If you follow my blog, you’ll notice that it’s been pretty dang silent around here.  You may have also noticed a change in the timbre of my posts.  I had begun to get a little down on the game, and down on blogging, too.

That’s the honest truth.

So I’m here, like many recently, to close up shop.  Put the chairs up on the tables, sweep the floor one last time, and wipe down the bar.  It’s just plain time for me to get going.  My reasons?

I’ve played World of Warcraft for quite long enough.  I began playing in April or May of 2004 in the closed beta.  Before Hunters were even in the game – when you still needed to spend skill points to buy weapon skills and such.  A long time. 

The funny thing is, I’m still not actually tired of it.  I could keep playing this game for the foreseeable future and have a good time.  But it’s gotten to be too much.

My little All Played tracker put me over 120 days of /played time overall.  That wasn’t even including time I spent on a horde server getting a warrior to 50 in 2006.  I sometimes wonder what else I could accomplish in that amount of time.  It’s really pretty crazy when you think about it.  Now, I don’t necessarily regret it, but it is a rather large number ? almost 3000 hours.  Now that IS over about 5 years, but still.  3000 hours?  I sure got my money’s worth!

I also once again reached the point where the only real progression for me came in the form of raiding.  That meant the necessity of four hour play sessions during prime time.  It also meant I had to spend at least a little time farming gold and such to keep in tip top shape.  In short, it was becoming a bit of a job.  That’s unacceptable.  I was in the midst of leveling my rogue, who I intended to be my fourth level 80, when it kind of all came crashing down on me.

I had had enough. 

And I could no longer sacrifice family time for raiding.  The one night I did raid I basically had to log on about 30 minutes after I got home, long enough to MAYBE do one puzzle with my daughter, and eat a little something.  As she has gotten older (she’s 2 1/2 now) I’ve become more reluctant to swap time with her, my wife, and my 10 moth old son for a game.  Wherein I put on my headphones, and checked out for four hours.

Not anymore.

So about a month back, without telling many people, I cancelled my account.  It just so happened to be the day after I had been charged again, so it gave me plenty of time to prepare to say goodbye, and get my last licks in.  Some achievements, a little more raiding, and my favorite thing of all, a little more leveling.  I got that rogue up to 68, so he’s ready to get it done if I do come back someday.  And I could ? I’ll give the Michael Jordan 99% surety of retirement.

Anyhow, now I can move on to other things, finally.  I plan to start work on a different blog, where I can talk about some of the other things that interest me.  Books, movies, video games, music, whatever.  A blog without borders, that’s what I need now.  Leave me in your reader, and I’ll put up a link soon if you are interested.  I can also make a real attempt at writing that book that’s in the back of my mind.  Let’s see how that goes.

I could go on and on, but this is a goodbye post.  You don’t need my life story. 

I want to thank everyone who supported me.  Thanks so much for taking the time to read or to comment, I really appreciate it.  This blog showed me that I COULD write on a regular basis, and that there are people who want to hear what I have to say.  I hope I’ve been informative in some way, or helped you enjoy WoW like I always did.

I also want to thank all the other bloggers out there who helped me along, either through their leadership, encouragement, or link love.  Thanks to Phae for getting me off the ground, and thank to Matticus for being very supportive.  Also thanks to all the BA people, and especially Fim and Bre for the Twisted Nether blogcast.  One of the highlights of my blog was being on your show!  And of course thanks to WoW.com for really blowing me up in the beginning.  I owe much of my readership to them. 

I’ll miss WoW, and I’ll miss this blog.  I will keep it up, as there are some posts here that I hope can still help people.  I don’t have any intention of truly pulling the plug, just don’t expect new posts.  So long, and thanks for all the fish. 

PTD out.

I’ve been feeling a tad bit nostalgic of late.  I’m not sure what brought it on exactly.  Maybe it’s that I’m tiring of Wrath a little sooner than I thought.  It’s not that I don’t like what’s there, mind you, I think they did a great job, but on some level I feel like I’ve done it all before.  Just in a different skin.

By way of summary, my Warrior is now running in Ulduar 25 once a week, so far we’ve gotten down Levi (of course) and Razorscale.  We are very close on the robot, we just need a couple of tweaks.  My Druid is still unplayed, and I don’t know if I’ll pick him up again any time soon.  My Hunter is now available for raiding as well, so I’m pretty well stacked.

So it is that I found myself playing my Rogue, Mummrah.  The very first character I created on live, who was sitting at 43.  I think the reason I initially quit playing him was all the freaking misses built into dual wielding, but that’s not important. 

