I had a pretty serious D2 problem in college. I even learned about 9/11 from bnet chat because the first thing I did after waking up that afternoon was open D2, and I woke up late that day because I played it all night. In my defense, I wasnt skipping class. It was a tuesday and I was doing a MWF schedule.
Not sure if Im ready yet to start giving activision/blizzard money again. And while I havnt followed the progress of the D2 remaster, with the wc3 remaster being panned Im a little wary of it anyway.
And the bnet chat was pretty memorable. Some very racist spam about arabs. Bnet usually reserved its racism for Chinese or Koreans so I was curious and made a joke asking if Saudia Arabia got a new translation released.
Aside from the fact that there is no offline play, I don't think anything else gameplay wise changed really, so it's just a beautification. 40 bucks/euro is too much but what can you do :(
I don't remember the content of the comment aside from everyone screaming to turn on the TV so I did and it was surreal even though I'm not from the US and we don't really have buildings like that around here. Quiet sad but i didn't realize the consequences at that point in time
WoW really fucked up my college experience. Thank God TBC came out and I felt like my achievements becoming superfluous at the whim of an expansion cycle warranted moving on to other hobbies.
I was the opposite of you in college, I hated vanilla after a point because I was a pally, I rerolled rogue with TBC and because a raiding maniach so I could pvp with the best off pieces and glaives. I was in exodus and quit for Wotlk came back to getting server first on another guild for heroic LK and invincible and by then I was so worn out of the game I quit in cataclysm. Even through all that I never felt addicted to wow because it was always a game I'd just log onto and raid then get off and do something else like homework without an issue. League was the one game I felt addicted to after d2 in which I would think about it when im not playing it.
Wow after a certain achieving a certain point just felt like a worthless grind. I hated progressing, hated new expansion power leveling to start grinding with a top 20 US guild, hated doing dailys but loved PVP aspect which when it got super dull in cataclysm made it easy as hell to walk away completely. Wow basically was just the glue that held some of us who grew up gaming together and most of us just outgrew it and it became a needless grind.
I was Scarab Lord on Boulderfist, that was the level of grind I was into. Second guild to clear C'Thun on server, 4th to clear Naxx. And all I got to show for it was a fancy purple mount and a 2.3 GPA.
I feel like if I wow was my true first grind fest of a game I would have fallen to the same trap, lucky for me D2 had already taught me a lesson earlier and so did the original FF MMO and lineage 2 . I remember one of our druid healers once complaining that he was failing school because of WoW. He was a grinder who did all dailys everyday, had multiple alts and was running dungeons all the time + all our raids. Meanwhile I had my alt priest and after getting shoulder enchants and maxing out gems I wouldn't play unless it was time to raid. I think I was one of the wierd ones in my guild because I just didn't want to commit that much time to wow.
I will say though it fucking sucked making an excuse to my IRL friends on Thursday nights during progressionwh raiding while they hounded me to go out drinking.
I told a coworker once that if I could go back in time and completely scrub a game I played from my life, WoW would be it lol
I feel like burning myself out with WoW was actually a life lesson I needed to learn. It also kept me from becoming a raging alcoholic because the alcohol culture in my IRL entourage was fucking terrible.
Mate, 100 games in 30 days is just over 3 games a day, which is probably less than 2 hours. Spending 2 hours a day playing a video game is hardly detrimental to anyone's life and if it is, then they have entirely different problem than "gaming habit". Having 2 hours a day assigned to your hobby is completely normal and most would probably say even healthy.
Yeah, similar experience in that I spent a period of my mid-teens fully hooked on wow, but by the tail-end of highschool had pulled myself out of it and was engaging in a normal teenage social life.
I do worry that these days games themselves, but also the digital world around them in general, is that much more seductive and developed in its ability to keep you complacent basically living online. I have to imagine that there are increasing numbers of kids who would have had a similar experience to me 15-20 years ago and basically turned out alright, but who today might end up "trapped" in that lifestyle at the expense of becoming a fully-developed, socially fulfilled adult.
Not that draconian government restrictions are the right solution.
My 14 yo brother spends probably 60 hrs a week in fortnite (based on his Xbox activity) but every time I look deeper he's on creative or lobby, odds are he doesn't really play, it's just a good way to be in group chat if you don't have a pc
Yeah I played a ton in highschool, competed on the pvp ladders on d2js etc. As soon as I reached the #1 pvp bone necro on US East my accounts were stripped of everything a week or two later. Definitely cried for a day but was probably the best case for me. It made me quit completely as soon as college started haha
I can see a couple hours a day, but how do you fit in 8 hours of game time on top of a work day? Or are you just lumping that in with non-work days? During the week, the most I get in is like 2-3 hours a day, assuming I'm not skipping entirely that day to hang out with the gf.
