How to Quit World of Warcraft

As some of you already know, it’s over.

It was robbing me of my life, my sleep, my creative energy.  True, I played much less than most WoW addicts probably do – something like 10-15 hours a week – but that was 10-15 hours a week that could have been spent in so many better ways.

I finally got sick of its presence in my life, and I got rid of it, for GOOD.  It’s been several weeks since that fateful night, and, while I occasionally get wistful about tradechat leetspeak, I do not regret my decision in the slightest.

One of the things that makes World of Warcraft such a dangerous game to get into is that it is difficult to truly quit, even if you commit to doing so.

Stop paying for you account?  Your characters are still saved – forever- waiting for you to reactivate it.

Delete your characters?  All you have to do is email Blizzard (WoW’s parent company) in a moment of weakness and ask for your babies back, and they will be restored with all their old gear, etc.  And with the hundreds of hours that you put into those “toons,” it’s a big relief to get them back again!

Oh, but I’ll just play a little bit.  I’ll only play on the weekends, okay?  Oh, and Friday nights, cuz I can stay up late.  Oh, well my guild raids Tuesday and Thursday nights – that’s not a big deal, right?  And then I’ll use the weekends to level my alts!

Suddenly, you’re right back where you started.

So here is a step-by-step guide to quitting World of Warcraft FOR REAL.  Do it while you have the guts, and don’t look back!

1.  Take all your auctions off the Auction House.  Vendor everything, or mail it to a friend.

2. Take everything out of your bank.  Vendor or mail to a friend.

3. Vendor or mail everything in your bags.  Then vendor your bags.

4. I know this one makes you want to throw up, but vendor your gear.  Do it!  The real world misses you!

5. Now you have a bunch of gold, right?  Either mail it all to a friend, or give it away on trade chat to the first person who whispers you.

6. Delete your naked, broke character, and take a moment to cry.

Repeat until all characters have been systematically stripped and destroyed.

Now, I haven’t actually tried emailing Blizzard to get my toons back, but I can’t imagine that they would agree to it.  Because, I mean, come on, if they were that lenient, you could make thousands of gold pretty darn fast that way!  Just liquidate everything on a toon, send it all to a trusted friend, then get it all back from Blizzard and split your profits!

I’m so glad I made this decision, though occasionally I still have pangs of sadness for my dear sweet banker, Jezabella, whom I had dressed in thousands of gold in vanity gear, including the Noble’s Elementium Signet and a Sharpened Letter Opener with +22 intellect.  She was becoming a real economic power on my server!

But you know what?  At the same time, she wasn’t becoming anything.  She was just pixels and bytes.  Because it is JUST. A. GAME.

Good luck, and be brave!  The real world misses you!

P.S.  If you are a WoW Widow, keep all this in mind for those times that you husband says “Oh, yeah, I’ll quit!  See, I’m cancelling my account right now!”  Unless he does everything outlined here, he still has an out, so don’t break down in sobbing “thank you”s just yet!