Hype is a wonderful thing. It serves to promote new products and bring them to our attention. It’s also there to help build up excitement; to get us thinking about what fun we’ll be able to have when we’re finally able to get our hands on whatever it is that’s being promoted.
The problem I have with hype is that by making tomorrow look so incredibly exciting, it makes today feel positively mundane. It’s like I’m being reminded constantly about the boring drudgery of my boring life. It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to take a holiday. Fly south for the winter, do something interesting, that kind of thing. Wait for the snow to blow over and come back home when everything is shiny again.
I think Larisa mentions the same thing – we’re all beginning to feel a bit down at the moment. It’s like we’re being sent picture postcards from Cataclysm saying “Wish You Were Here”, yet we can’t fly out there for another 6 months or so when the ash cloud finally moves.
But hang on a minute – our lives aren’t dull and boring. We do exciting things on a daily basis, they’ve just become a little jaded and tarnished over time. If there’s anything that’s making us feel run down, it’s the routine and repetition we end up in. The boredom of repetition though is self-inflicted – we can choose to break that repetition if we desire.
So I’m making a commitment to myself. I reckon that I only play about a quarter of all the game has to offer. I normally do endgame raiding, heroic dungeons and some light RP. I always play spellcasters, moving them in the same direction and clicking the same hotkeys. Considering how much of the game there is available, that’s pretty feeble.
It’s time to mix it up a little. Time to make my own excitement.
I’m going to try and get my rogue up from level 50 to level 80. I’m going to learn the mechanics of the class, find the parts that entertain me and make me smile, and make him my own.
I’m going to get to grips with PvP in earnest. I’m going to get a full set of PvP-ready gear on my mage, kit him out properly, learn the ropes and get an arena team going. I’m going to try and find Gnomageddon’s desire to set things on fire.
I’m going to work on some roleplay themes that have been bubbling away for a while, and stop being a passive consumer of roleplay. I’m going to try and present more of a story to those I play with in order to generate in-game excitement and interest for them today.
There’s also another side to this. It means that I’m not going to be moaning at how boring things are at present and how there’s nothing for me to do, because it simply isn’t true. There are stacks of easy achievements that I don’t have, there are tons of quests that I’ve never done. I’ve not even begun to exhaust the range of content there is in the game.
This spark of excitement is something that’s inside all of us. We had it when we first started playing the game, and it’s still with us now. We’ve just grown used to it, forgotten that it’s there gathering dust in some corner of our being. It just needs to be pulled out and cleaned up a little.
Yus! This is what I’m always striving for ingame. At the moment, as much as I want to raid, I know if I go full time I will go insane and join everybody in the boredom. I have, at level 80, a shadow priest, 2 hunters, a death knight, a ret paladin, and a warlock. That’s some fairly good variety if I get bored of one playstyle and often if I feel I need a change I will log on Soup and Unholy some mobs to death, for a change of scenery. I do the odd achievement, a bit of pvp (though not arenas, not brave enough, nor do I have a partner!), and as well, I have dailies, randoms, and the rare raid on the agenda. It’s nice to keep it varied and I also plan to level a few. Have a druid and mage on my current server, warrior and shaman on Terenas, and of course my rogue on Argent Dawn, and I plan to level them all.
Not to mention, while I’m avoiding spoilers I might well be getting less of the “meh this expansion sucks” than some others. Though not too much, I am basically bouncing off the walls with my excitement for Cataclysm because there are plans that I want to happen NOW damnit! *bounce*
Three cheers for trying new things 🙂
.-= Jaedia´s last blog ..A Nice Surprise =-.
I’ve definitely found mine by doing things like redesigning my UI, and making a proper bid to become a good shaman healer. Last night we went to ICC, after a bad Sindragosa on Tuesdays, and even though we were down 5-6 people, we had a great time because having less people encouraged us to push ourselves (as dps) when it came to the content.
Mixing it up and exploring new things is what keeps the game fresh.
I still wish Ruby Sanctum was here NOW instead of in a month.
.-= Pewter´s last blog ..AVR is Dead. Long Live the Bossmod =-.
I definitely agree that mixing things up helps to keep the game fresh, and I’m glad you’re having fun with shaman healing. I keep on meaning to play my priest healer more, but there’s always something else that needs doing 🙂
That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. Being in the shoes of a healer is pretty refreshing after being a DPS caster for the past four-five years. I’m actually enjoying PvP healing on her—it’s proving to be a fun challenge, and I’m working on my reflexive skills to boot—which is beneficial no matter what aspect of the game I’m playing.
As for spoilers, I admit that I couldn’t help but look at what Cata did to the places that were already familiar. Intense curiosity I suppose, but I’ve yet to check out the newer things. Plus, I have a feeling Blizzard still has a few surprises waiting in store even with the places I had already peeked at. The anticipation is starting to ramp up little-by-little. And for someone who was nearly a year ago completely skeptical with what was to come, even I can’t help but share in the collective excitement with what Blizzard has in store next.