These days I am no longer much of a gamer. The last time I played was GTA4 maybe six weeks ago, and I haven’t finished it yet. The last time I was seriously hooked on a game was Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, a game so addictive to some that it has been dubbed Warcrack. Today I logged into the admin site and I noticed with satisfaction that I had not played in over a year.

World of Warcraft (WoW) is an online game where thousands of players perform quests simultaneously in a vast fantasy world. This fantasy world is duplicated across thousands of servers catering for a staggering 10 million players. At first the goal is to raise your character’s level through questing, and you can also take time out to participate in player guilds, battles, raiding parties, gladiatorial arenas and trading.

I first started playing WoW in around May 2006 and I am still blown away by the art direction of the game. Everything from possessions to characters to buildings and landscapes shares a chunky, colourful comic-book look and quirky sense of humour. Some of the spectacular environments I’ve seen include a rainforest with ancient ruins, a village in a gloomy forest beseiged by the undead and salt flats where goblins race rocket bikes.

I played two characters, a warrior and then a priest. Few people choose to play a priest because they suck in combat, but their healing powers make them popular with other players, especially when questing. I correctly presumed that by playing a female priest, other players would be more receptive to her than my warrior, who was male. Her fondness of slutty tops also seemed popular.

Before long I was hooked and was playing for a couple of hours every evening, which is unusual for me. Because I was trying to keep up with other players, or was selling something at the auction house, I kept coming back. The game subscription system exacerbates the problem, because like a gym membership, you’re paying even if you’re not using it.

I decided I had to quit as Louise and I had our wedding to prepare for, and this was made much easier by the widespread selfishness and shitty attitudes I’d been experiencing in the game. I stopped playing completely that November and by that time I had raised the warrior up to level 26 and the priest up to level 27.

Other people aren’t as lucky as me. Clinical addiction to this game is widely reported and one look at the messageboard on WoWdetox.com chillingly confirms that this is a real problem. I didn’t experience anything remotely like that, but I can see how this game could easily become addictive for kids or young adults, especially when their actual or online peer group is playing it.

The following winter (mid-year in the southern hemisphere, folks) I cautiously started playing again and kept it controlled and casual. The first thing I noticed was that I hadn’t actually missed anything. At worst, there was no sign of anyone I’d put on my friends list, but there were plenty of others to team up with. Otherwise, everything was exactly as I had left it – I hadn’t really lost anything by not playing.

I decided not to play my warrior and raise my priest up to level 40, save like hell to buy a horse on the way (you need to be level 40 or above to use a mount), and then quit for a while. Having met these challenges, I was quite happy to stop playing because I was getting a little bit bored, and anyway in my opinion I have a better mount in real life. As I mentioned above, this was over a year ago.

I’ve since enjoyed doing more productive things with my free time. Much of it has gone into building this blog theme, and since Emily arrived, I have far less time to play games at all. Given the length of this post, you can probably tell I’d actually quite like to play it again, but I’ve also just reminded myself why I quit. At least I’m one of the lucky ones who has it under control.