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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsForum post of the day: Simple pleasures
by Amanda Dean 
Aug 2nd 2008 at 4:35AM
I've long said that once the game becomes more like a job than a diversion, it may be time to reconsider your choice of hobbies. True, to get to the top it takes lot of work, knowledge, and time. But when it comes down to it, what is the game really about? Vagh of Kil'jaeden sent out a shout out to those who aren't the best of the best, but are still enjoying the game. He tipped his hat to:
- A person who is happily running around a main city with greens and blues
- A person who is so happy to kill a boss in a 5 man instance
- A person who gets a blue off of a non-heroic mode boss for a badly needed upgrade and floods the party channel with "Woot!" or "I'm so happy!!!"
- A person whose arena rating hovers in the 1400s but still enjoys the game
- A person who doesn't complain endlessly on the forums about imbalance
- A person who still plays wow not for the gear but for fun
- A person who doesn't get emo when they lose a match or wipe on a boss
- A person you'll see in battlegrounds again with mostly greens and a couple of blue's who has no premades
- and has slowly grinded some gear, possibly an S1 piece or even older
- A person who gets ridiculed for his/her gear before the start of BG's and meekly replies with a :(
- A person who still rides the white Poverty Pigeon 60% speed flying mount but loves it
Blizzard is working to ensure the WoW remains the king of MMORPGs for some time to come. There will be a time some day when our play time is behind us. Will we be left with happy memories and fulfillment, or many days of your life filled with frustration?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Vagh Aug 2nd 2008 9:42AM
That is so awesome.
Btw thanks for post coverage insider.
Pucelle Aug 2nd 2008 10:02AM
That's really cool.
Frank Aug 2nd 2008 1:54PM
this is the best thing i've read all week. thank you for sharing. : )
Sarah Aug 6th 2008 12:11PM
That may be the cutest thing I ever heard.
Ted Trujillo Aug 2nd 2008 8:22AM
Sad to say this is coming up more and more often in our guild. We started as a family fun guild and I enjoyed it so much, we BG'd together and ran instances and had FUN, now we seem to be headed to become a "high end raiding guild" and fun just isn't important, winning is. Now instances devolve into comments of "healers not healing" "the tanks gear sucks" " we need a decent back up tank" and on and on. Well I've been in the guild for 2 years I guess thats a long time, miss the old days.
Yomu Aug 2nd 2008 9:35AM
Just the other day I finally leveled up my engineering enough to get my Flying Machine. I was giddy as a schoolgirl.
I've got a netherdrake on another character but getting that gyrocopter was the highlight of my week.
Simple things often provide the most enjoyment.
Chri Aug 4th 2008 12:48AM
@ Ted
I've just recently gone through the same thing with my guild. The good news is that as a guild we're making an effort to do things purely for fun (trying trash that we soooo arn't ready for etc) and it's paying off.
The other suggestion that I would make... try and personally befriend every single new person that joins your guild. Especially the people who are doing your raid bosses for the first time. Their excitement will rub off ;)
Darque Aug 2nd 2008 9:05AM
I fondly think back on those days, and wish that I still had half of the wonder that I used to feel.
Nowadays, my simple pleasure is a raid that actually starts when the raid calender has it scheduled for (our raid leaders and officers generally trickle in anywhere from 1/2 hour to an hour late...)
Hence the reason we started over playing Allies. We're not to raiding level yet, a lot of the quests are new to us, and we're seeing the game from a different perspective. Not quite the same as being fresh and new again...but it helps.
Summer Aug 2nd 2008 5:14PM
That is a large part of the reason why I quit raiding. Consistently I'd show up on time to sit in front of the instance for an hour waiting for enough people to clear trash. And this was in various guilds from the 'just started raiding' end to the '#2 guild on the server'.
Ilnara Aug 2nd 2008 11:05AM
You know the saying, "It's lonely at the top".
And, "Life is a journey, not a destination".
Recently joined a guild, who's core members are all WoW noobs, like, haven't ever played it before. It's been a blast sharing my knowledge, helping them with runs, and advice as we've moved forward. Nice to be playing with people that aren't burnt out because they've done everything there is to do and let themselves be fooled into thinking if they don't plow through all the content in a forte night, theres no point to playing the game.
I mean, if thats your thing, more power too you, just in my estimation, every player I've ever seen who is that way ends up bitter and burnt out.. over a game. And it's simply not worth it.
Linkage Aug 2nd 2008 12:59PM
I remember when I first got my flying mount. I flew as high as I could in Shattrah, dismounted...
...then found out you couldn't mount in midair. I was laughing for a few minutes there.
Currently I'm in a raiding guild that's trying T5 stuff. Of course, being summer, we've had some problems getting a full group together for scheduled runs. It's a frusterating thing that can burn you out a bit.
