Two harpoons tethered by thick chains raced through the air, slamming into the purple dragons hide with enough force to sink a battleship. Instantly the Bastilla’s winches kicked in reeling the harpoons in, and in turn, dragging the giant lizard to the ground, as it falls I watch it’s decent, carefully timing my approach before I set off at a sprint, intending to be the first thing it sees when it opens it’s eyes. I make it, it’s face impacting into the ground mere inches from me and without breaking stride I slam my shield across it’s face, snapping it’s head aside and causing it to step back a little. I following up with a series of savage thrusts from my sword, drawing my blade almost ineffectively across it’s thick hide.
If it wasn’t for those magic users, it might have had me…
As the fight draws out I noticed the immense heat from it’s breath is starting to melt my armour, the rapid heating and cooling is causing some joints to seize up, with one herculean effort, I thrust my sword in through the one of the beasts eyes, it’s flanks and rear being hammered from everything to fireballs to rifle rounds. The beast freezes for a second, lets out one last defiant roar… then collapses.
Death of Razorscale
Achievements ping across the bottom of my screen and I give them little more than a cursory glance. I stand over the beast for a moment, while Squick, our Shaman, starts rifling through the beasts hoard, probably looking for anything that he might be able to sell knowing him, and I just watch the beast, very clearly dead and no threat whatsoever but this… this feels wrong. I stay for a moment, looking into it’s dead eyes, Razorscale I think they called it… I didn’t care, just another dragon to me, all you gotta do is watch out for the fir- My musing are interrupted by Gorfy pulling it’s skin off and then the beast vanishes. I march on over to the group, some people already clutching their hearthstones tightly. I keep quiet, clean off my blade and holster it, working the joints in my armour again to loosen them up. What is this feeling? It’s not guilt, I couldn’t care if that thing lived or died… and it’s not joy either. And then I realise what it is: Apathy.
WoW has started to become less and less fun for me these days. I’m losing my focus, my motivation to even log in anymore and most of the times I do it’s because I get at least three people on MSN pleading with me to come tank XYZ for them. I wonder why I still log in, why I keep playing WoW. The constant changes and nerfs to my class set my learning curve back every single patch, the pain, and annoyance of running that one dungeon over 30 times just to get some nice new boots has worn me down do the point I groan every time someone asks for a heroic… and yet here I am, in the depth of Ulduar in the aftermath of a giant battle with a huge dragon.
WoW has changed for me, all I see are flaws and annoyances where once I saw an exciting class and huge open world. All I see are mechanics and gimmicks where once I saw challenge and exciting, story driven encounters. And yet I keep logging in, I keep helping out my guild where I can, working on that next item.
So I mused on it.
I spend a few hours thinking, then another hour having an almost aimless rant at poor Squick who probably didn’t deserve to have my foam flying at him. He suggests that maybe I’m burnt out, and I agree, maybe I am. Maybe I need a new world to explore, a new set of challenges to overcome, less gimmick fights and more challenge, less reliance on optimal builds and perfect DPS rotations. Maybe I need something to test ME again, not 10 people’s ability to avoid fire on the floor or floating orbs for the 18th time this expansion.
But I stay, and I’ll be sure to stay as long as my guild need me. As long as that guild considers me a friend and an asset I’ll be there for them as best I can because I realised that those people, that guild… if it wasn’t for them I’d have stopped playing a LONG LONG time ago. Moved on to some other MMO or stopped playing them all together. That guild helped my circle of friends grow, even in real life, that guild has gave some of the most enjoyable and memorable times I’ve had in years. But that guild is also thoroughly entrenched in WoW…
So you can keep me for now, Blizzard; you can keep me for now.
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