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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Have you ever taken time off from WoW?
by Josh Rose 
Apr 27th 2011 at 8:00AM
Sometimes people need a break from Azeroth. There are various reasons for it -- real-life issues, lack of new content, boredom, another game you have to try -- but despite the reasons, most of the time people come back. Something about the world or the people in it draws players back to see what is new since the last time they logged in. Sometimes it almost seems that WoW has a pull that is hard to escape, and you find yourself launching the game and putting in your account and password without even realizing you are doing it.
I have never taken a long break from WoW, and I have played since launch. I have taken a week or two off from time to time, but never any of these extended multiple month or year breaks from the game. Perhaps it is being a pretty serious raider that makes me log in nearly every day. Perhaps it is my penchant for being an achievement junkie or the fact I am an altaholic. But for some reason, I cannot seem to avoid the game for any major length of time. My latest break was right before Cataclysm launched, in which I caught up on some other great video games I missed -- but even then, I logged on to check mail and the AH and chat with some friends. And that is what I realized keeps me coming back: the people in my guild and on my friends list; it isn't the raids or the chance at shiny purples, even though I do enjoy that aspect.
So have you taken time off from WoW? How long was your break? What brought you back?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
btbrianjturner Apr 27th 2011 11:51AM
I've been taking a break since I quit playing WoW at the end of January; I didn't appreciate the sea change Blizzard dropped on us with this expansion. After struggling through Heroics, getting geared through Heroic Blues/BOE Epics/Crafted Epics/and Rep Epics I hit a brick wall because we couldn't get any raid bosses down. After 2 weeks of MIA healers I said screw it and quit the game.
I've been playing Rift since the Head Start and have been having a great time. The only draw backs to Rift at this time are the linear lvling paths but then again if you have played WoW we all know that the lvling experience from 60 to 85 is linear as well. Public group Rift Invasions keep things fresh, Expert 5 mans (Heroics) are a lot more forgiving. The boss mechanics don't require you to have fast reflexes like Cata does. Basically if you see something appear that you have to move out of/get away from if you have delayed reaction's like my self then you're not going to punished for it; the important thing is that you move. In Cata if you see it happening it's already too late.
My WoW break won't end until they bring WoW back down to my speed in end game; like Wrath of the Lich King speed.
crsh Apr 27th 2011 11:56AM
I stopped playing in mid-January and haven't resubbed since then; Cataclysm wasn't too good to me past the leveling of 2 characters from 80 to 85 that went on until late December. My small friends&family guild fell apart, people stopped logging on out of boredom and we couldn't even field one 5-man heroic team.
I then tried the "new leveling experience" by making a new character from scratch; the 1-60 stretch is indeed very nicely done, but once I hit Outland it was over for me, I couldn't stomach it.
So between my dead-in-the-water lv85s and continually make new alts, I put my sub on the ice until something entices me to come back; unfortunately, revamped ZG and ZA aren't what I was looking for.
I'll keep an eye out on future developments.
ToxDrawace Apr 27th 2011 12:10PM
I've been playing since about a year after release. When I first started out, I really didn't like the idea of paying a subscription, so I wouldn't buy the game. My friend got it for me and another friend for Christmas (before any expansions, so it wasn't too expensive a gift :-P).
I refused to buy game time so I played my free month and then didn't play for a while. Another friend wanted me to play with him so he got me a game card. I then played two months and stopped again. For about 2 to 3 years I played for about 2 month, and then took a break for about 4-6 months. These friends were Alliance, btw, so I was playing Alliance too.
I then played on and off, but eventually I moved in with some friends from high school while I was going to college and they were all really into WoW. The Burning Crusade had come out and we had made a guild together of only Blood Elves (We called ourselves the Blood Owls, and we all had Owl in our names, such as Owlcapone, WeirdOwl and Owlkaline.) This was the first time I became really serious about WoW. I got about 6 months of game time in a row and played constantly. My classes weren't too time consuming and I had a bunch of friends to play with all the time so I was playing pretty non-stop. By the time I moved out (I was replacing someone for only one semester) I was burned out and needed a break. This was just pre-wrath and I stopped playing until about path 3.2.
Christmas 2009 I got the Wrath expansion and started playing pretty heavily again. I went back to Allies to play with my other friends again and finally hit the level cap. This was the reason I really got back into it. While I had heard that max level was only the beginning, I finally got to see it and I got hooked. I had a constant subscription for pretty much all of the rest of Wrath until Cata with maybe a month or two off in the middle. Finally when Cata came out, I played through all the new areas, did a few of the new dungeons, but had burnt out again and I am now 3 months off of WoW. I enjoyed catching up with content after the fact, instead of waiting between content, so I'm thinking I might wait until 4.3 or so before I had back to Azeroth.
