Why is it so hard to quit?

[Zoofro]

I've quit several times although I wouldn't call it "quitting" rather a rearrangement of my priorities. When I get my life priorities in order I usually come back. This is normally caused by college and making sure I keep my grades up etc.

If you can manage your priorities and put other things ahead of WoW you can play without dedicating too much time. Although raiding is a ginormous time sink I am not sure how these folks manage keeping everything in their life healthy.

[Värgen]

Don't say no to irl events and friends. Do not prioritize WoW when someone asks you to do something. I find this rule to be very good. It can be hard when you're in a raid, you really want an item that drops in there and some of your friends decide to call you up.

If not, it can comsume your entire spare time. When your friends are saying "he'll just say no anyways" you end up with more spare time and you will spend it on Wow.

I still enjoy raiding but I do it far to much. 4 different characters with awesome gear, giving me loads to do every reset. I've quit and started again many times, one time even for an entire year.

Quitting entirely with wow is very hard if you've played it as much as I have. If you can find a replacement game to take care of your gaming needs, and some other activities like working out or hang out with friends, it'll help alot

If you shield yourself from the world and your days contain merly of eating, sleeping, playing games and wanking off, that's when you need to take some serious steps in your life. It can be hard to find a purpose in life and many feels the pressure from family, friends etc to get a decent job and have a plan for your future.

My aim in life is just to be happy, and I find myself being that most of the time. But playing WoW or games every single day get's tiresome in the end.

It's like the tip says: Take all things in moderation, even World of Warcraft.

[Naomi_seashore]

you just don't have anything better to do in your life. make some friends and go hang out

[Qarling]

Doesn't matter why you quit, you are not missing anything. Get a job, get a girl, get a motorcycle, or just get a life. WoW sucks and is only getting worse, my break may become permanent because my guild is stuck on LK reg, lol?

[dawawe]

Because every time you die the spirit says "Welcome to World of War........craft give us your money."

[Nahyo]

Here's your personal answer, from experience:

I quit the game back in the 60 days to start focusing on school when I was in high school. I was leading a 40-man raid and it was time-consuming as hell. To get over it I basically just went away to University. No internet (fast one anyway), no WoW.

I returned when BC came out quit again as my grades were dropping again in my 3rd year at Uni. This was about 4 months ago.

There will ALWAYS be a pull back into this game. I can say that it is definately an addiction if you find yourself bored a lot or have friends still playing.

The only solid advice I can give is to find something else to distract you. Be it another video game (one with an ENDing), a full-time job, school, friends, or more family time. I do a little bit of ALL of that stuff on that list now and it helps, but there's always a pull, especially close to an expansion.

Really I think it comes down to how determined you are to change your play-style IF you come back too. Cataclysm is going to get even more casual friendly and has already pretty much pulled me back. If it gets too heavy again, I will probably quit again.

Do what makes you happy, I'd say. If it makes you happy to come back and still enjoy life, then do it. If it was a burden when you played, just don't. Unless you KNOW you can balance real life and WoW.

That's from my personal experience, hope it helped.

Nahyo.

[Simonzi]

I've quit a few times because I was bored with the game, but then came back because I was even more bored without the game.

[Garetee]

the reason wow is so hard to quit is because u make it a hobby. how do u replace a hobby? get a new one! i stopped playing wow and started to work out, make new friends, and asked to be full time at my job. also, i really just took a step back from the computer and said to myself " I'm spending hours of my day killing internet dragons for imaginary items that have no influence on my life."

[Juanmisimo]

I've just quitted a couple of months ago. And i got to the extreme of selling my account. I really don't regret it, i got bored of my pally. However now I have impulses of going back. I just can't stop thinking about it.In fact, I should be sleeping now lol. Anyhow, if I go back I would love the idea to re roll, and experience something new. Wow is the best, and most addictive game ever. However I think I would try to be as casual as possible.

[DeltrusDisc]

Thats one of the biggest traps of any MMORPG, they are fun and they are a massive time sink. If you want to do X instance you must spend Y amount of time gearing up and reading strats. I had a time where I played way to much and neglected many aspects of my personal life. I quit for about 3 months and took some time for myself. I've been playing and still raiding casually for awhile now, however I am extremely aware of how much time I am spending online, which is very important. If you can manage your time then it's fine, but the second you even think of crossing the line you need to take some time to re prioritise. eg You made plans yesterday to do something with a RL friend, but you just logged on to do something quickly and you get invited to a raid. If you seriously consider cancelling on your friend then you need to get the hell out.

If you don't think that you can do this then you really should not be coming back. WoW is so much fun at times and it's way to easy to become hooked on it. If you really don't think that you can manage your time both on game and off then you really should not come back in any way.

Wow will give you something to do and be proud of online, real life and real activities will give you something that you can take with you anywhere you go.

This isn't really a decision that anyone here can make for you though, it's something that you have to decide for yourself and be prepared to deal with the consequences of.

