So you’re level 70 already?
I took a quick peek into World of Warcraft, and was semi-shocked to see that people on my server had already reached level 66, a mere 43 hours since the expansion pack for the game was officially released. While the vast majority of the players out there are still 60-61, with a large pack of dedicated and geared out folks at 63, this really isn’t neccessarily related to addiction at all. Sure, a lot of people took their vacation time relative to this game, so that they could have an unrestricted amount of play time - but people do that for sporting events and tupperware parties.
For the record, the grind from 60-70 was supposedly going to take more time than the inital grind from 1-60. According to the PARC data, this most often took 14 full 24-hour days of gameplay (note that this could be, and was often spread over the course of many months).
On one French-language server of Warcraft, one player reportedly made the grind from 60-70 in just 28 hours. This supposedly took the resources of his guild, although I don’t have any information as to how accomplished or large this guild or player in question was.
From a research standpoint - I’m wishing that I were a tenured and established professor omewhere. Never before have we had so many million people so eagerly and energetically spelunk into a completely contrived, shared world. This is something that, much like a book, they experience on their own. They feel varying degrees of presence in these worlds, and can acknowledge the presence of others with varying levels of sincerity. Warcraft represents the current standard in playing, and has for some time. How the expansion of Warcraft, the “Burning Crusade,” affects this popularity will have a major influence over which MMO games are consumed over the next 2-3 years. And people are playing. So many people are on the Tichondrius server, for instance, that it became full for the first time in over 5 months.
Why isn’t it an addiction, across the board? Because playing a lot one day… doesn’t mean that you’re going to play a lot the next. Some people can play a fair amount, say a few hours a day, and not need it. They don’t have any physical condition which forces them to consume more. What really matters here is that balance can be restored after you use up all of your vacation time power-leveling to 70.
If you can do that, then have fun in the outlands. 
Neils Clark :: Jan.17.2007 :: Games ::
But suppose you used all your vacation time and have none left over for the camping trip you promised to take with your husband and kids in the Spring…
Might that not be considered a functional impairment?
Definitely.
And certainly, people’s problems won’t magically disappear with the minor changes in the expansion.
Though I think that more than one person is treating this like a Harry Potter book - preordering the book, lining up at the store, and rushing home in order to read through it as fast as possible (Thanks Alysa for that analogy).
Wow defently takes up way to much time. In some peoples cases i have been tracking the Bloodelf Paladins that are leveling and in a mere 2 days of playing I see one already at level 35 and 3 days later at 45 on Tichondrius. Im sure if i went lookin around from server to server id find some people have put the effort in and are already grinding the Level 60-70. Addicted much, I dont know, although at least they are already in the end game content which is really what most people are after such as my self.
I logged on to wow last night for the first time since the expansion was released and the first thing I did was a /who 70. Didn’t find anybody so I did a /who 69 and found one guy. Went down all the way to /who 65, where I found at least 49 people at that level. I must say the leveling is pretty darn fast. I agree this is probably not addiction, however, I can safely say some of these guys will probably get addicted to this game all over again.
As for me, my parental controls pretty much has forced me to only play fridays and saturdays so regardless if I want to level fast or not, I’ll only be able to level probably a level per week or so (if i put it serious play time). This is a good thing imo since I can count on my guildies to all hit 70 and they will either be able to help me level to 70 :D. This is also a great way to enjoy the pre-endgame content that everyone is trying to rush through to get to end game.
well i think you should all just send me money so i can get my computer up and running and join you then make a guild of neil worshippers
Oh Derek, your antics never get old.