Things fall apart

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Practically, nothing is happening right now.

Raiding

We still haven’t raided since early November.

Those of us that are left have either moved on to other teams (one person) or resigned ourselves to the fact that a long break is in the cards (the rest of us). There’s nothing happening on this front.

I did have the chance to raid with an old friend in her guild about a month ago. We knocked over Nazgrim, Malkorok, and Spoils that night. It was nice to reconnect with her, but I was just a fill-in.

Oh yeah, and last Thursday, this happened:

I got to fill a spot with my girlfriend’s team, which is halfway through heroic content. We downed the last seven bosses on normal mode in fairly short order (and no wipes), and I managed to finally complete my four piece bonus. I also didn’t suck, which was a relief considering that, in addition to worrying that I would be rusty, I had never seen the final two bosses before that night. It was pretty fun!

It was nice to raid again on both occasions, but neither is something that will happen regularly. I was just helping out.

Warlords

The January beta that some were hoping for post-Blizzcon didn’t happen, just as I suspected it wouldn’t. Since Blizzard announced last week that PvP Season 14 is ending “in a couple of weeks” (or so), the month of February will be comprised of two weeks (or so) of that happening, plus another two weeks (or so) of sorting out the titles and such. By then, we’re either very near or already into March. Twenty weeks (give or take) of Season 15 puts us around the middle of July. With Patch 6.0 presumably happening around that time, a few weeks of that puts us into August, making the time between the launches of MoP and WoD longer than the time between the Cata and MoP launches.

And that’s if everything goes as it usually does. We could be waiting even longer…

This will also mean at least an eleven-month period where Siege of Orgrimmar is end-game – possibly longer. This would put it longer than Dragon Soul (~10 months), and almost as long as ICC (1 year). So much for shorter turnarounds (and best laid plans).

As Jasyla said, “Lather, Rinse, Repeat” (a great post, by the way). Another thought: the news of another PvP season came down over a month ago. The current season is still not over yet. We’re definitely seeing more of the same.

This is me, beating a dead horse

Did I mention that nothing is happening? I don’t PvP regularly, so a new season is a definite stretch of four or five months (or more) where there is guaranteed to be zero new content. By the time that stretch starts, we will already be on the long side of five months with no new content. Without raiding, what’s left? Archaeology? LFR? Pet battles? Obsessing daily on the when? Waiting, breath to breath, for the promise/fallacy of “faster content” to morph into reality? “Faffing”?!

Yeah, I don’t think so. Not for me.

I love many parts of this game, but I’ve already done almost all that I want to do in Mists. My friends and I haven’t made it to Garrosh’s (temporary) downfall together, but that’s basically off the table at this point. And without raiding, my motivation to explore “other” just isn’t there. People I love to play with are absent. Pandaria itself has been done to death during my too-many journeys through the leveling and gearing process. If the expansion dropped next week, I have the five toons that I care about, geared* and perfectly ready to start the journey to level 100. I’ve already done “other.” Five, six, seven more months of lonely solo play (and crappy / repetitive PuG group play) through overly familiar content has no appeal for me right now.

*Geared means “out of greens.” I maintain that we will not need heirloom weapons to level.

Break time

I’ve been playing for seven years as of this month. I’ve taken a couple of breaks during that time, but I believe that the longest period I’ve ever gone without being subscribed was five or six weeks. I remained subscribed for the entire time between the release of Diablo III and Patch 5.0, even though I was relegated to playing on my girlfriend’s computer (when I could) because mine was broken. I created my hunter during the eternity of downtime before Cataclysm launched. Good things have happened in times like this.

But I can’t do it again. I can’t justify four to six more months of subscription payments when the game isn’t bringing me much enjoyment; when there is no new story, dungeon, or raid content, no raid team, and virtually nothing that I’ve left unexplored about MoP. And as much as I want to believe that getting hard-core into my Outland hunter (or another new toon, for that matter) right now could be worth it, I’m just not feeling it.

So I’ll be letting my subscription expire when payment comes due soon. And for the most part, I’ll be putting the blog on the shelf for a while.

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The idea is to come back shortly before Patch 6.0 arrives. At that point, I can change my hunter’s second profession if I decide to move forward with that, finish bag-space-clearing, and do any other prep that I feel I need to do. This will give me time to adjust to the forthcoming class changes, and allow me to take part in any pre-launch event, if they decide to give us one.

In the meantime, I have plenty to do. I’ve been working on an unrelated blog recently, playing more guitar, and spending more time reading. I just picked up Fable Anniversary for the 360, and will definitely be playing through that a few times. I’ll also spend time with several other games that I recently picked up on the cheap. And baseball’s Spring Training is around the corner, which is great, because I’ve got some serious baseball fever right now!

I think this break will be good for me. Perhaps when I come back – refreshed – I can find a better situation (or the situation will have improved within my guild) for raiding. If not, I’m still excited about playing through the Warlords launch content, checking out dungeons and so on, and most likely writing about it! And then I’ll move on.

In the meantime: peace. I’ll see you on the other side of the desert.

P.S. Thanks (belatedly) for the encouragement, Kheldul. I appreciate it!

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Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Comments are welcome!

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