Now not playing: World of Warcraft

Yes, I'm taking a much needed break from raiding in WoW. Most term such an absence as due to "burn-out", but really it's more like the mental equivalent of lactic acid produced in muscles during an anaerobic workout. A searing pain shoots through the mind, followed by a raw stiffness that brings time to a grinding halt, each second dripping with indelible agony.

So yeah, that's my raiding experience for the last few weeks. Hopefully Ulduar will reinvigorate me, but honestly Blizzard's new vision for WoW is a bit scary at times. Blizzard want to make WoW more accessible, but that also means easier to play in some regards. Now, the guild I'm in isn't top tier talent by any means. We have our struggles, and indeed we still have yet to drop Sartharion with three drakes up. But I'm not worried about the difficulty of raids. Even if we were smashing through content, making raids difficult is a simple task. I recall reading comments from id regarding competitive AI, basically, the programs that we compete against in "PvE" or when fighting "bots" in other genres. Whoever was doing the bot scripts said that making a bot tough or invincible was cake - making it a fun, manageable challenge was the real challenge.

So I'm paraphrasing a bit, but I think the same is true here. Making bosses hit harder, giving more health, those are easy knobs to turn for a raid. I think too many people are really focused on that aspect of the game right now. I think the bigger issue is that the classes themselves are becoming too easy to play. Just go to your favorite theorycrafting website, find a cookie cutter spec, a standard rotation, set up your action bars and macros and bam, you're in business. As something of a fledgling tank, I feel shorted in some ways of the experience that I signed up for. I remember a day and age when tanking was truly taxing work. It was tough. Demanding. Multiple mob encounters required focus and concentration to work above and beyond the rest of the party or raid. No more. I always thought face-rolling was a joke, but the other night I actually tanked my way through a good portion of an encounter by slapping the 1, 2, and 3 keys in unison while occasionally dodging some environmental hazards. Color me disappointed.

So I say again, hopefully Ulduar will reinvigorate me. I could certainly use the extra time that I spend each week for raiding to do more useful things, like writing, but I'm loathe to leave the guild I'm in. Although there are an increasing number of people that I don't know and probably never will, as always happens in a guild that is growing, there are at least a few that I hold quite dear, though they might never guess it. Usually that's more than enough to bring me back, but sometimes, the game has to do its share too.