Post soundtrack: “Happy Birthday” by Weird Al Yankovic
It came as something of a surprise to me when I was browsing my old posts a couple of weeks ago, and realised that this blog is about to hit it’s first birthday. Yes, 12 months ago I started off with my first post, Who/Where/What?
Now that I’ve over a hundred posts under my belt (this is not only my anniversary post, but also post #103 – I didn’t notice that my Single Abstract Noun post was #100) the question of where to go next raises its head.
Since I started writing, I’ve raided through Ulduar (where Blizzard made vehicles briefly fun and exciting) and ToC (where Blizzard showed us just how boring they could make a raid if they thought they could get away with it – and get away with it they did), and entered ICC (where I managed to get in a few disappointing attempts on Festergut and Rotface before I gave up on raiding in an effort to preserve some love for the game).
I’ve gone from a fulltime raider in a hard-core raiding guild (Tempest, I miss you) to a raider in a not quite as capable guild (I should really /gquit from it actually, considering how little time I spend online on those characters) and now I’m taking thing easy in what’s mostly a social and levelling guild (probably the best place to be, when the game starts feeling dull).
I purchased a new gamecard today, so I think it can be taken as said that I’ve reclaimed some degree of interest in playing the game – while rolling new characters can be fun, I think it’s interacting with these curious new people I’m guilded with that has made the biggest difference. The difference between a silent guild chat and the rather more vocal SAN guild chat has make a remarkable difference in my enjoyment of the game, even when I’m just levelling solo as I tend to do. (I’ve even briefly popped onto the unofficial guild vent server to say hi to people – if you didn’t know better, you’d think I was much more socially inclined than I actually am)
I’m not looking too far into the future of my new characters – I’ve no idea if I’ll try raiding again, and to be honest the thought of the large number of heroics needed to gear up a new level 80 isn’t all that appealing (I’m kind of writing off my characters on Dath’remar, as I just don’t have the social network there to keep me there – they may be revisited in Cataclysm, but my enthusiasm to do so at the moment is minimal currently)
So I guess this is my “casual season,” while I bide my time and see where Blizz takes the game next. I’ll admit it’s tempting to buy into the “Cataclysm will fix everything!” meme that seems to be spreading lately, however it’s not only too early to start speculating but it’s also quite likely that they indeed won’t fix everything – Blizz aren’t perfect, after all. But they may bring enough changes and improvements to Azeroth that they’ll make new characters more pleasure than chore to play.
While I’ve been taking things in a more relaxed manner with NewPringle and NewMingle (my new dwarf priest on Argent Dawn), I’ve been taking the time to give new games a try, such as Batman: Arkham Asylum which I picked up last weekend on special on Steam. I’m also looking at some other old games that I didn’t give much time to or didn’t buy when they came out, with an eye to giving them a try this time round – my copy of GTA4 would be a good example of this, as my pc was a tad underpowered for it at the time and I didn’t put much playtime into it as a result.
So that’s where I am now, in quite a different mental space to where I was when I started writing. Change happens, both in people and in the games they play, and blogging about the changes has proven to be surprisingly fun – you can take that to mean I’ll keep on going (although there will probably be a lot more “Look where my characters are now!” filler posts – you’ve been warned!).
For now? I guess I should log back onto NewMingle, as she’s got a long way to go. But it looks like it’ll be a fun trip, and having good company while you travel usually tends to make those long journeys more enjoyable.
/wave
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