Wrath of the Lich King made a number of fundamental changes to the game, many of which went through so many iterations that it can be difficult to get the facts. You can find a summary of these changes as related to the Restoration Druid in this extensive FAQ!
For the sake of clarity, let me emphasize that I am not considering quitting the game. I’m just lamenting not knowing what to do with myself and the tediousness of the activities I have available to me. Don’t worry … but thank you for your concern. =) Oh, and from all the tremendously supportive comments, it’s apparent that I’m not alone.
My interest in World of Warcraft has been on the fritz over the last six weeks or so. A variety of factors have contributed to this, including: working long hours, having no clear path of progression for my character, and a disinterest bordering on loathing for 25-man content. As you may have noticed, my blog posts have become less frequent the last few weeks. My workload lately has increased tremendously, probably somewhere around 200%. As many of my posts are written at work, I haven’t had the spare time to devote to regular updates. And when I do come home, I’m often too tired to think of anything exciting to write about … and the last thing I want to do is any mathematical analysis since I spend my time at work programming.
My guild Aegis Hestia seems to have hit a wall in terms of progress, having successfully placed both Karazhan and Gruul on farm, but making little headway against Magtheridon. We’ve also recently begun work in Serpentshrine Caverns. And the fact that I just used the word WORK to describe what should be considered a leisure activity points to how I’m feeling about the game in general right now. Like many guilds, we’re struggling with the transition from 10-man to 25-man. Adding enough people to the roster to help fill out those 5 additional slots has been difficult. And, as we are a casual guild, we’ve been suffering from underperformance and a sort of identity crisis about whether it’s fair to selectively extend raid invites based on DPS and even healing output. To make matters worse, for a couple of weeks, Mr. Phaelia and I logged in on the nights when 25-man content was scheduled, only to have several raids in a row cancelled due to lack of interest. You can just imagine how much I want to be logged on, waiting outside of Magtheridon’s Lair for an hour, “hoping” to see 5 more people log in. “Hoping” because, as much as I’m ashamed to admit it, these cancelled raids were often more a relief than a disappointment. But unfortunately, these cancellations also brought with them a burgeoning sense of apathy. When you log on out of a sense of responsibility, when it becomes evident that your sentiment is not shared, your interest in what you already aren’t enjoying wanes further.
But I still love the game. I just don’t love what the game has to offer me right now. I hate the difficulty of 25-man raid content that seems to try to tell me that my guild is not good enough and that there may not be any further progression available to me, at least until Zul’Aman. But I guess I don’t have high hopes that this content will be as easy to master as was Karazhan (which was not necessarily easy — we struggled a lot with Prince Malchezar). The fact that the Zul’Aman and Heroic Badge items are hideous is just icing on the cake.
I know that there are many more progression-oriented guilds that have breezed through the content we’re now struggling with. I know that makes them better, more organized players on average, but I don’t necessarily believe that they are more skilled than I am. I recognize that beating the content is something to be proud of — especially if you’re one of the first guilds through. But surely at this point, there wouldn’t be any harm in “nerfing” some of the introductory 25-man content to allow a little more leeway for guilds like mine, guilds who will never aspire to be on the “cutting edge.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Phaelia has even less interest than I do in playing right now. And it’s hard to make the “responsible” decision to log on and raid when he has decided instead to work late. Even harder when I don’t have someone to help move us to the starting place while I cook dinner or someone else’s ready checks to listen for while I read blogs (yes, I’m that bored lately). Many gamers write about their many wonderful experiences with their spouses who game. But what you don’t see as often are gamers who write about the other side of the coin: when one spouse loses interest — even temporarily — in the hobby that, in many cases, brought the two together in the first place. It makes maintaining your own level of interest that much more difficult because the game is never even close to the same without them.
Related Posts
15 Comments
Trackbacks
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
For me balancing work, first-time home owner, girlfriend, social life and world of warcraft is very difficult. I’m lucky in that I found a very mature guild that raids 3 hours, 3 nights a week and has been making steady progress (up to Vashj in SSC) without burning people out.
10->25 transition is very hard as well, especially if you keep falling short of numbers, no consistent core. Has there been any consideration of a guild merger to increase the number of bodies available for 25 man content?
My solution to the ugly gear in ZA: keeping my t5 shoulders & gloves, wear a tabard, hide the helm and VOILA. Invisible!
On a selfish note: I finally find a mature, quantitative, helpful website about druid healing and now you’ve gone and burned yourself out. NO YOU MUST STAY WE NEEEEEEEEEED YOU.
(lot of trouble leaving a comment, hopefully I’m not triple-posting)
(Edit: apparently I did, delete please)
Sounds like our guilds were in the same spot. We had both Kara and Gruul on farm, but people lost motivation in trying the new, “difficult” stuff. There were a lot of other factors as well, but that was one of the things that led to a lot of people splitting.
