I am the stick. The mud is heroics. Somewhere over there in the pebbles is the door to ICC.
Over the last couple of days, and partially due to Syp‘s great Road to Mordor columns, I’ve been playing more LotRO than I have in the last quarter year. As I reloaded the game, I couldn’t but feel a little deja vu. I’d been here before, reloading the game exactly as I had almost a year before. Actually, the pattern was wider than that. Then, as I’ve been now, I’d been scouting other games and downloading trials.
And I found logging into WoW less and less appealing.
I know what it is that starts to push me away from WoW. It’s the badge collection. As a non-raider (by lack of option more than interest), hitting 80 signifies a winding down, even though it doesn’t really feel that way at first. You start off with a list of purple items you’d like to get, and you can smile at all of the wonderful prospects before you. But, as time goes on, there’s less “I need the Relentless Gauntlets of Onslaught” and more “I need 75 badges,” “I need 25 badges,” and “I need 40 badges and a trophy.”
It’s the worst kind of numbers game. Each heroic is a matter of boss count. Forge of Souls is +2, Drak’Tharon Keep +4, Trial of the Crusader +3. And, ironically, the better you do, the worse it gets. Before long, you only need that one more piece, and then it’s the next tier of badge up. The ones you can only productively get from raiding. A lot.
And I’d like to do that, but I have trouble getting into raid teams because I’d rather spend time with family at eight in the evening. I’m going to try to find one that raids on off-peak hours but they’re hard to come by and harder to be accepted into. The reality is that non-raiders become PvPers, achievement junkies, or Dalaran-squatters hoping to join other Dalaran-squatters in pick up group raids.
I don’t find any of those options that exciting.
This may be my last month in WoW. I’m seriously considering letting my subscription lapse until Cataclysm comes out. I’d love to find a dedicated raid team, but I’d be crazy to hold my breath for that.
But, I’m not depressed and I hate to start the week off on a downer note. It’s like I’ve always said, you’ve got to take WoW for what it is. And, at the end game, this is WoW. You love it or leave it. When Cataclysm comes, I’ll return to have some fun and explore, and then probably repeat the same pattern at level 85. It’s cool like that.
In the meantime, I’ll keep plugging away and seeing what I can do. On the plus side, I left my Guardian off at the start of Book 7 in LotRO, so I should be well carried into Moria just by following them.
In a lot of ways, I thinking sticking to one MMO is a bad idea. Being bitter when your time comes to an end just doesn’t do justice to the hours of fun these games provide. Every one is a work in progress. Should I leave WoW, I step back into the exciting world of game sampling. I hope you’re up for the ride with me.
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