What is important are my memories of my first character, and of my early days tooling around Azeroth. 

I began playing WoW sometime around patch 0.7 in beta, I believe it was around the end of June or early July.  At the time, I was writing for the WoW Vault.  (For anyone who is interested, my columns are actually still there!  Look for the ones written by Captain Kryptonite.  Keep in mind these were all written before I even played the game!)  Like many of you that are reading this, I fell in love with WoW immediately.  I loved the visual style.  I loved the cohesiveness.  The quests.  The classes.  The removal of the lame CRAP that other MMORPGs felt “had to be in there” (like painful, xp loss on death type stuff). 

At the time, the “end game” was pretty far from my mind.

So from release for a LONG time, I kicked around with different characters.  Played on different servers.  Tried the horde, tried the alliance.  I rerolled early and often, with a reckless disregard for the mythical level 60.  All the while I had a great time. 

I enjoyed the many and varied zones of old Vanilla WoW.  I heard of places like Un’goro Crater and Azshara, and marveled at how foreign and far away they sounded.  I was still in Loch Modan and having a grand old time.  I couldn’t wait to kill Van Cleef, and marveled at the wonder of his dungeon, when the ship was revealed in the giant cave Goonies style.  I heard of all the other instances as you leveled up, and I couldn’t wait to see each one, and explore their wonders.

I played WoW from release, and I hit level 60 for the first time in November of 2005.

Now, I honestly miss Vanilla WoW, it’s faults and all.  Somewhere between BC and Wrath, leveling became a bit of a job (though quite a fun one!) and max level and end game content became the goal.  I’m not sure when, and I’m not sure how, but I miss it. 

Have we been slowly pushed towards focusing on the end game?  Or is it just me?  Let’s take a look at the three major iterations of World of Warcraft.

Vanilla WoW

• No real twinking for quite awhile.  Most were experiencing all the leveling content for the first time.
• It took quite some time to reach max level.  No leveling guides, boosting, etc.
• Limited end-game raiding at release.  Molten Core, Onyxia, UBRS.  Added Blackwing Lair, ZG and AQ over time.
• End-game raiding was also quite restrictive.  Other than UBRS, raiding was for 40 players.  Nearly an un-puggable number.  (Did they have raiding pugs in Vanilla WoW?)  You needed a large number AND it was difficult to raid.

Burning Crusade

• Twinking became a way of life for many players.  How fast could you get to max level?  Especially with new race and class possibilities.
• Shorter overall leveling curve.
• More end-game raiding right out of the box.  SSC, TK, Kara, and more.  BT and others added later.
• Less restrictive end-game raiding.  Now you only needed 25 players or even 10 players.  Raiding had more of an “entry level” than before, but it was still quite difficult beyond Gruul and Kara.

Wrath of the Lich King

• Welcome to World of Twinkcraft.  Leveling is distilled, processed, and the quickest paths are easy to find.
• Shorter leveling curve than BC or Vanilla, by far.  Leveling is easy cheesy with all the quests and such in Northrend.
• Fewer new raids than in BC, but still an obvious focus.  Naxx, OS, VoA, Malygos.  First major patch adds Ulduar.
• Now every raid can be done with 10 or 25 players.  Raids at release are easily puggable.  All raiding at release is basically entry level.

At this point, I might argue that it’s not so much that Wrath raiding was dumbed down so much, but rather they made it easier to get the initial gear necessary.  Do you remember how long it took you to get a decent gear set together for Karazhan?  And then you had to farm Kara for a little while to hope to compete in SSC?  And so on through MH, BT and finally Sunwell?

There used to be a progression, but now that progression has been immensely shortened.  There is a metric ton of good, BOE epic gear to be had, be it through crafting or through zone and instance drops.  Outside of tanks, perhaps, just about any class can go into Naxx 10 almost as soon as they hit 80.  (Heck, my hunter went into Naxx 25 after a grand total of 2 heroic runs.) 

Is this better, though?  Or were things more interesting before, what with attunements, keys, and long grinds for gear to see the end game content.   Did Blizzard push the bar too far back the other way?

I don’t really know.  I’m starting to sound like a crotchety old man here, and I’m supposed to be the voice of the casual.  “In my day, you had to get ATTUNED to the Molten Core.  I had to use a specialized solo method to get attuned involving jumping off ledges and swim speed potions.”  And I’m not even kidding, maybe you remember the solo MC attunement method. 

