As I’m sure most of you know, I hail from the vast and amazing World of Warcraft blogging community. I love this community and everything it entails and I’m proud I was able to share a corner of it with everyone for so long.
Likewise, I love World of Warcraft. I don’t even care if that makes me a cooped-up nerd with no life or whatever that makes me, I love it. (Besides, I already am a cooped-up nerd with no life, so).
I think Cataclysm did a lot of really great stuff. I love the zone revamps. I love the new Cataclysm zones. The few new instances I did were pretty great. I love that Blizzard is trying to take the best stuff from both Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King and weld them together into something great. How much they succeeded at this is up for debate, I’m sure, but the intentions are there and I appreciate it. As far as I’m concerned, WoW is in pretty good shape right now.
But I’m not playing.
You know, I’ve quit and returned and quit and returned to WoW so many times at this point that you’re probably getting sick of hearing about the details, so to make a long story short let’s just say that I really consider myself to have quit WoW back in early 2010. I’ve had stints since then where I’ve briefly returned to flirt with the game and in general be the very definition of casual, but I really haven’t done anything like I used to. I did play rather solidly for a few months late last year. But even that went something akin to this: Got Cataclysm, leveled to 85, glanced around, decided it was a job well done, and then logged out and pretty much didn’t log back in.
So I quit. Again.
A few weeks later, Mr. Adequate and I both re-subbed specifically to make tauren paladins and geek it up together. We had a blast. We ran around and smashed things with our hammers and we PvP’d and we did Shadowfang Keep (during which I fell in love with tanking) and we giggled over the Azshara quests and all in all we had a great time for about, oh, a week or so.
Then we quit again. And that’s where I’m at currently.
And you know, when I try to explain all of this, it’s really difficult to articulate how or why, exactly, I fell off that treadmill. There was a time when, if I wasn’t playing WoW, I was probably thinking about it or writing about it or reading about it. Obviously that isn’t the case anymore. Which is ironic, because these days I think the game is better now than it has ever really been before. But a certain spark is missing. And you know what? I don’t think that’s Blizzard’s fault. Rather, it’s mine. I had my fun, I changed, and I’ve largely moved on. Nothing wrong with that.
All around, I seem to see concerns and/or rumors that WoW is dying and people are leaving in droves and whatnot. Perhaps it’s because I still hang out with the WoW blogging community on Twitter, and most of these are people who grew up alongside me as a part of my blogging/WoW generation and many of us all sort of reaching the same stage. That’s my theory, anyway.
Or maybe I’m entirely wrong and WoW really is dying.
I don’t think so, though.
I’d like to think the game will still be there next time I suddenly get the urge to roll up a new character and level and explore and tame rare pets and play lowbie Arathi Basin just like I used to.
Because the details may have changed, but the spirit is still there, of this I’m sure. I know this because sometimes, even lately, even with how jaded I am over here on the porch with my rocker and my cane-waving and my “When I was your age we didn’t get mounts until level 40 and we had to run up and down Stranglethorn Vale for ten levels”– sometimes I catch a glimpse of that spirit, and then it reminds me why I dumped well over half a year into WoW playtime across all my characters.
Keep doing that, Blizzard. I’m sure I’ll be back. It’s not you. It’s me.
We’re still friends. Right?
I feel much the same. I had a blast getting to 85 on my Warrior, seeing the new zones and what have you. But I have no real desire to play it now.
I do think some of the ‘magic’ has gone though. The polish that has replaced it is rather fine, but there was something about that rougher world where you could climb inaccessible mountains if you walked up cliffs just right, where the old world could be seriously dangerous, where huge battles raged for days between Tarren Mill and Southshore. It’s ineffable though, I can’t really put words to it.
You know, it’s funny how every other person who has left WoW understands you yet I feel that any one else who has never spent time in the game doesn’t understand. I quit.
I have a 80 Priest. I remember everything I ever did with her, the friends I made, the boss’s I killed. Getting to be a Dragon Orb person for Kil’Jaeden was unbelievably awesome. Yet, I’ll never go back to it.
It’s the ultimate dream, the one where you remember it being awesome but every time you attempt to recreate it, it falls short.
Sorry you had to make the decision but it’ll always be there with you Pike.
I know what you mean so well. I just cancelled my subscription a few weeks ago; it’s paid to the end of May, but I’ve barely logged in the last month or so. After 5 years in the game, it’s a bit nostalgic, but in a way, I feel that, however much I adore the changes Cataclysm has brought, it’s punishing me for my play style. And then it’s no longer fun.
I dragged my hunter to 85, reaslised how many dungeons I would have to pug to get the gear for heroics, and logged off. I have a few low levels I dink around on, but don’t have any hopes for. I’m in a great guild, but with only one working raiding group; the über hardcore one. The casual one I was a member of in WotLK never took of in Cata, mainly because the progress raiding group decided that group 2 should be the progress alt group. So suddenly the original core didn’t have the time required for it any longer. I’m not sure whether my guild isn’t actually slowly dying, after having been active pretty much since the Defias Brotherhood server was first opened 5 and a half years ago.
Maybe WoW really is dying. I know that I miss it, at least. How it used to be. At least I’ll alway remember the years of happiness. :)
I hope you will to.
I completely relate to this post! I, too, have quit, played a bit, then quit again. If I think of it, I have really breaking it off with WoW since late ’09, though the final break happened early this year, when I finally had more time to play, all I ended up doing was chating with friends on vent and hopping in place.
The spark, at least for me, is gone. I see my hubby really enjoying the game and I wish I could enjoy it again, but I just feel deja vu each time I get in and start doing the same thing over and over again. Like you said, it is a real shame because WoW is at the best it has ever been! But since my time is so limited and all my friends are running heroics and gearing, I am too far behind to even push myself forward. It ain’t worth the time sink.
I am really happy you are starting an android blog, because I just rooted my nook color and diving into the android goodness for the first time.
edit to last post: Okay, sorry Pike! I had read your intro post and even though it said it was about video game and such, the android thing remainded stuck in my head. I have a bit of android fever at the moment. *blushes*
I’ve been extremely heartened recently reading about people who can enjoy WoW without going overboard. Too many of the bloggers I read take the game way too seriously, to the point that even deciding not to play is a massive deal for them. No naming names.
I can definately see what youre talking about. I quit a couple of weeks ago.
I believe that people are probably getting burntout/bored probably faster then with any expansion. The majority of the guild doesnt play anymore or plays somewhere else now. Its sad, really. Thats life though, everything changes.
Yeah I feel ya. I didn’t even have the heart to level to 85.
This was just a horribly half-baked expansion, and most people can sense that. There’s very little incentive to do anything unfun just to see something better coming down the road, so the game sheds players whenever their fun stalls.