Bye bye World of Warcraft · 8:38pm Jul 10th, 2014
Well, it's done. In a moment of either stark raving lunacy OR once-in-a-decade lucidity, I just deleted all my WoW characters permanently. I think I made the oldest of them during Wrath of the Lich King, around 2009 or so. All that rep, gone. All those transmog outfits, all those weeks spent soloing old raid dungeons, all those sunk costs, abandoned.
I have wasted so many months in that game, performing rote, repetitive tasks to tickle my lizard brain desire to fill bars. And now it's all gone.
*Sits down, takes a deep breath, pours a drink*
It is my fervent hope that I will now, if not actually stop wasting time, then at least waste my time in other, more fulfilling ways. Who knows. Maybe I'll even write more.
(Well, let's not go crazy here.)
Stepping out of Plato's cave, seeing the sunlight for the first time since I was a wee lad,
-Daedelean.
Congratulations! I quit playing around the time Burning Crusade came out, and to this day I still regret ever playing that damned game. Played for two years, was a main tank for my guild in 8 hour,40 man, raids into molten core. Too much time playing that game.
Damn, I could never do that.
The writer I used to edit for dropped out of the fandom when she decided WOW was more fun than fanfic. Good on you for getting out of there.
2272528
when I went back a year later the guild was completely dead.
Thanks. That game is like a drug: it makes you feel good in the short run, and in times of high stress it gets incredibly tempting, but it burrows into your mind and refuses to let go until it turns you into a broken shell of your former self
Early on in Mists of Pandaria I was main tank for my guild. We never got very far in the raids, but when I left to work on my thesis, the entire guild collapsed without me
It is my fervent hope that, now that my characters are all gone, I will be able to resist the temptation to start up again when the next expansion comes out. I may need to find a support group of some sort.
2272556
With World of Warcraft, I rarely regret leaving (and I have left many times). I often regret going back 
I get moods sometimes and decide to just throw away things I spent huge amounts of time collecting or refining
2272618
Talk about your messed-up priorities...
ETA: Oh, hey, you edit ODAM? That's a fun story
2272619 My Everquest characters still exist, let alone my WoW characters.
2272630
On the upside, when the digital archeologists of the future examine the mid-Internet period, you will be enshrined in history.
You know, as much time as I think I've spent (and arguably wasted) on MMOs, I've gained some really close friends over the years because of them. I can only hope that your years spent in the MMO world have netted you the same.
2273256
in my experience, MMO-friendships only last while we're playing together regularly, and have the shared experience of the game to talk about. Once that's gone, those friendships tend to fade away. Maybe that's just me, though: I have a hard time finding close friends at the best of times. Darn Aspergers 
It would be nice if I could say that, but not really
I avoided WoW like the plague from the word "go," because I knew that if I started, I'd never stop. I find alcohol unpalatable, have no interest in smoking, and am terrified by drugs, but when it comes to the Internet, I'm prone to crippling addiction. So I try to channel that addiction into something at least somewhat constructive. Fan fiction, for example.
2274228
But by then it was too late for me, I was already addicted and have played it off and on ever since. I do hope this time sticks.
Very wise of you.
Waaaaay back when the game first came out, almost ten years ago, WoW seemed like a thing that all my old tabletop rpg-playing friends could do together, as we were all moving out of our hometown and spreading across the country.
Our attempts to play together regularly lasted about a month before it became apparent that, rather than the social game it was advertised as, WoW was actually social poison that would chew your interpersonal relationships up and spit them out again broken and dead
2274078 Voice chat helps the whole thing along, from my experience. I don't think I've ever managed to bond with somebody through text in MMOs, but pretty much half of the people I actually talk to are now people that I've know for anywhere from a quarter to half of my life.
2274271
2274228 I avoided Wow from the start as well, but for a slightly different reason. I was already sucked eyebrow deep in Final Fantasy 11 for years along with my brother and father. it got so bad that my mom locked all of us in my room with no technology for a week to break us. I don't even know if my character is still active or not. Thought I sadly couldn't be broken of my rampant internet addiction.