I can honestly say that at one point in my life I was addicted to something. It was not drugs or alcohol, but it was just as lethal: World of Warcraft. For those of you that don’t know or have only heard the name and simply associated it with weird nerds, World of Warcraft (WoW) is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game or MMORPG for short, which is made by Blizzard Activision. The game has been around for over a decade now and is pretty much the industry standard in the genre. Many companies have tried to match the success but the majority have fallen well short. So what makes WoW so successful and so addictive? Let me try to explain…

Without getting into the nitty gritty, the premise of the game is that you’re an adventurer/hero in a world (literally) full of other heroes and you’re completing quests, dungeons, and Raids against big bad things. Same as most games, right? Well, kind of. Let’s split MMORPG into two parts. MMO means that you get to play this game with other people. But not just 2-4 players like old school consoles. We’re talking millions upon millions of other people. The game is always online, it does not have an offline mode. You can’t play 1 player (per se). RPG means that you assume the role of your character. You play the game as if you were your character. Some people take this to the extreme and really get into character, but for the most part it’s just a way to fit into the rest of the fantasy world. For example, I can have a character that is a Troll Hunter and it’s basically as it sounds, a Troll with a bow and arrow. So with that said, an MMORPG is a game where you invest a shit load of time on your character to interact, play with, and battle millions of other people. Cool.

So what makes WoW so addictive? Well, the game features a very comprehensive but friendly system for making your character better. You do this by leveling up, acquiring gear, learning new skills, etc. The higher the level, the stronger you get and the further you progress. Eventually you’ll reach the level cap and that’s where the hours start to pile on. From here on out (or until the next expansion pack) you’re running the toughest dungeons, which can take hours, trying to get the absolute best gear available. But don’t expect Blizzard to just give the best away. No, after spending hours, days, or weeks against a “boss” whooping your ass, there’s a very good chance the helmet you sought after, won’t even drop or even worse, someone else might get it. There’s tons more involved but for now this paints a pretty good picture of what the majority of a WoW players time looks like. Back to me…

Years ago when the game was “in its prime” with the most subscribers, I was heavily invested. I was unemployed at the time and so most of my time was spent in front of a computer smashing away at my keyboard and mouse. I won’t lie, I made friends in the game. You build relationships with these people you play with for hours on top of hours. And it’s fun. It truly is. But it is also dangerous. You can easily spend 4-5 hours in a dungeon, every other night attempting something for the sake of making your character more powerful. We do this in real life too by the way. It’s just human nature. It’s all good though. Eventually I found a job, and even though I continued to play, I became known as something we like to call a “casual player”. The funny thing is that after some time Blizzard started to cater more to those types of players and ever since then the game has gone down hill (more on that on a later post, probably). And by down hill what I mean is from 10 million subscribers to like 5-6 million.

I don’t have many regrets in life, and don’t expect me to call this one either. I enjoyed my time playing the game. In fact, I’m still subscribed even though I have months without logging on. Who knows maybe Blizzard will release some good ol’ nostalgic content that wins the fan base back. Maybe some day I’ll reassume my role as a Night Elf Priest.