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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Will you quit with a bang or fade away?
by Stephen Cheatum 
Aug 7th 2011 at 8:00AM
I always thought I'd go out with a bang, one last hurrah. Perhaps a ride through the Horde capital cities with 39 of my closest Alliance pals, leaving a path of devastation as we destroy anyone who dared get in our way. Maybe I'd take my druid on one last flight from Booty Bay to Light's Hope Chapel, or teleport to the Moonglade and fly down to Un'Goro crater. I'd take in the disjointed, chaotic beauty that is Azeroth one last time.
How did I hang it up? After logging on for a few weeks only for jewelcrafting dailies before leaving for work, I was late one day and skipped my dailies. I never bothered to log back on. After a week, I finally realized I'd stopped playing, went to the forums, and informed my guild leader that I would be removing myself as an officer due to lack of playtime. I hadn't fully decided to quit yet, and then I was cleaning up hard drive space. Five years of patches and expansions had inflated my World of Warcraft folder to almost 35GB -- and with one quick keystroke (and a subsequent confirmation), it was gone.
I was always under the impression that I'd have to actively try to quit, agonizing over the thought of never logging on again. I was wrong. Quitting was just the way life worked out. It wasn't something I planned, it wasn't something I was hoping for, and it's just the way it worked out. And it was one of the easiest things I've ever done.
Would you want to go out with a bang or out with a fizzle? Is there one thing you absolutely must do before you hang it up?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 6)
Krz Aug 7th 2011 1:55PM
I don't think I'll ever really quit. After all, every time I have, I have always returned. The game has an amazing sense of community (even with all the trolls and the doomsayers - who likely predict the end as a means of projecting their own fear of it in some form), and Azeroth truly is a 'world' with all its amazing depth.
Azeroth is a place that has existed for many years of my life in some immaterial form which, when I've left, has always been there to return to. That will be the great sadness of the game finally dying - there will be no fantasy world to return to.
Rolly Aug 7th 2011 1:56PM
Fade for me, been in Azeroth since Dec 04.
Fireland dailies did it after all that time, not the dailies themselves but the design philosophy, small areas with instant respawn times. This is the direction Blizzard is going, I'm betting because of development costs, all of Cataclysm screamed to me "We did this to make OUR jobs easier, not to make playing the game more fun".
For some reason I had visions of the devs talking to the accountants as they designed the game everytime I played.
Anyhoo, sub runs out end of Aug. not sure if I'll renew. That spacey thing everyones talking about kinda looks interesting, but hey, so many have since 04.
Nicholas Tam Aug 7th 2011 2:56PM
I faded months ago, though I did cash in on Blizzard's 7-free-day offer for lapsed subscribers to do some low-level questing through Cataclysm content I never saw. Although I tidied my belongings beforehand, clearing my mail and giving my unsold crated goods to a relative, I never thought of leaving the game as quitting. Rather, it was one of many, many breaks between subscription periods, only I began to take pride in extending the break for as long as I could until I didn't really think about the game so far.
I appreciate the higher difficulty of Cataclysm raids, but I decided way back in ICC that if it ever came down to a choice between a) leaving the mid-level guild I'd been with for two years to play with more skilled people and see more content and b) quitting the raiding game and doing better things with my time, I'd do the latter. So when my guild started spinning its wheels and raids became a matter of crossing my fingers that others wouldn't screw up—the point at which a raider would usually start thinking about hopping guilds—I slowly withdrew instead.
It helped, too, that I was never a player who was motivated by loot, and who never felt the obligation to do dailies or fill badge quotas. I've only ever been motivated by the pleasure of the activity itself, and even though I found all sorts of neat creative projects to do with my WoW time, other games were more rewarding. (Namely, StarCraft II. In the end, there's no escaping Blizzard.)
Psychologically I still don't think of quitting as quitting. That's just asking for withdrawal. I take indefinite breaks because I want to, not because I have to force myself.
Ewok Aug 7th 2011 3:00PM
I'll fade. I've already started losing interest, but I hang on for some friends. I took some commissions to pay for the play time, because I don't want to play enough for it to come out of my budget.