But I hear you loud and clear on the spouse thing. While my wife hasn’t played with me for very long, and has never raided, it kind of sucked when she stopped playing the first time. And I still raid 3-4 nights a week even now when she plays, so it’s kind of a different game for me. Hanging out with the “bros” some nights and the wife on others. But I could totally see how it would suck if we were both raiding and one of us wanted to stop.
On the upside though. ZA came out today. Maybe that will help.
NOOOOOO
Don’t quit! A lot of these new druids just scare me and even if you’re on a different server and had the misfortune of rolling alliance (sorry, had to get one in
) the World (of Warcraft)doesn’t have enough gifted and intelligent dr00ds running around.
Maybe just focus on Arena and PVP? Setting a goal of a top arena rating might be good and it would involve Mr. Phae as well.
If your goal is to rediscover the fun of playing the game, then take a break. Try out Bioshock or Guitar Hero, read a book, get a TV series on DVD like Firefly and generally entertain yourself with whatever catches your interest besides WoW. Make it a point to not play at all for a little while. When the urge creeps in the play again, not because it’s the responsible thing to do but because it sounds like fun, then fire it up. Ideally by mirroring Mr. Phaelia’s loss of interest now he might be ready to try again, refreshed, at the same time you are.
I love reading your blog btw, and I hope you hold on to/rediscover the interest that made you start it in the first place.
Oh let me tell you how much I recgonize myself in what you are writing! And that makes me a bit sad. I love the game, I love what it stands for and how it is built up. What I do NOT love is the force of nature that causes you to rush the clock if you ever wantto go anywhere instnae-wise. Reset-times are just ridiculous, If you can not get more than 1-2 raid together each week you are stuck with the same old content over and over again. So what do you do? Either you give in, or you start raiding 4-5 (even 6 times ) a week, And very soon raiding and playing becomes a chore
As for a solution to your problem I can only offer you a suggestion of making your priorities very carefully. IF you feel that you do not have time to raid more than 1 time a week – well don’t. Put down your feet HARD! And do not feel guilt for not being there! It is a GAME after all and should be treated as one!
And last – I do hope you once more find your joy in WoW and that we will enjoy your blogging for a long long time to come!
A lot of raiding guilds die on Gruul or die on Magtheridon/Void Reaver/Lurker.
My experience is this: being able to raid 25-man isn’t so much about time commitment to the game as it is about using to time you have well and knowing how to play your class well. Everyone has to be using consumables, stopcasting macros, have the best enchants/gems, be PvE spec’d etc. Clearly you’ve got the knowledge to do this – I learn plenty about playing my tree Druid from your blog and we’re working our way through tier 6 (12 hours a week at a time). You’ve got to get people in your guild up to that standard of knowledge and performance or you’re not going to get over the hump and start clearing out more 25-man bosses. I know this can be hard – my original TBC guild died trying to make the transition.
Anyway, I hope you find a path that makes you happy. Zul’Aman seems fun and the badge vendors have some loot that will help guilds starting on 25-man content. Best of luck to you – I really enjoy the blog!
Hey Phaelia- take heart.
I went through this exact phase about 2 months ago. Karazhan loves having people who can multitask- and then the 25 mans demand everyone be the epitome of either DPS, tanking, or healing. Add to that many folks right now are seeing great gear from running heroics or going and doing more ten man runs in ZA- well, the motivation to deal with getting 25 folks together was waning for me. I am one of those folks who love a challenge and push hard to be the best at what I am doing!
So I way scaled back how much I was online, started listening more to what people wanted to do. Worked with folks to see how I could help them enjoy the game. Now, were talking with two guilds about doing both ten and 25 person content together- it may not work out, or it could freaking rock! The new dailies reward a pvp angle and running a heroic each day to keep you sharp- do those and a few others and bam- gold in pocket. Help some folks out, screw around with the anal retentive people in the guild by messing with the guild bank stuff, lol. Find the folks who want to do the same as you, and then find some more. Druids to me are like what my Yoga instructor kept saying- “Its the journey, not the destination.”
Truly enjoy the blog-its not often that I can read one without the image of monkeys behind bars flinging poo at anything they see comes to mind.
I know how you feel. Our guild is at the exact same point right now. We have got Lurker down a few times in SSC, but we keep wiping on Mag and people are starting to sign up for runs saying – “will come for Gruul but not for Mag afterwards”. Suddenly a few conditional signups are occuring. So we didn’t get accused of bashing our heads against a skill wall, last week after Gruul we went into The Eye for Void Reaver, which the same bunch of people insisted was easy and free loot. Well, we never got him below 60%, though we cleared the trash pretty smoothly for our first time. I think some people really struggle with motivation after a few wipes, as a sense of hopelessness can set in if the raid leader doesn’t keep things upbeat. Either that or people genuinely hate having to pay gold to repair – which I find incredible, given that the only way to progress through new content is through learning on wipes.
