I’ve been a WoW player for about 1.5 years now. The main thing that attracted me to the game, amongst other things, was the large group of friends who played. Our guild, Unassigned Variable, is full of awesome people who it was great to play with.
Today, 4 toons and over a month of gameplay later, I’ve decided to suspend my account. Here’s why…
Reason 1: Lack of People
WoW for me was all about the community; the group of friends. A collection of lovely people with similar interests who you could chat to while gaming. Over the past 6 months or so, we’ve seen fewer and fewer people online. Not only are people just not logging on these days, but our guild leader recently quit due to unfair (and poorly documented) changes in an achievement he’d spent months grinding for. It appears people are losing faith/interest in the game/Blizzard and as such, it is now rare that anyone is online at the same.
Perhaps when Cataclysm is unleashed, we’ll see a month or two where the numbers pick up; where people will be interested again.
Reason 2: There’s a Big World of Awesome Games Out There!
Over a month of gameplay; replaying the same game but with different characters; repeating the same old quests (“Kill 10 of X”, “Gather 20 of Y”) just with slightly varying mechanics. Recently, I’ve asked myself: Why? In a month of gameplay, I could have played so many other games and built up more of a friend base on other platforms (PSN, Steam etc). There would be less grind, less repetitiveness, more fun.
Recently I’ve played Red Dead Redemption on the PS3, and it’s the first game in ages that made me rethink *how* I game. I don’t want to spend my entire gaming time trapped in the pull of one single game. A day or so of gametime, and the game is *complete* (to a satisfactory level). I’ll still dip in there from time to time to gather more trophies (as it’s fun), but I don’t have to dedicate hours and hours to it. I can move on…to Singularity!
So that’s it. I’ve suspended my account! I may pop back onto Nordrassil briefly once Catacylsm is released, but for now, I’ll be on my PS3 or Steam (id: catburton), shooting zombies and hogtie-ing bandits.
It’s been fun year or so, WoW, but I think it’s time we break up…
