For a while now I’ve not been happy in game. It’s that pre expansion lull, which I’ve had before but personally I think Blizzard released the 4.3 patch too far away from the MoP release. To put it bluntly, I’m pretty damn bored. I have tried keeping my interest alive by levelling alts, but now Pinkamena is 85 I can’t bear the thought of levelling another alt, even my lvl 82 hunter. The only thing I do still enjoy is raiding. Not LFR or random pugs, I like raiding with my guildies. We tend to clear normal DS in one night now, leading to a fun alt run not long ago, but I’d also like to try some heroic modes. But this is where the problem is.
My guild is a ‘mature’ guild. Most of our members are adults with jobs, kids and other responsibilities. And I’m guessing there may be some burn out there too. Which means a lot of raids are being cancelled, with only four or five sign ups. On the occasions we have 7 or 8 sign ups we will pug in a few members, but that tends to mean we don’t try HC modes. I can’t actually remember the last time we had an entirely guild run. And it’s gotten to the point where I’m not sure what to do any more.
Today I spent the afternoon on Pinkie, and took the plunge and after getting enough VP to replace my crappy green trunket, I did LFR for the first time. Both parts. I got the shoulder token to replace the blue ones I was wearing, and a ring, but I ended up losing the staff from Deathwing to a 390+ geared Balance Druid. I guess it was the straw that broke the camels back.
I logged off and just don’t have the will to log back on. There is no raid tonight, so I’m sat at home waiting for pizza and watching antique programs.
Like I say, I don’t know what to do. The options before me are quitting the game til MoP, or trying to find a guild that is raiding. The thing is I love my guild, I love the people in it, but I don’t love the lack of raids. I don’t want to leave but I want to raid! Ack! And if I take a break, what will I do in the mean time? I just can’t get into SW:TOR, not sure I want to spend money of Tera as I keep buying games that I end up not subbing to for more than a few months.
There is always Diablo 3. I signed up for the annual pass so I get it free, and it’s downloading as I type. I have been waiting for it for a long time, and I’ll be able to keep in touch with people via Real ID.
So anyway, I’m far too stressed out to say this is all about a game! 🙂
Arsenic and Old Mooncloth 
I felt that a little before Cata came out. Stopped playing until the pre-4.0 events started. I can’t say I ever really got back into it, did dungeons with a micro guilf of RL friends for about a year then quit WoW entirely. I haven’t regretted it, and am not really looking forward to MoP either. I like SWTOR for now. and GW2 is on the Horizon, but I honestly don’t know what I’ll be doing next.
I think Diablo 3 is coming at a perfect time. People are getting burned out on Cata. This is a perfect distraction. I will be basically reposting auctions in WoW and then playing Diablo 3.
I hear ya.
Especially with my time being so limited, every minute I get to step away and play is precious. When that time is being disrespected by the people in my guild, why should I even log on? I’ve got 3-4 hours a week and I set it aside to raid. People screwing around and no-shows… why bother?
I find myself objecting to your statement about people screwing around and being disrespectful – and this is the reason why. It’s a difficult time in guild at the moment. Our GM has been sent away for weeks by his workplace. My husband has had his work cut down to three days a week. Since Feb. And that means more often than not he’s in work beyond hours, and is stressed as hell to fit in everything he needs to do. In the last few weeks he’s had at least 4 raid nights when he’s had to sign as tentative, because he’s either getting home too late, or is too exhausted by the time he gets back. Meanwhile I am taking on board every single little bit of work I can possibly take to make up shortfalls in our earnings, working evenings and weekends when I can, simply so we can eat, never mind still play WoW. My work comes in sporadically, so I have to take what I can, when I can. No questions asked. Our rogue is being worked fingers to the bone, and hasn’t had much of a chance to play either. We’re a small guild. Four players not about affects us bigtime. And these are just the facts that I can offer for four of us. Other people in the guild have a hell of a lot on their plate right now, too. Quite frankly we’ve been hit in the balls by the Real Life Boss.
That ain’t disrespect, that aint’ screwing people around. That’s taking hits.
We ARE trying, and we’re doing our hardest to keep things going, we’ve just gained some new recruits, and I, for one, am really looking forward to hopefully raiding with them, as they’re a perfect fit. So it’s not all doom and gloom.
