Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsBreakfast Topic: The curious phenomenon of "reverse burnout"
by Weston Arrowsmith 
May 10th 2011 at 8:00AM
We all hear the stories about people who played World of Warcraft too much and as a result had to stop playing to make the game fun again. I've fallen victim to that myself back in the days of Trial of the Crusader. But lately, I've encountered something that at first makes little sense. The best thing I can call it is "reverse burnout," and it's not from playing too much -- it's from not playing at all.
I admit to being a raider at heart. I love making my gear a shiny shade of purple so that I can join nine or 24 other people as we down the big, bad monsters of WoW together. It was my reason for getting to level 70, and it kept me hooked all throughout Wrath of the Lich King. But since the launch of Cataclysm, my raiding days have just ... stopped. Each guild I've joined on the promise of being able to raid either hasn't raided at all, or they've gone raiding without me. And without raiding, it feels like my motivation to play is gone.
I've gotten all the gear I could get from heroic dungeons and reputation vendors (except bracers, which will never, ever drop), daily quests feel like a chore, and the friends that I have online are off in their own raiding guild that I'm on a waiting list to try out for (they're full on hunters). Pickup raids have proven to be too unreliable in terms of both time and talent as well. It's like one part of such a huge game was the glue that held everything else together for me.
So what do you do when one of your favorite parts of the game becomes off-limits? How do you deal with being bored with WoW -- when you're not even really playing at all?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 7)
loop_not_defined May 10th 2011 10:35AM
I was trying to start super-casual raiding for a couple of months, but the few interested parties were either three time zones away or didn't understand what "super-casual" meant (joins guild, plays heavily, leaves guild after 5 days because the rest of us are hardly ever on - kids, jobs, commutes, other responsibilities, etc).
The idea is to use raid lockout extensions to slowly complete a single raid since, for me and others I know, some raiding is better than no raiding. :)
gunstrak May 10th 2011 11:02AM
The time constraints honestly are the only legitimate reason any player has for missing out on Raid Content in this expansion.
Cor May 10th 2011 2:45PM
I was in a great guild that used to be very fun and successful, but in this expansion the guild leader became obsessed with downing content and it eventually killed the guild. I love raiding and could have gotten tagged to another raid guild, but I just can’t justify the time. 3-4 hours a night, 3 nights a week is such a minor commitment, yet with kids and work I don’t feel I can guarantee my attendance.
I won’t do PUG raids because I have no tolerance for immature and insulting behavior.
So I spend my time leveling alts. 5 85s so far.
shadcroly May 10th 2011 1:46PM
I get the feeling that this is what I'm suffering from as well. WoW kinda feels boring right now, even though I still like playing it, and one of the major things that's changed is that I haven't been able to participate much in any of the stuff we used to do. Sure, you gotta devote some time to gearing up and learning the new mechanics, but it's been a few months now, and my guild really isn't in a position (or at least it doesn't feel like it) to pick raiding back up again. I liked raiding in Wrath, even if I was pidgeonholed into being the Tank Healer, and I miss raiding as a whole.
Greyhame May 10th 2011 8:27AM
Cancel my account until there's actually something I feel like doing again.
gaylen666 May 10th 2011 8:27AM
when can't raid i do achivements when i can't do those i pvp. If that fails i rejoin the real world.... where my wife is there waiting for me to go back to wow so i leave her alone ^_^
Mummrah May 10th 2011 5:08PM
When you can't raid, do dungeons. And when you can't do dungeons, well, you find someone to carry you through them.
arcter May 10th 2011 6:22PM
"...and when there was no meat, we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand."
"You ate what?"
"We ate sand."
"You ate SAND?"
"That's right!"
mayjest May 10th 2011 8:27AM
The exact same thing happened to me, and to be honest, I didn't deal with it. I tried to stay, I really did. I played alts - got my three 80s to 85, got my lower leveled characters into either Outlands or Northrend and I started a couple of new characters and got them through a decent chunk of 0-60. I dabbled in the auction house. I leveled archeology. I worked on the achievements I'd missed out on from previous expansions that I could now solo or duo with a friend. And none of it worked.