All I really know is that I miss how I felt about WoW in the beginning.  When everything was new, and happening across Uldaman in the Badlands was exciting to me.  But, those are the breaks.  It was like that with me for Asheron’s Call too, back in the day.  And Dark Age of Camelot.  I suppose at some point perhaps you get TOO familiar with one game and how it works.  At some point I exposed the gears and wires of WoW, it’s inner machinations.  I used that knowledge to manipulate the leveling game, to get powerful fast.  Now I just wish I could put the old machine back together again.

Rarely am I forced to immediately post something, but Curse and their frigging “premium” service offering have forced my hand. 

I’ve been pissed since they blocked WoW Matrix.  I understand they want their visitors and whatnot, but WoW Matrix was just flat out a better product.  But, again, I understood their reasoning.

So I did what they wanted.  I grumbled a little bit, sure, but I started using the Curse client to download the brunt of my mods. 

Well, tonight I went to log on for an  hour or so, and because it’s been a few days or so I thought I should check for updates to my mods.  I see that a few do in fact need updating (using the Curse client, like I’m ?supposed” to) and click the old ?update all” button.  And this is what I get:

You have got to be EFFING KIDDING ME.  So I went from a superior, free program, to Curse begging for my cash.  Just for giggles, I check out the prices.  5 bucks a month?  30 bucks a year?  For an addon manager I used to get for free?  WTF?

So, everyone join in with me!

SCREW YOU CURSE, YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!

Now excuse me while I go update my addons one by one.  Jerks.

p.s.  And, to top it off, even if you do it one by one, you have to WAIT for each download to finish and install before doing the next one.  AAAARRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

By now the blogging world is well aware of the departure of two big names, BRK and Resto4Life.  They aren’t even the only bloggers to have retired their pens – I also see a general slowdown in the entire community.  Now granted all this stuff went down awhile ago, but yours truly didn’t just want to come here and say “Yeah, this sucks.”  So I let it sit, and thought about it and tried to gather some deeper meaning.  And honestly, it really made me think about the world of WoW blogging — like a lot. 

So my question to you is this:  is there something bigger going on in the WoW Blogosphere?  Or is this just coincidence that two of the big boys (well, one big boy and one big…gal – to be fair) have made their final exits?  Maybe some kind of swine flu or general malaise is sweeping World of Warcraft Writers, or maybe it’s just time for a select few to take their bows. 

The Fleeting Nature of Blogging

Blogs are, by there very nature, somewhat impermanent.  Just think how easy it is to set a blog up today.  Anyone and their grandmother can head over to Wordpress.com and get the ball rolling.  You can be blogging in minutes, literally. 

Well, as easy as they are to set up, in many ways they are just as easy to shut down or let go.  It’s not like we (the bloggers) are all under contract somewhere.  Very few of us, if any, see any kind of income out of the deal, and we don’t have editors begging us for more posts, either. 

Take my blog, for instance.  I have a middling number of subscribers, in the 500’s (as you can see from my sidebar) which isn’t great, but is decent for a WoW blog.  I have a Jinx affiliate account, that has a whopping 7 bucks in it.  Still too low for them to even send me a check.  I’ve yet to see a dime from my work, and in fact I have to spend 8 bucks a month for hosting along with paying to renew my domain every year.  I am by no means complaining, I just want to illustrate that WoW blogging is a largely thankless job.

Larger blogs may earn a LITTLE bit, but not enough to quit a day job and take up blogging full-time, I guarantee.  And not all of us can catch on with WoW Insider, where I hear they get actual checks.

What’s the point?  Bloggers aren’t beholden to anyone, even the big blogs, and can close up shop at the drop of a hat.  That’s just the way it goes.

Nothing to Write About

The release of Wrath homogenized many aspects of WoW.  Gear was distilled into more distinct, but more inclusive categories.  (Caster gear, Melee DPS gear, etc.)  The classes themselves were remixed in a way to make all classes at least adequate to fill any role.  Druids got their out of combat Rez, for instance (pre-Wrath, I know, but still part of the larger Wrath update). 

On top of the homogenization, everything was made a little bit easier.  Leveling in Northrend is a piece of cake.  There’s a whole host of easy to attain gear, including BOE crafted epics and the like  Heroics are doable right when you hit 80, without the need to grind rep or get “attuned” to anything.  Even raiding is easier.  I would argue that a lot of good blogging had to do with the more difficult aspects of the game.  What’s the best way to grind rep?  How can I gear up for T5 raiding?  What’s the best array of healers for an SSC run?

