I was going to sit down this evening and write a long part 2 to follow up the first part of the piece I wrote about World of Warcraft a couple of weeks ago. But on the spur of the moment I had another idea and... well...
I'm not sure there'll be a part 3.
I'm sorry it didn't work out for you. Can't say you haven't given it a fair go. Thing is tho, for most, the game doesn't really start until level 60.
I've been level 60 for more than a year now. I admit in that time I have taken a large Hiatus. Really about 6-8 months. I did that in part because it wasn't fun anymore. I was in the 'Battlegrounds' grind. Basically, to make progress you have to play a lot of battlegrounds, often, repeatedly, to the exclusion of all else. I made a decent go of it, but in the end it just became too much like work. Saddly I fell short of my goal rank.
While I have many great memories, many great 'firsts' from my time prior to level 60, I have a great many after the fact as well.
I first came to WoW because I was looking to enjoy something 'with other people'. Grouping and Raiding, while not essential to the game, are where this best occurs. As in real life, finding the 'right' people to play alongside can be a challenge. It is too easy to get into the grind mentality where it becomes all about the ends justifying the means. But it does not HAVE to be that way.
Just this past Sunday I received a random call from a longtime but seldom actually 'seen' friend from my friends list. I was invited to Zul'Gurrub. I had only been once before, months back, and that had ended up being a series of deaths at the first (bat) boss with little to show for it. I feared this would be the same but hoped I'd at least be able to cover my repairs.
But it was awesome! I did indeed die, twice. The first time, at the Bat boss. But even though I died, we got him. And I got enough gold from that kill to cover that repair, and several more besides. It was cool being part of a team. I was not the main tank, but I had a job, and I did it well. We went on to the second boss (snakes) and this time we worked so well together we did it without any deaths, at, all (Tho we came real close at the end). An awesome feeling. Then we moved on to the thrid (spider) boss, who was quite a bit tougher. We had clear strategies for all these bosses, and good leadership, but things got out of hand and we wiped.
A lot of folks left at this point, and some new folks joined. I was willing to wait it out for one more try at least. After 20-30 mins we were good to go again and this time, with a modified plan, we executed perfectly. Warriors, such as myself, were a key component in the plan, and had to keep the boss busy and away from the main group, taunting it back when it went on occasional rampages. Our game of back and forth worked this time and she went down.
Bosses in ZG tend to drop 3 blues and sundry other items. So far all I had for my efforts were a few gold and a zullian coin, which was okay. I had joined the raid in-progress and was not expecting anything. Still, it seemed like this was just a random/roll on loot type of raid, so, when the one item, an epic paragon of power (a turnin for stuff from the Zandalarian faction) was put up, and was deemed 'for warriors', I decided to roll. There were only two of us, and I won! It turns out that this will allow me to get a pretty decent upgrade to my bracers, which are still at the level 40-something state.
Okay, so that's a lot about me. The important point is that I had fun. A lot of fun. In part because it was an instance, a place I had barely seen before, in part because I was with a good group, among them several friends, and in part because I went in with low expectations and received a surprising reward.
I'm not actually trying to convince you that you shouldn't have quit. Or trying to convince you that the 'end-game' really is the main game, tho I think in many ways it can be. I think I just want to explain why now, after so long an absence, I am enjoying WoW again. I am looking forward to the new content in the Expansion only 3 months away. I am finding new ways to enjoy the existing content, much of which I have yet to see.
I didn't quit because I saw that down the road, this could still be fun for me. Part of me wishes that you had seem that too as now we have one less thing in common than before. But hopefully you made the right choice for you, and will be the better for it.
You will be back...everyone comes back...there is no way out.
Doing pretty well so far. :) What I did wasn't so much quitting WoW as winning it.
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