How do I know when enough is enough? I have been with WoW since the day of release and have leveled one character to 60 (warlock) and another to 35 (paladin). My guild raids all the intances up through Noth the Plaguebringer in Naxx about 5 to 6 nights a week. My raid attendance is above 85% and I have good gear for all slots of my character. I have pvped to rank 11 but couldn't devote anymore time to the pvp grind. I seem to be getting burnt out and tired of the game. I am going back to my senior year of college this year and can't decide if I want to continue WoW or spend my free time doing something else. Before WoW I used to be an avid console gamer and only played a few games on PC like Half-Life 2. This is my first MMO and I don't know really when to call it quits, so I am asking you, those more experienced with MMOs, how do you know when to cut yourself off from a game like this, I just can't seem to pull the plug on my account. A few other things I was wondering as well to help with my decision. Thanks for your time.

What do you do when your burnt out of WoW?

What do you do in your free time outside of WoW?

How long do you plan on playing WoW, like until what point?

If you think you're burnt out on the game, you probably are. When you start questioning if you're playing a game too much its a good early warning sign that you are indeed, playing the game too much. Take a break, especially if you're still in college - your studies are a hell of a lot more important than some digital loot.

The biggest thing I always tell people who feel in your place is - take a break. Take 2 complete weeks out, no WoW at all, and see how you feel. Cause you'll know then whether you need to stop playing woW or you can carry on playing.
Cause right now, you're on the verge of leaving the game for good, because you've ben playing too much. Would you do any other hobby that much every week? It's great for some people, but for a lot it does wear after a while.

I plan on playing woW until a better MMO comes out, and to manage that, I stick pretty hard to a casual raiding schedule, with breaks when necessary.

I'd say put yourself on hiatus for your Senior year. When I went into Senior year of college, I had mounds of work to do before graduation (including a senior thesis), so I took a leave of absence from playing for a period of four months or so. Beyond that, I really don't think I could've played avidly when I was more inclined to spend time with my friends during my last year there. Nowadays, I do WoW in the evenings since I have to work 9-5 during the day, otherwise I just kick back and relax.

I'd recommend that when you feel like you're getting burnt out on the game, simply scale back on your playing -- take a week or maybe two weeks off, then see how you're feeling. Getting a breather is always a good way of assessing just how dedicated you feel you have to be to the game. And again, it's just a game, so if it feels more like a job than fun, it's not really worth playing, is it?

I pretty much tell people in our guild to take time off if they are getting to that point. More often than not once you hit the end of the break and the desire to play isnt there anymore then its probably time for you to call it quits.

I do the same as well, but usually they come back wanting to raid again.

If you are questioning yourself wether you are playing toomuch then you are playing too much. Take a break, take a few raids out here and there it makes a marvelous amount of difference. Especially if you are a raid leader/ guild leader like I am.

I just recently hit that point you are referring to with WoW. Been playing since the start of the game, levelled a Shaman and that is pretty much all I have played since launch. Been raiding for well over a year now, doing the whole schedule thing of just about every week night another raid, been going on a long time now. I'd often reschedule real life stuff so I could play. I guess at this point seen just about all of it in the game. Thursday I came home from work and just decided I didn't want to do it anymore. Took the night off, and realize how much time I have on my hands during the night when I'm not sitting at the PC ... it was refreshing. Problem is I still like playing the game, but doing it on some type of set schedule every night was killing me. So I picked up my druid alt and have just been playing around with him on my own time. I'm actually enjoying doing the quests that weren't there when I was levelling my Shaman ... on top of that the 5 man instances are actually fairly fun, which I skipped over when I was levelling because I had no clue what I was doing.

It is interesting to go back in the game now that I have a really good understanding of how things work, and sort of test my thresholds doign red quests I would have never been able to do on my Shaman with ease on my druid. It's relaxing, and I don't have to have the lingerring feeling in the back of my mind that I might miss a drop, dkp, or a raid or something because I went out tonight or took my time getting home from work.

