Dude, how the hell did you get a Lv99 Red Mage? The max lvl is only Lv75. Only the GMs are Lv99 on FFXI. And look at my signature for my character's jobs. I lvl all of them; they aren't that hard. Sure I blew through a bit of gil, but it's worth it because I'm getting what I paid for in the game. There's no legendary dragons; there are God Monsters. I got Summoner; wasn't that hard to get the drop. Only 2 hours with the help of a Galkan Dark Knight friend. I had subbed Warrior Lv30 with Thief Lv15 with Treasure Hunter job ability. I don't have anything past Lv30 because I need to get all my jobs evened up so they can use the same gear, which saves room and money. I've been playing since 2003, so I don't care how long it takes me to play. I casually play FFXI at the time. All my friends know that too.

EDIT added with bold and italics: You should have seen my 'friends' at college. One smelt like dead carrion EVERY DAY. One was seriously overweight. One kid developed some sort of mental illness and spoke jibberish (WoW lingo) all the time. And one boy actually saved his sanity by realizing that the game was stupid and school was more important.

In my opinion, the game is called World of ToonCraft; the whole game looks like some weird cartoon. Plus I think the game is unrealistic when it comes to the character models. The FFXI monsters even give me nightmares at times. I remember trying to solo Shiva Prime one time and got bitched slapped and killed in one hit. I didn't realize I was fighting her when she was Lv65+ and my Summoner was Lv20, only to be killed and deleveled. I couldn't go to sleep after fighting her; I got so worked up on beating her. Then I realized you trade the tuning fork to the Protocrystal to fight her when she's Lv20 (capped) and you don't lose any exp.

Dragoon and Blue Mage eat babies, though.

Enjoy it, it certainly will keep you entertained for along time

I was sort of addicted to WoW. I played for a total of 7 or 9 days, not sure, over a year. I thought that was a lot. All my friends were playing, so it was kind of a social thing. I stopped 2 years ago or so now. All my former friends are still playing. They're all below average at school, and don't have a lot of friends anymore.

I stopped playing because of something bad too. I had decided to quit, but played for 2 more weeks (out my subscription) when one of my best friends hacked me, took over the character and changed everything. Now he is playing as my char. It gets worse than that. Now he refuses even to talk to me. Because he's still afraid I'm going to try to take my account back, which I anyway couldn't since I stopped before the expansion which he has installed on my player (or something)

A year and a half age, another friend started playing. He didn't show up at a mock-exam and fell from 5 (B) to 3 (D) in English. That made his average drop just enough not to get into the school he wanted to (he is 2 years older than me). That is really sad. I have lost all touch with him too...

But hey, some people manage to do just fine. If you have an addictive personality, make sure to install some things that will prevent you from playing way too much.

A part of me really wants to play it but another part of me knows that my life will disapear, i have a very addictive personality.

People who decide to start playing WoW now remind me of people who start smoking. They've heard the horror stories and how addictive it is but try it anyways.

If you're like me, you'll get bored of WoW in the first three minutes.

If not, good bye. See you next year, or more.

Fantastic game, FFXI sucks. I quit the game awhile back, but every now and then I take the dive. Back in the day I had like 8 friends of mine playing. I didn't have a choice, I had to play.

My bro got it to and now he wants me to join him...

There is a key difference I think.

Most people already had good or decent health prior to smoking so smoking can actually damage that.

I wonder how many people who play extreme amounts of WoW actually had a social life prior to it worth damaging.

I personally know one person who actually did have a fully vibrant social life (sports, organizational ties, friends) before WoW caused him to drop off the face of the Earth but I tend to think of him as the exception rather than the rule.

In line with my above thoughts, I think there should be social Darwin Awards for people who play WoW.