I found that playing my alt is a great antidote to raiding blues. Especially with the 15% increased XP now. And make sure you do all the things you didn’t do on your main character – Cooking, Fishing etc.. I’ve had a blast.
And maybe take a few more nights off. My personal observation is that anything more than 3 nights a week raiding starts to take its toll on your sleep/health/patience and life balence.
That’s one reason I hate end-game: no, my wife doesn’t play WoW, but all those artificial boundaries placed in guilds preventing them from making real progress past some points and forcing many to disband or have players in a state like yours…
My solution: call it off for a couple weeks! Maybe show up once a week for a raid or something, but otherwise either don’t play WoW altogether or go try another class/race! If you’re on a PvE server, you can even level another druid for the opposing faction! Or try some other completely different classes! Mages are not good 1st chars as they are glass cannons, but now that you know better, you could probably try one for size! Check Girl Meets WoW’s Mage Leveling Guide for a start.
Ultimately, just remember this: WoW is about HAVING FUN! I have a self-imposed and friend-regulated limited play time, from 20:00 to 0:00 Mon-Thu, 20:00-02:00 Fri/Sat. Last Monday night I was playing WoW as usual and, around 22:00 (with 2 hours playing time left) I wasn’t feeling very well, but I had that feeling “I HAVE to play now as I can’t play outside of this schedule”. And then it suddenly hit me: I *DON’T* have to play NOW! World won’t come to an end if I “waste” two of my allowed hours of gameplay! I’m going to bed earlier tonight. Period.
It’s not like WoW is a job you need to be in every day at the same time for a given number of hours whether you like it or not: WoW is about having FUN! If you’re not having, take a break, go see a movie, go out, play a card/board game, sleep, play an alt if you’re only burned out on your current char due to the dreaded end-game issues… There are plenty of solutions out-there! I hope you don’t get to the same “extreme” I did on my main as I’m not in any guild nor want to be: Guild = Commitment, and I’m already committed to my wife and daughter, don’t need any more commitments! And it made me a lot sad about playing my chars when I got myself in shoes very similar to the ones you’re in now, only pre-TBC when things were even harder trying to get 40-man raids! Last I did was some 20-man ones like ZG and then the guild couldn’t handle it anymore (was even hard to get a weekly ZG run back then!).
Moving on from 10-man instances to 25 seems a huge source of headaches.. When I turned 70 with my druid, my guild was struggling to get enough people online for Gruul. After a few tries with partial success some people started losing interest and we couldn’t get that far again. In the end those interested in raiding (including myself) founded a new guild willing to grow, that eventually merged into another to make a -so far- solid group to raid 25-mans.
Coordinating so many people is not easy, not only due to everyone having their own lives outside WoW that mess up with schedules (which is enough to complicate things, in both ways!), but because of people willing to play with their alts, do some PvP, or simply not in the mood when it’s time for some “scheduled fun”.
Someone’s so right..
When I left my previous guild I said that very same thing: this is (or SHOULD be) about having fun, and everyone should find their own way to do so. Some wanted to try high level raiding? Great!. some were happier doing something else? So be it! It’s not something to argue about!
I’ve also seen quite a few people leaving WoW or at least having a break, and I keep saying the same. Good for you! If you’re not having fun with what you do, what’s the point of doing it? Leave it for a while, try to keep in touch with the friends you made there, and look for something else. There are so many great things to do.. And who knows, maybe one day you come back and enjoy it like the first day (it happens to me all the time, not just with computer games).
Whatever you do, I’m sure it’ll be the right choice. How can it be wrong, if it’s about choosing what makes us the happiest?
Note: I’d miss this blog though
Hey Phae,
Burn-out happens – especially when you devote a tonne of time not only in the game, but outside it as well, as with this blog. Take a breather, and when the urge to play hits you again, come back refreshed. (Been there, done that.)
The 25-man content (post-gruul especially) is definitely a huge step up in difficulty. The trash gets harder, and the bosses less forgiving.
We’ll still be here for you when you return. For now, re-energize.
I know the way you feel. Lately I have noticed that, apart from raids, I don’t enjoy the game anymore. At least on my priest. I love to log in on my druid, just to do quests, chet etcetera, as she’s only level 29 you don’t have all the pressure. But as soon as I log in on my priest, I get the feeling there’s still so much left to do. I’m 70 for ages and still don’t have my epic mount, I should pluck herbs, level my fishing/cooking etc. It gets pretty depressing. What I did was just forget about raiding for a while, as I was really tired anyway. (I have too many sports I adore, so I sport 5 times a week. Fun, but NOT good for your energy level). My boyfriend supported me and has stopped raiding now. Slowly, I start feeling the urge to play my priest again, just to show I can still do it. You know, beat everyone at healing. I think I’ll try to start raiding again soon-ish. ^.^
Hope this helps!
