To all you warcraft fans....

[lastsamurai]

[ QUOTE ]
A Degenerative Story NOT About the WSOP Main Event

Obviously we are all railing the WSOP Main Event each day. But what we really need to coincide with this long and grueling day 2 at the WSOP Main Event is a story not about poker: Through my endless travels over the internet, I have found a group of degenerates way, way, way worse than internet poker players - The "World of Warcraft" (WOW) group. They now have sweatshops in Asia to farm W.O.W. "gold" to sell for real U.S. dollars to dorks around the country that just want to buy it, instead of play the [censored] out of the game to get it. The sweatshop workers have to play the boring pary of this game over and over again to get the gold. eBay is crawling with "WOW Gold" auctions, and there are lots of websites that sells this digital-zero-value-money. That is some degenerate [censored].



[/ QUOTE ]
Interesting story.

[Maulik]

dats money

[Nathan183]

Implying that all WoW players are degenerates who buy in-game currency for realy money is like saying all poker players are degenerates who steal from children to finance their addiction.

[tbach24]

Wasn't there some Japanese kid who played in a coffee shop non-stop for 3 straight days?

[Blarg]

There's a lot of exaggerating and fierce tearing out of hair about this kind of stuff. It's pretty hilarious to read the WOW boards about it, actually. You have people calling each other Hitler, wishing death and misery and herpes and AIDS on each other -- it's even worse than OOT. They get extremely carried away.

Sometimes that involves buying in-game currency on ebay, and sometimes it involves saying that "sweatshops" are the ones selling the e-cash, and sometimes it involves people reporting all kinds of racist craziness, even. From what I've heard, the people playing the games all day in "sweatshops" are making decent money for the economies of the places they live. The money can get decent enough that I've had American friends playing these games who have bought cars with the cash. The whole thing is blown up to hysterical proportions as only pampered nerds with no real conception of the world and what's important can really do it.

[Subfallen]

Anyone care to give expert opinion/first-hand experience explaining why WoW is so addictive? WoW seems to be keeping a friend of mine unemployed, and I don't understand.

[Reef]

I often go to an internet cafe to play poker for the day (6-8 hrs) when my house is too loud or whatever. Anyway, there are some guys that get there before me and leave after me - playing everquest, WOW, and city of heroes the WHOLE time. I don't even think they pee.

[Blarg]

It's addictive because there's always something to do, and so you always feel you're accomplishing something and about to accomplish something else. A lot of life isn't like that, so there's something inherently attractive there. Plus, it's social, but without the expectations and risks of normal socialization. It's kind of like socializing-lite. So people feel both productive and social, even though they're just wasting their time alone in their rooms. All for just 15 bucks a month.

[ddubois]

[ QUOTE ]
It's addictive because there's always something to do, and so you always feel you're accomplishing something and about to accomplish something else. A lot of life isn't like that, so there's something inherently attractive there. Plus, it's social, but without the expectations and risks of normal socialization. It's kind of like socializing-lite. So people feel both productive and social, even though they're just wasting their time alone in their rooms. All for just 15 bucks a month.

[/ QUOTE ]
Coming from someone who had like 4000 hours played on his Everquest toon, I can say this is the most awesome description of MMORPGs that has ever been uttered.

I sure wish I had taken up poker sooner. I'd be about $200k richer.

[runner4life7]

I dont play too often, but being a 20 year old college student with poker as my only responsibility this summer its a pretty good game and I like killing things. I made $100 selling items in Diablo 2 my frosh year and didnt play much. Not sure what morons buy the things because if you care that much youd play it enough to have the things. but what do i know

[Subfallen]

[ QUOTE ]
It's addictive because there's always something to do, and so you always feel you're accomplishing something and about to accomplish something else. A lot of life isn't like that, so there's something inherently attractive there. Plus, it's social, but without the expectations and risks of normal socialization. It's kind of like socializing-lite. So people feel both productive and social, even though they're just wasting their time alone in their rooms. All for just 15 bucks a month.

[/ QUOTE ]

Awesome, I'm saving this post. Thx!

[MoreWineII]

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141815

[Stellastarr]

I quit WOW 2 months ago. /images/graemlins/frown.gif They banned alot of the gold farmers, but they can always get new accounts.