All of that is gone.  I don’t really need to update my post about gearing a Resto Druid.  Just find a leatherworker and get it done.  The same can be said for most classes.  Sure, it might be best to have a mix of healers for raiding, but you can go with 4 druids and a pally if you so choose.  It can be done. 

Hell, we can’t even complain about not being able to solo as a healer for grinding cash or whatnot.  We have dual specs now.  

So I ask you this, what is there to write about that’s really compelling?  I don’t know, maybe that explains the slowdown of posts here, in some way.

Blogging to Write

Another issue I see relates to the act of Blogging itself.  And to relay this point, I’ll once again get personal. 

I began Part Time Druid because I loved WoW, but I also REALLY wanted to be a writer.  I felt like I wasn’t pursuing that dream in any way, and I wondered if I could somehow translate my WoW obsession into writing.  I thought about WoW a lot, maybe I could use it as a tool to jumpstart my actual attempts at writing.  I can tell you without hesitation that my nefarious plan worked – it really worked.

Writing the blog gave me confidence that I COULD in fact buckle down and put words on paper.  It gave me valuable practice at the craft of writing, and it even gives me something I can SHOW people.  Yes, I do write.  I’ve had close to 100,000 page views or whatnot.  Some people even read it. 

I don’t think I’m alone in this, either.  I suspect many bloggers were people who really wanted to write.  Maybe they just never felt like they had anything to say, or couldn’t figure out how to make it fit in.  Blogging about WoW can give you easy material, and plenty of practice and feedback. 

For me, personally, I do keep writing.  I just don’t write as much about WoW as I used to.  I like to think I have more interesting things to talk about, and maybe some day I’ll link out to my personal blog, as others have done in the past.  I don’t know.

The Real Reasons are Individual

I don’t think you can really boil it down to a couple of universal reasons — it’s probably more personal than that.  BRK found real life calling, wondering where he had been.  Phaelia decided it was time to start a family, and made the wise choice to concentrate on that.  I can’t blame them.

For all of you reading this who don’t already write a blog, think about this.  You probably play WoW a lot, often thinking you play it more than you should, but not as much as you’d like.  (A terrible conundrum, I know.)  Now imagine adding to that the act of writing about your obsession.  You thought about WoW a lot before, now imagine having to come up with things to write about on top of it!  It can get overwhelming at times.  Do I really want to think about this game so many hours of the day?  (Yes I do, but no I don’t…you know what I mean.)  Am I wasting my time with this?

You have to look in the mirror, and honestly ask yourself:  “Do I spend too much time thinking about a game?”  My guess is that BRK and Phaelia asked themselves quite similar questions, and came to similar conclusions.  Yes.  Yes I do.

WoW is a game about carrots.  When you start out, there are a whole slew of different carrots you can chase.  One of the great things about WoW is how many carrots Blizzard managed to stuff into the game.  Instances, raids, PvP rewards, badge gear, vanity pets…there is just too dang much to list. 

But, things aren’t always perfect.  Just because there’s a whole mess of carrots, that doesn’t mean they can keep everyone interested.  Even fanboys like yours truly can get tired of the game.  I have been playing since the dawn of WoW, and even a little before, so it wouldn’t be surprising if I became a little burnt out.

But no, I am not tired of WoW.  Not yet.  I have, however, discovered a little something that irritates me.  As we go on, the paths of real progression grow ever narrower.  Before we really get into it, I’ll get into what I’ve been doing in game.

In Game Update

I do like to talk about what I’ve been up to in game, but I don’t wan to devote entire posts to it.  So from here on out I’ll try to separate these journalistic endeavors into an "In Game Update" within the body of larger posts.  If you don’t care what I’ve been up to, feel free to skip ahead to the next heading where I’ll get back to the meat of the post.

My Druid has essentially been functioning as a bank toon in Dalaran.  I am not done with the druid, and I’m happy to have a heroic ready healer in my back pocket, but he hasn’t been my focus.  Part of the reason is that I hate soloing with him, but the real crux is that I’m enjoying my warrior too dang much to log in my Druid.  If someone really needs a healer, I’m more than willing.

So let’s talk about that warrior.  I had been playing him as a tank for the first couple weeks after I hit 80.  I made great strides in his gear, and got him defense capped and comfortable tanking heroics.  I enjoy controlling the runs I am on, as it allows me the opportunity to pull like a madman.  I don’t like to mess around too much with long-winded explanations and stuff, I just like to roll in and blast stuff apart. 

