your virtual life is
blossoming, your personal life could be deteriorating. If so, that is
reason enough to stop playing.
• If you are doing something that could get you banned, or the
only solution is to get yourself banned, make sure you have fun doing
it. There are many, many ways to be banned; choose a good one.
• You have a life, go play some sports hang with friends you will
soon find out that sitting on the computer at home is not what you want
to do. Have fun with your life. dont waste it
Warnings
• Your payments continue even after you smash everything. Don't forget to unsubscribe.
• Your account may be banned if you get caught selling it. Which in itself is a solution too!
• If you find yourself opening a new account even after following
these steps, you should seek professional counseling for your addiction.
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