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You can go all your life without it, never even desire it, but in a moment of curiosity, try it once, and you're hooked, and probably not in a good way.
I've never actually played WoW, but I have acquaintances who do or did. It's a decent idea and an excellent game in and of itself, but there are problems that have developed with it, in part due to its popularity. I've been addicted to individual games at times, going without sleep and food to finish a quest or finally defeat that boss, but never in my born days had I even imagined I'd see someone effectively quit their job over a game. A guy I sorta knew scheduled vacation time around a major to-do within the WoW universe, but for some reason the to-do was rescheduled by a few days, which put it outside his vacation period. He tried to reschedule the vacation, but he couldn't because it was less than a week before it was to begin and someone else in his department already had that time scheduled. He tried to trade, but that didn't work, so he just quit. Note that this wasn't a Wal-Mart greeter type job. He had benefits, and he just threw it away so he could play.
WoW has incorporated certain element of modern society and politics into its gaming universe. There's a controversy now over gay-bashing and the attempted creation of a gay-friendly guild/league. (This had less to do with the potential members sexual orientation than it did an agreement among those members not to spend half their time telling bad gay jokes.) There's also a really bizarre phenomenon develop involving selling for real money rare treasures characters find on eBay and other auction sites. This is considered cheating by some, stupid by others, and just another legal exploit of the system by still others. The point here is that if you want to get away with what happened to your Civ3 group, WoW probably isn't the way to go.
Anyway, I know, not really what you asked. I'm replying more because I can relate to your situation than because I have much advice to give. The era of good turn based strategy seems to have past us, at least for the moment. Too many gamers are awed by shiny graphics for their own sake, and that seems to be what a lot of the focus has been on gaming lately. I, personally, haven't found a game I truly love since the Baldur's Gate series, which I still play semi-regularly since a community still exists that supports it and builds new mods for it. It's 2d, turn based, sword and sorcery adventure with a sense of humor and style that requires attention be paid to strategy, tactics, and diplomacy, and I can't get enough of it.
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