So, I've been leveling an alt priest and absolutely loving it. I managed to solo Knucklerot at 20 (thank you shackle undead!) and while killing Luzrian I got a partner to tackle Deatholm with (shout out to Irrass). There's nothing quite like meeting a random person and knocking off several quests with them.
When I got to Hillsbrad, I got another great thing I missed: mid-level instance pug groups. Went through Shadowfang Keep (love that place) as the high level one, and Razorfen Krull (never been) as the lowbie. It's great to be reminded why I love this game in the first place.
By the way, my most favorite thing done in this game was getting the "Champion of the Naruu" title. Challenging but fun as hell.
Ash Aug 4th 2008 1:28PM
I have epics and I raid a lot, but my favorite thing...
getting my cobalt war talbuk :D.
vlad Aug 2nd 2008 2:03PM
once i found myself bouncing around shatt for several hours every day for weeks it really sunk in it was no longer fun.
running bg'd endlessly for welfare epics got tiring. farming epic mounts for several characters was a burnout. spending hours finding a 5man group to just have it all fall apart in the first pull was deflating,never having all your arena team on, raiding the same 25's bosses, leveling alts, etc etc etc..
hopefully blizzard addresses solo content at 80 in LK better. having to depend on servermates to do anything with a decent reward or payoff is sad. endlees grinds for everything is sad.
however having gone 6 months without playing im getting juiced up. the first few months of bc was really fun. hopefully LK will at least provide that. and more changing solo content should add more joy too.
Dieirdra Aug 2nd 2008 2:52PM
Love the post, love the reminder that the interaction with others is what makes playing wow special.
Keep up the good work
Dieirdra - Azjol
Raze Aug 2nd 2008 3:06PM
I'm the kind of player who's only epic are the goggles he spent far too much time trying to get, and gets excited when he finds out steam tonks can take out critters, or so he thinks.
I used to want to be into this game enough that I raided and was a very useful assest to a group, but when it came right down to it, I realized: I'm just not. It's boring grouping, having to have your undivided attention for hours at a time dashing through a dungeon in the hopes that some boring, scripted encounter coughs up gear that you can use.
Now I play around with different Hunter Pets, complete a fishing daily every other week (I've got my hat and a croc, so I don't really need to do them anymore), find Engineering schematics, and just explore the game again: see all the things I missed dragging my feet to 70. It's a much better game when you're not worried about messing up and pissing off your group or guildmates.
Dimebagg Aug 2nd 2008 3:54PM
I agree with 10- I get a grin every time my guild kills any raid boss, even Attunemen. And we've killed Illy-baby and Archie.
jumb Aug 2nd 2008 9:07PM
I don't mind people who are new at the game, I mean we all started somewhere. I'm always one for yelling at people insulting the "noobs" and will always answer a question if it is asked politely. But what you're talking about is stuff we all go through when we first start the game, but then we get bored and move on to the next thing.
There is only so many times you can farm a 5-man before you think "Hey, this is boring, I might try a new challenge." After the new challenge, the old challenges seem boring and pointless.
Just because we've graduated to the next level, it doesn't mean we have become elitest assholes that only play the game to improve our epeen instead of fun.
Sothe Aug 2nd 2008 9:27PM
I know how you feel....My guild went through the same thing. If I were you I'd start trying to fix to now....My guild isn't so much of a guild any more....
ScorchHellfire Aug 2nd 2008 9:50PM
same with mine sothe... i really miss the old times before we got into raiding and everyone became jerks... we actually talked in guild chat and helped eachother level and stuff like that instead of sitting in vent all the time and isolating people that dont have it and whining about the people that arent geared yet etc...
i just personally find myself awed at the game itself some times... i take tons of screenshots all the time... just the prettiness of the environments or cool little animations and such... i nearly wet myself in glee when i first walked around southshore in old hillsbrad finding all the younger versions of people before they turned bad or whatever... and of course young blanchy in tarren mill...
and sometimes i even go back to the newbie areas for fun... take revenge on those murlocs around stonecairn lake or summon an infernal and convince all the lowbies to attack it so itll go on a rampage in goldshire or whatever...
i personally can't wait til wotlk comes out just so i can enjoy the splendor of nothrend and get to level again instead of focusing on the end game so much...
thatbox Aug 3rd 2008 2:24PM
There's a mage on my friends list with greens and blues, and my guildies and I have brought him into some easier heroics. It's really heartwarming to see him using elixirs and weapon coatings and food buffs at the start of even heroic Slave Pens, and setting the Boots of Blasphemy from the last boss as his goal. Here's someone who's having fun and is totally committed to doing the best he can in the group!