[Xist]

People used to call World of Warcraft "Warcrack." The other day the news compared Fortnight to cocaine.

Some years ago Blizzard, the creators of WoW, decided that the only way to beat the gold sellers was at their own game, so if you want gold, you can indirectly buy it from another player. You can also use gold to pay for game time and in-game services. They made a marketplace so the dollar value of gold varies with supply and demand.

I do not spend much time trying to gather gold, although I regularly try to sell things to other players on the auction house.

I have been able to pay for a significant fraction of my WoW expenses with in-game currency.

If you are in-game and type /played it tells you how many days you have played that character. I added up the /played time on all of my characters and reached the numbers that I shared before.

I do not have any idea how to put a dollar figure on any of my characters. I would not have any idea how to simply buy equipment as good as what my main character has, which does not compare with the dedicated players. I could buy $50 worth of gold to get the best gear available on the auction house, but either I would need to earn many upgrades or pay a well-equipped group to run me through raids and mythic dungeons.

I started playing when the first expansion pack came out. My guildmates chipped in and bought the pack for me and I started raiding with them. That was three or four nights a week and I guess that we were not very good. There were nights that we kept failing and people started leaving the raid because it was too late.

That felt like a full-time job, but if it was four five-hour nights then obviously our hobby was a part-time job, but I needed to earn gold for repairs, and since my equipment was inadequate, I was trying to find special food, arrows, potions, etc. If I wanted to work on anything myself it was on top of that.

I have hardly raided since. In fact, I have only done a handful of dungeons in the last year. I regularly join a group for one boss or event, but it is not intense and time-consuming like raiding. It can be great to work together with a diverse team, learn strategy, overcome obstacles, and complete a challenging task, but I do not have the time for it.