I figure I'll stop playing completely by the end of the year, but who knows?
chrobry Aug 7th 2011 3:36PM
I been playing this game since closed beta.. and I quit it all through that time. Sometimes for few months sometimes for years (longest was 2 years when Kara was the biggest deal until ToC in WoTLK).
I will do it again someday, although right now I am enjoying (again) my druid.
I quit the same way; fade out. Login less and less until I no longer bother.
To me WoW is just a break an entertainment I don't farm nor grind more than it is fun. To me it is simple as long as I am having fun I play, once I don't? I stop.
Utakata Aug 7th 2011 3:34PM
I faded out.
I said I would never do what I've seen donne with a a mutlitudes of "I quit" threads plaguing the WoW forums. Instead I left a quiet note on my server forum...for those may have remembered my from 6 years of playing there (I don't think they did). Then discretely said goodbye to my guilds (admittedly that was a bit of a sad affair...I'll miss a lot of peeps there). And left an AiM addy to a few personal individuals ingame if they ever wanted to get a hold of me after the fact. Then finally before an hour my account expired, logged off. Thanks for all the fish, Blizz. :)
My only complaint, there was no way to tell Blizz why I was leaving. I don't think I get that option using time cards. But oh well. It's under the bridge now.
...not sure I'll blow my copy of the game from the hard drive. Blizz may yet do something that will draw me back. So I'll keep it for now. Though I don't expect that will happen for a very long time.
Utakata Aug 7th 2011 3:36PM
Edit: *done...not sure where the extra "n" came from. :(
Lipstick Aug 7th 2011 3:41PM
In my head .. I have a bit of a bucket list of things I am constantly working on. Achievements which have alluded me, reputations I have yet to grind. In my mind, the point I begin to quit, will arrive at the point when I stop adding things to this list, and begin crossing them off one by one.
Of course the game constantly adds new achievements, but at a certain point, there becomes too much saturation, and you no longer care to pursue them. What that certain point is, I don't really know. I love World of Warcraft, and have genuinely enjoyed my time here.. a part of me can't imagine a time when I don't enjoy it, and love it, but I can't imagine doing dailies ten years from now either.
So either I will move on to another game, if another game comes out which intrigues me, or I will move on from gaming in my life in general when I no longer have time for it. Either way, I think those who stay gone, are the ones who simply fade away.
Those who go out with a bang, aren't really ready to leave.. (IMHO) they just want a change, or the drama their leaving will stir up in others. They're looking for a reason to stay, not another reason to go.
Lucidique Aug 7th 2011 3:55PM
I just faded out.
I lost interest in my Rogue. Guild leading (was an officer) and raiding was becoming a chore. I kept complaining about Blizzard, the state of my class, balance and abilities that didn't make sense.
Finally I deducted that I simply needed to quit the game and just leave it at that. Haven't been playing for 4 months now, and I don't miss that game one bit. I do follow the news though.
Iirdan Aug 7th 2011 4:02PM
This is how the world ends.
This is how the world ends.
This is how the world ends.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
sd_fuller Aug 7th 2011 6:39PM
I am finding myself fading away. I did the FL dailies to get a few upgrades and the hypogryff, but can't seem to be motivated to do much else. I would like to raid, but I am in a small guild with not enough players to do it. I have PUG'd a few older raids, but the daily wait to get a group together or grind up another toons gear is less than fun. So... I will probably just log in occasionally until D3 comes out.
Guildies of friends in-game are the thing that would keep me interested, but sadly they are few and far between. Fading away looks to be the one I will choose.
Vespene -GameTrailers- Aug 7th 2011 8:05PM
I quit with a whimper, and so did the rest of my old guild. Slowly members started fading away along with myself. Years of real-life friends trying to pry me off the game were for naught. All it took was, well, human nature. Everything gets boring sooner or later. WoW is no different.
GrandOldDuke Aug 7th 2011 10:13PM
I've been fading for a while... I stopped worrying about my level 85s a while ago, not making any effort to get more gear , and spent the time I made for WoW creating more new alts, running through the revamped low-level zones, seeing what I hadn't seen...
But I've pretty much used all of that up, and I can't really think of anything more to do, so it might be time for the dramatic break.
