I lost several years of my life to WoW.. lots of time grinding for equipment and experience points, only for an expansion to render that time basically worthless. At most, you earn some satisfaction from overcoming a challenge [raid/dungeon] with friends [guild members] for a ungodly amount of time invested.

I played WoW for a long time. I learned over the years, there are different kinds of gamers.

I'll out, try hard, gamers. These people run large organizations of users to do the hardest events that have the best loot. They live eat and breathe the game. They tend not to be too helpful unless you are in their circle of friends.

Try hards that are only in it for the fun. If it becomes work or stressful, it's not fun anymore. They'll move on to something else. These people are the most helpful when doing difficult activities. They have better gear, skills and knowledge then a casual gamer.

Casual gamers, these are people who game for the social interaction, not so much the game itself. A helpful bunch, but with limited skills and drive.

Farmers, these people ruin games. They are in it for the money. Hack and steal, glitch, auction house buyouts, whatever it takes to sell game items, or money, for real money. These people are no help to anyone except their coworkers.

I'm sure there are other types but these comprise the majority of gamers, in my experience.

For the record, Alliance rules and horde drools.

How do you stop an ork from drowning?

Take your foot off his head.

My sister got addicted to online gaming for a while. It was Everquest though. It got really bad for a while. She lost a ton of weight. Blood shot eyes from constantly staring at her screen. She lived and breathed Everquest. Her husband finally manned up and gave her the ultimatum; Get your shit together or he's done. She nearly chose the game but something clicked that made her realize how ridiculous she was being. Now, she refuses to play any video games because she knows she could possibly redevelop an unhealthy habit with it.

Lost friend to Warcraft for years when I was younger. He never would come out of the house anymore to hang out or do anything. After a while even his mom even called me and another friend out of the blue to try and get him out of the house. We went over and tried talking with him. Tried to get him to come shoot pool with us. It's like we weren't even there. He was just zombied out staring at the screen. He was pale as hell and stunk. His mom eventually forced him to join the military and as far as I know he's actually doing well now and starting a family.

Anyway, it's wild to me how addicted people can get to video games. I mean, I play every now and then, especially with my kids, but I can't play for more than an hour before I'm ready to turn it off and do something else.

Luckily I never got into that online mmo gaming. Because one day you're playing a game, then next thing you know you're using reddit and recruiting kids into discord and hoarding funko-pops. I've seen it consume some of my former friends though.