So I probably should have written this a few days ago, but I’ve been spending the last few days trying to figure things out. My therapist of a wife would say that I need to take the time to “mourn the loss” of that phase in my life, and she’s not wrong.
This past Sunday we had our Heroic Alt run, and I was doing it on my Windwalker, since I don’t really have any alts. It had been the first week that I had spent several extra nights grinding M+ trying to get practice and get better, part of a new plan of improvement, and I was feeling really good and wanted to put in some really strong parses. Things went OK, but I wasn’t playing as well as I wanted to. The night snowballed and ended on a really rough note.
I came to the realization that most nights have ended on a rough note for the past few months, or at least weeks. There’s probably a certain level of negativity bias, but I decided that all the extra work wasn’t worth little to no reward. So I decided, a few hours later after much thought and lamentation, that I was going to retire from progression raiding.
I probably should have pulled this trigger months ago. I had my resignation letter to my guild started in February, but I kept holding out hope, throwing darts at the wall and hoping something would stick. I finally came to the realization that things we’re going to get better without a lot of time and work. And it wasn’t going to be fun time and work, it was going to be doing things like M+ and PvP, things that I really don’t enjoy… at all. It was going to be hard and miserable work and I decided that I didnt want to spend 10+ hours a week doing things I didn’t like, just to spend 7 hours a week doing something I do like.
I was talking to my parents earlier this week, after my wife let my decision leak to my sisters who spread it to my parents, probably to make sure I wasn’t spiraling into some deep depression, and they asked how long I had been playing, and it took me a few seconds….
I first played in high school, around 2005/2006, but not with any real interest in the game. I think I leveled a hunter to level 38 before stopping. I came back once college started in 2007 because the game I had been playing RYL was no longer being supported. I’ve pretty much been playing ever since, with probably about 9 months worth of breaks mixed around here and there when my grade dipped.
I took my most recent break at the end of college when I was starting grad school, mid 2011. I came back around the holidays that year and pushed back to high level raiding; trying, successfully, to stay inside the top 100 of the US while being as efficient with my time as possible.
I stayed at that level for over 7 years. I spent time fighting for the top spot in the world. I spent time raiding with people that I truly fostered relationships with and care about. I spent time fostering a community of tens of thousands of people that I can truly be proud of. I spent time building a website that gets thousands of views, that I hold as a pillar of quality among all websites like it. I spent time transitioning from being highly respected because of my play, to being highly respected because of the play I fostered in others. I spent time doing things that I loved, and that made my happy and proud, and all those other choked-up emotional feelings.
But I realized that this expansion, with all its good points, and bad points, wasn’t making me spend time doing things that I didn’t want to do just to do the things that I did want to do.
While the current state of Windwalker in raiding is a small factor; I couldnt lie and say it wasnt, I don’t think there’s any strength of the spec that would have made me enjoy what I felt I was forcing myself to do. Hell, I wasn’t enjoying the two aspects of the game that Windwalker is crazy strong at; PvP and Mythic+. But thats OK. Maybe when I feel like I am not forced, I can actually enjoy those things.
I’m not done with the game, and I’m certainly not done with Monk, Windwalker, or Peak. I may not even be done with progression raiding forever. But for the forseeable future, I’ve got a new focus, other games, and a whole lot more free time to spend on the things that I love, even if it means giving up something else I love.
