My hands are still shaking. I feel like I’m in withdrawal. Something is missing.  Something is out-of-place. Earlier this week, I did the unthinkable. This is the week I finally worked up the guts and ended my six-year relationship with World of Warcraft. I’ve been in a rocky relationship with the most popular MMO of all time for much of the past six years, honestly, but something about no longer having access to the game anymore is a bit disconcerting.  But, this is a thing that had to be done. Enough was enough. It was just time for me to throw in the towel and stop amassing those pesky monthly fees. It was time for me to say goodbye to a game that had long since moved past content that appealed to me and goodbye to the endless repeatable daily quests. It was time for me to face the truth: If I’m still a noob after six years, then man… I don’t think I’m gonna get any better.
This is a screenshot of the upcoming WoW expansion. Leaked footage!
I’ve written about my experiences with World of Warcraft in the past, but I’ll give a quick run down here. One summer, I decided to not return home from college after classes had wrapped up for the year, and instead to join the campus computer technician workforce. But campuses can be a lonely place to be after everyone has packed up shop and gone home, so I picked up World of Warcraft as a way to still maintain the bare minimum of human contact all people need to survive. Elrood had already been playing for quite some time, which A) negated all chances of us being able to play together for at least a year, and B) gave me someone to send flabbergasted private messages to.
By the time I hit level 60, Burning Crusade was already out, so I didn’t even really catch up until the very end stages of Outland. But that, unfortunately, is where I discovered the awful, hideous truth. I am fundamentally bad at World of Warcraft.
Arthas: First he was good, then he was dead I guess, then he was two people who became one person, and then he was in some raid content I never saw.
I’ll admit it. I’m a noob. I don’t want to spend hours researching “how to play my class.” I don’t feel like I should be locked into a spell rotation of three spells when Blizzard has given us SO MANY to choose from (as a warlock, I liked Eye of Kilrogg the best. Come on, a glowing green orb that can run around and scout for you? That is useful in at least four situations! And I used it in ALL FOUR of them, I’m proud to announce). I don’t want to research boss fights, and I don’t want to download tables detailing the only way I can invest my meager talent points in order to cause more damage and look like every other damn warlock on my server.
This lead to some endgame problems. Namely, I am the worst at any and all WoW endgame content. My DPS is so low I usually get auto booted from my party of randomly selected terrible and spiteful jerkwads, I can’t defend a point in Arathi Basin, and lord knows I’ve never gone head to head with Illidan, much less the Litch King himself. Endgame content for me is, unfortunately, wrapping up any quest lines I may have missed, and DAILY QUESTS.
For those of you who do not play WoW, let me explain daily quests. Go outside and kick five cats. While you’re doing that, imagine that there are only five cats outside, and that everyone in your goddamn neighborhood is also kicking cats for some reason. After one cat has been kicked, it cannot be kicked again for five minutes. Upon turning this in, you get four dollars and a badge. If you do this every day for a month, you can buy a cat of your own that does nothing but randomly meow at you.
What World of Warcraft looks like, if you're not awful at it like me.
I’ve been playing WoW very sparingly for the past year. I had times when I played it every day for about two weeks, and three-month periods where I did not. I actually tried to cancel my account before now, but the crying peon at the top of the post tore into my soul and made me reconsider. The second time I tried to cancel, my web browser crashed on me, and I didn’t have the guts to do it again.
But this week… things went a little differently. I successfully unsubscribed, and then entered a deep and horrible depression from which there was no return. Sure I was bad at WoW and not enjoying myself enough to warrant the monthly fee. But… dammit, I’ve been playing this game for so long. WoW was there when there was nothing else to play. Content showed up in an endless stream, something new to experience even if it really amounted to having different kinds of (metaphorical) cats to kick. WoW feels like an old, if slightly abusive friend who you can always count on to kill an hour, but it just wasn’t worth the cost to keep it around anymore.
For a while I almost rebounded onto the new Knights of the Old Republic MMO, that unspent $15 monthly fee burning a hole in my pocket. But I didn’t do this either, mainly because purchasing KOTOR at this point is $60, and I can’t really justify spending that amount around the holidays. Especially considering there’s a monthly fee to join up there as well.
Plus, maybe if I completely failed to be good at WoW in six years, maybe MMOs aren’t my cup of tea. Time to try something else, I guess.
Hello, my name is Tophat. And I’m a noob.
… anyone want to play some games?
Filed under: Commentary, Games Tagged: | cancelled account, commentary, crying peon, Pandas, post MMO jitters, World of Warcraft
Hey Tophat. That’s a pretty long time to spend on one game. I’ve been bouncing around mmos for a while now, but always wind up coming back to WoW, even though I can never seem to settle for one race and class, so I don’t progress as quickly as I’d like. During your time playing did you ever check out james leveling guide, or the zygor level guide? I’ve been searching for an alliance level guide, it’s been a toss up between those two, but I think I might wind up settling on the zygor levelling guide.
Nah, I never checked out any leveling guides. Pre-Cata it was a lot harder to go from one to the level cap, but Cataclysm really simplified the whole process. Blizzard wants to show off that raid content, you know. My advice is to do an aspect of the game you enjoy- questing maybe? Or PVP? or running dungeons? And just do those until you’ve made it where you want to be. Questing, in my experience, is by far the quickest way to go.
And actually? I don’t know much about alliance. I played a NE druid until about level 30, but it didn’t match up to the horde. That was before WOTLK released, though, so I’m betting a lot has changed since then.
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Congrats on taking that first step towards recovery! Although it doesn’t sound like you were much of an addict. I’ve been waiting YEARS for Old Republic to come out. I preordered the shiny-ultra-super-maximum-deluxe package with toys, maps, gear, and whatever. But right before the big release day, I cancelled it. I didn’t want to lose months of my life to another MMO and I can’t casually play when I want for the reasons you described. I can’t stand how snooty max-levellers are when looking for groups. I like Skyrim where I can do whatever the hell I want and not hear how much I suck from fetus-bastard 12 year olds who have all the free time in the world. Signed, Grumpy Old Gamer.
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