I thought I could play World of Warcraft casually. I really did. I thought I could enjoy running a Karazhan on the weekends, perhaps someday stepping foot into Gruul’s Lair and Zul’Aman. I had dreams of Kharmaa’s Shroud of Hope, and a high ranked 2v2 team in the notorious BG9. Fuck, I mean, I even thought I could have a little fun while doing this.

Well, I have my cape now and I have a decently ranked 2v2 team.

But I’m also a new raiding member of an Illidan farming guild preparing for Sunwell.

It sounded like a good idea at the time when it was introduced in November right before my birthday. Two ex-hardcore players rolling a Druid and a Warrior for PvP, the best 2v2 combo in the game, and just relaxing. “No raiding,” they said. “No raiding,” I repeated. Instead of flasking up and potting out, I could spam cyclone, my partner could spam mortal strike, and we never had to think about PvE content in WoW again. It would be fun. It would be rediscovering WoW.

It would be playing the game how it was meant to be played.

But of course, nothing works out like planned. How does that saying go? The best laid plans often go awry? Yeah, something like that.

Don’t let me fool you either. It’s not like I walked back into WoW, head held high and my expectations equally so. I figured it would take some adjusting. I knew I hated pick up groups, and bad players. I mean, the breaking point of being “Little Timmy” wasn’t when my hardcore friends teased me. It also wasn’t when I wiped a few [dozen] times in a PUG. It wasn’t even when I looked at my casual guild’s MotD and it said in a month we’d try Zul’Aman with flasks.

It was when I was doing my Karazhan key with a newfound guild, and we wiped three times in Black Morass. It was when we couldn’t down the first boss of Botanica because she was too tough. It was when I got asked to spec Moonkin three times by three different officers who proclaimed a Resto Druid was useless in raids. It was when the Mage killed herself via spell reflect on a mob–twice. It was when the guilds who wanted to invite me were all named stupid, insipid names like “Crusaders of the Brethern” or “Gnomeland Security.” It was when we wiped on Moroes ten times and called it a night. It was when I had healed over three hundred thousand above the Paladin and Priest in full greens to their full epics.

In short, it was a little bit of everything.

So it’s with a tail between my legs, a sulk in my eyes, that I concede I’m back to Black Temple and Hyjal. I concede I’ll get my tier 6, and spec full Resto. I concede to Illidan that I am prepared, even if I hate TBC’s PvE with a bitterness an ex-Holy Paladin could only muster. I also concede I’ll be in Sunwell, wiping with the best of them. And above all, I concede to myself that I’m not going to ever be playing WoW casually–not before, not now, and definitely not in the next expansion.

It’s not so bad. At least I’m a Night Elf now. Mailbox dances should pay for repairs, and those racials are beast. I mean, the Nature Resistance? The 1% to dodge? Fucking amazing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 11:59 am and is filed under Video Games, MMORPGs, World of Warcraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.