As far as raiding, I think I'm going to stop until the expansion. I may pick it up again in a more informal way, but nothing to what I had been doing raiding BWL/AQ/Naxx 5-6 days a week. I'll probably transfer back to my home server Dunemaul once my transfer cooldown is over too. I think the next 4-5 months will be a nice break from the grind, then I'll see where I stand with the game, which I am actually finding more fun than ever currently.

Alts are definitely a nice way to break out of the raiding grind. Is your druid on Dunemaul? I need to finish leveling my rogue sometime.

Back in December 2005, I hit the same point as you. My guild took a two week break during the holidays, and with no raids to do I didn't really play at all. I came back to the game in January with an intense appetite for raiding.

So, yeah, just take a break. If after a few weeks you feel excited about going back to raiding, go for it! If you feel much better off not raiding, then quit for good!


ps. Ruro clear out your inbox I want to send you a PM

Holy *shit* Ruro.

As soon as I began to question how much I was playing the game (and specifically, how much I was giving up to partake in the raid scene) - I got over it. With a quickness. In my case, it was getting to the point where I was turning down dates b/c I felt like I had this commitment to my guild. Then our GL up and quit without telling anyone, progress stalled, our other long-term raiders started quitting and we were reduced to leaving rag up once (after progressing to emps and getting Razuvius down). When shit hits the fan that hard, it's pretty demoralizing.

However, now all I do is log in to bullshit w/ friends, level alts, run some BG's and duel in front of IF. I wouldn't say it has made the game "more fun", however it introduces a level of control that I was lacking before.

I've gone through the same cycle a couples of times now:

1) Raid a lot and play on my main a lot not during raids.
2) Raid a lot and level alts while not raiding. (Main is getting boring.)
3) Only log on for raids. (Game is getting boring.)
4) Only log on for 50-75% of raids. (Raids are getting boring; more of a problem when there's not new content.)
5) Repeat.

I've gone through this cycle probably 3-4 times since reaching the end game a year and a half ago. I'm currently moving between 2) and 3) as leveling a couple different alts has gotten boring. Luckily for me, our raid schedule is such that I have plenty of time to go be social when not raiding. That and I love my guild are probably the only two reason that I didn't quit the game a long time ago.

Aside from Gurgthock, my character with the second-highest /played is a charming little troll by the name of Ejmats who has spent a total of about 12 hours now handling such delightful things as the guild's Nexus Crystals, Dreamscales, Elementium, and so forth. I've never really had any inclination to roll an alt.

This is why 25-mans are being introduced. Not to say that casuals are going to be given the oppurtunity to raid now but rather people are going to be able to raid as much as the want to progress in. If you want to play 30+ hours a week raiding then so beit. If you want to raid 10-15 hrs/week you should hopefully be able to progress rather quickly but still not be the #1 uber guild server-wide.

I took two months off back in Jan-Feb when my second semester senior year (college) began. It was the best thing I've ever done and now I can safely say I can control my addiction while still being able to raid 3-4 nights a week. I would suggest taking a break and really prioritizing the important things in you life. If WoW is one of them (and for a lot of people it is) then set aside a healthy amount of hours per week to play and then try getting involved with something more socially "real worldish".

This is actually a very interesting and topical thread for me, as I'm in the middle of a similar 2 week break that imposed on myself to prove that I am in fact in control of my game consumption. I listen to the PC Gamer podcast regulary and over the past couple weeks they have discussed a report put out by a game addiction specialist, Maressa Hecht Orzack (www.computeraddiction.com), that speculated, with some skectchy numbers, that as much as 40% of the World of Warcraft population are in some degree of clinical addiction to the game. The 40% number seemed to be a pretty generous over estimate, but some of the descriptions did ring true, as I think many, if not all of us serious WoW players have re-arranged our schedules to a certain degree to fit the game in, not necessarily to the detriment of our lives and careers, but I can think of more than one occasion that I left the dishes unwashed or the house uncleaned because I didn't want to stop playing WoW.

