The Post Warcraft Life

Have you seen this poll from my editor, Adam “His Holiness” Holisky? He was taking a quick pulse on some of the readers and followers of Blizzard Watch and wanted to know how many of them are still playing World of Warcraft. At the end of his study, he came to the conclusion that around 60% of those players have stopped playing.

I did have a few questions about this study.

How many hours constitutes “Barely playing” or “Somewhat”?

A sample size of 1300 isn’t anything to sneeze at but with a subscriber base of millions, is it truly representative? If this poll was held on MMO Champion or WoWHead, would the same approximate percentages hold up?

Anyway, I’m just giving him a hard time. I’m sure his scientific methods are sound and precise. If it weren’t for him, sunshines and rainbows would cease to exist.

Has he stopped reading yet? Okay, good. 

Reading the poll made me reflect on some of my motivations for leaving. I played the game straight on from Classic to Warlords with no significant break in between (and I classify significant as taking two or more weeks off from the game). In my case, there was always something to do. I threw my time and effort into the guilds I was a part of — Positions like healing officer, to recruiting, to GM, and I frequently filled in other roles until we found people to help out. 

There were moments where I truly enjoyed the game. Getting takedowns on Kil’Jaeden, the Lich King, and Yogg-Saron were some of my more memorable highlights. Helping my guild engineer Val’anyr, Shadowmourne, and Dragonwrath also helped feel like I was a part of something instead of this whole “Legendaries for everyone” philosophy that’s going on now. I ultimately agree with the change, but it’s lost that team work lustre now. 

Ultimately, I ran out of energy. In theory, I should have run out of energy years ago, but I was largely driven to not let my team down — This unit of goofballs made my life a pain in the ass sometimes, but they were still my goofballs even after I met them at BlizzCon. You take the player out of Conquest, but you can’t take the Conquest out of them. At the very least, I can say I helped facilitate introductions and friendships for people who otherwise never would have crossed paths to begin with. I hope they’re all doing fine now wherever they are. 

It’s not just Warcraft though, I’ve also taken a step back from playing Hearthstone. The upcoming format changes are much needed but I can’t be bothered to compete or even play for fun right now. It’s like I’ve lost the desire to engage in anything. The last Fireside Gathering I ran was a couple of weeks ago at one of the Universities. Something was different about it though. I wasn’t as excited or as invested in this one compared to previous ones. I’m not sure if it’s because of disappointment that I was unable to secure HCT points for the event or if I’m starting to not have fun anymore. I’m just biding my time until the Wild and Standard formats kick in before I start playing again. Wild or Standard? Not sure yet, but I’m leaning towards Standard.

Overwatch? Yeah, that was fun for a while but there’s only so much solo queue I can take. I imagine I’d play more once ranked matches enter the system. With a beta wipe somewhere on the horizon, I’m hesitant to play often because I’m worried I’ll unlock a cool skin that I really like only to lose it later. Happened to me in Hearthstone when I opened a gold card and it had to get wiped.

As for Legion, I don’t know. It is up in the air. If the game was close to releasing, my answer would’ve been a yes. But I’ve grown accustomed to this routine of not playing that I’m not sure if I want to get back into the universe again. I want to know more about the Val’kyr, the Legion, and the other storylines that are going on but what I don’t know is if I’m invested enough to get back into playing to find all that out. One things for certain, if I do make the call to go back, it won’t be in a leadership position. I’ll play the grizzled and grumpy veteran, but it’s time to call it a career on shot calling or anything management related. I’ve played some of the artifact quests though. I figured I should at least help test for usability. My litmus is that as someone who has never played a certain class or spec before, I should be able to unlock the the artifact with a reasonable degree of difficulty. In other words, I should be able to ace a Priest or Paladin quest, but I expect a wipe or two if I was playing a Warlock.

You know what it is? Maybe I just can’t seem to have fun playing anything alone anymore. I’ve been so used to having someone around to blast other players, take down dragons, and explore dungeons that I’ve completely forgotten how to solo anything. As a guy who players healers, can you blame me for that? Yeah, maybe a little. I should be more selfish and pick the dude with the badass guns instead of being a team player.

I’ve been engrossed playing Final Fantasy Record Keeper and recently picked up Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. I have like 8 years worth of Pokemon to catch up on it seems.

Also, for us fellow hockey fans, happy trade deadline day! I hope your team’s made moves to improve!

*glances sadly at the Canucks*

 

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