Have I Finally Beat My World of Warcraft Addiction?!

The Fury of the Sunwell game patch brought a lot of new content to the game, which at the time sparked up my interest in the game, which had been somewhat faded as of late. When my last guild had fallen apart, and I suddenly wasn't raiding all the time, I found I wasn't as interested in the game anymore. I started leveling a few alts, still attempting to reach my goal of a level 70 of every possible class, but my heart just wasn't in it anymore. I had grown accustom to leveling with people, so suddenly leveling alone felt boring, and I couldn't play more than a few hours every day. Of course to some this would still seem like a lot of play time, but compared to the six+ hours I had been playing per day, 1-2 hours was a huge reduction.

I dove right into all the new Fury of the Sunwell stuff though, got into a new guild and had even started raiding weekly again and doing Arenas. I was having a blast with the game once more, striving to be among the first to Exalted with the Shattered Sun and hording my Badges of Justice to be able to get as much of the new badge gear as possible when the vendor was unlocked. I had even started farming gold again, which hadn't been fun for a few months, but I was determined to get an epic flying mount, without being broke afterwards. So what happened?

I was one day of dailys off reaching Exalted with the Shattered Sun, and was so excited about getting the of the Shattered Sun title for 1K gold. I had not missed a single day of dailys, especially not any of the new fishing and cooking ones. I woke up early on that fateful day and eagerly made my way to my comp, just to find my game time had expired! I had always paid with a certain credit card that I'd been having problems with, so I checked and sure enough it would no longer go through on the site. I didn't worry much, figuring I'd get a game card in the next couple days. A few days later I got one, and as I was out buying it, my Internet was cut off. This had happened a few times in the past due to complications or problems in the area, so I didn't worry too much, other than I was sorry to miss out on being Exalted for another day. It turned out that my Internet bill hadn't been paid for a few months (which I was unaware of because it wasn't one of the bills I paid, it was my roommate's), and was now cut off until they received the $500 back pay from the months we'd missed. Needing to play my WoW, I forked over the money myself immediately (which was all of my savings). It ended up taking almost two months to get it re-connected due to some mess up with our modem having to be replaced and stuff.

I don't really remember what I did with myself for those two Internetless months, other than wish I had Internet every day and steal very weak signals from my neighbour's wireless connections from my window. Unfortunately I could never keep the signal long enough to log onto WoW, so I lost a bunch of mail, never got Exalted with the Shattered Sun, and lost contact with the new guild I had joined. When it was finally all worked out, I quickly added the game card I had purchased ages ago to my account and logged on. I won't lie, I was expecting a grand reception from my WoW friends and new guild, with presents and "we missed you"s and tons and tons of in game "where are you" mails... There wasn't anything! No one even said anything to me when I logged on that day, because I guess everyone had gone off to do other things (play on other servers, other games, etc). I was so disappointed that the whole time I'd been Internetless, WoW and my WoW friends had been all I thought about, yet here I was, back after two months away, and WoW and my WoW friends had just kept on going without me. I guess that sort of put it all into perspective to me, and I suddenly realized how unimportant the World of Warcraft really was.

I had spent two months pining over my dear lost game, thinking I was missing out on so much, only to come back and suddenly see that it was just a game! I guess it was just all that distance I had from it that finally let me see it for what it was. I tried starting a new character on a new server, because although my obsession with the game had wained, I missed it!! I missed feeling like I had to play every day, so I thought maybe if I started over again, I'd get re-addicted. I played to level 18 I think on a PvP server, but couldn't get any farther. It just wasn't interesting anymore! I tried PvPing and leveling some of my higher alts. I gave farming a shot and even tried to do dailys, but I just couldn't! So, I stopped playing.

I think it's been a month or two since I've gotten my Internet back, but I haven't played WoW at all. I've thought about logging on a few times, but my computer screen is dieing so it flashes really bad if I try and play, which keeps me off it. I don't necessarily miss it anymore though. I do have a lap top for if I just had to play, but I haven't. I've been kind of watching how much my roommate plays, and it makes me not want to play! He bought a new game card to activate his second account over food one week, which I totally would have been all for a few months ago, but now it was just like omg what is wrong with you?

King expansion. I haven't given away my thousands of gold or any of my 70s yet just in case I do like playing again when it comes out. I'm not sure if I want to get back into it or not, Not playing WoW has been great, I must say! I've been going out so much, saving $60 / month (that I had been spending on my three accounts), and I've just been an overall happier gal! I had always just sort of joked about being addicted and WoW running my life, but I realize now that it really had been!!! We'll have to see if Blizz can rope me back in with this Wrath of the Litch expansion lol.