Quit WOW for a while...

I quit WOW... I was nominated for a guild officer-ship, which was an honor, but helped me to realize how much time I was spending in the game.

It was hard as I finally hit level 60 (The highest level) which is a requirement for all the end game content, viewed by many to be the best part of the game. Unfortunately it is also the most time consuming as quests and missions require 20-40 people to get together at one time to do them. This forces you into a certain schedule, up to 6 days a week 5 hours a day (Some professional guilds, yes, professional guilds raid 8 hours a day 5 days a week and between 12-14 hrs on weekends). This may or may not include time spent in game getting "consumables," items needed to put together potions or items that improve player performance in order to succeed in a particular mission or quest. I lay all this out to describe, in part a culture that has some participants, whose existence is greater in the game than it is in real life. This begs an interesting evangelistic question," How do you preach the Gospel to people so involved in a virtual reality?"

The religion in game is based on Light and Shadow, with demons and deities having a hierarchical relationship of superiority, traditionally determined by a cataclysmic showdown of force. There is no agape, no Christ in game. And while role playing is not a requirement, the constant saturation in pseudo-plot causes the mechanics and story to invade your consciousness. You may not "become" your character as you would in something much more insidious like Dungeons and Dragon's, but there remains an indelible imprint on some element of whatever you choose to call you, be it your soul or ego or consciousness.

I know some of my readers, either have played or continue to play WOW and I would like to hear what they have to say as well as those who observe players from a removed standpoint... Basically DISCUSS!