2008: Year In Review

As I left this morning to go to work I said to my wife "How I feel really sums up my year: Tired, Sore, but Strong & Determined." and thinking about it now I feel that this also reflects my experiences with others playing WOW over 2008. But I'll need to add three more items: Seasoned, Wiser, & Smarter.

I started the year still N00Bish and green. Although I was in endgame instances & raids it was still a over the top experience for me because I didn't have the time to commit to raiding the tier 5 & 6 content. My gameplay mostly consited of waiting for players who were late. If there's one thing I've grown to despise is players who don't show up when they say they will.

This lead me to what was my first phase of playstyle which was I now think of as solitary confinement. I started to farm companion pets which have very very low drop rates. It was in my own way showing that I wasn't just a face in the crowd. This lead me to areas that end-gamers no longer go to such as azshara.

Around April I left my guild, Sedition & joined Utopia, which was a hardcore raiding guild. To me this choice lead to the end of an era for me. Although I was in Utopia for only two months, the experience of hardcore raiding & the drama attached to it burned me out. It also opened me up to the fact that while I had thought WOW's playerbase was a brotherhood of geeks, I was very much misstaken.
This period ended with the dissolution of Utopia during Memorial Day Weekend. I was stunned, shocked & depressed but also optimistic. Because Utopia had been one of the top raiding alliance guilds there was a scramble to grab it's members. However I learned then that all of them were NMNA: No Moonkin Need Apply. Sinking into a rut I decided to do something Radical & level a horde druid. I sent myself a trust fund via the AH and decided to seek the plains of Mulgore.
My Next Phase of play I've dubbed the Summer of Horns & Roses. I leveled a tauren druid, & leveled him Feral. I joined the only horde guild I knew off (I really didn't pay attn to their names lol) and decided that I was going to show all the jerks on the alliance side how good I really was by leveling the toon up to 70 & then joining Trample, the top guild on our server & in the top 200 guilds in the world.
But at the same time, I began to see that I was really just running away from my dissapointments and problems that I had experienced on my main character. As the launch of WOTLK began to draw I decided that there were things I wanted to do before the expansion. And although I had enjoyed playing my Tauren Druid I needed to make peace with the past & switch back to my main. So I decided to get a wintersaber mount.
This choice lead to the next phase of gameplay which I think of as my hermitage period. I was on Neren, but I didn't talk to anyone. I just spent my days grinding Wintersaber rep. If someone that I knew showed up in Winterspring, or pst'd me I would say hi etc, but otherwise I kept to myself & my goal of the mount. Once I got my mount, I then went onto grinding faction rep with old school factions, Argent Dawn, Cenarion Circle, Etc for the upcoming achievements.
Then around Mid August if memory serves me correctly I recieved a most unusal email. I was selected for the WOTLK Beta. It was a life changing event for me game-wise. I learned quickly that the beta wasn't random people were selected for their knowledge of the game and for what they had done in game. My peers may have felt that I was a waste of raid space, but blizzard did not.
So not only was my malise in game was evaporated, but at the same time I was given a new perspective about WOW. I had been to the top of the mountain, I had rode Shai-Hulud, I had seen the future of WOW & it was good. Not just for me but for everyone. The old ways were going away and the new ways were coming...
I did beta until about September, and decided to stop because it was wrapping up & I wanted to have some stuff still new when the game launched. I came back to Fenris changed, Other players were still focused on progression, I became focused on seeing things I had missed. I raided Molten Core, AQ20, AQ40 etc. with other players who realized that progression now was futile. I savored Azeroth as it once was noting it wouldn't ever be that same way again.
I also found freedom in my guildlessness. I don't know if that's the right word for it but instead of feeling like I was a leper I relished in my freedom. I found others like me who had threw off the chains of guild drama. I simply logged on, contacted some friends and went for a ride.
This continued with the spin up & launch of WOTLK. I reveled in the changes & updates. I enjoyed changing my title on the fly & showing the vast array of pets to other players. I played with both a sense of fun & seriousness. I wasn't a man obsessed with power anymore, I wanted to have a good time but I could also focus in when the situation arised.
With the onset of the holiday season I found myself in an odd situation. My mornings were free because my wife is a late sleeper =P but my afternoons & evenings were booked. Luckily I fell into a group of players who were also off during the holidays & were in the same boat. This leads me to where I am now in a guild again, with players for who the most part I do like & enjoying the time I get to Play WOW.
I know that 2009 will not be the same year for me as 2008 was. My Real-Life Schedule will radically cut my game time down and this change will begin starting next week. But I'm OK with that on a level that just a few short months ago would have caused me to become stressed. For me WOW is no different that any other matured social hobby, such as golf or tennis. Will I stop playing, Yes. Will it suck? Prolly. Will I get back into it at another date? Most Definatly.
Until Next Year!
The Musing Moonkin