My name is PTD, and I have a WoW jealousy problem.
And it’s high time that I admit it. If you haven’t guessed from the blog’s title or from previous posts, I don’t have a whole lot of time to play WoW. Now, I’m not a 2 hour a week guy, but my play time usually hovers around 10 hours or so a week. Not a bad amount, but it comes in fits and starts, an hour here, two hours there. I also have trouble scheduling raids with my guild, as their times just plain don’t mesh with mine.
I can’t blame them, though. My times kind of suck.
Anyhow, what happens is I spend time wishing I had the time to raid. I sit around and wish I could run back to back to back heroics, too. But it just doesn’t happen. It’s nobody’s fault, I just happen to have a family and, well…
Family >>>>>WoW
It’s a pretty simple equation.
Still, I can’t help but be a little jealous sometimes. You see, I like to think of myself as a fairly SKILLED player with an absence of TIME. I routinely beat out those better geared than I on the lovely little meters. (And yes, Matticus, I know what you think about meters..) I’m also very, VERY good at staying mobile when healing (I am a Tree, after all, a Tree that stands around too much is not a very good one in my estimation!) and I tend to pick up things very quickly.
Honestly, there’s no way through the blog I could really illustrate my skill, but the most I can say is that I think I’m pretty good.
So when I see people far better geared than I, I sometimes get jealous. You see I may have grouped with you, and outhealed you, yet I don’t have all the shinies you do. That just gets me thinking: How much better could I be if I DID have another 400 spellpower to play around with?
There’s the jealousy. I wish I had more time to farm heroics, but I don’t. I wish that I could raid 3 nights a week, but I can’t. And when I see other people that can, I sometimes get irrationally jealous.
I know it’s irrational, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. Sometimes I get overly critical of other trees, poring over meters and thinking "this guy doesn’t use his tools! He never even uses Nature’s Swiftness!" Then I feel kind of bad about it, and I really must stop. Hell, maybe that player would be jealous of my family, or my job, who knows. I just need to knock it off. So I ask myself, what’s the real problem?
Success in WoW is Nearly All About Time
And I won’t kid you, that bugs me. This whole hardcore versus casual argument, for instance. It’s rarely about real, measurable skill — chances are one guy just has a lot more playtime than the other. After all, what constitutes leveling past the cap? Gear! How do you get the best gear? Some kind of grinding! Be it heroics, raids, farming, PvP, what have you. The way you get better gear is spending a lot of time grinding for it in one way or another.
And time, my friends, is something I flat don’t have.
Think about this for a second. You’re a raid leader, and you get two apps for one spot. Both are tree druids, and just for the sake of argument, let’s say their gear is roughly equal.
Tree #1: Able to raid up to 4 times a week, a total of 16 hours. Can guarantee at least 3 nights per week. Performed well, though not exceptionally, in a trial heroic run.
Tree #2: Can only raid once per week, period. Can’t guarantee more than that. Performed well beyond expectations in a trial heroic run, same group, same instance.
Who gets the spot? Tree #1, of course. No questions asked.
In fact, in today’s WoW, I doubt it’s even a competition. Unless there are some sort of mitigating factors, like Tree #1 being a know asshat, Tree #2 is out of luck. He hopes to find a guild or some kind of outlet that will allow him to raid, but the prospects are dubious.
I am that Tree. And honestly I can’t outright complain, that’s just the way things are. WoW is a game that’s built as one giant time sink, in the end the guys that have more time to dump into it will come out on top.
This mentality spills over not just from basic game systems but to guild structures. Besides, there are few good ways to accurately measure WoW skill, if there are any at all.
So never mind me, I’ll just head back to the corner and snark about your play time. Gripe to myself about how I wish I could run 4 heroics right in a row. I’ll just envy your pull of 25 Heroic badges from one solitary play session, a number that takes me 2 weeks sometimes.
Oh well, I have beautiful kids.
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Take pride in your skill, and in your lovely children/real life. A game is just a game after all. Hopefully you’ll be able to experience the content at your own pace soon enough. Is there any chance for you network in game and find a group of people who play around your variable hours? Perhaps you could start a static heroic group of some sort. Just a thought.
