Decisions, decisions...

I can't say I know much about the job market situation, but if what your parents say about a degree is true (all sounds logical), then I would make it a priority to get a degree. If you have a good job right now, that you enjoy, that's a very rare thing as well - something you don't want to give up. I'd try to cut WoW out (to me, it seems like a large amount of time for relatively little enjoyment - yeah, its nice when you get whatever accomplishment you were going for, but it's just too much time invested. Buy a fast-paced non-MMORPG game, and get immediate satisfaction, if you're looking for something to dump a bit of spare time into - there's no obligation like there is in wow. You miss a day - you haven't "lost" anything.  Don't take more classes. Yeah, you'll take longer to finish your degree - but you'll have less stress building up, and you'll still have the job you enjoy with a moderate amount of time. If possible, you might consider taking less courses (not really sure how many you took).

Basically, your situation right now is building up too much stress for you to comfortably handle. You don't want to cut hours working, so you're left with three mentioned things: WoW, school, and working out. Working out is often a stress relief, not to mention good for health, so we don't want to cut that out. WoW, while moderately enjoyable, is also often stressful. School, while stressful, offers a significant benefit to it's completion - more money and job security later. You have a trade off with more hours at school: more stress, but more money and done with it sooner. Since you're apparently not worried about the more money part very soon (not going to get married, etc), I'd take that down a notch. But WoW doesn't really have all that much going for it - I dunno, you might find it more amusing than I did. That's my take on it, anyway.

I've actually had a similar situation. I worked part-time (very part-time) this semester, with a light load at school. Next semester, I have a heavy load at school, and decided to cut work (I hated my job, though), since I'm lucky enough to have that choice as an option. So next semester I'm looking at a heavy load, plenty of time to run(my working out),  time to socialise (hopefully ), and even look for a more enjoyable job if I find I'm able to handle all that well.  I think it's a good idea to have LESS on your plate than you can handle rather than more - so pick the stuff you CAN'T drop later, and add more if you think you can. School isn't something you can modify all that much (though you could drop a course or two if you decide you need to - so that's an option to consider), work is something you want as a constant - I don'tknow how much you have to work out with your boss about hours. But WoW, well,y eah, said this part enough.

Anyway, good luck. Hope you get some good stress relief over winter break

Yes you should live your life having fun, I don't think anyone would tell you to live life just to work, but I also don't think anyone should really describe school as "pure suffering for 4-5 years". It seems that your mind is already made up because of how you portray the options in it. WoW and your current job is "Fun, sunshine, lollipops, and baby bunnies" while school and your parents are "pure suffering, brainwashing, and horrible." We're not going to be able to change your mind when you look at the options that way.

I think most people will tell you if you have the opportunity to get a higher education that you should make the sacrifice and do it. Why? For the reasons your parents are telling you, yea, your job is cushy now and you make awesome money and can play WoW. But if/when this job disappears, then what? You don't have a degree which is a big weakness compared to other people competing for jobs in your field and you might not get another cushy job that pays really well and you'll be stuck, wishing you had gotten the degree. What will that cause? Stress, lack of fun, and all the rest.

It's not "living only for work" or "living without fun in your life". It's sacrificing some fun now, for greater fun in the future. When you have more job security, an even better paying job that comes with a degree, and school behind you and not maybe lurking in the distance, you will be able to have more time, get back into the things you thought were fun before, with less stress (meaning more fun seemingly) and so you will be in an even better place.

Real world experience does teach you more than having a piece of paper saying you passed...but that doesn't always (often?) figure in. The degree is an identifiable thing that an employer can point to and say "See, that means he is worth hiring". Real world experience is much harder to quantify as good or bad. It's not necessarily true that having a degree is better than having real-world experience, but it happens to be the way a lot of the world works. I wasn't trying to say school is fun by the by, I was only trying to point out that it's a sacrifice that probably should be made to have more security in the future. You may not "need" anything else right now, may not be planning on anything else other than the life your living, but in my book, its better to be better prepared for the future so you can coast without worry later rather than coasting now, with the potential for downfall later.

Maybe if you did the school thing, never lost your job, never needed the degree, never needed any other benefit from it down the road you could look back and say "Hah! I knew I was right and never needed it" but in the long-term what did it cost you, some stress for a few years and maybe less time playing video games then.

But maybe if you didn't do the school thing, and then for some unforseeable reason lost your nice job, couldn't find another one because you didn't have a degree, and ended up having to work a job later that didn't allow you this free time to play video games, you'll look back and say, "Damn, if I had sacrificed my leisure there for a couple of years, the past X years of my life would have been a lot easier".

Personally, I would much rather look back and say the first, that I maybe "wasted" a few years of my life to ensure that I had more security and was better prepared for whatever may come than to coast and not be ready, hoping that nothing would change for the worse.

Ah, but progressing my WoW char also progresses my RL char!
[Edit] That's arguable, by the way, as my RL character is more boring than a paladin, and isn't likely to ever learn any interesting new skills (I can stealth nicely, but no frostbolts...) [/Edit]
I don't know about the rest of humanity, but my ultimate goal is happiness, and WoW (well, now it's WoW, later it'll be SC2, and so on) happens to be a major factor. Would you feel differently if I were talking about having a girlfriend instead of playing a video game? (I believe the minimal time consumption is similar in both cases). I don't think it matters exactly what it is that makes me happy, as long as it does make me happy; and if it doesn't I could move on to another game, or start drawing again, or any other activity which I can't possibly have time for while studying + working + working out.

Raptor: I probably agree with you about what I'd rather say in retrospective, but I just have serious problems thinking forward like this. I spent my whole life planning for the future, and not a single plan ever came close to working. Most of it backfired, really. Which is why I no longer believe in the concept of future, life is just a string of moments, and any wasted moment is just that - a wasted moment. If I do look back and see 4 wasted years... that's a lot of time, you know. And considering that my real life just started about a year ago and, err, most of you here remember how depressed I was in the years before that... it just makes me feel worse about voluntarily jumping back into the whole depression thing. It's like... I can be happy, or at least content, but I actually choose not to be. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else here...

Hell, maybe I just need to adjust my attitude towards work. For some reason the prospect of having to quit my job terrifies me, and I work about 25% more than my part-time contract requires and my boss already said he wouldn't mind if I worked only half of that...

If your girlfriend was encouraging you to do something like abandon all hopes of a degree to be with her, then yes, I would encourage an ending of that relationship.

With a reference on your resume to already working a programming job and doing it well, I would hope that most companies would not be interested in if you have the paperwork (degree) to prove you can do the job;  because you've already done the job successfully.

But that's in my fantasy world where everyone thinks logically. 

Your parent's are probably right.  Though I understand how much trouble you'd have going back to school for something you're already doing... Hell I wouldn't be able to do it.  I guess, just suck it up and do it.