Post by Daeliria on Feb 27, 2007 13:37:48 GMT -5
Friends, WoW-players, guildmates, lend me your ears... metaphorically...
I woke up this morning and realized I had to quit WoW.
//Warning: contains possible melodrama and patheticness.
I'm sure most of you have gotten the whole "WoW is bad for you!" spiel from concerned family and friends. I've gotten my fair share of such admonitions. Their arguments I could always shoot down with logic alone without feeling any personal impact. This morning, though, everything they'd tried to argue with hypothetical logic came together and hit me on its own. I've been using WoW to run away from life. I've been fleeing to it as an easier and less risky way of gaining friends, respect, and achievable goals. I've been choosing it over food, sleep, classwork, and getting drunk and throwing up over cute guys at frat parties.
Fair enough. I don't have a problem with that. What scares me now is the extent to which I'm constantly valuing my virtual life high over my real one. WoW shouldn't take the burden of being my surrogate life, and throwing myself at it to make it my ideal life is only going to make more problems. I've been planning everything else around it, and seeing the tasks of everyday living as petty and unnecessary evils. By this I don't mean just food, sleep, and classwork, but also time with friends, enjoying books and movies, pride in something I create, interest in doing something well... i.e., everything in life.
And what has WoW provided in return? For one, taken at least twenty days away from me in the last four months alone. Inspired fits of irrational jealousy and anger, reinforced elitist and egocentric behavior, set up perceived power struggles to throw myself against, and deeply weakened my faith in humanity, or at least the sector of humanity I was presented with. And it brought me to a few wonderful people, one wonderful enough to agree to marry me, which is why I won't regret all the time and effort I've spent in WoW.
But now I'm done. When I left last time I wasn't prepared for it and had had the choice forced upon me. I'm choosing to now. And I'm not saying that WoW is always evil and never gives more back then it takes, only that for me, in this time and state of mind, it's leeching at me.
//end melodrama
Guild structure.
The reason I've hesitated to leave before was concern for the fate of the guild. But I have faith that you'll do well for yourselves. I'm not "hand-picking" a successor; I'm guessing the power structure of the guild will close up around the empty leader-space and move more towards being an oligarchy. The decision of exactly what to do is in your hands now.
Professions/services.
Killing the primary tailor/enchanter is slightly problematic. Subscription runs out in mid-April, so until then someone with access to my account can log in and process simple requests. Alternately, if anyone is headed towards being a dedicated tailor or enchanter, the materials on Dae can be sent to you.
"can i hav ur stuf?"
Everything else will be DE'd, AH'ed, and/or vendored for maximum profit, and the gold will be distributed as you see fit.
Will I ever return?
Probably one day, if certain issues clear up and I can enjoy WoW as just a game, an auxiliary instead of a superseding. Even so, I probably won't be coming back to Thorium Brotherhood (or Cenarion Circle) and either be playing as solitarily as possible, or in a preset small group.
I love you all. I hate to leave you abruptly like this. If those of you who don't have my contact info want it, I'll PM it to you through the forums.
I woke up this morning and realized I had to quit WoW.
//Warning: contains possible melodrama and patheticness.
I'm sure most of you have gotten the whole "WoW is bad for you!" spiel from concerned family and friends. I've gotten my fair share of such admonitions. Their arguments I could always shoot down with logic alone without feeling any personal impact. This morning, though, everything they'd tried to argue with hypothetical logic came together and hit me on its own. I've been using WoW to run away from life. I've been fleeing to it as an easier and less risky way of gaining friends, respect, and achievable goals. I've been choosing it over food, sleep, classwork, and getting drunk and throwing up over cute guys at frat parties.
Fair enough. I don't have a problem with that. What scares me now is the extent to which I'm constantly valuing my virtual life high over my real one. WoW shouldn't take the burden of being my surrogate life, and throwing myself at it to make it my ideal life is only going to make more problems. I've been planning everything else around it, and seeing the tasks of everyday living as petty and unnecessary evils. By this I don't mean just food, sleep, and classwork, but also time with friends, enjoying books and movies, pride in something I create, interest in doing something well... i.e., everything in life.
And what has WoW provided in return? For one, taken at least twenty days away from me in the last four months alone. Inspired fits of irrational jealousy and anger, reinforced elitist and egocentric behavior, set up perceived power struggles to throw myself against, and deeply weakened my faith in humanity, or at least the sector of humanity I was presented with. And it brought me to a few wonderful people, one wonderful enough to agree to marry me, which is why I won't regret all the time and effort I've spent in WoW.
But now I'm done. When I left last time I wasn't prepared for it and had had the choice forced upon me. I'm choosing to now. And I'm not saying that WoW is always evil and never gives more back then it takes, only that for me, in this time and state of mind, it's leeching at me.
//end melodrama
Guild structure.
The reason I've hesitated to leave before was concern for the fate of the guild. But I have faith that you'll do well for yourselves. I'm not "hand-picking" a successor; I'm guessing the power structure of the guild will close up around the empty leader-space and move more towards being an oligarchy. The decision of exactly what to do is in your hands now.
Professions/services.
Killing the primary tailor/enchanter is slightly problematic. Subscription runs out in mid-April, so until then someone with access to my account can log in and process simple requests. Alternately, if anyone is headed towards being a dedicated tailor or enchanter, the materials on Dae can be sent to you.
"can i hav ur stuf?"
Everything else will be DE'd, AH'ed, and/or vendored for maximum profit, and the gold will be distributed as you see fit.
Will I ever return?
Probably one day, if certain issues clear up and I can enjoy WoW as just a game, an auxiliary instead of a superseding. Even so, I probably won't be coming back to Thorium Brotherhood (or Cenarion Circle) and either be playing as solitarily as possible, or in a preset small group.
I love you all. I hate to leave you abruptly like this. If those of you who don't have my contact info want it, I'll PM it to you through the forums.