The problem is that there are just too many tanks floating around my guild.  I was having an inordinately difficult time getting groups together.  Well, about 2 weeks back, someone was practically begging for a DPS to fill a heroic run.  While I had never really played as a fury warrior, the idea of slinging around two huge two handers was awfully enticing.  So I went ahead and took the plunge.  I made sure to let the tank know that my DPS gear sucked (and it truly did…I was using a two hander from a Borean Tundra questline for an offhand) and that I didn’t have a lot of experience.  He didn’t care, he needed a body.

So it was that my days as a Fury Warrior began, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever look back.  I am enjoying the hell out of the spec.  My DPS on that first run was admittedly poor, I was one of those chumps who couldn’t even keep up with the tank.

Well, a host of heroic runs and an investment in a whole mess of titansteel later, I began to see the true power of a Titan’s Grip Warrior.  I have probably four great pieces of gear, and a whole lot of filler everywhere else.  I’m still quite easily pushing 2k DPS in heroics, and have been as high as 2400.  That’s with mostly meh gear.  I can’t wait to see what happens when I upgrade my chest, boots, bracers, legs, and trinkets.  Visions of 3k DPS are dancing in my head.

So I find myself farming heroics as a DPS Warrior and having a grand old time.  I also found a late night group to run with, and can almost always find a heroic when I log on.  It’s great, and I only feel a little bad for my poor, neglected Druid.

More on Progression

When you first hit level 80 in WoW, it can be a little overwhelming trying to decide just what the heck you should do first.  Work on Hodir dailies for rep?  Grind instances or heroic instances for gear?  Do some PvP to grind for THAT gear?  Plan your eventual assault on Naxx?  There are many, many things you can do.  As you check things off that phantom list, however, your focus naturally narrows. 

I think that is where I often run into problems.  I’ve been a bit of an altoholic since I began the game.  I took way, way too long to get to 60, because I couldn’t stay focused on one character.  It wasn’t until quite recently that I figured out why I did that.

As my focus on progression narrows, I start to lose interest.  If I realize that to continue to improve I only have one or two choices, I start thinking about alts.  If I have to farm one or two heroics, and hope that ONE boss drops that ONE piece of loot that will really make a difference, I start to lose my nerve.  The trouble is multiplied if said drop or two comes from a raid instance.  Because then I have to make time or find a big old group of people to help me out.

Alts, on the other hand, can be a nice change of pace at that point.  You get your constant progression just from the act of leveling, and along with it you acquire new shiny gear, new skills, and perhaps work on a new tradeskill.  Suddenly all of these avenues for advancement are opened up to you again.

I can’t fault Blizzard for my particular form of dissatisfaction.  Like I said, they stuffed an awful big variety of carrots into WoW.  It just so happens that I have no real interest in a few of them.  PvP, for example, is something I wouldn’t get into, at least not on my server.  (If I want PvP, I’ll go to a PvP server…all or nothing there, if you ask me!  Hell, I even have a level 50 undead warrior on Warsong!)  I’ve also never gotten a lot of enjoyment out of dailies.  Yes, gold is great, but I prefer when it comes as a side effect of my natural adventures.  And yes, I know there is usually rep attached as well, but I’m not into rep grinds either. 

I also have to give Blizzard a lot of credit for the Achievement system.  This has helped alleviate my Progression Problem, as it gives me a lot of things I can do on my own for fun.  Soon I plan to go on a grand tour of old school instances.  There are still a few I have never seen, and it will be fun to go back and just destroy some of that old content. 

So What Can Be Done?

Sadly, I’m not smart enough to know.  It’s not a fault in the game, it’s just natural that as you go on, you have less to do, and your options narrow a bit.  Especially if you’re not interested in certain aspects of the game.  I wish I had some groundbreaking idea for the genre, some interesting way of keeping players occupied, but I don’t.  The only thing I could really come up with is this:  avoid making ONE drop from ONE boss in ONE heroic be the end-all for pre-raid gear.  I suppose it could be argued that its my own perception that makes those purple pants so precious.  The blue ones I have ain’t too shabby, but, well, they’re blue! 

Don’t take this post the wrong way.  I’m still enjoying the heckfire out of my Warrior, and I have plenty of work I can do on the Druid, not to mention my Hunter that languishes at 70, and my new DK.  Uh oh…there I go again….talking alts…