The majority of my problem was time constraints - I couldn't guarantee that I'd be online for the next two hours, so I was lucky if I could queue for a 5 man heroic, let alone try and schedule a raid in advance like I did in Wrath. Eventually, I just didn't think the cost justified what I was actually doing in game - I wasn't enjoying it, it was all stop gap stuff. I was bored and coasting, waiting for that time when I might have enough to time play again properly, that time that I doubted would ever come. It was all stuff that would be useful if I could raid again, but without the raiding there was little point in it - I was just playing wow for playing wow's sake, not because I wanted to.
So I left. And to be honest I've loved it. I've started playing LotRO because it's free and leveling through entirely new stuff is very easy to dip in and out of, even for only 20 minutes at a time. I've been able to go through all my older games that I never quite finished - or even never really started - because something in WoW always drew me back. I imagine I'll come back at some point - probably patch 4.3 or something when there's enough solo content that I can dip in and out of without getting bored or feeling like I'm wasting my time.
Rezai May 10th 2011 8:29AM
I hear you, I used to be a raider during Wrath. I don't have a consistent schedule to raid in anymore. So now I log-in and do what? I'll run a heroic every now and again but with out raiding it kind of just kills time. I could do dailies but, dear lord do I hate the current dailies (I didn't seem to hate them as much in Wrath). I love my guildies and that is really the only reason I log on now a days. The problem is with nothing to do while chatting it's hard to do that.
bolt_x21 May 10th 2011 8:30AM
It sucks and I've been down that road too. Best solution for me was to fine a new guild that needed my role more than I needed the guild. However, since cataclysm got rid of an easy version of raids that people felt comfortable with attempting (10-man wrath) as well as making guild rep important it's pretty much killed the pugging world. The fact is you COULD kill cho'gall with a pug, it would be hard though. With the new raid lock system you would think that it would have made pugging for raids a breeze; however, due to the increase of difficulty and the guild rep system (just sort of) urging players to keep it in the family a lot less players are getting the confidence and experience needed to tackle raids at all. It took us an hour to find someone to pug a BH because we couldn't find a RDPS, I mean, c'mon.
Amnesiatic May 10th 2011 9:15AM
So why do you need a RDPS for BH? Melee or ranged doesn't really matter there.
Halle May 10th 2011 8:34AM
Alts... lots of alts!
Darky May 10th 2011 11:41AM
Agreed, alts are lots of fun, I can't stop making new characters, even though I have 7/10 classes at least level 40, and 5/10 above 60 and 2 at 85.
And then there's mount collecting, I just finished getting all reputation based mounts apart from the goblin mounts. So I've given myself a break at 84 mounts to level a holy tauren pally who is leveling entirely through the dungeon finder, even though I mostly holy shock and word of glory whilst jumping around, I'm still having fun. Maybe it's because I love the healing heirloom mace so much.
It's shiny.
Mr. Tastix May 10th 2011 8:48AM
This happened to me during the start of Cataclysm.
I had just left my old guild due to problems with the administration and didn't know what to do next. I couldn't make it into another raiding guild mostly due to availability (normal raiding times for my realm are too early for me in my local timezone) and the only late-night raiding guild on the realm was - which might come as no surprise - was my former guild.
Since I couldn't find a guild I was getting ever-ready to just pack up and quit, try some other game I'd yet to play or another activity altogether. That's when I met another like-minded player on the same realm who also couldn't raid with his own guild. We banded together and got around 8 others to raid with.
Now the only obstacle in my path is dial-up internet in a rural area which happened to crop up just as I had gotten the raiders ready (family moved).
Ah, c'est la vie.
My idea was to start my own raiding coalition that was completely independent of any guilds. Brought on because of how people seem to love guild perks too much and the fact that I wanted to raid, I simply asked for people who wanted to raid at the odd hours of the morning but didn't want to leave their guilds to do so.
