Wednesday, November 14, 2012

It's the End of the World (no.4)

Well it’s been a week since I quit World of Warcraft – so what of the aftermath?

Truth be told, I’d actually quit weeks earlier. You see, I was part of group with two other friends where’d we meet twice week and do quests. Then one of us decided he’d had enough so he left. And in doing so the group more or less disintegrated. Suddenly everything looked different and I was a lot less enthusiastic about visiting this world called Azeroth. In a classic tripod fashion, when one leaves the others crumble in their wake .And thus I didn’t feel like playing World of Warcraft anymore.

Weeks prior to this event, however, my view of World of Warcraft has been in a state of decline. Whilst World of Wacraft may have been exciting at first it was only through the progression of time that the enthusiasm slowly eroded away.
Don’t get me wrong: World of Warcraft has been fun to play and great on a sociable level but to me there a number of factors that come across as a deal breaker. I don’t like the repetitious nature of the game (seriously: how many times have the Blood Elves been granted admission into the Horde?!), I hate the grind, I’m finding not much left to see having travelled from one end of Azeroth to the other, I’m seeing similarities in both Alliance and Horde quests, I’ve reached the realization that I’ve done the same quests several times, It occurred to me that once you hit level 60 things start getting dull, I’m not too fond of coughing up fifteen bucks a month and I’m particularly irate with the abolishment of the talent trees with Mists of Pandaria. All of these reasons are reason enough to quit and all I needed was a catalyst: And one came with the afore-mentioned group disbanding.

And then there’s this blog. Those who’ve been following my blog will note that I’ve been playing World of Warcraft a lot this year – even to the point of playing exclusively as the other games in my collection have been gathering dust. In addition, I’ve been talking about World of Warcraft a lot in this blog – even to the point where it’s taken up the big text in the subject cloud on the right panel - a sign, if any, that it may be a good time to shut up about it. Indeed, the lack of World of Warcraft-related posts in recent weeks may have been something of a clue I was already in the process of moving on.
When I started this blog back in 2010, I had no plan in mind – However it only took a month before one emerged: I made a post listing my Hall of Shame. And suddenly I found a purpose for this blog: To play all the games I’d left unfinished and document my progress as I went. However this mission has been derailed this year with me sinking so many hours World of Warcraft. Now I don’t want to think about how many hours I’ve invested in World of Warcraft but it does draw attention to how big a time commitment a MMORPGer is. And suddenly playing a MMORPGer now seems like a counteractive move when I have so many games left unfinished.

Ultimately though, playing World of Warcraft has been my first stab at a MMORPGer (I’ll never stop using that term: why stop saying that’s so much fun to say?). So what do I think of it? Well I have enjoyed it: It was great doing quests with other people and there was a lot to be gleamed form a social level – indeed, as mentioned earlier, going on your own suddenly seems a whole lot different. Will I try again? Well in a way yes –True it is inexcusable of me to take up something that demands a lot of time when I have so many gems uncompleted but I really enjoyed romping through so many quests as a part of a group. So much so, I will admit to miss it and am interested to get back to it sometime. In the meantime though I've being going back to the Xbox and enjoying it - needless to say it will be a long time before I commit to a time-thief that is a MMORPGe. 
But when that day comes, who’s going to step up to the plate? Guild Wars 2? The Elder Scrolls Online (when it comes)? Well whoever it is, it won’t be for a while yet. Not while my Hall of Shame continues to exist anyway…

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