Today, I had a revelation. You know, one of those “this thing has been staring me in the face and I missed it anyways” types of occurrences. My wife’s sister came to hang out today with her soon-to-be husband, who happens to be a long time WoW player. After a while, talk turned to video games and, lo and behold, I totally ignored the fact that I now have raiding possibilities in World of Warcraft. For the three years I’d played it, I’d also worked on the weekends and had no ability to join in the frequent daytime pick-up groups and guild runs that would happen on Saturday and Sunday. Now, with no job during those hours, I can finally wet my toes in the daytime raiding pool. Since the reason I left WoW was that I ran out of content, this represents the influx of available new content I’d been waiting for. All without an expansion!
I find it very ironic that right after I write a post about not being able to go home again, that’s the very thing I’m going to try to do. Again. Who knows, I may wind up in the same boat as before, but you never know. I signed back up with a server transfer onto the one my near brother-in-law plays on, so I have a guild (and a fairly local one, at that) that has a set raiding schedule I’ve been invited to be a part of. It should be fun.
Now, there’s the other part of this, and one that weighs fairly heavily on me: the cost. You know, honestly, I think I’ve been playing MMOs too long. Even though I’ve been having a decent time in LotRO, a few short days after cancelling my subs, I felt like something was missing. So, I’m back again to try to balance the cost of a subscription game with an ever lessening pool of money until I find another job and/or hear back about my claim with the labor board. This will, in fact, be the first time since I first began with WoW (my first pay to play game), that I’ve had to justify paying for it and decide what I’m going to cut back on in my budget to make up the difference. It’s like deja-vu.
In the end, I hope I can get a second wind with WoW with these new possibilities but I’d be lying if I said that was the main reason I decided to take the dive. WoW is still the main game most of my friends play. So long as I have an active subscription, I have a way to keep in touch often in a way beyond the occasional phone call or daily text messages. It’s also a great chance to get to know this new family member.
As always, it’s the social aspect of WoW that makes it the most appealing.
My time with LotRO isn’t a total wash either. I was able to get to 32 and, wait for it, I finished out the North Downs. Okay, well not quite, but almost! I’m in my last set of quests in Othrikar to finish out the zone, not including group quests. Now, I’ll finally be able to see new content in the form of Esteldin and I’m really looking forward to it. I have no intention of leaving LotRO at this stage in the game. I’ve spent the better part of six months getting past those damn Brown Zones and I’ll see it through if it’s the last thing I do.
Anyways, that’s the Sunday update. Now, to return to crunching down the beak and toes.
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