In the end, will these heroic runs and raids mean anything to you in ten years time?
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Also, there are guilds out there that will work with your schedule. They may be few and far between, but they do exist! One of my long-time guild members can only raid once a week because she lives in Australia and is on an opposite schedule from the rest of us — but she’s such a valued member of our guild’s community (for her friendliness, her wit, her lively presence in guild chat and on the forums) that we *always* make sure to include her in the one weekly raid she can make. She doesn’t earn EP (DKP) as quickly as some of our more active raiders, but she’s still managed to gear up nicely.
If only you weren’t Alliance! My guild actually reserves a handful of spots for our casual members, some of whom are only able to raid one or two times a month.
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Thanks for the great photos. Yeah in the end, it’s just a game and its a lot of fun, and it sounds like you’re jealous because you dont get as much time to play as other people. Any way you slice or dice it, its not really whether you raid, or have epics, or badges, or whether your fishing is 450 or now… Its just simply: “I love this video game, and I simply dont have as much time to play as I’d like”
Totally understandable, is a great game and I love it to. I have tons of time to play, but I wouldnt say my life is qualitively better or worse because of that. Its just a form of entertainment, and tbh I should probably cut down a little.
But yes, I will remember BT, kara, Malygos & Naxx in 10 years time, as well as the people I ran them with. These places have been an integral part of my life. I get misty eyed just typing this sentence now. I’ll never leave them behind, they’ll always matter to me.
I am so with you on this. I work 9-10hrs a day and then have two kids with busy scheduals. I would love to play more but only get few hours here and there. I have been playing a year and only have a lvl 46 durid. There is a ton of stuff I haven’t even discovered but would love to. Anyway Have fun!!!!
I also put a big kudos in for this post.
I’ve been using this argument for at least a year and a half now. Even when we were in a 3-night per week raiding guild it was this argument that calmed down the officer core and convinced them structure the guild to be more friendly to those that were “schedule-challenged”
Now, due to large queues and lack of playtime (see Morialia’s 9-10 hours a day, ect) I’ve server transferred and found a decent group. We’ll see about how the raiding part works out in a few weeks…. there are always options.
Best of luck, and keep up the good work on the blog!
Cheers,
-V
Hey PTD,
I find a lot of time needed for the gearing up, but the greatest investment in time comes from the social side. A lot of time is needed in order to build the contacts and relationships, but then less time is needed since you can do things more quickly.
I’ve had to cut back my play-time a bit, but when I do play, I can pretty quickly find a good heroic or raid to do. I can understand guilds chosing people who play more often, since all other things being equal, the person who is around more often is more valuable.
It’s not nice on those who can’t get on that often, which is why I think it’s nice try to schedule little side runs for those people. i.e. arranging heroics on a specific night, so people can sign-up in advance and make the most of their time.
Ha! I wish my kids would chill in front of the TV like that…Thats usually the position I take in the room with kids jumping and crawling all over me.
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Yeah I am struggling as well.
A long way from 80 right now, but more concerned about the shift that Blizzard has made, which in most ways makes it easy for the average definition of casual… ie. has time to use casually, but not necessarily in large blocks.
Things like the dailies (crafting or heroics). They are great in that you can do something with the odd hour… but there is sort of a double bind.
You get something good for little play time, but to take advantage of it you need to play often.
I still prefer the random world drop that you have to grind for, rather than the random drop you have to play every day for 5 minutes to get.
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I don’t have the time constraints you do, but I still don’t get to play nearly as often or as long as I’d like to. It’s always so frustrating to be outDPSing or healing someone with better gear than you have… and KNOWING that people who just inspect you will assume that the other person is a BETTER player than you are!
It drives me insane! It makes my husband laugh, but it makes me go nutty. Maybe that’s why he’s laughing…
People like you and GoW have their priorities straight and that’s the most important part of anything, game or otherwise.
Personally, I (And my GUILD!) would rather run with someone who is a good consistent player than someone who can be on 24/7. Our guild leader has a baby, so he knows all about catching your game when you can.
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