Sinister Aug 8th 2011 9:35AM
I fkn hate blizz and i wish their servers would fry . Blizz force fed their ways of playing the game , and if you QQed about it , they nerfed your class .. bastards .. I quit along time ago , and i dont miss it .... Heres to you blizz ,,!,,
Jason Ralph Aug 7th 2011 11:33PM
I'll get more personal than I probably should with this, and I don't mean to make anyone uneasy. If I do, I apologize.
I started playing World of Warcraft during The Burning Crusade. I got seriously hurt while deployed and was stuck laying around recovering. A corpsman (I guess this would a nurse in the civilian world) suggested WoW. And mentioned this reputation grind (the one out in Tanaris for Cenarion something).
I fiddled around with the various classes and finally settled on a Holy Paladin (I leveled as this). I found it to be a lot fun. During all of this I kept asking my girlfriend to play. We eventually got engaged and got married. She finally gave in and stood in line in the wee hours of the morning to play Wrath of the Lich King. She didn't like the changes to her character (Shadow Priest) at the start of Cataclysm.
She played less and less until by February she stopped completely. My subscription expired a month and some days after hers. I tried playing without her, but it came to point I was hardly on, and when I was, I didn't enjoy it as much. When it came time to renew, I couldn't. The price didn't seem justified and warranted due to the amount of time I spent at it. I logged out of my Holy Paladin in front of the portal to Outlands. I still got goose bumps every time I go through.... Only to get crushed by the Fel Reaver. LOL
I hope to return some day, but I doubt it. Blizzard would have to convince my wife it's worth her time again, and I honestly don't think that'll happen. I still follow it (WoW) and hope it does well. It just isn't for me. And to be frank, I'd never thought I'd log out knowing I wouldn't most likely ever.
(BTW I still don't know what changes to Shadow Priest my wife didn't like at the start of Cataclysm; in case you were curious)
Ronin Aug 7th 2011 11:26PM
I'm pretty sure that if you want to go out with a bang, you're not ready to quit. If you have enough interest to want to go out big, you probably have enough interest to keep playing, too.
Granted, sometimes you quit not because you want to, but because you have to. If that were the case, then I'd definitely want to go out with a BANG of some kind. But the times I _have_ quit, it's been more of a slow fade.
I have to say, this strikes me as a weir topic to write about.
Ronin Aug 7th 2011 11:29PM
Weird, even!
skinny Aug 8th 2011 1:56AM
with me its a balance thing with me i love this game i love the story i love the lore, i have 4 85s, 2 geared for firelands my rogue for pvp and my priest...well i dont like my priest that much lol...my sub runs out on the 8th and im sad but cant wait till i can get another job with the freedom of no wow till i get a job opens up im sticking to other games like SC and drinking with friends my point is there are tons of stuff to do i mean ppl need to calm down and enjoy the game
rihahn Aug 8th 2011 10:25AM
For me it's been a very slow fade for the last few years.
I started WoW on opening day, I guess it was November 2004? - myself and 13 other folks from work stood in line to get boxes, went home early, and played the rest of the day and into the evening...
That guild still exists to this day, though none of the original folks who started it have been on that server since the end of BC.
We went on to 'beat' WoW in it's original incarnation, through 40 man raiding (the true hard mode), then spend a lot of time in PvP doing the title grind or working on complete sets of 'epic' gear... My hunter still has his full suit of dragonstalker as *that* was freaking epic and insanely hard to acquire - I even continued to wear it when they turned it pink and purple.
Some folks I knew dropped out before Naxx went in, but we beat that too. But by the end the 14 of us had dropped to 10.
Then the Burning Crusade hit and the high-point of my WoW 'career' happened. BC was the pinnacle of what Blizzard could achieve in my humble opinion, and we laid waste to Outland in an epic struggle to free the world from the clutches of Illidan... On the way, the 10 who reminded had dwindled to 7.
And the day our main tank placed his booted foot on Illidan's head and roared our victory to the skies (third kill on the server), we knew our time in WoW had gotten very short.