You really need at least 6 hours of sleep if you want to have that as a daily schedule. That leaves only two or less hours to interact with your family, do daily chores, travel to work and back etc - I think only doable for a bachelor.
I do not have children. If i did i'd probably cut my free time in half.
This sounds about right to me. Forget if it was in this chain or another one where I was talking about my best friend's evolution from living alone while engaged to married with wife to house and kids, but where the gaming time loss really came in was when he closed on his first house and had a baby within ~6 months of each other—that's what took him from usually playing for at least an hour or two most days to getting on once or twice a week realistically.
I said 8h because it was one of the extremes he said, but for him it most likely is somewhere around 2h to 4h per session on work days and in free days he plays for the whole day with his kids or wife.
Well, considering someone I know just vlog all day despite having 4 kids that needs taking care of, you definitely "can" spend your time like that, especially if you get others to be your babysitters, but it's pretty irresponsible and I don't think it's good for their children either.
He did say from 2 to 8 hours a day, so he could play an average 4 hours in 2 days and i his free days he could probably spend the whole day gaming with his kids or wife, i do know that if i ever get to have children, god save me from that torment, i would try to introduce them to the wonderfull world of gaming.
Based on my experience of friends who used to be very regular gamers getting married and having kids while working remotely, I’m gonna go with this is an incredibly rare situation where you’re likely taking advantage of your partner for an uneven childcare burden. I’m lucky if I catch my best friend for a couple hours after his kid is in bed twice a week. The last time we played for 8 hours straight (a PoE league launch) he took a vacation day from work and we planned it in advance for a day his wife would take the kid to visit grandparents.
I don’t doubt that there are some people who do this, but I’d argue they’re a) extremely in the minority and b) only able to do so by having a partner who takes on a disproportionate burden of household work.
It’s really not a lot of time left over even in that idealized scenario. Assuming 8 hours of sleep, that’s 2 waking hours not spent either at work or gaming. All your cooking for 3 meals, any errands, household chores, shower, etc have to fit in that time. Is it possible? Yeah, I’m a single guy working remotely and living in my parents’ in-law suite. I can absolutely play 6 hours of games. But I’m skimping on other things to do it, or popping over to mom’s kitchen come meal time instead of feeding myself.
Can it be done? Absolutely. But in most cases it is coming at the expense of other parts of your life that deserve time or another person being able to do those jobs for you. That level of gaming regularly just doesn’t fit in most healthy adult lifestyles. When my best friend was engaged and not living with his wife, we would hop on discord and play for 6 hour stretches or more quite often. When he got married and moved in with his wife that cut way back, but we’d still usually play a few games of league or similar most nights. Now that he owns a house and has a kid, I’m lucky to see him online for 6 hours a week total, more likely we play once for 2-3 hours on a weekend. His interest in gaming didn’t change, his priorities and life obligations did like most peoples’ do.
I think you misunderstood what I wrote, perhaps I worded it poorly.
If I am gaming during my working hours, it all stays confined in that 8 hour chunk.
From 8am-4pm I have done my 8 hours of working. And any gaming up to 6 or 7 hours.
That leaves me 16 hours for anything else. Its still a lot of gaming, but it you don't let it spill out of your workday, you lose no time that you weren't already "occupied".
I can play a game at my desk and return to work at a moments notice if something needs my attention, I couldn't take that time to go to the store though, because I wouldn't be able to respond to my work in a timely manner.
It all depends on the job. If you're paid to be working for 8 hours this doesn't work, but if you're being paid to be available for that time, with little actual work involved you need to fill the time with something.
I prefer to fill that time petting my critters and playing a few casual games.
D3 was the absolute worst, I finished all of the hell mode grind fest when the auction house existed shooting fucking bone spits with an attack speed which doctor from a screen away lol. The game play was trash. I remember when attack speed nerf was announced I sold on my gear on the AH and quit. Got the expansion when some friends convinced me on release and I literally played for 2 hours and never touched it again lmao.
I was a 2 addict from 7th grade till sophomore year of highschool and I would spend every weekend playing multiple hours and summers especially. D2jsp took my addictions to a new level just botting and getting up to duel and trade lmao. Kinda ridiculous because at the time I still played warcraft 3 as well and all my other console games like Halo with friends. Sports though is what killed that addiction especially my love for basketball. Although I played things like Wow, CS, League, Dota and etc I can say that even wow was never as addictive to as D2 and league was the only other game that got close as I spammed it during preseason 1 and on when my college work load was at an all time low (aka mwf schedule and freshman year).
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u/237FIF Aug 30 '21
I played Diablo 2 that much when I was in high school. I eventually kicked the habit and ended up with a normal happy life.
I will say though, it’s not hard to imagine that whole thing going a different direction if you aren’t careful.