My last post on this blog was 4 years and 16 days ago. It seems I was cranky at not performing like I wanted to in WOW, and was generally burned out with it. The crankiness and feeling “down” has faded, but I do still recall dreading logging in on raid nights.
I did pretty much disappear for most of the rest of WOTLK, missing out on some Frost Citadel achievements, and I still don’t have that mount. I feel like my decision to do this was the first step in the distance that’s come between me and the group; Strike 1.
Shortly before Cataclysm hit, the group returned to the game to prepare for the new content. I was sick of playing a squishy melee, so I switched to my paladin, hoping to be a tank. Long story short, while I very much enjoyed not being squishy, I was not, and am not, a tank. I don’t have the awareness to do it properly at the raid level. Dungeons were fine, and I really had a good time tanking those.
As a result, there were several nights we had trouble progressing, in part due to my tanking deficiencies. I realized this, and became a Ret pally main, and off-tanked when needed. However, this meant I was a (semi-) squishy melee again. /sigh
Early in the Cataclysm process, the group decided to switch from Horde on Altar of Storms to Alliance on Arygos. I went along, transferring and switching my pally and rogue, who were already 85. However, I left my druid as Horde on AOS. I wanted to level him to 85, but it meant playing on a different realm than the group on off-raid nights. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, so I went ahead and did that. In the end, though, it seems this was noted by the group, as I realized when the leader contacted me one night to find out what was up. I believe this added to the distance; Strike 2.
One downer in Cata was that my availability to make raids was less than WOTLK days (I wouldn’t have that kind of availability ever again.) Further, I wasn’t the only one struggling with a new raid role, and maintaining interest in the game. After a while, we had trouble having enough people to raid, and eventually stopped raiding altogether. Our progression ended with us having only completed a little more than half of Cataclysm’s end-game raids.
Much of the group moved over to SWTOR, and after a bit, I did, too. But other than us all playing the same game, there really wasn’t much of a “group” anymore. Particularly once most of the group wanted to play Empire, “dark side of the force” toons, I lost touch with a lot of them as I did not want to play a “dark side” character. Strike 3.
Ultimately, the group was disappointed with SWTOR, and returned to WOW again for Mists of Pandaria. We moved again from Alliance on Arygos to Horde on Nesingwary. Recognizing the need to be DPS because of personal limitations both in skills and available raid time, I did not move my pally or rogue, and instead moved my Horde druid from AOS to Nesingwary. Rolling feral, I was able to easily adapt my familiarity with the rogue playstyle to the druid, and was fairly effective from the start. I was comfortable, ready to progress with the group and take advantage of changes to the game that looked like benefits for us and our makeup.
Unfortunately, old issues reasserted themselves. People couldn’t make raid times (me), couldn’t stay on as long (me), interest and motivation ran low, and, generally speaking, we weren’t as good of a raid group as we used to be. We fell apart again.
For me, it wasn’t a huge disappointment—not because I didn’t care about the other folks in the group, but because I had so much going on IRL, I couldn’t invest more emotion in the game. Plus, I had grown tired of the teasing some in the group would do to my RL friend who was in the group, and I increasingly made in-game decisions that benefited me, instead of giving so much support to others, as I had in the past. Strike 4, and the relationships were becoming noticeably distant.
Many months have passed, and I have continued my WOW sub, no longer really caring about end game raids or PVP, just logging in to work on achievements or pet battles or other stuff that doesn’t require other people; just little stuff to scratch the itch because I have no time for anything more.
Lately, I have reminisced about the fun raid nights we used to have. They were good times. But after a negative FFL experience with the group last fall (Strike 5), I sense that my relationship with most of those folks is basically over. And, really, so are my WOW days, and my presence there is a fraction of the old days.
Is anything ahead for me in the gaming world? I do not know. We’ll see...
