Ch-ch-ch-Changes
Don’t panic, my friends. I’m not planning to leave WoW.
I have been thinking, though, for some months, that I am not happy with my WoW situation. Pinning down exactly why I’m unhappy is a little trickier, so bear with my while I do some thinking out loud, as it were. Pardon the bullet points, they help me think, really, they do.
What I’ve Been Doing Lately
- I’ve been running in the OLRG on either Gurdrid or Breige, depending on my tanking confidence. As much as I am encouraged by Matty and others in the OLRG, I do not want to be the weak link as the tank. But I do have Breige, and I do love running with the Old Ladies in whatever role I take. After all, sometimes xp sponge is a worthwhile goal, is it not?
- I recently completed my Jeweled Onyx Panther, which was a huge effort and time suck thanks to 6 fully working farms, four cooldowns I was managing, and trying to earn money on the side.
- Scenarios/Heroic Dungeons for JP. I want to get a few heirloom sets completed, so when I do level new characters, I can take all the expensive items instead of the ones good for my class/spec. Not to mention XP boosts.
- Not playing as much WoW. I know I go in spurts, but this past week I logged in on Saturday for OLRG, and not again until last night for the guild raid.
- Guild “raiding” We’re doing old school raids for pets, primarily.
Looking at this list, the only one that really requires me to be a part of Higher Authority is the guild raiding. And that’s not strictly a truth. I could continue running with the guild on those runs whether or not I’m actually there.
Why I Haven’t Been Logging In
I think I haven’t been logging in much for a few reasons:
- Almost all the time when I log in, I’m the only one in the guild on… except on Wednesdays and occasional Saturdays.
- I just did a huge push to complete a project. While satisfying, it usually takes me a couple of weeks to recharge, and figure out how to focus on the next thing.
- My guildies, let’s face it, are not at all WoW knowledgable. This is a casual passtime for them, something they do when there’s not much else going on. They like seeing new content, but they aren’t going to come up with ideas for killing Kael’thas so we can try to get A’lar. They aren’t going to ask to see a raid I’ve not thought to take them to. They let me run the show, and come along for the ride. While this is not a bad thing for them, it means I have to do all the work of coming up with places to go, ideas for trying to down a boss with an annoying mechanic, etc. Conversation about WoW is me telling them things. I rarely, if ever, hear of something from them that I didn’t know.
- I have been busy outside Azeroth, spending free time with my wife, who is now going to school full time on top of the full time job, so that free time is premium.
It would seem, then, that what I am missing in my Azerothian life is, as Tome so eloquently put it when talking about why she started her blog in her Twisted Nether Interview, “people to talk to about WoW”.
What I’d Like to Do
This is kinda important, because what I am doing and what I want to do are clearly not identical. So, let’s think about this, shall we?
- Kill All the Things with other people I know! PuGging has its place, sure. There’s plenty of overgearing, but it’s almost like playing group content solo with 4 NPCs.
- Maybe actually relearn tanking/healing. A lot of my tanking lacks are made up for in the <2 minute boss fights in old raids, and I haven’t healed a dungeon since level 65 or something.
- Flex Raiding. I’ve been a fairly successful LFR hunter so far, I just might be ready to move up to Flex. My schedule might even allow for a two-day normal raiding team. But only maybe.
- Cool things that require all the professions to do without gold output.
And look at that list, lots of things that being in a more active guild would definitely encourage. I can still do that last one on my own anywhere I want, but the rest of them? Definitely a worthy endeavor.
A Change of Scenery?
My dear wife, because she does this for me, asked me why I don’t consider transferring servers to somewhere that I know an active player or two. I could keep my ties to Higher Authority either by leaving an alt there, or via Battle Tag. I have 11 characters on Ysera, 10 of them in Higher Authority. It wouldn’t be a horrible difficulty to do the move, now, would it? And so, I started to consider it.
The Pros
- If I choose well, I can revitalize my WoW time, get to do some of those things on my wants list. Maybe finish the Legendary Cloak quest line.
- I wouldn’t be the sole idea generator for Things To Do.
- I wouldn’t have to screw around with the guild bank.
- I wouldn’t log in to no one in the guild.
- I might meet new cool people, just by being willing to type /g. That’s safe, right?
- I wouldn’t be guild leader any more.
The Cons
- I wouldn’t be guild leader any more…
- An outlay of $25-$150 in moving my level 90 toons. More if I want to take my complete dwarf collection with me.
- Sonaira and Shoryl wouldn’t be on the same server any more
- I might lose touch with my Higher Authority guildies, or even hurt their feelings if I leave
Yeah, ok. So the money thing, while a downside, doesn’t have to be in one chunk, and I can spare $25 periodically. And I’ve lost touch with other players because they or I have moved on to enjoy playing the game more or stopped playing entirely (obviously, not me with the stopping)
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
There’s tons more to do in Mists of Pandaria than any expansion previous, especially for the casual player. The problem, though, isn’t what there is to do. It’s that I started playing WoW as a social game, and I would like to return it to that type of game for myself.
