pre-expansion-blues
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Breakfast Topic: What are you doing while you wait for MoP?
It is so very hard to be satisfied with the game as it is, when all the shinies from the expansion are being dangled in front of you. It can seem like you're spinning your wheels playing characters that are going to be so different in the near future. And how many times have you done the same dailies and run the same dungeons? In the month or two before The Burning Crusade came out, I had a goal. I wanted the Frostwolf Howler, and I would do anything to get it. The "anything" I had to do was run Alterac Valley over and over and over to raise my reputation with the Frostwolf Clan. Alterac Valley was a lengthy Battleground in vanilla WoW, with one instance often lasting an hour or more. I still miss those times, even with all the grinding, because I loved the PvE aspect of it -- especially summoning the Ice Lord to decimate the Alliance. Right now, I am mostly playing the MoP beta and SWTOR. I've been meaning to get more characters to max level, but I just haven't gotten around to it. And when Diablo III comes out, well, it will be difficult playing any other game for a bit. So what are you doing while you wait for Mists of Pandaria? Are you playing the beta? Does another game have your attention? Are you enjoying a different aspect of the game (like PvP) from what you normally play? Or are you just doing what you've always done, perfectly happy to be patient until the new expansion?
Breakfast Topic: A little sumpin' sumpin' on the side
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. We've all been there before -- that magical moment when we let go of our loyalties to the object of our affection and simply give in to those inner desires for something new and exciting. Before we know it, we have turned away from our first love, leaving it huddled up in the corner feeling dirty and unwanted. Even if we don't personally engage in this abandonment, we are always anticipating the next story of someone else's doing it and the nitty-gritty details that come out. No, I'm not pulling headlines off the latest celebrity gossip columns again; I'm talking about your loyalties to WoW! From old crushes like EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies to newer flames such as Star Trek Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, we all have games whose siren songs draw us into their grasp, away from our beloved WoW. With plenty of new and exciting MMOs on the horizon (we're looking at you, The Old Republic), now is the perfect time to start experimenting with a polygamous online gaming habit. While the frozen shores of Northrend have been nice, a trip into the Mines of Moria in Lord of the Rings Online may be the perfect thing to liven things up a bit and get that passion for your first love back.
Guild life pre-Cataclysm: Surviving the end times
When I inherited leadership of a successful 25-man raid during The Burning Crusade, I had a steep learning curve. After the first year, I had mastered the fine arts of recruiting, juggling subs, managing raid time, resolving disputes and running a tight ship. Little did I know what awaited us when halfway through our Sunwell Plateau progression, Wrath of the Lich King was announced! Fortunately, my guild was able to weather the storm, and now that we are closing in on Cataclysm, I am much better prepared. Guild masters who haven't experienced the pre-expansion blues may find themselves overwhelmed with the task of keeping their once tight-knit community from turning into a ghost town. Some players may choose the months before an expansion to take an extended vacation from the game. Others may choose to focus on a favorite alt, and still others are chomping at the bit to farm the highest tier of raid content in order to complete their ideal gear sets. No doubt all three types of players are in your guild. How are you expected to funnel everyone's pre-expansion desires and expectations into group-friendly activities that keep them logging on night after night?
The Daily Grind: Is Wrath beta news drawing you back in?
With the Wrath expansion on the horizon, many players have fell to pre-expansion malaise. Drifting off to shinier entertainment until Wrath launches, AoC, LotRO and the upcoming WAR are seeing the benefits of World of Warcraft players' inevitable burn out before the new content bows.But since the Wrath beta launched a few weeks ago and the NDA dropped, the WoW information has been coming fast and furious. The first hero class of the game, the Achievement system, major class adjustments, the list goes on.Do all these tidbits entice you to return to the game when Wrath finally goes live or are you done with Azeroth and no amount of shiny newness will draw you back?
Why do we WoW before WotLK
The Part Time Druid posted a bit of an existential question -- "Why do we WoW?" It was followed up over on the Altoholic. And while their musings on the motivations for gaming are notable, I'm happy they avoided questions around that horrible WoW-addiction issue. I'm not much of the navel-gazing type, so I wasn't concerned about why I play WoW, in and of itself. (Presumably, I get something out of it, so fair enough.)But, with pre-expansion blues (and excitement) crashing down on our heads -- why are we playing right now? Our gear's about to go obsolete (and we're about to put on our green-quality clown-suits), our level cap's about to go up 10 levels, and the whole world as we know it is going to be radically different! Oh, yeah, and those guys are going to be around, stealing our tanking spots and doing Elune knows what else! (Anyone else notice they're the first class to have two words as part of their name?)For me? Nothing special about the pre-expansion time period. I play the same reason I always do. I play with my girlfriend, I play with my friends. I play in the Arena. In a year, what I've done now might not matter to what I'm doing then. But what I'm doing now matters now -- and for now, I'm having fun.
