When I first heard about WoW, I was in my third and last year in Swedish High School (Gymnasium). This geek in my class was talking wildly about it and at first I was laughing at him and his silly game. At this point in time, I was way above average in school, I had a very decent job on the side and social life was great.
A classmate and neighbour of mine had started playing WoW and I had been watching him play casually every now and then, but still the game did not interest me that much.
It was not until one night at another friend's house I got dragged into the black hole. He showed me the game, set me up with an account and the journey started.
The first character was a Night Elf Rogue. It took me quite some time to get to 60, but I got there eventually. I casually experienced Molten Core and probably sucked a lot. Eventually I got picked up in a slightly more organized and skilled guild that got me to experience Blackwing Lair.
Right after BWL, I went to work on a cruise ship that took me around the world for six months. I thought this would be the end of my gaming due to missing out on alot of stuff in the game, such as the launch of AQ. However, information regarding the much anticipated expansion, The Burning Crusade, was starting to leak out, which kept my interest up.
When I got home from my time overseas, I immediately picked up the gaming again, racing through AQ and later on Naxxramas. I was still pretty shit at the game I guess, but it was fun. Naxxramas took its toll on my current guild, which led me to another guild that eventually managed to clear Naxxramas.
I had been accepted into KTH (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan) at this point in time, which is considered to be the best university in Sweden when it comes to technical/engineer exams. I had yet not starting skipping school/social obligations in order to play WoW, but the game already ate a fair bunch of my free time.
On the launch date of The Burning Crusade, the 16th of January, I was queing with other players in order to pick up the game at midnight and start the leveling race as soon as possible. This date I remember in particular, because it was the first time I pulled an all-nighter in the game.
I raced to 70, being the first in my guild to ding and obtain an epic flying mount. I continued to grind heroics until my eyes bled and I quickly realized I actually had potential to become quite good at this game. Unfortunately, my account was compromised only weeks after the launch of TBC. I tried to get through the bureaucratic mess at Blizzard in order to get my account back, but the process was slow. Due to shortage of tanks, I decided to take over an old guildies account with a 60 gnome warrior on it.
I leveled to 70 in no-time and started the reputation/heroic farm again. We did pretty well on Gruul and Magtheridon with me as the MT. Serpentshrine Cavern proved to be the brick wall that brought our already struggling guild to an end.
So I applied to a guild, let’s call it Guild X, that was ranked amongst the top 10 in the world.
After not hearing from Guild X for a week or two, I had given up hope and was thinking of giving up the game. At this point in time I had started skipping lectures more and more, just to sit at home and play. My friends also noticed how I spent more and more time at home, coming up with ridiculous excuses.
When checking my e-mail one day, I saw a message from an officer of Guild X, who wanted to have a chat with me. The "interview" went well and I arrived on their server the very same day.
So my journey with Guild X began, the guild that came from nowhere and snatched a World Top 3 position in AQ40.
We fought through the pain and joys of pre-2.1 SSC/TK. I came to know the Raid Leader for real at Al'ar, after falling down from the tanking spot a couple of times, a mistake I promised myself to never repeat. This is probably where I started gaming for real. Late nights/mornings, hardly any university, almost zero out of game social interaction, skipping work as much as I could.
But it was still fun. We did well after 2.1 and 2.3 brought us Hyjal and Black Temple, zones we finished as top 10 in the world (if not better). Then came to long grind of Black Temple, while eagerly awaiting 2.4: The Sunwell. During this period, things started getting more serious on the other side of the monitor. The money I received monthly from the University (like a monthly support for studying, given to any eligible student in Sweden, without having to pay it back) stopped coming and I was living on fumes basically.
Debts and bills started piling up and I was no longer able to support myself economically. If it wasn't for landing a big web-design job with a friend of my father that turned out to pay off a lot, I probably would have been living on the street.
So came 2.4, and the race with it. We did very well, finishing among the top 10 in the world again. My economical situation was looking better now, after getting a part-time job at a bank that my mother put me up to. My studies at KTH were pretty much ruined now, I had missed way too much and I could not read up on it all by myself.
Early 2008, I started to get really stressed out about my studies, or lack there of, so I decided to apply to Stockholms University, for a bachelor in economics. It went well for about a month, after that I was back to not giving a shit. My life consisted of WoW, WoW, WoW, a few days of work here and there and meeting friends on very rare occasions.
WotLK was starting to come close and we were all very eager to get our hands on it. So came launch day, and once again I was with the rest of the players in the queue for it at midnight.
It turned out the be a major disappointment, I won't bother going into patches and details here. Right before Ulduar launch, I went on a ski-trip with some friends and we had an amazing time. When I came home from the trip, we started to hang out every day, going out in the evening and so on. I also met a very nice girl. Life was good for now, I started working more, started working out again and felt better than I had for many years. I sold my account to a guild member and I sold my entire PC as well.
So came summer and an internship at a bank. I could not go out during weekdays due to early work hours every day, so I was really bored in the evenings. I started playing my Paladin which previous mentioned guild member had transferred to my newly created account. In mere weeks, I was once again back in raids. However, Paladin was not my thing, so I decided to get my old character back. After some discussions and some money transfers, the character was finally on my account.
3.2 came out and I was playing more than ever. Hardly met up with friends, I lost my girlfriend and I purchased a brand new PC for the money I earned during summer. I did not spend a single minute studying this fall, and I worked as little as I could.
I was really starting to get depressed, hardly meeting any friends, just sitting in front my PC all day long.
One day in October, I was doing the Occulus on my Death Knight alt with some guildies. All of a sudden everything became clear to me: . I pulled the plug on my PC, put it in my closet and called a friend.
I laid all cards on the table and told him how much I had been playing the last years. I told him about failing at university and how I had lied to my parents about going to lectures and passing exams, when I in fact had not passed a single exam for years.
After talking for a few hours, I called my parents and told them everything, which was not an easy thing to do since they put quite some effort into their own lives and expect the same from me.
They were raging mad for a few hours but eventually settled down. To this very moment, it had not struck me a single time that I could possibly be having a gaming addiction.
Gaming addiction, it really hit me, I was an addict. I called a guy I found on the internet that specialized in supporting young men with gaming addictions. I've met him every Tuesday since the week I pulled the plug on my PC, and it's been absolutely great.
I've gotten another shot at my economics education, I've started working alot more, working out almost every day and just generally doing things I would never do if I had still played WoW today.
This absurdly long post is not meant to tell you what to do or how to live your lives, we are all different. I just wanted to share my story and try to give some explanation to why I will never come back to this game again.
It's been absolutely fantastic getting to know you guys, but my journey stops here.
I wish you all the best,
C
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