[TStoneMBD]

wow this is seriously nutty.

i dont like the twist about how the these people are degenerates for coming up with this business plan and are calling the overseas gamers "sweatshops". some kids came up with a brilliant idea on how to make some money by outsourcing WOW and are paying people who wouldnt have been able to get jobs anyway, and if they could it would be in an ACTUAL sweatshop, to play a game!

in a sense these "degenerates" have created their own charity with contributions coming from kids playing WOW and are making bling because of it.

so savage.

[warlockjd]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone care to give expert opinion/first-hand experience explaining why WoW is so addictive? WoW seems to be keeping a friend of mine unemployed, and I don't understand.

[/ QUOTE ]

My roommate is one of the top players. He has played 12-16 hours a day 7 days a week and done little else for over 3 months. He has some cash saved up but I am more than a little concerned for his mental health.

My understanding is that the game is so good (for gamers) that it's like a drug and just as addictive.

You have to start at level 1.....Then before you can do anything cool, you have to get to level 60. That takes hundreds of hours to accomplish.

In his guild, 40 or so level 60s get together and go on raids. They all communicate with voice over stuff on headphones w. mics. Then you get cool [censored] and build your character stronger.


Anyway, my roommate's friend was also playing, but played a lot more than my roommate. He decided that to quit playing, he had to delete his account, so he did.

[Blarg]

That was probably a good move.

You can become psychologically dependent on anything, and a video game isn't the best thing to tie your life to.

[Dantes]

This is just dumb. It takes ~8-10 days played time to make it 60, not "hundreds of hours". There literally isn't enough to DO at the high end in this game other than raid 1-3 days a week. You can't raid more because of the "lockout" system in place - once you kill the bosses, they don't respawn for 6 days. Honestly, to get to and stay at the high end of world of warcraft it doesn't take "more" than playing a few hours a day. If your roommate is such an addict that he's playing that much, its not the game's fault.

[Eihli]

This is old news and almost all of the gold is from dupers, not asian farmers. And it's not "digital-zero-value-money". You can put monetary value to almost all forms of entertainment.

[Sephus]

8-10 days played is "hundreds of hours"

[warlockjd]

[ QUOTE ]
This is just dumb. It takes ~8-10 days played time to make it 60, not "hundreds of hours". There literally isn't enough to DO at the high end in this game other than raid 1-3 days a week. You can't raid more because of the "lockout" system in place - once you kill the bosses, they don't respawn for 6 days. Honestly, to get to and stay at the high end of world of warcraft it doesn't take "more" than playing a few hours a day. If your roommate is such an addict that he's playing that much, its not the game's fault.

[/ QUOTE ]

Apologies if not 100% accurate. Am going on what he and other gamer friends have told me. Do not play myself, I'm more of a Battle for Middle Earth kinda guy, but not much of a gamer really......

[TheCroShow]

[ QUOTE ]
My roommate is one of the top players. He has played 12-16 hours a day 7 days a week and done little else for over 3 months. He has some cash saved up but I am more than a little concerned for his mental health.

My understanding is that the game is so good (for gamers) that it's like a drug and just as addictive.

You have to start at level 1.....Then before you can do anything cool, you have to get to level 60. That takes hundreds of hours to accomplish.

In his guild, 40 or so level 60s get together and go on raids. They all communicate with voice over stuff on headphones w. mics. Then you get cool [censored] and build your character stronger.


Anyway, my roommate's friend was also playing, but played a lot more than my roommate. He decided that to quit playing, he had to delete his account, so he did.

[/ QUOTE ]

so true. my former room-mate had a bit of a problem. cannot really blame the guy, from mon-fri he had to work out of town, came home for weekends and almost literally ran to the computer. before we had a chance to catch up he was logged in, logged into teamspeak and talking with his guildies. one time it was so fast that i was like "yo man what's up? how was work?" well someone on TS must have asked the same thing because he went on about work, then I asked him about his plans for the weekend and yeah, it hit me that buddy was on teamspeak and was rambling about something else to one of his e-friends lol dude even used hand gestures when he talked, i chimed in and told him that his friends cannot actually see him, but he ignored me.

to be fair, i used to play lineage 2 (another MMO) for about 4-5 months and also made friends on there, talked on teamspeak, etc...but i never let it get out of hand!!

i also played world of warcrap for about 2 or 3 months before giving up.

if you wanna see some funny stuff about world of warcrap, check out a video series called pure pwnage. www.purepwnage.com (http://www.purepwnage.com) hope that is not considered spam, but episodes 6 and 7 make fun of WoW, it's great!