Well, I finally decided to put my money where my mouth was.  After I wrote my last post I continued thinking about my feelings about World of Warcraft and opted to finally cancel my account.  I did so this morning.  The last day my account will be active is April 7th.

I realize that those of you who don’t play the game will never understand why this is such a big deal, and that’s ok.  I can try to explain, but the best analogy I can come up with is that I feel like I just broke up with someone I have been dating for the last four years.  I consider many of the folks I play with to be close friends, and frankly it is those friendships that have kept me playing for as long as I have.

I just can’t do it anymore, though.  I can’t justify spending the money to basically use the game as a chat interface, and I truly detest what they have done with the game.  It’s not fun for me anymore.  I’m getting a similar experience playing Runes of Magic and it is free.  As much as I’m enjoying that game, though, I’m determined not to get sucked in as much as I have been in any other MMO in the past.  I just don’t have the time for it.  I’m going to do things like, oh, yard work….house cleaning…home improvements.  You know, that stuff that you don’t do when you’re spending 5-6 hours a day playing a video game?

I’m also concentrating on [Super Secret Project], which I’ll be able to talk about more in a month or so.

So, yeah.  So long, World of Warcraft.  It was great fun while it lasted, but this cowboy needs to be moving along.

Wrath of the Lich King has been out for just over a month now, and so far I have to say I’m enjoying much of the new content.

Well, let me put a disclaimer on that.  I’ve found ways to enjoy the time I’m spending in game much more than I was before the expansion was released.  For one, I’ve been holding off on doing any quests until such a time as Krystalle is available to run with me.  As she’s been crazy busy recently, that means my main character has only hit level 75.  I’m ok with that.  I figure I’m only going to get a chance to see the new stuff once with fresh eyes, and I’d like to actually do that with her so we can share the experience instead of going back and running it with her again when I’ve already blown through it.

From everything I have encountered so far, though, and from everything I’m reading online and seeing in our guild, I am severely dissapointed in how easy they have made everything as far as new content is concerned.  Yes, I realize I haven’t encountered much of it yet – but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when one guild manages to beat the most difficult dungeon in the expansion within a week of release there really isn’t much in the way of challenge waiting for me.

I’m not the only one, either.  I’ve noticed that a lot of the formerly “hard core” raiders in our guild are in no rush to get to the current endgame and the sentiment is pretty much the same throughout – if there’s no challenge waiting for us, there’s no motivation to get back to the point where you are doing the same thing night after night.  Only two of the five officers in the guild have characters at the level cap.  Of the sub officers, of which there are four, only one is there.

Interestingly we have a good number of players in guild who HAVE hit 80.  Some of them on multiple characters.  I log into game and watch them, and other than the fact that they have gotten to experience some of the more interesting parts of the game that I haven’t gotten to yet I do not at all envy the fact that every night I see them running the same dungeons over and over again trying to get that “one drop” or grinding a faction.  Someone mentioned in guild today that we should be attempting to do a raid boss in Wintergrasp every week because it’s quick and will gear people up.

Ugh.

I just can’t find the motivation to get back into that mindset.  I want to be challenged.  I want my accomplishments in game to represent the fact that I worked hard and was dedicated to getting something done.  That’s why I’ve been spending a lot of time working on achievements.  As much as I bagged on them as being a way to get players to run content again that they have already done, I can at least take some solace that you have to either be really dedicated (or insane) to get many of them.

The hope out there among the hard core WoW players is that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as new content in the expansion and that later raids will be more challenging.  One can only hope.  Of course, when that happens I’ll be behind the curve as far as gear is concerned…but you know what?  Again, not so much with the caring.  I’ve made up my mind that if I’m not having fun doing something in game I’m simply not doing it anymore.  I spent far too long treating the game like a job, and more often than not for other people’s benefit.  I’m paying to play this game.  When someone decides they want to pay me to play I’ll re-evaluate my stance.