Time passed, mostly in boredom and arenas - though I did get my 'duelist' title - but eventually the 6 of us remaining who had originally started the game, rolled Alliance and started over - skipping the Sunwell and it's associated grind completely as, well, doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome is a sign of insanity, and we didn't want to ponder that.
Wrath launched, and we set out into the frozen wilds of Northrend looking to put an end to the Lich King himself - a task that a few years earlier Metzen had said would never happen and that Arthas would kill us for even pondering the idea...
Yet there we were, with the distinct feeling we were jumping a shark...
Northrend was beautiful but we all noticed that some of the fire had gone out of the game... Every mechanic was built around repetition and dialed in for maximum time sink to wring as much monthly out of folks as possible.
On the way to Lich King, and mostly because of the gated content, we lost three more.
But we still managed to send Arthas off and put a new Lich King on the Frozen Throne. The guild we had formed upon arrival to the Alliance was some hundred members strong and it was taking most of our time to just keep the thing running; organizing raid schedules, filling A B and C raid rosters, and handling the administrivia of the guild...
One more dropped out when there was little more to do but Tournament dailies (see the dailies comment above in regards to the Sunwell).
The two of us remaining hung on until Cata, once again returning to our Horde roots as Priests and Paladins were now available to the Tauren and the backstory seemed kind of cool. That and if one was going to start over, Cata was the time to do it.
So we got in with a guild of re-rollers and took off into the great wide unknown...
But something was wrong with Cata - I cannot put my finger on the issue exactly as it seems all-pervasive and there's some little thing in *everything* that just rubs me the wrong way... But logging in became a chore pretty quick, and after hitting Outland again at 60 I was finding things to do weeknights to not log in.
We both made 85, being completionists and not the sort to give up easily; but once again at the absolutely nutty 'daily' thing reared it's head and I quit. Shortly afterwards the last of the 14 also stopped playing - bringing an end to a *very* epic six and a half years.
Of the 14, 9 still work here and we're seriously looking at taking on Starwars. If we do, and the game isn't completely linear with lots of repetition (I'm looking at you Rift), I'm sure I'll be in for another epic few years of entertainment.
But for me, nay "us", WoW is now firmly in the past.
muffinmocha Aug 8th 2011 11:46AM
I've been thinking about this article as I was driving to work this morning, and the more I thought about it the heavier my heart felt cause I know my time with WoW is nearly over.
Towards the end of Wrath, and the accompanying hype for Cata, my boyfriend and I were so excited -- he got a new computer, new monitor, new keyboard, I had mine upgraded so we would be ready. I pre-ordered online but we went at midnight to Best Buy, waited out in the cold to get him a copy. On the way home, he had a brainwave, he said, "what if Cata is the expansion that breaks the game?"
It may not be the expansion that breaks WoW, but for my boyfriend, it was the expansion that made him quit. Queue for 30 minutes for a Heroic, things would go haywire, and in this expansion before everyone was out-gearing them, things did go wrong really fast, the healer and tank would ragequit, and as DPSers, you'd be back in the queue. You get a heroic or a raid mechanic wrong, and the whole night is a bust. And as epic as the changes in Azeroth were -- the quests and the lore didn't quite make up for the painful grind that is Cata heroics. My boyfriend played less and less, and finally, last June, cancelled his sub and recently pre-ordered the big game that's supposed to be out sometime later this year.
I'm still hanging on, but barely. I waited for Firelands, I did the Thrall quest chain, which wasn't bad by itself, but the dialogue was like something out of a really bad Hollywood B movie, and then I tried to start the Molten Fire dailies, but I couldn't because apparently I had to do Hyjal first, and I just couldn't bring myself to do that. As for raiding, well, I had such a hard time with heroics, that I totally lost confidence in my mediocre skills as a raider and have stopped joining our guild raids. So here I am, fading away slowly -- haven't logged on my main in a very long time and last Saturday, I actually deleted the lvl 47 rogue that I had created when I first started playing. The thing is, there are still so many things I want to do, achievements I have yet to do, I'd plan to log, but would get caught up in other stuff. I guess as other comments have stated, life goes on and people do move on, and while I have been delaying the inevitable, I know that eventually I will say goodbye to WoW. But not yet.