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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria 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 3 of 7)
Aintnuthin May 18th 2011 12:50PM
Try out PVP. I was in your shoes at one point in time, and PVP helped make the game fun again.
Borephil May 10th 2011 8:54AM
I agree....those bracers never drop.
Paulduchesne1337 May 10th 2011 9:25AM
I've run the Deadmines 5+ times and the bracers havent dropped. I've done BWD many times and I've lost the bracers twice. The ZA bracers dropped once but the shammy (Healer) ninja'd em. (And then left the group...)
Frederik May 10th 2011 9:45AM
I must have killed Vanessa 20 times before those damn bracers dropped. The day after I got them, I got the bracers from Chimaeron, thus making the ones I'd worked so hard for obsolete.
Khirsah May 10th 2011 8:54AM
As so many have said, the hardest thing with the new content is the time commitment. I don't often get 2 free hours to play WoW, so I have not run the enough instances to get geared enough for raiding. Then it is like a cycle: I can't get excited to run instances when it feels like you'll never see the end-game content. But the reason it feels like I'll never see that content is because I don't have the time to run 5 mans. So I can't get excited to run them, and so on...
I have turned my attention to the much less time consuming pvp. But again, trying to coordinate a 5, or even 3 man team, has proven very difficult. So I just do bg's and 2 man arena. After I hit my point cap, there is very little reason to log on. I work on some reps, but that is about it.
My wife is a teacher, and will soon be on summer break. I'm hoping that I can get some solid time in then, and hopefully even join up with a guild alt raid. So there is some hope on the horizon.
Luke May 10th 2011 8:55AM
Not to sound like a Paladin, but wouldn't the reverse of burnout actually be a desire to play MORE because you're not playing enough?
Just saying.
Revnah May 10th 2011 9:39AM
That's what I thought, lol.
Shinae May 10th 2011 9:39AM
The writer does desire to play more in the form of raiding. He's not getting to raid, so he's getting burned out on doing everything but raiding. Makes sense to me.
SR May 10th 2011 9:01AM
You say your main is a hunter. As we all know, demand for pure DPS classes are extremely low. Then why not take the plunge and start another character that can do more than that?
Back in Wrath, I didn't have a very... skilled guild, so the only way I could raid was through PUGs. In the harsh environment of Detheroc Alliance, advertising yourself as a DPS was pure folly; Even before I started raiding, I knew that tanks and healers were much more valuable and wanted than, say, a hunter or a mage. As my dungeon opportunities started to decline, and I was forced to rely on questing to level my hunter, I decided to freshen up my playstyle... And picked up a Death Knight.
At the time, I knew next to nothing about tanking, or even Death Knights, other than the fact that tanks were hard to kill, and Death Knights like to gank other classes around Hellfire Peninsula. This was back when the class was overpowered, so the switch came with a bittersweet sensation of "I can't believe I'm playing as the bane of my hunter..." I chose Blood, since I was more comfortable with a physical DPS tree. (This was back when every tree could DPS and/or tank.) As many of you may or may not be aware, blood death knights' survivability is ABSURD. Considering the nerf to soloing capability came as Cata launched, I stormed through the content, and quickly found myself as a level 80 Death Knight tank. With him, I've learned about the proper tanking methods the hard way... Through multiple deaths and countless trolling. But damn it, I had fun. It gave me a new outlook on how WoW was played, and... I won't lie. It felt like I was the core of the game. As if I was important.
This lasted through mid-Ulduar, when due to certain circumstances I had to leave the United States and live with my other family. While there, the pressure in real-life matters did not decrease, and my play time was cut drastically; Topped with having my computer blow up (Semi-literally), I was shut out from WoW for most of the duration I've spent in Japan. I was still able to check up on WoW Insider through my cell phone, however, and my desire to play went up drastically... As if the game was taunting me.
After a half-year of mental overload and excessive stress, I moved out and started living on my own; Finally got the chance to play the game that's been haunting me for so long. Shortly after that, Icecrown Citadel and its 5-mans finally opened up, and my tank's PUGging days got even busier, storming through the heroics and the first wing; around this time, however, I was getting a burnout from the same outcome of "Put together a 10-man, tank some bosses, get some loot"; I simply wanted a more stable platform in which I could raid. And for someone who's only raided in Wrath... I didn't know what was even normal.
Ironically, the one who found a raiding guild was my hunter, whom I've geared up on my spare time through the ICC 5-man heroics; Since then, he's become my best-geared character (to this day) and reawakened my interest once again.
I'm not sure why I've typed all that up, just to say "Hey bub, if you're getting burnt out because you're not getting any action... Start somethin' new. You might be surprised."
Actually, kinda regretting typing all that. But I don't feel like erasing it. : /
Nynaeve May 10th 2011 9:06AM
I have this problem too. I have 3 days off of work during the week but my guild doesn't raid on Tuesdays, I have D&D with RL friends on Wednesday, and Thursday is for spending time with the hubby ...who doesn't like to raid.
We actually spent last Thursday playing Magicka.
Bynde May 10th 2011 9:08AM
I couldn't get in a raid if my very rl life depended on it. Guild too small to even depend on a 5-man run and PUGing is right out of the question.
