The Naxx Waiting Room

Back in Vanilla I remember joining an Alterac Valley and seeing people from another server in my raid group that were in a guild called "PVP SUX WHENS NAXXRAMAS". At the time I had no idea what Naxxramas even was, but the odd name with the double x certainly drew my attention, plus I was intrigued by the fact that this was a thing people were apparently waiting for. (Considering that I started playing WoW in late 2006, Naxxramas had actually already been released by that time, but I guess nobody felt the need to petition for a guild name change.)

I was reminded of this when I saw a conversation in the LFG channel the other day in which someone was once again bemoaning the lack of groups for whatever it was they wanted to do, and someone else responded that we were all "in the Naxx waiting room". It certainly seemed like an apt description for how the last few weeks have felt.

You may remember that I wrote about having to prepare for the Naxx release a few weeks ago. In practice... I was already honoured with the Argent Dawn, so I just bought the materials needed to pay for the attunement at that level, sent a few consumable materials to the guild bank and called it a day. It's just not the sort of grind I enjoy.

However, as it turns out a lot of my guildies are the complete opposite. Outside of raids, it's been nothing but "anyone for Scholo" or people farming herbs or ore night after night after night, and it's been a bit disheartening. Of course wanting to be prepared is laudable, and it's not my intent to tell anyone how they should play the game, but while I personally like a good dungeon run, I only do so in moderation and as part of a varied diet, not the same dungeon ten times a week. As a result I haven't been interacting with people as much outside of raids, and it's felt a bit odd. I know I said I could do with some more time to pursue my solo goals, but I didn't mean for things to go completely the opposite way! So I've certainly been feeling like I'm sat "in the Naxx waiting room", waiting for my guildies to return to some sort of normalcy and hopefully have time for some fun adventures outside of raiding again.

I guess it doesn't help that I'm personally not all that excited about Naxx. I mean, I'm sure it'll be cool and exciting to go there with the guild, not to mention that it's full of shiny gear drops, but I'm not part of the demographic for whom playing Classic has been all about achieving that mythical goal of clearing 40-man Naxx because they couldn't do so back in the day. Remember, I didn't plan to raid in Classic at all! I'm sure it'll be interesting to spend two nights a week going there, but I don't care for it seemingly being the centre of everyone's thoughts at all times whenever they're logged in. 

This self-enforced retreat into more solo play to avoid the Scholo farms hasn't been all bad, mind you. It's been a great time to level my alts (especially their trade skills) and have adventures with strangers again. For example there was the time my priest (yes, I finally made a priest in Classic after more than a year) befriended a druid playing under self-imposed hardcore rules in Loch Modan. This meant that they would have to delete the character if they died and weren't allowed to formally group up - but we started chatting in whispers and took turns tagging troggs and killing them together. It ended up being quite an adventure and I received the amazing compliment of: "I don't know why, but I quite like you" afterwards.

Meanwhile my paladin repeatedly healed her way through Uldaman and Zul'Farrak, and my hunter pugged Onyxia and made friends with an orc rogue in Winterspring (limited communication through joint fighting and exchange of emotes is such a beautiful thing). Fortunately there are always interesting things happening in Classic if you know where to look, guild or no.