Yes, this may seem like odd news to people, and it may seem rather pathetic. But it's such a burden off my shoulders. You see, for the past 4 years (well, I haven't played in over 5 months), I've been addicted to World of Warcraft. The game svcked my life right out of me, and I feel as if I've made a breakthrough in my life. It was no easy choice, however.

It felt as if I was leaving a best friend. A companion. Someone who has been there for me when no one else was, when I was in very bad and dark points in my life, I always had WoW. I always had my online friends. I always had my amazing character with the best gear you could get. That was my success. That was my victory. But no more. No more will I delude my life and my mind with the mindset of that's all I have. Because it's not all I have.

I recently got engaged, I got my iife on track. As some of you may know, the expansion Mist of Pandaria for WoW was coming out, it came out today in fact. I logged on for the first time in 4 months today. I logged on, sat in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. I watched the hundreds of not thousands of people flying around and talking, and that feeling of "I have got to play this again" sat in. But, I fought it. I said no, I will not do this with my life. I am saving for a MARRIAGE. How could I purposely and habitually decide to play a video game for 5 hours a day again? How can I do this to myself?

The answer is, I cannot. I went to battle.net, disabled my account, made a fake email address and changed my account info, copy and pasted a password I shall never remember into the change password bar, hit enter, and watched as the page loaded saying "password changed!" and tears entered my eyes. I'm free. I can never go back, to my victory. My life ended, yet began, at that moment.

Some might call me pathetic. I call myself a hero. Because I just did what 9 million others cannot do. I know that this thread may seem belittling to those who DO play, and that is not my intention. But for 4 years of my life, four years, this game has enthralled my person and my being to the point of absurdity. I am done. I am moving on. And yes, that's freaking hard, and if you don't know anything about addiction, you don't have any idea what I'm talking about.

To be fair with how the game is set up currently it is possible to start raiding again within a week of deleting your account so a lot of people who have deleted their account have simply found themselves buying a new one. But, it's the mindset that matters good work and good luck I say. I myself quit WoW once to better focus on my college, when I decided to try and come back to the game I did not like the changes so much, the servers felt empty as the community had changed so it didn't have the same appeal as it had always had. Haven't played in a while but I'm considering trying MoP just casually, playing through the quests to see how they've tried to handle the story for the Pandaren and such.

Another one bites the dust. Gaming > marriage.

I think it's good that you got your priorities in order. I know the feeling of coming over an addiction, and I'm glad you get to experience it too. Make sure you don't fall back into the trap though!

shouida sold it, you could of got some decent money.

Feh, how melodramatic. Especially since you left plenty of ways back in. If you were really serious about quitting, you would have deleted every single character on your account first.

I second this, maybe getting some money out of it would've eased the pain a bit?

There is no way back in. I can't get access to my account because I don't know the security questions, password, or email address. I deleted the email. It's impossible to get back unless I physically MAIL my ID to Blizzard. No way around that though, I'd have to change my identity in real life in order to stop that one.

And no, it's not really melodramatic. It's real life.

I found it pretty easy to stop in July 2011 and the Kung Fu Panda expansion really isn't piquing my interest at all. First played in March 2005 - kind of sad and pathetic I can remember almost the exact date.

To me, although I can't speak for others, that isn't sad at all. I remember many dates. I remember the date my guild got the server first kills in TOGC 25 Heroic, the server first "Herald of the Titans", when I got the realm first 80 blacksmith in Wrath, I mean yeah I remember that stuff. But I am just done with that life, because that's what it was. It was a life I lived while my real life decayed around me. Freedom. It feels great.

Many people will make fun of this/poke fun at this, but an addiction to an MMO is just as real as heroine addiction. You need it, you desire it, nothing satiates that lust except IT. It's a drug.

That is not quite true. As a former heavy player myself who spent years on the game having my grades slip and all that I'd still say it comes largely down to a lack of will. I kept at it so much since it was such a great tool to lose the worries of the day in and because most all of my socializing was tied to the game. It's an addiction in its own way but I would still recommend that game to someone just looking to explore a new world and have fun for a little while because while some players will let themselves get lost in the game (like I did at one point) most players are actually very responsible and people comparing the game to heroine sort of gives it a bad name and makes it harder for those that just wanna play for a bit to play without all sorts of drama.

It is important to keep in mind that while MMO's can be addictive one shouldn't demonize them beyond what they are.

I stay away from mmos, I mean I got hooked on Runescape in middleschool....what does that tell you?

Also there just not as fun, and most are just level grinding

I know Extra Credit can be pretentious artsy fartsy hipsters sometimes, but I think they explain it pretty well in this episode:http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-skinner-box

Good going mate, I've done more or less the same but I wasn't in as deep as you.

I just decided to stop playing about 12 months ago, it was far too big a time sink. I've had to get my priorities straight and focus on things that are actually important, things that will benefit my actual life.