New Expansion Malaise

The bank and bags were almost full 2 seconds earlier!

The time just before an expansion should be exciting.  All that new content just around the corner when there have been so few changes for so long.  For me, that hasn't been the case since Burning Crusade.  In fact, for every World of Warcraft expansion since then, I took a break at the beginning of the expansions before burning through the content rather than afterwards.

As a casual gamer, I know I can't keep up with the people who quickly level their characters so they can get to the max level content.  I'm fine with that.  I remember joking with someone that it took me three weeks to level my first character while it took him three days in Burning Crusade.  However, even though I am OK with the amount of time I have to play computer games most of the time, it is difficult not to get caught up in the excitement when an expansion comes out.

This is why I took a break just before Wrath of the Lich King came out.  I knew I had been playing more than I should and I knew I'd just want to play more if I got the expansion.  I was able to enjoy that break and bought the expansion when the price came down and enjoyed it without experiencing much of the end game content.  When Cataclysm came out, I thought I had developed the right balance and bought the expansion right away, but almost immediately unsubscribed when I wanted to play more than I could.  That led to my decision with Mists of Pandaria to look for a more casual friendly game and then to wait again until the price came down and enjoy the leveling and other parts of the game like professions.

A month ago I was of the opinion that with the new Flex raids, I would get the expansion at the start, go through my normal casual leveling pace, and still enjoy a weekly casual raid with my guild.  Now that the pre-patch is out, I'm finding I don't want to play and really have very mixed feelings about getting the expansion at the beginning.

This malaise has caused me to play very little and not post for almost three weeks.  I've also almost stopped reading blog posts as well, something that I normally really enjoy.  I played through the pre-patch quests on one character, looked at all the new models (I'm fine with my Dwarfs, Humans, Night Elves and Draenei, but I had to change my gnome and still wish I could find one as cute as she was pre-patch), and found the magic of larger stacks and the resource tab button that creates huge amounts of bag and bank space.

Ironically this makes it easier for me to quit, because as a pack rat, I normally have many mails being sent between characters containing all the food and crafting materials I don't have a need for but can't bring myself to sell.  Now with the guild bank space in my new personal guild and all the extra bag and bank space, I've already retrieved most of my mails and it'll be easy to get the rest without having to make any hard decisions about what to sell.

As a non-MMO player, my wife would like to get me the expansion as a Christmas present, and thinks it would be something fun to look forward to.  As an MMO player, I know that'll mean several weeks getting even further behind other players and, more importantly, missing out on the excitement of the first few days and weeks.  With the way I'm feeling now, I'm not sure that it won't be more frustrating than enjoyable if I get the expansion and that therefore it would be better to wait.  I'm sure there will be a lot of casual players who will get the expansion as Christmas presents, so why shouldn't I do that as well.

I don't know what I'll decide to do, but this is why I started this blog:  to talk through the conflicts of being a casual player who is still very interested in computer games, particularly MMORPGs.