I haven't played in well over a month. Probably haven't put any real time in since November. I took a break from my "main" (the monk) to do some trade-skill grinding on the other toons, and I just kinda never picked it back up.
There's lots of reasons why. Not having people to play with would be at the top of the list. Not having any clear goal would be up there as well. Not really loving any of my toons would be the third -- everyone's lacking something. There's also the "I've been doing the gear treadmill for, what, eight years now, and I'm a little tired of it" argument. Oh, and then I was working fifty-hour weeks for a while. And ... well, point is, WoW took a backseat for a while.
And then WoW Insider published this great article, entitled "From Ding to Spring." It outlines how to quickly go from a brand new toon all the way to clearing the latest and greatest raids in three weeks or so. This article gave me some desire to actually start playing again -- there'd be a clear path to follow, for once, and since the article is geared towards DPS, I wouldn't have to address my primary obstacle to endgame raiding (that being, tanks who don't know what they're doing are severely punished in LFR ... or, at least, that was my experience the one time I tried it).
So for the last week or so, I've been trying to log in. Trying to find time. Trying to ... just ... log in and play, dammit. And each time I get logged on, looking at my toon, thinking about taking the next step, and ... all desire just goes away.
And I think I know why. I think I just hate Pandaria.
It might just be the mood I've been in lately, but I really don't like Pandaria. I don't like not being able to fly. I don't like how blasted cartoony everything is. I don't like the Pandaren and their dumb epicurean philosophy. I especially don't like the Alliance vs. Horde war angle.
I didn't like Cataclysm either, but that was for different reasons. Wrath I loved, probably because it was kind of dark and gritty and because the Scourge made for an excellent enemy. I loved BC too, because I like getting a little sci-fi chocolate in my fantasy peanut butter, and hey, Illy D and Kael'thas had style. But when I log into Pandaria, I feel like I'm playing through a Saturday morning cartoon and I just don't like it.
Arguably that means the designers achieved exactly what they were going for, because I suspect that being in an anime is what they had in mind all along. Nevertheless, I feel like it's not for me.
So what does that mean?
It means I'm probably not going to be playing a lot of WoW this expansion. I might get bored and just start playing again, but Pandaria's been out almost, what, five months now, and I still don't have a 90. We're coming up on the second content patch and my highest-level character is 88. Boredom might bring me back for lack of anything else to do, as it's done before, but I don't know.
Some kind of external factor could bring me back, no problem. Like I said, if I had a reason to play, I'd be all in. But I'm clearly not coming back for the story.
Here's hoping that the next expac is more to my liking. Meanwhile, don't expect much in the way of content round these parts. Unless I take up TOR again or something. Cus that's likely. >_>
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