[General Discussion] Quitting MMORPGs

I had began playing Wow about a year ago. Maybe less. I got it, and I played often. It was about the only thing I played. I played it after my Day of Defeat: Source addiction, you could call it. Games are addicting in general, in my opinion. Anyway, this was my first real MMORPG experience. I had a moderate amount of fun, questing, checking out the landscapes, getting the P2P experience and what not. I didn't do much PVP at all, just did my run to 60. At first I had set a goal to just get to 60, raid a little and be done. But I didn't even get to 60. I got to level 52 as a Nightelf Warrior, and got sick of it, because I noticed how the game was causing me to play more, to level higher. The gameplay was even more mundane to me, or it just lost the luster it had.

About a week before I quit I was in desolace, pretty tired from my day, I logged on to grind up a bit there. I wanted to go to a friend's party that night but I thought I was too tired too. I happened to consult this random player I found in desolace, and share some of my thoughts with him. Explaining that I could go to a party but I was too tired... so I had just decided to play some WoW. He was foreign so his english wasn't great but he generally agreed. We chatted as we fought some mobs, floating around with no real goal except to grind. Then I had recieved a call from one of my friends of the friend who was throwing the party and they had insisted they could come and pick me up to the party, where I had to take the bus if I wanted to go, originally. Then I was just like, fuck it, I'll go.

So I went to the party and drank some homeade absinthe with everclear this guy made. MAN THAT SHIT WAS GROSS! But it got me kinda surly =D

I related this story kind of as a sentiment to the regard of quitting the game. I mean, that situation is kind of representative of an addicted MMORPG'er.

1. He's exhausted but is logged on anyway.
2. He has something better to do. (sleep, go to a party)
3. He's grinding.

But ya know, I enjoyed player interaction every now and then. I made a couple friends through mad instance leveling. There was 2 days that I stayed up straight on the SM instances. I met some people who were doing that almost as dedicated as I was. It was interesting, there really were about 5-10 people who were doing those instances just non-stop, that I continued to see during the timespan that I played.

ACTUALLY, the first MMO I tried was fuckin FlyForFun. FlyFF as it's called. I really enjoyed this one, minus its senseless grinding, because of overall friendliness of all the players. Hell, I might even get back into it. Also, because there seemed to be a good amount of young players. I made a friend with a 9 year old australian girl, it was so cute. We didn't talk a lot but we were usually happy to grind together. It's games like those that it's cartoony charm and sheer simplicity bring out the friendly gamers. Well, I might very well be generalizing.

I quit WoW at 52, and don't have any real intention to ever play again. However, my friends are going to get back into it when Burning Crusade comes out. They want me to, but I will refuse them adamantly.

Jam it back in, in the dark.