Acrophobia and Spine of Deathwing

[Chonar]

Having a "fear of" and being "phobic" are two different things. A phobia is "an irrational fear of", so all of you who're snickering over this; dont try to rationalize phobias, thats just what they are. Irrational.

[announced]

not sure if srs.. its a game FFs LOL

i wonder how people with fears of flying handle spaceship games.. or people with fears of water handle underwater levels.. dont forget to bring a towel!

[Mammoth]

I have a phobia of snakes, but it doesn't really come into play, because of the low graphics levels. However, the Vash snakes are rather disturbing to me.

I've never associated a phobia of heights with being triggered by images of heights before. Maybe you would be better disassociating yourself from your character on that fight, so you're not imagining that you're actually the toon. On spine however, if you zoom in a bit and consider the playing field as fixed, and the rest of the environment as moving around you during barrel roll, you should be able to reduce the issue.

[vep]

While I do have both arachnophobia and acrophobia, I haven't experience much of an issue on spine. I usually just zoom in a little and I can't even see much of the world outside of Deathwing.

However, Spiders are a different story. I will avoid spider quests like the plague, and I had to have my camera zoomed to the ground for Maexnna.

I understand the irrational fear of spiders. But a fear of pixels? That just doesn't get into my head :/

[Fitzbert]

I understand the irrational fear of spiders. But a fear of pixels? That just doesn't get into my head :/

You haven't played Limbo, have you? I almost shat myself, not when the spider first appeared, but when the spider first /moved/.

The only spider to set my phobia off in WoW is the one in the new quest series in Silverpine Forest. You go into a mine, kill a few spiders and then you're like "..so where's the brood mother?" and she drops down from the ceiling above you.

Never Alt-F4'd that fast in my life.

[Mammoth]

I understand the irrational fear of spiders. But a fear of pixels? That just doesn't get into my head :/

In my case with snakes, it's not the fear of a snake being in front of me; I would view that as a rational fear. Its a phobia of the idea of a snake, whether it's real, special effects, photographed, game graphics, or even words in fiction books.

I think you're thinking too rationally.

[Paddfoot]

I feel so much better reading this thread. Knowing I am not alone in WoW with having their phobias kick in over pixels basically. I have a horrible phobia of spiders, heights, and deep water. I try to avoid fighting spiders as much as possible, because I actually freak out a bit. Especially those horrible ones around TB. *Shudders* I actually used to heal Max from Naxx(What I like to call her) with my eyes closed. I can relate to the Deadmine's gauntlet being hell. I really wish Blizz would let up on the damn spiders. (One of my hopes for MOP).

OT: The spine fight doesn't bother my height phobia so much as the motion sickness kicking in if I focus to much on the clouds. Zooming in helps fix that though. My height phobia usually only kicks in when I am dismounted in the air, and falling.

[Mmpie]

I can understand this for sure. I don't have this phobia but I do have a phobia of clustered dots/holes (trypophobia). Most people think it's crazy, but phobias ARE irrational...

When I first saw this encounter I got very uncomfortable at the tendon part. Not sure why.

[Chonar]

I feel so much better reading this thread. Knowing I am not alone in WoW with having their phobias kick in over pixels basically. I have a horrible phobia of spiders, heights, and deep water.

Oh dear. So no tank-head enchant for you, then?

[Deleted]

Yes, I get wierded out on Spine.

But then I also feel a bit off when looking over the edge of a cliff/ledge in WoW with a large drop.

[Fitzbert]

My brother's girlfriend has styrophobia: the irrational fear of polystyrene.

You can't rationalize phobias by saying "lol just pixels mate". Spiders in almost every single game that I have played freak me the fuck out (Skyrim, WoW as examples and I remember being really freaked by a big one when I played WAR at launch).

Limbo just literally made me choke on a scream. Never been so terrified of something arachnid in my life, even in reality.

[willtron]

I hate spiders.

The spiders in skyrim used to scare the crap out of me, makes the game more fun.

Its not so much a fear, but I hate falling feeling in your stomach, I still get it in games when I drop off something high, Damavand Peak on BF3 does it and so does jumping off Thundebluff, weird how shit like that affects people

[Eace]

I'm afraid of heights and I had no problems in any place in wow.. even while flying over Ulduar..
It's 2d image after all, you have bad perception of height in 2d images.. Maybe I'd feel different if I played with good 3D googles, but untill then? naah, it's a 2d image of video game.. Don't drag fears too far >.<

Agreed. I guess it's different with spiders and arachnophobia as they are living things (at least irl) and not part of the environment?

I have acrophobia combined with agoraphobia, meaning that I'm scared of open high places. Never had a phobic moment in game, though, but I get the creeps when I jump from a cliff or dismount very high in the air and watch my character fall. Nothing more than that, though.

[Omino]

Why wouldn't it be serious? As folks mentioned before a lot of people hate spiders and even in game spiders cause them to feel uncomfortable. I knew a person who couldn't look at their screen flying over places like SMV because the green lava stuff made them feel motion sick. Wouldn't surprise me if someone out there was bothered by heights in a video game.

Warmaster Blackhorn gives me motion sickness if I happen to accidently look at the clouds. Avoiding looking at them I've found to be difficult in a 10man raid. This week we had to actually call the raid after that fight and I felt ill and unsteady on my feet for the rest of the weekend.

[Fitzbert]

Warmaster Blackhorn gives me motion sickness if I happen to accidently look at the clouds. Avoiding looking at them I've found to be difficult in a 10man raid. This week we had to actually call the raid after that fight and I felt ill and unsteady on my feet for the rest of the weekend.

Have you tried aiming your camera directly above your character, and zooming in so the edges of your screen are limited by the airship deck?

Just a thought!

[Omino]

Have you tried aiming your camera directly above your character, and zooming in so the edges of your screen are limited by the airship deck?

Just a thought!

I have. But being a healer and needing to be aware of the entire deck of the ship and what is going on; charge paths, blasts, sappers, etc - I can easily accidently tilt my camera and get a screen full of them.

[Bearface]

I've found my acrophobia is a bit weird and selective. For example, I can climb two steps in a lighthouse and nearly collapse and have a panic attack. I can't even stand on a diving board (higher than the normal little ones in home pools) without freaking out. But I can ride roller coasters and whatnot without an issue. There is a little bit of anxiety when we roll Deathwing on spine, but overall that isn't too bad. Maybe this is why I go out of my way to leap off tall things in-game. It could be my subconscious way of fighting my fear?

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

I don't know.. people think zombies are scary, whether in real life or video games. I can see how the image of something you're afraid of in real life can be scary to someone.

[ophion1990]

I personally have a bit of a scare of heights and hate planes. But I don't have any problem with that in WoW whatsoever. Its a game, fake, you don't crap your pants when you see an undead/dead body in WoW right? But you probably would when you saw it IRL. xD

[Greydawn]

I empathize with this for sure. While heights or anything of the sort doesn't bother me at all, I've always gotten very uncomfortable and on edge when a video game makes me go in the deep sea. No I don't mean like Vash'r that didn't bother me much at all (well at least until I went to try and find Ghostcrawler and that big ass elite thing crept up on me lol), but I mean games that make the water VERY dark and hard to see past `20ft past your character. I have a somewhat fear of the deep sea and all the 'unknown' fishes/creatures down there I guess you could say and I have noticed throughout my life that fear be translated into video games.

This.
Spine gave me shivers a bit once or twice but that has passed. Yes, I'm scared of heights.

To those saying you can't be scared of pixels: you've never been frightened by a horror movie/game? Your brain doesn't work that way, its very visually driven. Pixels are convincing!