Um, I’m not in your guild and none of my statements were meant to be a reflection of any guild other than my own, no disrespect intended.
I was sharing what happens in MY guild when people log in at raid time and immediately queue up for PvP. Or log in 5 minutes late and then say, “BRB have to go smoke” and then they don’t wander back for another 20 minutes. I’m talking about genuine disrespect of the fact that this is a team venture and there are 9 other people waiting for “that guy” to run to the store because he suddenly HAD to have a Skickers bar because he’s baked.
Ah, that’s fair enough – I feel for you regarding that, that would annoy the hell out of me too. We’re pretty good at being professionals when we raid, we have a raid break mid evening and no popping off for smokes until then. I’m also a bit defensive of us, because we’re a lovely bunch of people and everyone seems to have been hit by difficult times lately, and we like relaxing in game – except that real life won’t let us. Which is really, REALLY frustrating.
*offers olive branch and a slice of cake*
Gladly accepts cake. It isn’t a lie, is it?
We have our share of people with real life issues; one in the military, one is very ill, a couple parents, etc. Making room for their scheduling requirements (which we don’t begrudge, that’s important stuff there) is just so much harder when the people without legitimate reasons just start flaking and wanking off.
Your guild situation sounds very annoying! I’m a casual sort of raider myself, but that doesn’t mean I wander off during raids, turn up late of just DC when I feel like it, that’s not being casual, that’s being plain old rude.
But like Alq says, in my guild it’s not people screwing around, it’s real life critting us for over 9000, and that’s what makes it so hard to know what to do.
Nope, my cake is never a lie. I could win battles with some of the ones I’ve made. In a good way, of course! I also have a recipe for a 5 minute microwave chocolate cake, which we’ve whipped up in raid breaks in the past. May have to share that sometime.
I’m also with you on the making room for scheduling. We don’t have attendance regulations, and always want people to be there because they want to be there. With that comes responsibility, and not messing others about. End of the day it’s all about teamwork and enjoying that teamwork with like-minded folk.
I’d just take a break. Even as big a WoW nut as I am, I need to go do something else every few months. Just two or three weeks on another game can make a big difference. I’m gonna be playing Diablo III, and there are also F2P MMOs if you want to get the MMO experience without the commitment of spending money.
There’s a lot of flaking going around at the moment. Our 10m group is pretty much stalled at Blackhorn HC, having been unable to get our friday prog raid going for three weeks running. Tomorrow will be our next HC attempt, but I’m going to be working late so it’ll probably be scrapped – we’re short on healers.
Diablo 3 is helping a lot to keep people even-keeled in terms of content frustration when they’re in the game, but it’s definitely not good for our attendance.
It seems to me that lots of people are genuinely slacking these days. That’s not a good thing, but it’s definitely not terrible, either. Things are dull. When you’re logging in just to raid, it’s even worse. For a while I would log in, look at the screen, do a nope.jpg, and log back out for a nap. And I wasn’t even tired. I mean, when you’d rather clean the house than play WoW…
That said, I switched factions and leveled tons of alts, and that helped me a lot. Gave me something else to do other than queueing for LFR (I don’t raid, no time, no schedule that would allow it) and doing dungeons at cap with idiots–example: healers who don’t dispel on Benedictus. 😐 I had that six times IN A ROW with that dungeon and I was just about foaming mad by then.
That said, the whole, there on time but BRBing immediately for a smoke/store trip/et cetera? Extremely rude and disrespectful. But I hear ya on the ol’ burnout. I’m feeling it now even though I keep playing. I just don’t have the energy for other hobbies.
I know just what you mean about dungeons etc. The last few LFRs I have done have been awful. People being rude, slacking, trolling… All the bad stuff seemed to have tripled.
Recently though I’ve been hit by the real life bat and haven’t really been able to play, and now I’m finding I have more of an urge to play.
I know just what you mean about having no energy for other hobbies, I thought that was just me!
Aw no, it’s definitely not just you! I mean, I think not being able to play makes you more likely to, well, want to play. (We want things we can’t have!) But at the same time, ugh, when it’s work all day and come home and a.) play WoW, or b.) practice musical instruments/crochet/sew/write, it’s like… I seriously would rather just RELAX. Sometimes WoW sends my blood pressure through the roof, but on the whole it’s a lot more relaxing than trying to write a novel.