As for the transition: We faced the same problem as well. My guild is Dutch-only. We have an alliance with another, english guild. This works awesome. We had amazing progress in Karazhan, despite only raiding 2x a week. When we had Karazhan on farm however, things started to look dark. The English guild had split up at that time, and we had a lot of leavers due to a row (Belgium vs. Holland, *sigh*, men..). What’d we do? We found another guild wich had the same problem, and so far it has worked GREAT. We killed Magtheridon in only 2 nights of trying, gruul in 3, void reaver in 2, and 4 SSC bosses in only 1 night. (the first two went down in the same night, even!) We are soon downing al’ar, and to be honest, the ”new” guild is a really nice addition. Great people, and still serious. Try to form alliance, you have nothing to lose! And, besides, new friend s= more fun, right?
I know how you feel. My guild is also stuck (on a different part, tho: Gruul), for the very same reason: some nights we just can’t get man/girl-power enough. 19~20 people waiting at the door, hoping for more to connect, and that doesn’t happens. I feel like people want to grab gear and see new places, but aren’t commited to raids.
Zul’Aman COULD cause some thrilling, but I only see it as a second Karazhan, another 10-man to be stuck in.
If you guys are needing a warlock/another resto druid, let me know, I’ll hop over!
Just don’t leave WoW (I know you won’t, I’ve read your note). I love your blog, it’s helping immensely on my “quest” to become a good durid 4 heel.
Phaelia-
As you can see, most of us understand what you’re feeling. I think it happens to almost everyone who plays this game as a large part of their life.
About the raiding – if raiding is what you want to do, it’d probably be better to find a guild that is dedicated toward it. I spent almost a year and a half pre-BC in a more casual guild that took AGES to start raiding, and it was always a struggle to get people motivated. The guild never conquered its identity crisis of ‘what kind of guild are we?’ I decided personally that I wanted to raid so I moved on to a guild that was focused there. It was hard to leave friends that I’d been with for so long, but they are still in the same world with me, we just have different guild tags. Ultimately, do what is fun for you. And if that isn’t raiding, well that’s fine! I’d talk to your GM about how you feel and just see what his/her expectations really are – if they understand and just tell you to lay low for awhile, a lot of the obligation and duty you feel will fall off your shoulders and you’ll be able to relax. Burnt out and discontent raiders NEVER = progression.
As to the spouse issue, I understand that too. I started playing long before my boyfriend, but now that he does too, we try to coordinate our raiding schedules and it’s often frustrating when one wants to arena til late night and the other is just tried of gaming or something of the sort. I think it just comes down to priorities and if WoW is cutting in on time you really end up wanting to spend with your partner, well don’t let it! RL > WoW. Btw, this is advice I still struggle with following myself so.. >.>
And on burnout in general – take a break. They are AMAZING!!! Every 4-5 months, I usually take 3 weeks off or so, just to rejuvenate. I get to watch movies, get work done that I’ve been procrastinating on, work out more, take a day trip, just anything I want. And after a couple weeks, I start to get that itch where I *really* want to play again – and when I do, voila there is the fun again.
Anyway, good luck with everything. Hope to see you feeling up to snuff soon!
Ada
@Everyone: Thank you for all of your tremendous support. I want you all to know that I’ve read all of your comments and taken some of your advice to heart. As much as I would like to respond individually to each of you (as I normally try to), there’s no way that I could respond in a way you deserve, given the incredible amount of insight each of you have shared! It is comforting to know that I’m not alone in my current in-game frustrations, and that others among you are either going through the same thing or have eventually overcome it.
I haven’t decided yet what I will do in terms of PvP. I pretty much told Mr. Phae that if he won’t raid with me, I won’t PvP with him. ^_^ But I think I’ll probably end up going back on that and trying for at least an 1850 Rating for the Season 3 healing hammer. Trust me, though. PvP is NOT a way for me to destress. =D
As far as considering other guilds, that just isn’t an option for me. I care too much about my guildmates, and I know many of them in real life. The game just wouldn’t be the same without them! And, while I DO enjoy raiding, the idea of being a guild where its “top priority” fills me with dread. I guess I’m just afraid that some of the personalities attracted to such an environment would be too aggressive and drama-prone (and unfortunately, it only takes a few).
I’ve sort of been on a break the last 2-3 weeks as it is, popping on once or twice a week (I think I may have lost some Super Mana Potions in the mailbox because of this – doh!). I think I’m just going to try playing less than normal, helping out with 2/3 of our 25-man raids instead of trying to make all three in a row. It’s going to be hard for me to LFG in guild chat, though (must … get … Heroic … badges). Mr. Phae has historically been the one to form our groups.
Thanks again, everyone! I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, and I feel much better for having read them!