I haven't really talked about it much, but I'm still casually playing retail with the husband. We dip in and out for short play sessions during the week, mostly to do our callings, and when we have a bit more time we also run the weekly dungeons (only on heroic level, and yes, I've given in and agreed to queue for pugs for these), do dailies in the Maw and run Torghast once or twice a week.
As a strange side effect of this, I've grown incredibly tired of WoW fan content, which is very odd. Even during the years when I was unsubscribed from retail, I generally still enjoyed reading blog posts and watching videos about it to some degree. You'd think that now that I'm getting some first-hand experience of what they're actually talking about I would enjoy them more, but for some reason the opposite is the case.
I don't know if it is because I can only stomach so much retail WoW each week and actually playing it myself means that reading or watching content about it would be too much, or because there's such a disconnect between the way I play and the audience that most WoW content seems to be targeted at. I mean, I see all this talk about class balance on my feed, about how people feel forced into certain covenant choices, about chasing gear upgrades or transmogs and crafting legendaries... and none of it has any relevance to the way I play whatsoever.
I chose my covenant based on what I thought would fit my monk's personality best, even though I don't like the Kyrian covenant abilities much and keep forgetting to use them. We upgraded our covenant gear as far as the game would let us and don't really have much left to work on in that regard unless we wanted to raid, PvP or run Mythic+ dungeons. We haven't crafted any legendaries because to a casual solo player some of the materials required are prohibitively expensive so we only run Torghast for fun. (I think we're up to layer seven of the normal mode and have cleared the first two layers of the twisting corridors.) We also enjoy slowly increasing our Renown week by week for some personal rewards, as well as chipping away at our sanctum upgrades at a snail's pace.
I suspect that without the gear grind we'd eventually run out of things to do, but I'm sure patch 9.1 will be around and offer some new activities before that has time to become a problem. It's just strange to me that even while I'm having some fun in retail again, I continue to feel alienated from much of the player base and the way most outspoken players seem to approach the game.
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I agree, that's how I chose my covenants. Hunter joined the Wild Hunt, Priest with the blueberries, etc.
ReplyDeleteAn unexpected side effect of "borrowed powers" that Blizz has started relying on is that I just *don't care* about any of the stupid covenant powers. They'll be gone in the next expansion if not sooner.
That's a problem that Blizz has never come to grips with: the undercurrent of players in the game to simply not give a rip about special abilities/places/whatever because they won't matter in a year or two. Kind of like World Buffs in Vanilla/Classic: they go away for a player by the time they reach L70 in BC. But on the flip side, at least the Naxx (and some other) gear will remain relevant for quite a while into BC content, which is something that couldn't be said by the time Wrath and other expacs dropped.
DeleteI can understand that completely, Shintar.
ReplyDeleteKind of like how when some friends in Classic get overly sweaty, talking about minutae to pump out a few more DPS or just a bit more threat or healing, I just kind of tune that out. If someone is talking to me, I'll listen, but as a practical matter I'm still limited by real life. I don't have 12 hours a day to play/discuss/dream about WoW (Classic or Retail), so I don't.
While I post, this is why I don't get overly sweaty or detailed in my blog posts: if I did I'd burn out before we downed K'T. (For the record, we're on Sapphiron right now.)
Maybe I ought to post about this and get it out in the open.
When I was raid tanking I picked the one that made the most sense for my role. Luckily that was a covenant I liked. Now that I'm away from group content I'm just going to go with what feels appropriate for each character.
ReplyDeleteI've tried to make my peace with Blizzard's decisions. There's a number I don't like, but those really aren't going to matter when I'm just a casual person. I'll do the content I like and ignore the rest. I'm trying to get away from that very vocal contingent who always want to complain. The only mainstream Wow forum I read is the competitive Wow subreddit. They are pretty good about rooting out the ugly stuff. (It also helps that they aren't as active as, say, /r/Wow.)
In a way it is sad that a game (the genre, really) built on large scale player participation has such visible tilt toward negativity. I know what we see isn't the community as a whole, but, boy it sure gets tiresome to have to wade through all of it. It really pushes me to just be a completely anti-social soloer. :/