Instead of simply "giving up" or expecting someone to pick you up, get up and make the effort to do what you want to do yourself. Organise groups, ask some friends, possibly even mates you made in former guilds. My plan was foiled only by something that really is out of my control, but when you can't raid due to leaving a guild or nobody being online, then that's something you -can- fix.
Bows and Arrows May 10th 2011 8:49AM
My god this article could have been written about me. I am in exactly the same situation and it has completely killed the game for me. The best in slot pre-raid gear and no raid success (30+ wipes on Magmaw) has destroyed my motivation for the game :(
Grak May 10th 2011 9:42AM
Why on earth are you doing the same thing 30 times over when it clearly isnt successful? Surely by wipe #5 someone should have said 'Hang on guys, something isnt working. Lets take a few minutes, check the combat logs, see who's dying and why, and what we can do to fix it."
Glaras May 10th 2011 10:20AM
Grak, are you serious? You must not know what's happened to the raids in groups of anything other than the... well, I was about to say "hardcore guilds", but I was a hardcore raider in Wrath, and what passes for hardcore these days is a shadow of what it was (at least on my server).
Step back and assess what's stopping success? Preposterous! "Just zerg it!" is still the battlecry. And worse, after a wipe or two you get the "U retardz r fail!!1!", and someone bails. That gives another one or two the courage they lacked, and they bail as well, and the leader is back to spamming "LFM", or queuing up again. You never get a group to hang together long enough to benefit from examining the logs and making adjustments.
elvis May 10th 2011 8:52AM
I feel for ya, not sure what changed being married with kids it was hard but dooable to find a guild that raided 1 or 2 nights a week but now it seems unless your down for a solid 3 or 4 raid nights a week guilds don't want you and that rules me out to much real life needs. Pugs seem non existant, the smaller guilds that would fit that niche are disapearring becuase everyone wants in the 25 level guild for the perks so the smaller guilds can't compete and the bigger guilds require to much of a commitment, leveld 5 85's but that got old and dailies are just boring, 5 mans are still fun but I think raiding is what we all gear for and hold as our final goal, being part of the pack that takes down the big beast, friedly chat doesnt cut it, I don't think blizzard is intentionaly killing small guilds and those of us with life commitments, I think on some levels they have made runs shorter to allow more of the casual player but I find myself in the same spot at 85 with no raids in sight and no guilds that want a part time raider. I think the guild perks was a big mistake just killed the smaller guild or casual raiding guilds, maybe its a sign your to old and have a life " no wow for you"
Mortenebra May 10th 2011 10:00AM
I just wanted to give you some hope: there *are* guilds out there who raid two nights per week and understand that the spouse and kids come first before WoW. Our guild is one such guild with one successful raiding team and another one floundering, but trying to get up and running again. My husband and I have a little 14mo girl: we raid with a guy who has a wife and baby son; a guy who is married and has a baby girl; another husband-wife pair who has a 3yo son with another on the way; a guy who is married to and extensively cares for a disabled woman; a guy who has a wife and two grade-school boys. More often than not you'll hear, "Sorry, I couldn't be on sooner. The kid puked/shat/sneezed out a gallon of snot/coughed all over me/the bed/my spouse/the toys/dinner/the carpet/the cat."
For a while (read: past two or three months), we didn't get any raiding done because RL just continued to intervene on one person after another and we'd always be short a person. That's just what happens. What did I do then, being a raid-oriented player who gets a thrill out of saying things over Vent like I'm an F-16 pilot? I worked on some achievements. I killed some players in PvP for the guild 100k HKs achievement. I levelled a couple of alts. We got Netflix, dumped our cable provider, and started watching seasons of shows we'd been meaning to watch. When RL decided it was done playing Murphy's Law with us, we got back into it-- the entire time, we kept up communications.
The Officer's Quarters yesterday was about people who join guilds for the sole sake of raiding and loot. The fact of the matter is there are actually quite a few guilds who want people to join them for the sake of joining the community while raids, dungeon runs, pvp, dancing naked in Orgrimmar and other such shenanningans are perks rather than requirements. So, you know... (prepare for shameless plug) If you ever find yourself on Runetotem (US-H), look up Innuendo :D