Legion - more addictive than any of the last 2 expansions

I have not played this much WoW since WotLK, I think.

I remember when I first started playing I could easily play for 12 hours a day. Hours and hours doing the PvP battleground grind, or doing dungeons for that druid dungeon set. I remember fishing for stonescale eels in Tanaris to sell for gold and handing in the Yellowtail for the supplies to open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. I could do that for hours.

I had kids back in WotLK and so my time to play was cut back with having to look after toddlers. I still played a lot (16+ hours a week) but nowhere near the 30 hours a week I was playing before kids.

Come Pandaria and WoD there was no urge to login. Even with new content I wasn't spending hours on end on the Timeless Isle or Tanaan Jungle, or even grinding rep. I still did all the content, raided, pet battled, PvP'd but I had felt like I had a good balance to my WoW life and real life.

But Legion is different.

I worry about trying to login and get my world PvP quests done. Towers are great now that they are only once a day. The night time routine was stay up till 2am get the world quest done when it resets. Or go to bed earlier and get up at 6am to do it. Also need to get all your AP quests done. And, I don't want to miss any of the pet battle dailies so I can get my achievement. The app also keeps me glued to  my game, making me plan what world quests I need to do as soon as I logon.

Mythic plus keeps us doing dungeons non stop. I like looking for mythic plus groups in group finder to get more AP, make new friends, and even learn new things! That actually happened to me the other day - I did a Wardens +4 from group finder and they did the did the second boss inside the alcove he stands in for the whole fight. When he teleports away, you just line of sight him and the boss and the adds will come running to you. Made it so easy! You're always facing the stupid eye who stuns you if you don't face it, and you don't have to move around. I was so excited about it that I talked non stop in officer, to my dungeon buddies, basically to anyone who would listen and forced Kyxyn and Aimei to do this strat. I think I talked about it for a WHOLE DAY! And that I learned from a PuG.

And we are still working on bosses in the current tier but there is new stuff coming out! Karazhan is now out and there will be new things to do there, and a new raid (Trial of Valour) will be out in a few weeks, which means more new raids to do.

There has not been so much interesting content like this for a long time. It has made playing WoW so much fun again!

However, it does mean that the addiction factor is up there. And relationships, work, sleep and health can suffer if you don't get a grip on it.

A friend of mine was complaining about their partner, who had moved to a more progression oriented guild. When they weren't raiding 4 hours a night, they were doing mythic dungeons to get AP and work on their keys and gear. The game had never bothered my friend before, in fact, they had been very supportive of it, but now, their time together was suffereing. Date nights were cut short because the player had to raid or do dungeons (or farm) and when they asked for more time for them they were met with anger and told they were being unreasonable. They used to be very supportive of their partner's gameplay but now felt like they were invisible and betrayed. My friend told me that now they hated the game, and they never used to before and the partner had been playing for many many years. The player was now playing 40+ hours a week, as much as a full time job! And the player was loving it. Couldn't be happier.

Before you say "Oh, that person has a problem" I will testify that the game really IS fun. I could also play all day! If I was single, I probably would play all day and eat all my meals in front of the computer.

Kyxyn was playing huge amounts, and is now cutting back since he is on Prestige 4 and exalted with all reps as he wanted to spend more time with his family. Crooked was complaining that he felt a bit overwhelmed just trying to do his AP quests and wondered how all of us who had kids, families, jobs etc found the time to play as much as we did.

It's fortunate as well that our guild is casual and doesn't put the time pressure on players, with raid taking up vast amounts of time and farming for raid mats and doing dungeons making up the rest of the time. I can imagine in a hard core guild that thettime dedication would be more compulsory than what ours is and even though we do play a lot in our guild, there is no feeling of FORCED to play more than say... 4-6 hours a week. Right now I would say I play about 25 hours a week, which is still a significant number, and I still have time to get all my chores done. Though my income tax, BAS, timesheets and tidying of my desk are the things suffering from my playtime. It is true that at the moment I am loving the game more than I've loved it in a long, long time.

I hope my friend's partner comes around and realises that they need balance. Then it would be win win for everyone.




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