One of the other things Sona and I have discussed is that Higher Authority isn’t the guild in my head. The guild in my head is… well, it’s kinda the OLRG, to be honest. A group of people who don’t judge, but have fun. Who tackle things together, but also individually. Who are sometimes quiet, sometimes thoughtful, often funny, and above all, wonderful people to hang out with. That’s not an environment you can create without careful curation – and even then, it doesn’t always work out that way.
Higher Authority is a quiet place these days. We’ve got more players that haven’t been online in six months than we have toons that have (and consider… 6 working farms…) Higher Authority is not the place I want it to be, and it’s not a place that I can make better by myself. My options seem to be to recruit all of my lovely friends to my guild, or move to where some of my lovely friends are. The more I write, the more I think, the more it seems that it’s time to move on.
Now the question is: Where?
Posted on January 23, 2014, in General. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
Tiny WoW Guild 
Could always start a re-roll guild on a new server, or use your current guild, and cap at 60/70/80/85 to do the raids.
It’s the end of the expansion and a lot of people are probably bored with nothing to do and would be interested in going back to older content.
Just an idea if you don’t want to pay for a transfer 🙂
The problem with using my current guild is warm body count. There are three active players right now. Add to that my lack of extrovertedness, and we would struggle. Heck, if I weren’t such a complete and utter introvert, I’m sure the guild would be larger. But I have zero interest in the work it would take to grow the guild.
Fair enough, sounds like joining an established guild is much more what you need 🙂
I also been away from the game for quiet some time now too. But i still manage to try to play Diablo from time to time. but since i also upgraded my pc to windows 8 got all fucked up lol so now im reinstalling my windows 7 just to be able to come back playing the game. I will not consume all my hours to it though i learned from it already. Im also just trying to catch up on blogging as well. I still keep myself busy with work and spending time with family for the most part. =) its really a matter of just balancing the time. =)
Oh, time balance isn’t particularly difficult. Since WoW is my main hobby, and my wife understands that, we discuss what she feels she needs from me as well as what I want from the game and outside of the game, and we strike a balance between those things. I don’t have “wife aggro” ever. Sure, she sometimes needs my attention while I’m playing, but she takes the other people I might be playing with very seriously, as well, so I never feel her interruptions are unwarranted.
I know a lot of people struggle with their time balance, but that is actually fairly low on my list of needs.
The nutshell of my difficulty is that while I can deal with LFR/D/S most of the time, sometimes what I want to do is play with friends, and my current guild is not the place that this is easily afforded, so again, my introvertedness plays a part in that.
Well different people has different situation that differs how you play the game and how much time you put into. In your case, both of you plays the game which is no problem. Balancing the time still make a huge deal for me I learned my situation with it. It was just difficult for me before bec I work overnights and then I had to stop raiding after 2hrs to get ready for work. Need sleep too. Anyway, hope all things work out for you. The only way I can play again is to buy a new pc omg!!! Cant get my current pc to work in downloading the games at all. Im a sad panda. 😦
You’d always be welcome in my guild but that would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Although we’re growing by leaps and bounds, no longer a one person guild! Repgrind has a level 13 draenei here!
I do know what you mean though, I’ve given up on finding a guild full of night shift workers and retirees who are on weekdays between 10 and 4 actually doing something. My participation in the guild’s I’ve been in was to put stuff in the guild bank for raids but the only people on when I was were usually a level 7 who had a sick day.
Luckily, my WoW time is more traditional for the States. I’m on in the evenings, after work, but not too late; and while I will go stretches of playing every day for a couple of hours, I can also go stretches where it’s a few days between logins, or sometimes even marathon weekends. 🙂
I do appreciate the offer, but it doesn’t sound like your guild would be a good fit for me in terms of activity. 🙂
Our guild activity would be ok for you. Well, someone is usually on. Granted, it’s usually just one. Eh, you have an alt there, you know what we’re about. I wish I could be on the same time as everyone else, but my work schedule is what it is and my hiatus definitely hurt our activity.
But more important to the fact is that you don’t have to change guilds to address your #1 to do. All you need to do is form a regular group of people to go and kill stuff with. There’s plenty of us around with alts in such a way that we can alternate roles on occasion, too. The rest I completely understand, and most certainly agree with evaluating one’s own WoW life from time to time.
I suspect that the subtext that has also been running through my head is a bit slimly represented in my post. I’m kinda tired of being the only one who comes up with things to do. I love the OLRG in part because I’m tagging along on Matty’s Tour Bus. There is a synergy that happens when other people also suggest doing things. That’s something that has always been lacking in Higher Authority, even in our hey-day of 7 active players.
Additionally, I never really wanted to be a guild leader again. I ended up where I am because someone needed to do it when the previous GL got hacked and the guild got disbanded.
And there’s a thing that’s really hard to explain. I’m not necessarily good at asking questions, but I am good at listening when other people discuss class mechanics among themselves. But something I learned last night is post worthy, so you will see it there. 🙂
I do understand what you are saying and some of those things you know I can address…unfortunately I’m just not on enough right now. When we were a guild, instead of just a collection of isolated players (which I’ve come to terms with since my initial reply), much of what you were talking about would have been solved.
Oh, and I didn’t say it in the last reply, but whenever you type “my wife” it still makes me grin. 😀