Old Times

Haven't been playing much this past week, busy with Family things and honestly, the interest is a bit low.  I've got 4 alts plus a bank, and I spend most of my time on the bank.  I can't seem to get into the serious cash flow that i keep reading about... but realistically, that is for people who play a lot more than 6 hours a week.  Ah well...

Played for an hour or so last night while sitting at the laundromat, bought up a TON of Silk cloth for under a gold a stack.  Been stock piling Silk for Cata, bought up some Runecloth for 2g50s a stack to save until Winterveil.  Got quite a stock pile of low end mats to sell in the coming weeks, my bank is nearly full with a combination of Copper, cloth and bags.  Still selling a few potions, but the market has really dropped off... then I noticed the Thanksgiving event was underway and realized that explains it.  Then I mosied over there with Gulg, and sat down to dinner, and a funny thing happened.  I was having fun! 

Ok, not like 'oh my god this is GREAT!' or anything, but just sitting and throwing food and eating and playing the game without a goal in mind.  This is the second Turkey Feast I've been in the game for and nothing has changed with it... but I remembered how much FUN it was last year, going through it the first time, and actually reading the quests.  I realized thats what I was missing about this game; the discovery of new things.  That is what the adventure is about, not just going through the motions which is what i've been doing.  Going through them, for what?  Because I'm paying to play?  Hell, if that is the only reason I'm playing, I'll quit.

It's begun to seem as if I don't have enough time to play, so when I do there is SO much that I want to get done, that I end up doing nothing at all.  I want to get all my characters to 80, i want to recruit for the guild to have a good 10-man squad to do ALL the raids, I want to help my friends meet their goals, Gulg to World Traveller, Nikodhemus to kill all the bosses (whatever achievement that is, who cares!  He will show the world HE is the mightiest!), Ghornik the Shaman up to 80, Nikail up to tanking heroics and high end content... then when I log in for the 1 or 2 hours I can in a day, it all just collapses on me and becomes not fun anymore but like a job.  And jobs suck.

And then I was throwing food and having dinner.  And I remembered again why I play the game.  I'm not in a competition with anyone.  I'm not in some race to get to a million gold, or to level 80 (85) before anyone.  I'm there because it is a fascinating world to discover.  I'm there because I LOVE to game!  Because I love using my brain and my abilities to overcome obstacles.  I hopped on Nikodhemus, and signed up for Drak Tharon Keep, and I PAID ATTENTION.  I looked at the bad guys I was killing, focused on them, not just hitting my rotation as quickly as I could.  I listened to the final boss scream out his death curse, and I had a GREAT time again.

I read a lot of warcraft blogs, one of which is The Noisy Rogue, where it appears Adam is having the same trouble but going about it in the wrong way.  He has lost the magic of the game as well, but chooses to blame Blizzard rather than himself.  While I do agree that the pre-cataclysm quests are kinda lame compared to others, they are still there when they really don't have to be.  It IS up to Blizzard to come out with challenging material for my enjoyment and my money, but it is also up to me to enjoy the game!  If you are upset that the game doesn't challenge you like it used to, its not the games fault, it is you that has changed.  You are no longer challenged by the same things, because you've already done them in the past.  Warcraft is still the same game it was in Vanilla, modified slightly by expansions and patches, but still the same.  There is only so many ways you can look at that rubix cube before you've really seen every facet and its time to put it down.  Does that make it a bad cube?  Or does it mean you no longer enjoy it because you've explored every nook and cranny of it and have run out of ways to entertain yourself with it?

Gah, this is getting very close to a relationship speech, so I'm going to end it here.  I hope to play tonight, and by 'play', I mean REALLY play again.