Personally, I just felt like I needed to step back after playing for over a year and 200 hours cumulatively over 10 or so characters and re-evaluate where the game belonged in my life. I'm just starting my sophmore year in a Digital Design program where I'm going to be taking 21 hours my first quarter, and I don't think that WoW forcing 4 to 5 hour blocks of raid time multiple times a week is going to be something that is good for me or my school future. In my mind, this is my answer to the "When is enough?" question. If you aren't having fun with the game and you're just in it for the "Variable Ratio Reinforcement", or that chance that you might get the purple you need, or upgrade a certain slot on your character, it's probably time to cut back or stop. I may come back to WoW at some point, but seeing especially as my PvE career was never exceptionally satisfying (only ever killed through Rag, due to my sporadic time available and poor Horde side progression on my server), the motivation just isn't there for me.

On a more general note, I tend to wonder, especially looking at the cycle Montantu noted, whether or not the 40% number is really all that far fetched given the nature of the game (put out just enough patches and new content to keep people cycling like Montantu and I have). I guess it wouldn't be addiction per se, but the whole carrot and stick approach lends itself to a mindset where people aren't playing because they're having a kickass game experience every day, but because they are chasing specific meta-goals within the game (HWL, Tier 3 full, Kel'thuzad killed, and so on). The more I think about it, the more it seems that there is something slightly dishonest or unethical about this kind of game approach, in which you are basically admitting that your players aren't having a good time all of the time with your game and that the best you can do is just do enough to keep them around. That might be the cynic in me, and I realize that there's not much WoW can do, as their game design is set in stone around this concept. Hopefully, the next big MMO will help to continue to address the incementalist aspects of the MMO genre that makes it so addicting but at the same time, so dangerous to people who have addictive personalities already.

P.S. If you're interested in the PC Gamer podcast reactions to the study, they discuss it in episodes 44 and 45, and in 45 actually have the Orzack come onto the podcast. http://www.pcgamerpodcast.com/

i'm not sure if thats true, i've certainly been in ZG raids that took way longer than the average BWL clear, sad as it sounds
amount of people doesnt really influence the length of the instance and hopefully it also doesnt influence the difficulty of the encounters (too much)
i think it would suck if everyone just rolls thru TBC raids with 'not to much' effort at all

You really can't compare ZG with 25-man raids. You're comparing apples and oranges. Argumentively though, I have no idea what is going to be TBC 25-man raids, I guess I'm just assuming things.

I played through my senior year of college and it definitely hurt my experience. I did well, but not AS well as I could have. Most of all, I regret the fact that I didn't spend as much time with my friends now that we've all gone our serapate ways.

Fortunately, as a young professional, WoW is the best hobby ever. Since I'm getting started and trying to save some money, it keeps me inside instead of going outside where I could and would spend money!

I'll agree with what's been said though, take a break. There have been nights when I just do NOT want to raid. I used to feel guilty not going or leaving early to sleep, but that guilt is passing and I feel much better because of it.

I can say the same thing about my freshman year in college. Only back then, it wasn't WoW. It was the brand-new Sega Genesis.

Screw you kids and your fancy internet games.

I can remember Kassil telling us how you'd yell at her for not doing the double-jump in Contra and wasting all her lives. Ha ha.

My cycle pretty much follows how much fun I'm having with the game. If I'm not having fun, I won't be logging on. The bottom side of the cycle is probably inflated up because I "need that attendance" or my guild needs me there to tank something, but those are decisions I make. I guess I'm just addicted.

Well, there are certainly plenty of times when I'd rather do something else besides play WoW, but I log on anyway out of a sense of responsibility/obligation to my guild. If that were the usual case, of course, I'd be reevaluating my situation, but it's not. Does the fact that I sometimes log on when I don't "want" to indicate something problematic? I don't think so -- if you join an intramural team a rec league or something, there are going to be times when you're tired after work and don't feel like showing up to play, but do so anyway because your team would be shorthanded without you. It just comes with the territory and is part of the nature of the activity. If the fun and rewarding times don't justify the inconvenient ones, then you should look for other hobbies.

Praetorian has it. Anything you do for as long as the raid game in a MMO will have ups and downs. Nights you are tired, have killed the boss 500 times... but you know he has to go down one more. You're tired, you've had a bad day at work. But you still log in for the team, and for yourself to help progression. You have to take the bad with the good and be committed over the long run. That also means playing smart, taking breaks when RL is too overloaded, putting in extra time when needed, taking vacations. Just like most of life, it's about finding the balance.