How do you talk to a WoW addict

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How do you deal with a video game addict, especially one who plays WoW and other MMORPG games?

I'm talking about my roommate. Every sunday night he plays WoW and his "guild" goes on "raids". He often starts around 8pm or so and doesn't get done until 4 or 5 am. All the while he keeps me up while I try to sleep with his pounding on the key board, talking to himself, and occasional bout of swearing when things go wrong.

I estimate he spends at least 6-10 hours a day playing MMORPG. During that time he becomes a totally different person, I can't converse with him or ask him anything, he either ignores me or gives me one word answers. When's he not on his computer, he's off at someone elses room playing video games.

And now another thing, I go home on the weekends, and I noticed tonight that my computer bootup was different. Instead of being in hibernate which is what I leave it in when I go home friday, it went straight to boot up. I checked the event log and saw someone had turned on my computer twice, tried to log in over and over but was stopped by the log in password.

My little brother's also a WoW addict. It's become an almost Aspie-like obsession for him even though he's definitely an NT.

This is really sad and I sympathise for him and for you having recently freed myself from the game by myself through sheer force of will and let me tell you it was damn hard. This game was made to be addictive, so the battle will be tough.

A WoW addiction is like any other addiction, and so you need to deal with it similarly. If you haven't already made light of your concerns to him, then do so. Tell him how it is affecting him, then end with how it is affecting you, after which discuss possible short- term solutions (before moving on to long-term ones, which you need to both negotiate).

When you discuss his own health he will most-likely go on the defensive, but will hopefully loosen up as you tell him of how it is affecting you. If he's anything like me, he will tighten up at sympathy, so you need to be hard (but not overly so! as this will close him up as well) and firm in voicing your opinions. Keep your cool, maintain a moderate and patient tone and don't let it turn into a screaming match, as this will taint any further discussion.

Remember, addictions don't go away immediatly or with one chat. You need to stay at it and increase the pressure gradually, taking note of what works and what doesn't. I hope this has been of help and if I can think of anything else I will let you know.

Tell him that he can kiss that monthly fee goodbye if he just abandons the dark side and comes to Guild Wars.

I would weigh the pros and cons of having this kind of disturbance in your life. If he is a roommate and not really a friend, I'd be reluctant to deal with this as an addiction issue. If he's a long time friend, that's another story.

First, do you have any disturbing habits? Loud music? Dates, late night studying/reading/phone calls? Or early morning wake ups? Something that would normally bother him? Because if there is an equal noise issue, you probably should just eat it. How hard is it for you to get a roommate? Are you hard to live with?
About the positives, does he help you with something that would normally bother you or cost you money?
I'd weigh these ideas and see if it's really worth it to approach him. Maybe just bring up the late night yelling and keyboard pounding.
If he can't get into your computer, I wouldn't worry about it, maybe check to see if he isn't trying to interchange parts (keyboards, mouse, etc).

Well, one thing about the game. You're not just playing by yourself. There's a lot of people involved, and you might be fufilling a pretty important role. So it would be kind of rude to just step out in the middle of things. It could in theory ruin things for 49 other people (Raids are 'big').

Mind you I never got quite that far into the game that I was really in one of those.

As far as the aggression goes, look at it this way. Say you're on the phone, and someone just comes up to you and asks you to do something (let's say, reach something). Would that upset you? What about if it keeps happening?

The game really wasn't that absorbing to me.

But, all that being said, it does sound like it's something of a problem. Part of the problem often seems to be that there's "nothing really to do". So you might want to find something to fill that, which is more interesting.


I'd say try to get him into programming. Especially if you can get him spending that kind of time on things. It can be extremely useful, and is great on a resume. Not entirely sure what the best way to go about that is.

I do however know that it's possible to program your own custom user interfaces for World of Warcraft. So that might be a good way to get him into things.


Roleplaying games, the likes of Dungeons and Dragons I think can be fantastic, because it helps with social skills. And I find them MUCH more interesting than video games in general.

I recomend the programming/roleplaying game thing to a lot of people. Because it makes sense given the nature of who we tend to be, and they're useful.


Also. Make sure to encourage your son's 'geekiness'. Maybe they don't really see themselves that way, but it's best to let him be who he is. That, and he should embrace it, and use it to his advantage. There's a real thing against the introverted and the intelligent going on right now, and I think it's important that people not hate themselves. Even when everyone else does

Just tell him the truth: "No matter what you do how hard you work or what you accomplish sooner or later the servers will shut down its all going to be erased and no one will care."

Kinda puts a damper on the whole loot hoarding race to be top of the imaginary social order thing when you know you dont get to keep any of it.