TL;DR -- I've taken some long breaks, but it really helps if you've burned out and returning after some time off can be refreshing.
Bethontheharbor Apr 27th 2011 12:21PM
1 month was my longest break, as I was going through a breakup and move between states.
2 week break coming end of next week as my housemates and I move into their new home and wait on comcast once we order the service transfer.
Rikansolusar Apr 27th 2011 12:30PM
I played the open vanilla beta and absolutely loved it. I rolled a tauren druid and had much fun frolicking about Azeroth. It was a tough decision, but I chose not to play until after I had graduated from university because... well, when you accidentally blow two hours fishing in Moonglade instead of doing seminar readings, it doesn't take long to realize WoW would have only been a distraction.
So I waited until I graduated (twice!), then a work friend fired off a RAF in hopes I'd play again. I recreated my beta toon last Christmas during Wrath, and I've been playing ever since. It is a time sink for me, but it's fun. Several of my local friends play, as well as some friends all over the world so we use Azeroth as a place to hang out and do something together.
If anything I'm taking a break from my main; haven't run a heroic in weeks, and haven't joined the raid teams yet, in favour of puttering around on a series of alts or finishing off old achievements.
shomechely Apr 27th 2011 12:36PM
I was in the hospital for 15 days due to some pretty serious health problems. When I came back from the literal verge of death, it was to find I had been kicked from my guild for inactivity.
Since then, if I feel like taking a week, or a month off, I do it.
Mara Apr 27th 2011 12:41PM
I took multiple breaks. I played during vanilla for a little bit but my attention span wasn't as good as it is now (I was 15 at the time) so I never got any character beyond level 25-30. I quit the game after playing it for a couple of months.
When TBC hit, I got stoked about the new content and started playing again. During TBC I found a great guild that I stuck with for a long time. When that guild ended up disbanding because multiple people quit, I ended up quitting a couple of weeks later.
Once again, I returned when WotLK hit. I played up until the Argent Tournament and then grew bored of the content. I got bored of raiding, the same old heroics and not even the foresight of Icrecrown Citadel hitting could keep me playing.
That last break was a long one (slightly less than 2 years) and I came back to play a couple of weeks ago. Let's see how long it takes for me to get burned out again. Until then, I'm having a blast!
deadtwice Apr 27th 2011 12:54PM
I'm on a break right now, trying to concince my wife to be cool with me re-subbing
nicholas.a.will Apr 27th 2011 1:19PM
I'm on a break right now because of college, and I still read WoW Insider, patch notes, and all sorts of things. This is the first time I've actually had my account off too, usually I just limit my play time during semesters. I'm really sad that I can't play, but it's for the best. My grades are even improving :P
csarcops Apr 27th 2011 4:00PM
This is me. I put my WoW on pause during times of heavy-duty school activity, like midterms and finals (which is right now). I think the longest I was ever away was about 3 months during Wrath. I play like mad over the summer though :)
SuperBell Apr 27th 2011 1:22PM
I've taken breaks here and there, some being 3-4 months long- the first time I burned out from raiding in Burning Crusade after the raiding guild I was in fell apart shortly after dropping Illidan, second break came when I literally didn't have much time for WoW due to class so I missed out a few months into Wrath and came back shortly after, third burnout came near the end of Wrath and I stayed out of the game from August until last December... It kinda helps to stay off when you need to.
Pyromelter Apr 27th 2011 2:14PM
Completely off-topic, but I'm guessing the writer of this post is the internet semi-celebrity Lore from tankspot and weekly marmot and gamebreakertv?
Pretty cool having a semi-celebrity guest posting. Good show wowinsider, good show.
DarkWalker Apr 27th 2011 3:06PM
I started playing WoW in the 1.09 timeframe, back in Vanilla.
Stopped the first time a couple months after BC's launch, due to lack of content - I was mostly a solo player, with no interest in raiding and no patience to assemble groups, so when solo content grew scarce I left for half a year.
Resubbed intent on trying dualboxing. Got a second account, leveled a few characters, and was having a fairly good time playing. Then the Zombie Invasion happened.
That event made me unsubscribe for another half year on my main account, and definitely cancel my second account; I couldn't trust developers that thought an inevitable Zombie Invasion to be fun for all the player base, not enough to pay two subscriptions anyway. During my time away I tried a few games (mostly CoH), but none appeased me (I would have stayed with CoH if it's repeccing wasn't so limited; the first time I wanted to respec, but couldn't, I left that game for good).
