This is my thought/question regarding one of the most replied to threads in the curse-wow forums "So You Think You Can Beat My Time Played?" or something to that affect. Am I the only person that finds the testimonials in that thread disturbing. Extremely disturbing? I love the game and have played since the beginning but there are countless people replying to this thread proclaiming 350+ days of time played (At the time of its post). I don't even know how to feel about this except....disturbed.

Lets put this into perspective. On November 23rd (which is my guess for the Wotlk release) WoW will have its 4th birthday. It will be approximately 1460 days old. Now lets say a player has 400 days of time played by November 23rd, 2008. That is 9600 hours of playing WoW. Let's divide give everyone the benefit of the doubt and hope that they started playing day 1.

So this 400+ day person has played: 9600 hours/1460 days.

This approximately equals 6.6 hours of wow every single day; Monday-Sunday, including holidays for 6.6 hours per day. This is a "best" case scenario. Just imagine if they had not started playing day 1...

Lets all hope they don't have children or families or pets or any basic human needs. Do they have jobs? Do they go to school?

Imagine this person had a full time job but didn't have any of the above mentioned things and began playing to not be bored in life. I understand. Gotta do something right? Lets say his best friend has all the same life variables but instead of playing wow picked up a second job. Now I know it would be impossible to work everyday for 4 years but lets just assume for fun that time is money. His measly second job paying 10$/hr for 9600 has earned him $96,000 pre-tax. Had I more time to spare I would have been more precise with the example; taxed it, removed weekends and holidays etc. But I don't. I just wanted to share this observation and ask: What does this say about the supposed 16,000,000 subscribers (can this number be right?) and our wowmania. Is WoW a form of prozium? (Movie reference) Does it keep us from living, feeling and enjoying life with others in the "real" world?

What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

Your math is off but your thoughts about how much people play are right on. Get out and breath some fresh air :)

4 years @ 365 days = 1460 days
1460 days @ 24 hours = 35040 hours that WoW has been active (give or take)

using 350 days from your example:
350 days @ 24 hours = 8400 hours played

now we take the 35040 hours up time and divide that by the players played time:
35040 / 8400 = 4.171 hours played per day since WoW has been up.

Even if you made the weekends double time @ 8 hours each weekend day / night you still have over 12 hours left over to spread out over the rest of the week. No life outside WoW on the weekends and playing 2 to 3 hours per night, every night, during the week.

Wish I had that kind of free time :)

x^2+x+1=0
x^2=-x-1
x=-1-1/x
substitute
x^2+(-1-1/x)+1=0
x^2+(-1/x)=0
x^2=1/x
x^3=1
x=1
substitute 1 into the 1st equation...
1^2+1+1=0

Doesn't that mean 3=0?

I'm confused

The difference between someone who has played 350 days and 400 days is huge. In order to have 50 more days of gameplay between now and the end of November one must play for 13+ hours a day!

2088 = # of hours between today and November 24
1200 = # of hours of extra gameplay between 350 and 400 days
1200 / 2088 = 0.5747... days of playtime per day needed to play 50 more days
.58x24 = 13.79 hrs per day!

Again, your ideas are sound, but math is a bit exaggerative.

http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/leisure.htm

According to the above U.S. Department of Labor web site, the average American spends 2.6 hours a day watching TV.

So, which is more disturbing?

I have a fulltime job-50 hours a week- , am in a sports team that trains one night a week and plays a game once every fortnight.
I have a partner and several close friends,
i maintain a social life and a tan, see my parents fairly regularly and i like to get drunk occasionally.
ive played at least 25-35 hours a week, give or take *minus a month of not playing in the middle* since WoW was released.
Dunno what that equates to but id say its alot of hours.
im happy and healthy. *according to my docter*
Alot of *average* people i know play WoW and live a normal life like me.
Its not really that fantastic.

i remember camping Raster for my monk eppic for 3 days, in the glory days of everquest. or standing in line for the 1.0 cleric eppic for 2 days. i called in sick to work. i had my son relive me when he got home from school. he watched my monitor while playing his pc and i got a quick cat nap. looking back on it now guess i was sicker than i thought.

Ah yes.. I remember the days of Evercrack.. The long camping waits were mitigated by our server counsel. Every boss that was on a longer than 24 hour timer was scheduled for each guild to attempt. Yes some upstart guilds tried to mess up the rotation from time to time, but we all seemed to understand that everyone would get a shot at stuff eventually. Sadly my server is gone, my 70+ shaman gone to the plane of tranquility never to return

@twwalker

"""
x^2+x+1=0
x^2=-x-1
x=-1-1/x
substitute
x^2+(-1-1/x)+1=0
x^2+(-1/x)=0
x^2=1/x
x^3=1
x=1
substitute 1 into the 1st equation...
1^2+1+1=0

Doesn't that mean 3=0?

I'm confused
"""

Only if you assume that x = 1 in your equation ;P

You didn't factor in maintenance