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| have to admit, this is the absolute best post I, too, have ever seen on any WoW forums. I can only imagine what the OP is feeling, but some aspects of his experience with WoW, and that of mine, do overlap, so I can relate to what he's saying. I started the game over a year ago, in US Open Beta. Before that I had heard of it, and even checked out some screenshots and videos of it. I really never gave it much thought since Warcraft 3 had been a sort of a disappointment to me as a game. I stuck to Diablo 2, and other means of killing time. Having never played MMORPG's before, I wasn't waiting for WoW to be released. I had played several years in a MUD, and it had consumed a lot of my time during highschool. I had played Diablo 2 in bnet, and as such was more than aware of what an itemgrind really is. When I got into the US Open Beta, the game felt awesome. I can't describe how it was, as that feeling is but a fleeting memory these days. That's what happens with most things I guess. You're awestruck, you experience it more, and in the end you get jaded. I played the US Open Beta alone, exploring Dun Morogh with my Dwarf Warrior. I loved the snowy landscapes, even though my crappy PC didn't do them any justice at the time. Then, as I ventured into Loch Modan for the first time, it was amazing. To think that there was another "world" beyond Dun Morogh! Sadly I ran out of beta time, but after 9 days of trying the game out I was hooked. I started to wait for the Final Beta, as I couldn't get into the EU Closed Beta which had been going on for some time. WoW was the topic of some discussion at the time, so I found some online friends who were waiting for the Final Beta as well. I had heard about these "guilds" in WoW, and having ran some sort of a "clan" or a "community" of online friends, I thought I'd give it a try. I recruited people in IRC, and we decided to create a guild in the Final Beta. Northern Prime was born. Playing with friends in the guild in the Final Beta was awesome. Every new quest, area, instance... Having great friends to experience them with felt insanely awesome, and I was so addicted I couldn't believe it. But then it was time for the Final Beta to come to an end. We started waiting for the release, and I personally pre-ordered a Collector's Edition box. Finally, WoW went live, and our guild, which already had several members, was founded. It felt good to start fresh, and it was fun to explore everything, and still keep up a fast pace without skipping any of the content. It was all fun competition, everyone could solo stuff, and we could group up and do quests and some instances. I had played for 40 hours straight once in the Final Beta, and to be honest, I had maybe slept 4-5 hours a night because of the addiction. Sure, I was supposed to go to school, and I did, but then again I skipped most of it. I don't really regret that though, since it wasn't what I wanted anyways. Now as WoW was live, I felt that feeling of rushing and hurry was gone, and even though it came with a warm feeling of complacement, there was this impending sense of... Something. I didn't need to rush to 60, as I realized WoW would be here years from now, and somehow I felt being left behind, as everyone seemed bent on getting levels fast. I didn't give it much thought though, and kept playing and enjoying the content. For me, I guess my salvation, and my curse, came at around the 30's and 40's as we started going to more difficult instances. I started disliking instances, as everyone felt very tense inside them. There were some bickering, and I couldn't really relate to that. I was having fun, and relaxing, and I couldn't really get annoyed by a wipe or a bad pull or an item not dropping or losing an item to someone. I never went to Scholomance with Northern Prime. As great as a guild it was, I started to realize that it wasn't for me. We had a great set of fair rules, awesome website with awesome graphics and code, a lot of great members, and all that. However, I didn't feel I fit in. I wanted my privacy, and I wanted to stay casual and relax. I talked a lot about RL stuff on the guild channel, made jokes, told people it's Friday and they should get wasted or something, and such, but the channel was mostly filled with links of items. So I left. I tried to do it without any drama, and tried to maintain civil relationships with all of the guys there because they were awesome, atleast most of them. I may have taken part in some drama afterwards though, which I do regret. This, however, I think, was my salvation. Leaving the guild. Northern Prime is filled with level 60's now, who are wearing tier 2 epic sets, have finished all the available in-game content, and will most probably be among the first people to get the AQ instances on "farm status". "Farm status". Doesn't that give anyone else the chills? It does to me. I wouldn't want any instance to be on "farm status". All of them are, though. So, here I am today, with over 20 characters across 11 realms, characters of all classes and all races. I'm still loving WoW, or atleast trying my best to do so. I was an avid PvP'er, but unfortunately the Honor system made WoW PvP into a fragfest, and the Battlegrounds killed PvP entirely making it into a grind. Also, as days passed and people farmed the high-end instances more and more, it came increasingly difficult to beat anyone in PvP, regardless of how much they sucked. The only way of really having a chance in PvP would have been to join the raids, join them repetatively, and as often as possible. Now I'm playing my alts, waiting for more content for 5 people, and more content for solo players. As it is, I could do Scholomance and Stratholme with 5 players, but it's quite hard finding people like me on our realm, people who would have the time to go into an instance like that and fully explore it, and do quests in it, instead of doing a "Baron run", or something like that. And I don't like instances. People get very tense in instances. I'd like the content to be quests in the outside world. Anyways, for those who do not wish to end up like the OP, you can always jump off the train and walk. It'll get you where you're going, and even if it's slower, you're going at your own pace. It's just that the train goes through all kinds of cool giftshops, whereas you're headed somewhere completely different. No candy there for you, me, or anyone who's not on the train. OP: I hope you can still be able to enjoy WoW in some form or another. You can just let go of the item addiction. It doesn't make you a better person in any sense of the word if you're wearing a tier2 epic set, or wielding a legendary weapon. It doesn't make you a skilled WoW player. Even chimps can be taught tricks. WoW is no rocket science. All it makes you is someone who has enough time to get the items. Well, enough rant from me. A full 10/10 to the OP. I wish there'd be more threads like this on the forums. |