Time to quit

[CS2620]

Hi everyone, first time here today thought I would share but I feel my goal may be a little bit different to some people here. 

I'm 26 now and have been playing WoW on and off since it's vanilla days when I was around 13-14. I feel I struggled in school because of it, I'd spend all my free time in the game running dailies quests etc,but I didn't raid at the time. I only had 1 or 2 friends that played and the rest of my friends weren't into gaming. I tried to keep this side of my life from the group, like I was living this secret life that I didn't want anyone to find out about and once I finished high school I never really talked to most of them anyway. Now I barely keep in touch with any of them. 

I played on and off throughout university as well but was never anything too serious in the sense of specific commitment to raiding, guilds etc. It was somewhere I could come and hide from real life I think. Was during this time I was involved with my first serious relationship, lasted for about 18 months altogether. She was slightly younger than me but had a very controlling mother who felt like she needed to be involved in everything her daughter did or so I was told, at times I wondered how much truth there was to this or whether it was more of an excuse sometimes as well. She would never be allowed out during the week to see me, even on weekends was only able to do 1 or two things, never allowed to stay over. Wasn't even allowed to come to my house for dinner with my family. Hell, she wouldn't even keep her phone on her when home from work because supposedly her mother would try to read messages etc. All this meant that I had a girlfriend who was never there for me when I needed her, and WoW became an outlet to where I could feel needed and not think about real life. 

I ended up getting sick of all the arguing and stress and just feeling like I never mattered or came first and broke up with her. With this big void in life my I once again turned to WoW, but this time I joined a new guild and started playing more seriously. I started raiding with their number 2 team on friday nights, and had the most fun I had had for a very long time. They weren't the best group, none of us were at that time but each time we killed a boss for the first time my adrenaline was pumping. I quickly proved myself as one of the best and managed to get into their 25man runs once a week as well. It was here where things really started to take off for me, I was once again top 3 on the damage meters despite being undergeared and everyone recognised this. For the first time in a long time I felt wanted, needed and I was good at something. I wasn't just my boring old self, I was Maximal the Warlock and people knew me. I was still stuck on the no 2 10 man team though, so I applied to the top horde guild on my server and started raiding with them late at night, from 11pm to 2am, whilst still raiding with the old guild beforehand. Worked out around 5-6 hours a night 3 days a week plus all my spare time during the day I'd spend playing, trying to better. If I wasn't playing I was reading about WoW it became my life outside of Uni. 

Unfortunately around september of that year, just before Siege of Orgrimmar my grand mother passed away. WoW further became the crutch that I relied on to escape reality. When I was playing I wasn't sad, I didn't hurt any more, I was happy. Then time came for the real world to come around, I finished at uni and moved into the family business full time. I was already working weekends and holidays so this wasn't anything new. Full time work meant getting up at 5am, so no more progression raiding. I still raided with my old guild during the normal hours but now I brought my main instead, Heroic geared when they were finishing up normal, so of course I was easily top of the meters again, this felt great. Continued this way through to the end of MoP and into WoD  I played consistently through WoD as much as I could, still raided took a break once or twice but was always back within a few weeks. I couldn't kick the habit, but I never really tried. 

With legion came many changes, one of the biggest being artifacts and farming artifact power. This seemingly never ending grind to improve your weapon felt even worse than previous expansions, there was no hard cap the more you played more powerful you were and I was struggling to find the time to keep up. I was falling behind and this was making me stressed, my girlfriend could see it so I took a break from raiding, didn't last long again until I came back. But I wasn't enjoying myself and haven't been for a long time. I play because of others, to keep up, to not let them down. Purely out of habit in how I spend my time. I sit down to raid now, just hoping it's cancelled so I can have a night off. Only reason I log on is to not let these people down. People I've met in game, formed bonds with but will never meet in real life. I still enjoy other games, single player games with a story. A start and a finish but whenever I try to play I feel guilty, like I should be playing WoW to try keep up. It's time to quit, I've had enough of the stressing about time, about gear, about my dps.

It's time to quit WoW for good this time, give away all my things and uninstall the game. I don't feel I need to quit gaming as a whole, I've always enjoyed single player and never got addicted like I have to WoW or other online games. Am I deluding myself, perhaps. Only one way to find out, but I have other things to keep me busy, Gundam models, mountain biking, dogs, cars my girlfriend and of course work. 

Life isn't bad, I have a good job, and lovely girlfriend of nearly 3 years now. We're going on holidays in a few weeks and I plan to propose. It's time to move forward with my life, without WoW. It's stretched me in too many directions. It has been a good ride and I have so many fond memories in the game but it's time for them to be memories in the past.

Thanks everyone and sorry for the blog

 

[Cam Adair]

Welcome!

[Schwing]

Thank you for sharing

You seem to be off to a good start, Best of luck.

[giblets]

I know that feeling mate, I played WoW after a mate introduced it to me when I was at university and it was in vanilla. Being a druid and a rare class back then, I was in high demand and I felt wanted. It's a downward spiral that you can't break yourself out of! When I travelling throughout USA and Europe with family and discovered all I cared about was googling internet cafes and walking malls to try and find some, I knew I had to quit!

 

To me the real addictive part was the social element. Trying to replace that IRL without the instantaneous response/at your fingertips is hard!