/rant

Okay, so today I'm gonna write about the phenomen WoW is to a normal, sane person that never experienced serious gaming before. Lots of people have, at one point or another, had the struggle that World of Warcraft was carrying them away. Basically, the situation looks like this: your girlfriend starts complaining you're wasting your time and not focusing on her, and it might actually go much further than that (just check some youtube videos which are made for fun, but still); ravaging parents on their battlemarsh against computer gaming which glues you to the computer and ruins your future careeer, or any other friend telling you you're wasting your life and you'd be better be ff joining them in getting drunk the 721th time.

Now I've experienced all of those situations (well, except the girlfriend part tehee), and I'm fed of people comparing computer games to an addiction, social problem, waste of time or anything partially related to "you're ruining your life" sentence. Computer games are games indeed, but they're much more.

I don't say the general public view doesn't have a grain of truth in there... Definately there are many people who start doing this stuff and can never end, they lose al creativity and initiative they had and become "hooked". The real problem, however, is that those individuals have mostly been unwilling, unenthusiast, uncreative and jerky before starting playing. I know couple of such cases myself, and it's not a game problem. It's like if someone's depressed and falls into drug business, and we blame ONLY drugs for that. What about society that refused and depressed this man, what about his environment?

On the other hand, individuals that are constructive, initiative and productive won't start their downfall after picking up gaming. Now I agree there are many hobbies out there that are awesome as well, and it's common perception they're better than gaming, but besides sports, I think not (sports are first choice because they provide healthy life, calm your mind down, give self-respect and provide others with an idea you care a bit about yourself - that's of course my opinion). Other than that, EVERY HOBBY IS A WASTE OF TIME in that light! "Sorry mum, I know playing computer games will not help me in my future career, but playing the flute will!?? Or oh yeah, sorry, forgot that collecting stamps is so productive! I feel so enlightened after giving half of my income for a piece of paper.."
From what I hear, girlfriends would also rather see us lying on couch than playing computer games. I just don't see how folks can still, in 21th century, got such views, even now computer games are actually becoming mainstream. For those of you that don't know, computer game industry earns more in one year than Holywood and music industry together.

And I, and I know a great deal of others, are not brainless zombies who stare into monitor 24/7 (well, we do) and pour money into great corporations, but we learn a great deal of things. As any hobby, we do stuff with our heart. Believe me that every computer game player, in the end, does it because he likes it. Even those for whom WoW becomes second jobt. Even if it's all zeroes and ones in the end.

I'll give you my example: Since getting into high school, I've started having more interest in computers in general. After playing Thief and getting hooked with it for a time, I joined a team of fans with an idea to make our custom campaign. And I did some level designing with Unreal3Ed, while also experimenting a bit with Milkshape (now old) and 3D Studio Max. Frankly, I lost interest, but I do know how those things work now very well. Later on, I was also fiddling with composing some music, although I found out pretty soon I'm not a virtuose :). During Warcraft era (strategy game) I learned how to skin and how textures work.
Then came the WoW era. Obviously, first months it was just playing and having fun. But before getting to 60 I started using addons. It was not until level 70 that I really realized the potential WoW had to hook you up, not just about playing the game but about socialising as well. I continued to use addons, and at the end of last year, started to learn LUA programming language a bit, connecting it with XML. Last year I've also been filming some thingies in WoW and started fiddling with film editing, using program Sony Vegas. I'm also thinking about joining an open source project that's basically a program that calculates everything that can in WoW conserning your characters. With former co-worker we might also start doing a new portal for our guild.
Also playing in a pure english environment for 3 years definately makes sure your english never rusts and you learn many new things.

I know if I've been working in this sphere I'd learn more, but for a hobby, this is damn lot! Now how on Earth is watching movies/series, hanging out randomly, wasting time doing nothing, oversleeping, drinking or going into fitness more productive??? Tell me, please, because I don't know. The only reason those activities are (or so they say) better is that you socialize, but people with their right mind won't have a problem with that if they're spending their time in front of the computer or not! And I'd pick 2 hours of WoW over 2 hours of Facebook (which I consider a waste of time!) any time you want.