I could NOT have put it ANY better myself! You sir get the golden... no platinum trophy for your explanation. :P

But really OP, what this guy said is right on the dot, and I know you asked for personal experiences, I don't see too many, so here goes mine. I remember last Fall, I had a gf who I told I could only hang out with on certain nights because others' I'd already dedicated to the guild I was in at the time; I was not in college nor having a job either. One Sunday she came over to hang out, but my guild leader wanted me on just so we could get Yogg Saron out of the way. I figure, ah what the hell, we've downed him plenty of times in the past, this should take maybe 20 minutes tops, so she says it's fine. You know what happened? The group for some odd reason was failing miserably that night (I did on one or two of the wipes as well). As time went on my gf got more and more pissed off till finally after two hours, I told my guild that I was logging off, much to the dismay of my guild leader who was waaaaayyyyy too serious for a guild that wasn't even raiding current content seriously. He told me that "you know we raid on Sunday nights." I told him, I signed up for 75% of nights, there were 3 during business week and then he wanted people there Sunday evenings, so I didn't have to be there that night. My gf told me after I got off this simple line, "that was ridiculous. If this happens again, after 45 minutes, I'll just call my mom and have her pick me up and take me home." That was a wake up call, I swear to God, it put things in perspective for me so much. Before that event, she thought WoW was cool, hell she'd played on her brother's account before, but no, after this night she lost all interest and hates the game to this day. I now play a bit more casually in that, if someone wants to hang out, I log out (pretty much no matter what I am doing), and go outside and get some Vitamin D from the ever-so-giving sun. After that Sunday, within the week I had cancelled my subscription and didn't come back for a couple months. As long as you can put the game down when other things that are far more fun/more important in life show up at your doorstep, then by all means, play the game. If not, then don't.

[Iko]

You’ll put the game down when you find something more important.

[Deleted]

Well....

A big part of being healthy is being happy. So naturally, you should drink a liter of beer a day if that makes you happy!
I like to drink beer. And i do drink allmost everyday 1-2 bottles.

If u like WoW and that makes u happy... well, then start playing. Life is kinda too short to care about something that don`t actually matter.

[Spoogles]

haha the name of this thread made me think of a song.... ;D

"Why does my heart.....feel so bad...." HA

[Bloogonis]

I have never really been a hardcore player, with me playing for 2 weeks and then not playing for the next three and so on. I quit back in July 2009 and swore not to return, but I did because of a good good friend of mine in Jan of this year. If you can handle it, by all means, there is nothing wrong with playing it. I always find time to hang out with friends, get my college work done and do other stuff. I am a casual player who never really got into raiding (I level characters and do pvp from time to time) and would prefer to play Warcraft 3 over WoW most of the time haha.

Right now, I have been away for over a month, and I don't think I will be playing again at least until the new Gnomeregan/Echo Isles patch comes out.

A great site for this is www.********.com, it has anonymous stories of people who have quit and how they did it. It can help you quit but it also brings you back to earth if you feel that your gaming is getting a bit out of control ( not seeing friends, lack of sleep etc). I guess you could say that addiction was never really an issue because I get too bored of it all easily (although I have splurged on the game from time to time, but who has not haha) and I would rather do other things.

[Geckomayhem]

No matter how much you play or how hard you try, you can't beat the game. That's why we keep coming back, and that is why, no matter how casual or hardcore you are, you will always want to play it. My brother managed to quit for good -- more than three months, and counting, I think -- after a good deal of dedication to the game. Most of us realise how detrimental it can be -- I mean, it's a hobby and all but it really doesn't benefit in the long run. Achievements are not really achieving anything for you.

And yet, because of the investment you make, quitting and leaving your characters to sit without progressing any more seems like a real waste. The game will eventually die for each person. I'd recommend just playing on and off until such a time as you just can't play it anymore. It could be another two years or it could be twenty. Just don't let it take over your life.

[Deluziion]

it can also be just a simple routine if im bored and got nothing to do i got wow. If i've got lots of stuff to do i just simply quit for a while

[phys]

I can relate to alot of the other posters on here. I will often just... stop playing... for anywhere from a month to a couple months sometimes. It just happens. I get preoccupied, or just have no desire to play it at all. And then eventually i either A. Get bored and log onto a toon after a long break or B. Start talking to friends that play it also and then all of a sudden I want to play really bad and having IRL friends that play makes it even more enjoyable so its not really ever a conscious decision when I 'quit'. But if you want to play WoW and youve got the cash then go for it. No reason to quit unless its really affecting your life in a bad way.

[Llycas]

I used to raid every night, I mean literally. I have a screenshot somewhere of my calender and everynight in the month has a raid planned, anyway when my old guild broke up I pretty much stopped playing, I was moving house and I had a new job and I simply could not find the time, anyway I didn't play for about 6 months, and I just randomly logged on a few weeks ago and been hooked again since.

Don't get me wrong I've always enjoyed playing, but I always find myself thinking, I wonder why it's so hard to fully quit.. but my only answer is I cannot fully quit, until something takes is place. I've played MMO's for the past 11 years and the longest i've not played one for is probably the 6 month break from WoW.

[levitate]

i wanted to change things around, spend my time on better things...it worked for the most part but i still want to keep playing and i know i cant play this game in moderation because of its nature so its either real life or fake but really fucking fun life.

Jesus Christ, dude. How old are you?

It's a computer game. While it's a quite evolved dynamic one with lots of bits and bobs on the sides, it's still a game. If you've made a decision to stop playing and can't, you have serious problem.