Breakfast topic: Has WoW had a positive or negative impact on your life?
There's a fairly familiar troll thread on the WoW Europe forums -- the usual "people who play WoW are wasting their lives" spiel. "I am worried that people are, and will, lose the best years of their real life to WoW," writes Anti. "... In my experience, between 18-21 are the best years of your life, partying, girls, going mad, you get the idea...those years can never be replaced ... Most people WILL look back at some stage in their lives and regret the real life they threw away to play Warcraft. And if they dont think it was wasted time, and still regard it as time well spent, their present life at that time must be sad."
The thread has a lot of responses, from people regretting the time they've spent in WoW to celebrating that they didn't waste their youth drinking and partying. So that inspires me to ask: Overall, has WoW been a positive or negative force in your life? Do you regret the time you've spent on WoW, or consider it a good investment?
I've been playing WoW for two years now, and I don't really regret the time I've spent on it. I don't neglect my real-life responsibilities to play, I haven't become a lump attached to a keyboard, and in many ways, WoW has actually enhanced my real life. I've met tons of people who I would never have occasion to meet out in the world. I visited a new city to meet some guildmates, and liked it so much that I ended up moving here. WoW helped me get a writing job and opened up new career opportunities. Heck, WoW even helped me learn French, although most of what I learned was raid instructions and curse words. Sure, I sometimes get scared when I realize my /played on all my characters is in the triple digits, but if I hadn't played WoW, I would have just watched TV or stared at the ceiling.
What about you? Has WoW been a good thing or a bad thing for you?
