How Bad Is Your DCUO Addiction?

So, my laptop finally died. It was so bad, that my touch screen was shot on the left side where I must have had a gel pack or something in the screen burst when I was trying to clean it a few months back. I had that hooked up to my kid's small television to use as a separate screen. Other than that, the thing worked. But it was creepin along, getting slower & slower, so much that I knew the end was coming. I sensed it, but I wanted to stretch it out as long as I could. A couple of nights ago, I didn't even have the game running. I was doing something very simple on my computer. I was trying to delete a file. And it was taking forever to do it. So I did a hard reboot. And Windows would not boot up. The log in screen just would not come up. Tried to run a few repairs or restarts, but to no avail.

The mother board finally checked out. Rest in peace, you Dell piece of junk!




And its funny, I was coming up on the end of my current membership, hoping to renew. My league was SO CLOSE to getting league hall. And I had just started recruiting too. The one person that joined was looking for an active league. I had to get a message out to her to let her know what was going on. (Thanks again, Proxy.) I just wasn't sure when I'd be able to come back. Its going to be at least a few months before I can get another laptop. (My wife was like, its going to cost this much for a new mother board and a power supply. I was like, the screen is screwed. Might as well get a new one at this point.)

So here I am, two days later, and I'm back on DCUO. What did I have to do to get here? Take over my son's laptop. Which is thicker, older, and INSANELY slower than mine was/is. It runs on Windows 7 or 8, I don't remember. The game works well enough, it loads and runs. But just slower than it did before. Meaning I have to have a lot more patience with it. Moving gingerly through crowded areas like central hub. Let the area around me develop first before going too far. At one point, I approached the hanger in WT from the tech wing, and I was looking out into space. It took a couple of seconds for the hanger to form so that I could enter, lol. I mean, I may be able to get on and socialize in chat, but running actual content may be pushing it. I ran the stabilizer duo, and by the time my toon appeared and was ready to go, the other person had already gone forward, activated the door, and went inside.

So my question for you all, for the point of this thread, is how bad your addiction is. Is it bad enough that you would take the steps that I did just to come back? Where you would think that your PC or console taking a dump on ya would be a way to have a break, to go on a vacation from the game. To make you go outside and see the sun again. To make you realize what day of the week it is. It took nearly 24 HOURS to install the game on this laptop last night, its that slow. During the entire time, I had to let the install go by itself, not run ANYTHING in the background, or it would be "not responding." I would close the launcher out, and restart it, and thankfully it wouldn't completely start over but go back to where it left off. Is it bad enough that you would get on a slow PC or decrepit system just so you could come back? Apparently it is that way for me. Maybe I need a...

Tl;dr

Oh shut up!

Hmm...

Not as bad as Jane's Addiction!

Back when I was a student, my Laptop died. A league mate said he had a good laptop but wasn't using him anymore since he got a new one and a regular pc. So he sent me his old but still good one via Express Shipping (same country though).
This is one of the nicest and most awesome support I have ever had in my MMO days. League mate helping me out with a laptop.

Then, half a year later, shortly before xmas, the graphics chip on the new laptop died. I sent it to my league leader since he had way more knowledge with that kind of stuff and was offering help. As I was a student, money was rare and so I gladly took his help.
It didn't work really, GPU chip was dead. What worked though was the integrated CPU graphics thingy (or so I was told).
Long story short, my resolution ingame for the next six months was 640x480 and every 30 minutes I needed to close the game and restart it since the graphics storage was full. Way to play raids

Fortunately, when I finished university, I could afford my first own computer. Nowadays, I would probably express order replacements for my computer if something would break

It used to be really bad at some point, but not anymore
It is kinda relieving when you are not hooked to something. Let it be drugs, tobacco, DCUO or other harmful things to your health.

Obviously your not modding enough Defense.

If you're on a laptop just take it outside and get some sun too and with it loading that slow you'll be getting plenty oh sun haha

I got laid off from an old job like 6 1/2 years back and played nonstop while collecting unemployment and looking for a new job. My wife and I were a lot younger then and only had the one system. We played our toons in shifts, like every three hours we would reluctantly pass the controller back and forth while we switched between our toons. This would go on every day for months, lol. When I got my now current job not long after, this lasted a little while and we left around the time the capsules hit (with frequent breaks in between). We came back with two systems and separate accounts, had a blast until we caught up her toons with sp and gear on her new system and remembered why we quit in the first place.

Still nice to check the forum, it’s a way of holding on without having to actually play. Been like 5 months since we played this time and have moved on to other games. Maybe we’ll come back, maybe not. Was a great time back then though.

tbh - you sound like you’ve a serious issue. I actually read something probably about a week ago, about a guy who lost his home, wife and job due to his addiction to an online game. He’d stop eating at work and spending money for petrol, clothes, to take his kids out, his wife anywhere. Stopped doing anything with his family and friends,and cleared out his savings. He only realised how bad it had become when he had a medical issue that he didn’t have the money to cover. All so he could open up chests (TC’s in this game)

I’ve seen people typing on this game in group and some league chats that they were starving, and had spent all their money for food on this game. Trying to laugh it off as not that serious. People spending rent money etc too.