I've got all my BG blues (rated BGs are out of the question , as well) so basically I'm bored shitless. What do I do? Sometimes play an alt but, what's the point? To hurry and get them to 85 so....they can have nothing to do?
What I would like to do is try my hand at arena. Not quite sure how to go about it, tho. So, anyway I play about 2-3 hours a week anymore, less than that if the weekend BG is warsong (hate it) and more and more am looking at non-mmo games.
Nadia May 10th 2011 9:17AM
I think combining the 10 and 25 man lockouts killed raiding for a lot of people because it eliminated the ability to PUG one and save the other for the guild.
DarkWalker May 10th 2011 12:49PM
I LOVE the way DCUO does raid locks:
Players can raid as much as they want, but they only get loot/marks (points) for each boss once per week.
It's great for avoiding benching drama and letting more progressed players help friends with their raids.
Reala CtL May 10th 2011 9:19AM
I keep hearing about all these guilds short a healer but I don't get much response when I post a LF guild. Perhaps it's just my server (Kor'Gall EU). My raiding days are limited to two, but those two are rock solid, short of an emergency I'm there; on time and prepared. Frustrating.
Azzure May 10th 2011 9:21AM
I used to raid allot on wrath. But my guild crumbled shortly after cata. Now I can't find a guild to raid with at all because I can't raid mon-wed due to work. Sad thing is I miss raiding...
Btw Any Alliance guilds want a Resto / Ele Shaman?
Spellotape May 10th 2011 9:24AM
This could have happened to me very easily - a draining guild collapse towards the end of Wrath put it firmly on the cards ...
However, I wanted to continue raiding so I made the decision to keep doing so - it meant hunting down the right guild amongst a plethora of choices and ultimately server switching to end up in the one I wanted, but it was a good (albeit doubt-filled) move and I'm still happy in the raiding guild I'm in.
allison.lins May 10th 2011 9:53AM
I'm raiding for the first time since Vanilla and I'm loving it. We do end game content 4 nights a week and I find that on off nights I'm itching to do more. Since they clear everything I do old content, work on getting people geared, or usually level and alt for profession farming.
Lately, I've been working on Rep. I'll pretty much decided that I want to get as many reputations to exhalted as possible. In the midst of this I'll probably work on Loremaster.
When that doesn't satisfy me I sit on a rare spawn I'm camping and playing minecraft windowed.
edgeblade May 10th 2011 9:27AM
I dealt with a similar situation, where I was unable to raid anymore on my old server with my old guild (this was 2-3 years ago) and this went on for several months and I found myself getting bored of the game very quickly when I was told I wasn't geared enough to raid or they already had their spots filled or whatever lame excuse they came up (they wouldn't even help gear up people to help fill in if regulars couldn't make it). One day I get fed up with all of their BS and rolled a brand new toon on a new server (a DK, but still), where I knew no one (the previous guild on the previous server had some people who at one point I considered real life friends, but their behavior in-game caused me to re-evaluate that). When I transferred, I leveled my DK and a Paladin and eventually joined a low end guild due to lack of guilds advertising at that time. That guild died within a month or 2 and then I was guildless for a little while before I found a new guild, and became one of their main raiders and the off-tank for most fights and occasional main tank. That guild managed to down LK on 10 man normal after wiping for months on end the night before Cata came out. They were starting Cata raid content around the end of December when my subscription ran out. I took a break from the game and came back 3 months later and the guild was essentially dead. All the main group either took a break, went to Rift, or just disappeared. So after a month or so of that, myself and a couple of others who were part of the main group started raiding with another guild and some of their friends from other guilds. A month or so of that and we all joined that guild and now regularly raid 3+ nights per week. We've cleared every boss on 10 man normal except Cho'gall/Nef/Al'Akir, with Cho'gall we got him down to 90K and wiped, which sucked. But we're making progress there and eventually we'll get into 10 man heroics.
TLDR: If you're not happy with your current in-game situation, either take a break as some have suggested, find a new guild that you've researched and has proven to be actively raiding (Armory is useful for that), or roll a new toon on a new server.
Darthregis May 10th 2011 9:35AM
I've also been in the same boat since Cata dropped.
I've compensated by:
Reconfirming that I'm terrible at PvP.
Old school raids.
Trying to 1-man Archavon with my hunter or DK.
Bought Portal 2.
Plan on buying LA Noire.
Just a few examples.
I also plan to compensate for other things by purchasing an extremely expensive and impractical sports car, but that's neither here nor there.
Jestin May 10th 2011 11:28AM
I love this answer.
I think it happens in steps though, too, right? It took me a while to realize that I was burned out, but in the interim, I got all of the archaeology achievevements... got crushed in pvp (time and time again)... and bashed my head against the same raid bosses over and over (and over). And then I thought... why am I doing this? This feels like work.
The way around it? I too bought (and thoroughly enjoyed) Portal 2. Finally got around to writing that white paper I'm been working on. Rediscovered Civilization 5, Master of Orion 2 and Alpha Centauri. Played the God of War series from start to finish. Learned to cook.
Canceled my sub for the time being - I'm not going to say that I'm never coming back, but there are definitely other (more fun) things to do these days.