Resubscribed again after 6 months, now with just one account, and was on the verge of leaving for good when Blizzard implemented the LFD (and Dual Specs; it was also a big factor in me not leaving); I actually got a liking to chain tanking Heroic PUGs, and due to that got into a guild and started raiding casually.
Cataclysm, unfortunately, killed my fun. Tanking Heroic PUGs became slightly less painful than pulling teeth, I wasn't able to get into enough Heroics to gear up for raids due to most of my play time being in 30-minutes slots (often enough time to tank two WotLK Heroic PUGs, but not enough for even a single Cataclysm Heroic at all, even with full guild groups, since forming the group took a hefty part of this time), the removal of portals killed my willingness to do what remained of Outlands and Nortrend content, and leveling alts started boring me to death due to the highly linear questing; all that remained for me to do was max level solo content, which I find to more often than not be awful in WoW. So, about a month after Cataclysm, I returned to GW and bought all expansions (free respecs, instant travel, and the possibility to solo group content using NPC helpers weighted heavily in this decision); subscribed to LotRO (in large part due to it being F2P, which allowed me to extensively try it before subscribing); and bought DCUO with a lifetime sub (mostly because of the lifetime sub; wouldn't have subscribed otherwise). Currently I'm jumping between those three games, and waiting for SW:TOR and GW2 (both of which I plan to pre-order). I might return to WoW, but only if tanking Heroic PUGs go back to taking less than 30 minutes, and only after I get bored with the MMOs I'm currently playing or waiting for the release; since I'm not even close to being bored with a single one of them, much less with all of them added together, I'm not really sure I will return to WoW.
Huh Apr 28th 2011 5:15PM
Most of the time people come back? And you know this how?
When written by someone who has pretty much done nothing else in their life but play WoW, it's funny how you seem to think "real-life issues" is something that gets in the way. Cracked.Com has a pretty good observation of how pathetic WoW players are when using the "RL" term:
RL: "Real life". It seems kind of depressing that you need a qualifying term to point out when you're talking about real life. Especially when that the term is most used as a negative competing priority. "I'm sorry I couldn't make the raid tonight, RL got in the way."
Read more: 6 Ways World of Warcraft is Worse Than Real Life | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/article_16782_6-ways-world-warcraft-worse-than-real-life_p2.html#ixzz1KkWT0GfZ
rainbowblack Apr 27th 2011 2:45PM
quit right before AQ and missed the entirety of BC, came back 4-5 month into WotLK and haven't stopped since
Al Apr 27th 2011 3:22PM
I drop in and out, depending on work (any new employees means a month or two training them on top of my work) and where my "satisfaction/disatisfaction swing" is with Blizzard's concept of Oceanic Service. Or their service in general, like the last two tickets I opened - one got the answer to someone else's ticket, and the other got the "stop add-ons" run-around, even though I had said I wasn't running any because it was the first day of Cata.
Could have been gone a while ago too, but I fell in with a great guild. So I always come back after a few months to see how everyone is.
Awesome Apr 27th 2011 3:29PM
I'm taking one right now, though it isn't me deciding on this, I have no money for my subscription (my parents make that bill mine to handle) so... yeah I'm a wee bit frustrated, I've been forum lurking, and cursing my self for not being able to post on this open RP forum on the officials...
but when I DO take actual breaks, its usually during school breaks, to enjoy more time outside. I like to play WoW during the school days cuz i'm not allowed out a lot on weekdays.
Matthew W. Apr 27th 2011 4:50PM
I was in a large guild on Proudmoore. About 2 mos after WotLK dropped, I was over it. Playing had become a chore, and when I decided that I didn't want to heal anymore (at this point I'd been raid healing since vanilla) I was basically told "if you don't heal, you're not on the team." So, I quit. About 6 mos later I ended up on Moon Guard in a small, but really great guild with some people I work with and others, DPSing and, on occasion, healing.
Lemons Apr 27th 2011 7:01PM
Yes...when I first started playing I was what you'd call casual. I would play on an off. Sometimes I'd drop the game for a few months and then come back and say "whelp, I guess I better level this guy past 45".
Nowadays though...if I take a break from the game it's usually because of extenuating circumstances. Like if I go on vacation or if I have to buckle down for finals I'll take a short break from the game.
Yamara34 Apr 27th 2011 10:08PM
Yup. Well, I started playing in September 2007. The first time I stopped playing was...May 2008 to August 2008. Then I took a break for like six weeks in October and November of 2009, I guess. Took another break from May to July 2010. And this July I'm going to have to quit again to concentrate on graaad school...
/tmi