I’m sure I’m not the only one who has this sort of inner debate whenever I start to think of a past MMO that I used to really enjoy:
HEART: Hey, remember World of Warcraft? You LOVED that game! It was so pretty, so accessible, and just right up your alley!
HEAD: And I played it. For four years. And left.
HEART: But maybe you should head on back, see if you can’t, y’know, rekindle a little of that old magic. It’s still there! You’ll have a great time, you know you will!
HEAD: Dude, you know I had reasons to quit.
HEART: You always have reasons. But you’ve forgotten them, so maybe they weren’t that important!
HEAD: The crappy end game! A-HA! I didn’t forget! Oh, and how Blizzard is always changing the game, making it way too simple, erasing all my past accomplishments just to pave way for future grinds. No thank you.
HEART: But your friends are still in the game!
HEAD: While that may be, I cannot, I will not force myself to play a game that I don’t like any longer just because of the people there.
HEART: What about this new expansion? This catacombs, catamaran, cataclysm thing? They’re reshaping the entire world, throwing in two new races — that’s a whole new leveling experience!
HEAD: Really? I’ll be doing something other than the quest/kill grind with the same classes we’ve had since 2004?
HEART: Come baaaaaaack… I’ll buy you one of their obscenely expensive Pandaren pets!
HEAD: Can’t we just let the past be the past? I’ve moved on, I have a new MMO girlfriend. Her name is Fallen Earth, and she’s everything that WoW is not. Right now, I’m crafting an awesome post-apocalyptic motorcycle.
HEART: You can make a motorcycle in WoW too!
HEAD: Yeah, because that really fits the setting. Tell me, which of these does not belong: Castle, Knight, Horse, Magic, Dragons, Swords, Motorcycle.
HEART: But… but… you can rename your character now! Change their gender! Their faction! Their race!
HEAD: More proof that what the game once was to me, is no longer. Pass.
HEART: Oh, you think you’ve won, but you’ll see… you’ll see.
Bio Break 
haha brilliant, Im thinking along the same lines and I know I will return. Worgen are just too tempting not to as will the changing of the old zones. Im hoping that they do make the game challenging. Too much to ask? probably but alas there is still hope.
Last chance saloon for WoW when it comes to my subscription money
LOL. I haven’t had this inner argument with my current wow Exodus as of late. But oh man did I feel that when the NGE hit SWG. And the repeated re-subs of Eve. But I can say FE has grabbed ahold and shared a brew with me. 🙂
Oh yeah I had that.
Curse you heart!
I went to WoW because I loved the setting from WC1->2 (3 not so much but still acceptable). I pretty quickly found out this was not what I expected. The forced hommages, caricatures and jokes, no death-pen etc etc, just felt streamlined towards different kind of player…
With every major patch they threw out stuff I liked (mostly RP-stuff), raped the lore further and introduced new stuff to make everything more e-Sports gamey.
Over the years I went on again off again, offtime increasing with ever pause I took while the subscribed times grew shorter and shorter.
Everytime I feel the need to play, I just log onto a priv.Blizzlike server and after few hours my heart acknowledges defeat and I can go back to doing whatever I did before…
Ha! I can recall some of that with the MMOs I put the most time in. I came back to WoW for BC and leveled up a toon 2 levels short of the cap and it shock and sense of feeling ill set in, it was just the same ole game. I ran out of quests, got tired of LFG for instances and did not really feel like raid grinding.
I still get the nostalgia of going back to my first love, EQ1 but I know its never going to be the same. The petals are off the rose. Why go back and ruin those fond memories of days gone past? Just savor them and let go 😉
“Yeah, because that really fits the setting. Tell me, which of these does not belong: Castle, Knight, Horse, Magic, Dragons, Swords, Motorcycle.”
LoL very true
‘I ran out of quests’
You must be kidding, Burning Crusade had an enormous amount of Quests! You could level to 70 doing about 3 or 4 zones, which meant leaving out 3 zones
Very good post, and I think one that fits many of us here on the ‘sphere. We have restless, reminscing hearts indeed.
I haven’t played WoW in years, but I will go back for Cataclysm to play a Worgen. From everything I’ve been told WoW got much better after TBC and I’ve only played in vanilla WoW long ago so this will be fun seeing the new zones and seeing if they made old wow really fun and new (it wasn’t for me back in the day)
Hahahaha, that’s great. 🙂
TBH, I play whatever is fun and brings me joy, and try not to think too much about it. Whether that be WoW or trying new games (ie Fallen Earth), I don’t feel guilty. FE is great and I applaud them for trying new concepts, but personally I can’t do the FPS thing for very long. Still, I hope that they get the kinks worked out and that it is successful in the long run because they have some really great ideas.
Devil’s Advocate: WoW isn’t the same game it was at launch… it’s actually better in many ways. I hadn’t thought of it until a few days ago when a guildie mentioned that there’s really something for all end-game playstyles now. Raids and 5-mans are both very viable ways to get gear now, PvP/arena are still around, Achievements/Titles/Events (which is my thing), the Auction House/Goldmaking game (my husband’s thing), roleplay, etc. Even though it’s been made easier overall, there’s still not enough time to do everything, and I don’t think it’s meant to be played like that anyway.
It’s not perfect… no game ever is, and I don’t think we can expect them to be. Just play what you find fun, whatever that is. 🙂
ahaha i have just the OPPOSITE conversation
head – ok they might make it interesting again. we might even get into my old (top) russian guild and play hardcore again. 15 hours raids on weekend, yumm.
heart
NO
MORE
head – ah come on its nice, it makes you busy.
heart
NO
MORE
…
but honestl its usually like this
head – listen, that new thing in wo..
heart
NO
MORE
and it ends.
Very true. And nothing wrong with having these conversations either.
lol nice one Syp and Vekkth
stick with the head!
Just think of WoW as a $15/month 3D social chat client and you’re set. 🙂
And no I’m no longer playing it either. 🙂
Solid gold! You wouldn’t believe how often I have that internal argument. I need to put more points into willpower because the heart seems to get the better of me sometimes…
/cough Aion
Get that feeling all of the time with EQ and EQ2 🙂
I have this conversation about Dofus all the time… and the head usually loses in the argument 😦
But not this time!
*attacks heart*
*it’s super effective!*
*dies*
I don’t really have that conversation, because I left when I knew I could do all that I did. I had to be honest about leaving before I even could leave, so any attempt to go home again was nipped in the bud. Even as I talk with coworkers who played FFXI (and you’d be surprised how many people do) I don’t feel any strong urges to go back.
Plus, I’ve done the whole going back thing with other games. Chu Chu rocket went from having a packed community at Dreamcast launch to having five people later on. EQOA was a ghost town. WoW is different of course, but a lot of games the appeal wont even last a week after re-login.
“HEART: You can make a motorcycle in WoW too!”
ROFL, great read! You really hit the nail on the head.