For those who don't know, World of Warcraft (or WoW as I shall refer to it as from here) is an MMORPG.

That is to say, a "massively multiplayer online role playing game!"

I started playing at the very beginning, and was amazed to be quite frank. Here was a game that to me was a total breath of fresh air. You could explore, meet people, create items, trade with other players, even just wave to them if you liked.

You initially choose a character race, human, orc, the usual fatasy fare, a class, like a warrior, mage (wizard) or rogue (thief) then design your characters looks.

After this you are thrown out into the world (of Warcraft) and are set loose to make your fame and fortune. Well, not quite yet. You see, at the start you aren't very powerful, and if you were to just go running off into the wilderness, there are plenty of nasty things lurking to help you meet your maker. But it appears that one of the locals need 8 wolves killing to protect his flock, and in return he will give you a few coins and a shiny new dagger/sword/meat tenderiser etc.

And so it begins, and so it doesn't really change that much, and so you get sucked in gently to the go here, kill this, get slightly better reward than before game play.

I must admit though, it always looked beautiful whilst herding me in a direction. And if careful, there was some exploring to do, multiple paths to travel and above all, it was great fun!

As it turns out, a group of my friends were also playing, so we decided to group together in the game and create what is referred to as a guild. This is a group of like-minded people who enjoy gaming together. This happy go lucky collection of people, who incidentally started seeing more of each other online in the game than down the clubs and pubs in real life, started to grow. Ten became fifty became eventually 200.

And here is where it started to go wrong for me. Have you ever tried keeping 200 guys and gals, all different ages, some kids, some over 60 years old, and from all over the world happy?

No? Then please take my word for it. It ain't fun! No, that's a lie, it was fun, some of the time. Most of the time it felt less like playing a game and more like a full time job...

Now, to my mind if something stops being fun, you stop doing it where there is a choice. So, why didn't I quit?

Because as hard as it was sometimes with all those people, at times it was better than my real life.

Ouch. Hurts to even say it now, but it's true. My real life was a spiralling depression caused by debt caused by depression and on and on. In the really real world, I had no money, a crap job, stress, debt, the whole gamut. However, in the game I was Rodimus, fiercest of the guild's hunters, leader of raids into enemy territory, rich beyond imagination, feared by his enemies, revered by his peers. I was the business.

"But" I hear you cry, "it was never real."

I know that now, and I knew that then, but it didn't matter. You see games of any kind are fantasy, escapism, they let you be something or someone that you aren't. What I was doing was escaping from one world to another.

Trouble is, of course I was becoming more depressed in the real world, more unhealthy from 8 hours at the keyboard and missing days off work. I was out of control. The only way to deal with it was cold turkey. I finally quit with my wife's help. I was an addict, and she treated me as such.

These games have come in for a lot of criticism for creating an addiction. This is an unfair accusation. If it wasn't Warcraft, it would have been ANYTHING else to fill the void. Drink, drugs, who knows what else? The games do not create addicts in the same way that alcohol does not create addicts, unless it is misused. (Ooh, controversial).

Now I am a fully fledged member of the human race again, and I go outside (sometimes)! I look back on those days and thank God that I came through it. Maybe the game actually helped me in a way, maybe I am still here because of it in some small way. I don't know.

I do know without my wife there would be no Zakmoonbeam sharing his thoughts with you good people, so the lions share must lay with her.

After a long break, I still play very occasionally now, maybe once or twice every few months. The draw is not there any more for me, its not the same game, not the same place, and not even the same faces. Looks like many of my buddies have gone back to the pubs and clubs they used to love so much and are also enjoying reality once again.