Online gaming should be subject to gambling regulations. Companies should be forced to inform a customer how much they’ve spent in a month; so they could see it as a whole. If the company won’t - banks should inform or restrict to x amount per week etc on gaming. People pay insane money into these games under the illusion that they’re achieving something.

Obviously you’re not at this point - but it seems like you have become very dependant on this game - more for social reasons. You may wanna look at that tbh. I’d suggest taking a serious break from this game. People may not see it as harmful - but this, and other companies that are based around “micro-transactions” would bleed a customer to the last penny without contacting the customer to inform them about their spending. They have no concern whatsoever.

I appreciate your concern, but its not as bad or as far as one might think. I'm not spending a massive amount of cash on the game. I maintain my membership monthly, or on a 3 month if I can do it. I don't spend any other money on the game like on DB cash bundles. The other points I made in my post were exaggerations or generalizations. Trust me, my wife manages the money in our household and if there is money for the subscription, that is because she works it out. Other than that, that is all of our money that goes into it. My question or point with the thread was simple. At what lengths do people go to continue to play this game, if they are in a situation where they can't play it, such as technical obstacles. Mine was that my regular PC died and I got onto a slower laptop to continue playing.

My addiction to this game was on another level when I was playing. This game was my life and my main priority. If I needed more Replay Badges/Stabilisers, I made sure I got them somehow, no matter the cost. If I needed more time to raid or hunt feats, I made sure I got it somehow, usually by sacrificing sleep, family and friends. Everything in my life revolved around DCUO. It's why I made the very difficult choice to force myself away from it when I had to start taking some big and important steps in my life. I no longer play but I still think about it all the time and pop onto the forums here and there even though I shouldn't and have no reason to. It's been difficult moving on, but I'm happy to say that my life has significantly improved since doing so.

I'm addict. I can admit it. The recent months spent more and more money.
This game saved my life in my darkest deepest times (I suffer from depression)
Part of me saying It's wrong to spend so much, the other part says "You support what
you love". Like this is going to get me anywhere. (I'm trying to force myself to spend less
by playing less when it gets worse). I actually limited myself to how many hours I can play\
and the amount of money I can spend next to my membership. I try not to get above 45$
which is also a lot. Part of me is really scared that my support for the game won't be showing
if I don't spend a lot (I support the game but when I see something I disagree with I voice my opinion)
and the other one fears that in two years or so I will have to say goodbye to DCUO because it won't
be around so I try to spend as much as time as possible with the game. Me and my friends discussed it
and honestly it got me more depressed to think that. Anyhow, here's my story. If that's also explains
my behavior on the forums in times.

My DCUO addiction is eh.

The amount of hours and investment I put into the game back then compared to now.... Just yeah...

DCUO for me nowadays is log in, run raid, log back off in a very casual fashion.


It's not really the game's fault either, it's just for me... It's either I need to find a league or spend more time looking to form groups for content than actually playing the game and I don't feel like bothering with either of those options most of the time.

I know, I know. The end-game content hasn't really had this issue, but the thing is... when your done running end-game stuff... you either go on an alt, or just stop for the day.

It was bad. To the point I couldn't take a break longer than a couple of weeks. I had to stop recently because of the amount of money I was putting into the game, it got worse since I got a new job with much better pay.

This game had me for 7 years though, met a lot of good people on it, lots of memories both good and bad. I still like coming here to read patch notes and people bickering, but as far as being addicted, that's over.

Ok.. on a more serious note, I used to be that way about Everquest; it was called Evercrack and Neversleep for a reason. I had to pull back from the game when I moved and I could no longer afford the time or money to upgrade my computer. *Sigh* I miss those days when it was very cheap or free to get parts for upgrades. Nowadays, I log into that game a couple times a week when I have set aside some time, because that game can still suck a lot of time away.

As far as DCUO, I commit only a certain amount of time and money to this game as well, and I play on the console. Although I love PC games, I have limited the amount of large games I have on my Dell desktop; I want to keep my graphics card/motherboard running as long as possible. I still have my former desktop (HP Media Center PC) tucked away in one of my closets. I would still be using it if Microsoft still supported Windows XP; the machine itself is in great shape and has quite a few large games on it.

To the OP: perhaps you should consider investing in a desktop in the future; desktops are easier to upgrade, maintain, and last a lot longer for the same amount of money you would spend on a laptop.

If you can go onto these forums, read about the many elements of the game, the many changes & additions, and not feel the need to download or log into the game, then you have successfully broken the addiction and are to be commended. Respect! At least in your case, based on what you said. Some people can handle this game and not let it run their lives, and yet still make the time to play and enjoy it.

I'll agree that addiction is an issue for people. I disagree that we need the government to step in, like someone's parent, and regulate their problems. That's like saying they should regulate how much we eat at McDonalds because someone cant stay away from the supersize.

Same here. This past year I've taken more breaks, and probably not coming back.

I do miss the old days from year one thru year four. The leagues I was in and the people I've meet over the years have become friends outside of DCUO. That's my plus from this game. I never got sucked into the TC thing. Was funny to watch. Replays and power change tokens were my drug for the first year or so they were released.