Professor Farnsworth

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World of Warcraft

The summer moving crew for the Hillsboro School District typically consists of six to eight people, mostly college students, who answer to one supervisor, Ron Nathlich. Ron is 34 years old and has worked for the District since the year he got out of the Army. Right out of high school Ron enlisted and was shipped off to Iraq during the Gulf War. Standing roughly 5’10” tall he still sports a military crew cut, and despite his growing mid section, Ron’s broad shoulders and lean legs hint at his past physical prowess.

During the school year Ron is in charge of delivering food to all the schools in the district, a job that starts at four in the morning. But during the summers, he is in charge of the crew of summer hires who move primarily furniture for teachers. In the summer of 2007, I was one of those workers. During this summer at home I got to know Ron pretty well. I quickly became his favorite of the group for no other reason than our similar senses of humor and my remarkable ability to sustain conversation, something the others seemed to lack. Our most frequent topic of conversation was Ron’s love affair. Surprisingly this affair was not the one with his fiancé, whom he had flown to Russia to propose to just a few months earlier. Rather, it was the venue through which he met her, World of Warcraft.

Since its release in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft has dominated the MMORPG market. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games have only recently become popular, and WoW is leading the trend. Today it has over eleven million subscriptions, up from five million just 2 years ago.

Subscribers pay a monthly fee to connect to the game servers operated by the manufacturer, Blizzard. Once connected, players are able to interact with other players live, giving the game a strong social aspect. Much of the content is set up to encourage or even necessitate player interaction, with game bosses requiring groups of up to 40 players to kill.

As for the game play itself, players are eased in. Beginning at level one, players are slowly introduced to the game and their character’s abilities. Different classes have different abilities, some using magic spells, others more conventional swords and axes, while others use a combination of the two. As players progress through the game, they gain more spells and abilities and become more powerful until they reach the level cap at 80.

But the game does not end there. In fact, it doesn’t end at all for most people. At level 80 players can then begin grouping up to attack the most challenging bosses in the game, with hopes of getting “loot” or prizes such as armor, weapons and special items that the bosses drop. Only those who play countless hours, dedicating 5-6 hours, 4 or more nights a week, will ever beat all the bosses.

And that is exactly what Ron was after. At this point Ron had been playing the game for roughly a year and as a single man who worked from 4am-noon, he racked up a lot of play time after work. Many of his evenings included enjoying a home cooked meal that he made from scratch and a 4-5 hour raid with his guild. The term raid comes from the military tactic in which a sudden attack is launched behind an enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground. In gaming however it refers to a large group of players launching an attack on one of the bosses.

For Ron, many a week night was dedicated to raids, and the next day I would enjoy his lavish tales of his guild’s victories and defeats. After about a month of his war stories (real and fictitious), I finally decided to try the game. After all, only a couple of my friends had come home for the summer and I wasn’t about to spend any time hanging out with my parents. The $80 I spent to get the original World of Warcraft and the expansion, The Burning Crusade, was pretty steep, but working 40 hours a week with no overhead expenses, I had the money burning a hole in my pocket anyways.

For a while I was into raiding as well, dedicating two or three nights a week to it. And that was just because those were the only 5 hour blocks I could afford; I still spend another 20 or so hours a week playing an hour or two at a time. For Ron, myself and others, video games like World of Warcraft can easily become an addiction.

What most people find so addicting about the game is how expansive and immersive it is. The game in it’s current form spans four fictional continents and involves roughly 60 fictional races. There are capitol cities to visit, professions to learn like leatherworking or blacksmithing, and of course there are quests to complete. But what drives most people is the quest for better gear.

Most players will agree that there is little skill involved in being good at the game. One person may be an expert at playing their character, but if their opponent has better gear, they will likely lose the battle. So many players spend countless hours raiding in order to get better gear, some going weeks of raiding before seeing that sword they wanted, or a belt with higher armor.

With each character in a 25 person raid having roughly 12 gear slots to upgrade, that’s 300 or so item upgrades needed for one raid group. Each raid run may yield between five and ten pieces. After factoring in repeated items, it is easy to see that a player may spend months raiding before getting what they’re looking for.

Another part of the game that keeps players coming back is the social community it fosters. Players are able to work directly with other people and communicate either via text or voice chat. For some players, their social group in WoW is larger than their number of real life friends. For others, it is the only social interaction they get on any given day.

The web is full of tales about WoW addiction. According to a story reported on Joystiq.com, one girl’s addiction turned fatal. “During China's week-long National Day holiday last month, a young girl died after playing World of Warcraft for several consecutive days.” Supposedly the young girl played non stop without breaks for food or sleep and eventually passed out on her keyboard. After her death, fellow players held an in-game funeral for her and the Chinese government instituted a three hour limit for internet gaming.

However not all addictions are that dramatic, much more often they result in a slow deterioration of social lives, relationships and grades. In an article about his own addiction, blogger Cyde Wise recalls reading “countless horror stories on the net about students failing out of school, men and women failing out of relationships, and workers failling out of their careers. Playing 8 or more hours a day for some of these people is routine. That’s one-third of their life! It’s scary.”

While he himself did not succumb to his addiction, many do. Wowdetox.com is a site dedicated to those struggling with or who have overcome addiction. Here anonymous posters can share their stories.

“I'm 41. My fiance is gone. My network computer job is gone. I live alone now, struggling to make rent, and I am filing bankruptcy.”

“I lost 20 pounds when I quit playing WoW and I now have abs.”

“My roommate and I failed out of College, and I lost a job for the first time in my life. So I sat and played wow for two months straight... only to realize I owed people money... I am a month free of this game and my gut still hurts when I think about it. Wow has ruined my life.”

When Todd Carlstrom started playing, he was a freshman in the dorms at the University of Oregon. Because of an academic scholarship, Todd was able to afford his room and board without working, allowing him lots of time to play between classes and homework. However it started to get out of hand. “I would just get in a zone while playing and completely forget about time. That’s when I started missing classes.”

A class missed here and there wasn’t too hard for Todd, an undeclared freshman to handle, but when he started raiding, it got worse. “I would start a raid before dinner and just forget to eat. And then we’d finish at one or two in the morning if we were lucky, a few times I just stayed up all night playing.”

Rescue came for Todd in the form of Sarah, now his girlfriend. When Sarah met him, Todd was at the peak of his immersion in the game, spending up to 10 hours a day playing. But when their relationship started getting more serious, she decided to put her foot down.

“Basically she sat me down and told me what she saw the game doing to me, ruining my health, my grades and that it was wearing down on her too.” So Todd was faced with a choice, life in “RL” (real life) or life in the World of Warcraft. Fortunately he choose the former and hasn’t regretted it since.

As for Ron, he continues to walk the line between an obsessive hobby and an addiction. After his fiancé was denied a visa to come to the U.S. he began playing more than ever. He still has his job at the school district but spends more and more of his time outside of work playing.

Ron is at a point that many addicts pass without even blinking. Now he must make a choice between life in a game and life in the real world. Without his fiancé here to force him to choose real life, I fear that only hitting rock bottom will cause him to give up the game.