So it finally happened. After 7 years of gaming, mostly in World of Warcraft, I've lost my desire to log on. I guess it was something I had seen coming, but never thought much on it. In the past few months, I've logged on mostly just for raids, I didn't do my dailies even if the rewards are great, and I just felt there was nothing for me to do outside of the weekly raids.
Burnout was definitely something I had experienced before and I have taken a week or 2 off and then I'm back and raring to go. But this time, it is much different. I could probably take this and rant on games and gaming of this generation, like the Raid Finder ruining raiding or SWTOR having too many problems at the end game. But really, thats not the case and the problem is found between the chair and keyboard.
One thing that drove me to raiding and gaming as I have been is the desire to be one of the best. I have tried to be "the best" at some point and realized I cannot do that. So I settled to being "one of the best". This did work out for me but it still led to what ultimately causes gaming burnout - the need to keep up with or be ahead of everyone else.
This constant need to be the best you can be is basically what keeps MMORPGs afloat. There always has to be an achievable goal and it is not inherently a problem. It when the goal is to be the best you can be as fast as everyone else, that can cause issues.
For many people, it is this drive that gives them the most fun. They would not be happy until they are the best they can be ahead of as many others as possible. I was definitely one of those people. I had forgotten what made World of Warcraft fun for me initially and joined the grind to the top. This meant maximizing rewards, changing professions, and basically just doing all it took to reach that goal and and do it quick.
This became glaringly clear to me when I was playing SWTOR. While I was leveling, I signed up for the warzones and had a lot of fun. More than I expected since I was not really a PvP person. Sure, I got my ass handed to me most of the time, but I had a lot of fun, and I did get better. Then when I hit 50, things changed somehow. Warzones was more frustrating for some reason and I would not have as much fun as I used to.
As it turned out, my frustration was not with PvP or warzones themselves, but to get my 3 wins for the daily quest. The fact that I had limited time, and warzones take ~15 minutes to play out, every loss felt like that time was wasted. Every misstep by myself and others in my team just stood out more and made me even more angry than I should be. This is the same thing with Ilum. It all stopped being fun.
By the time I realized this, I just felt burned out with both games. I hardly even log on to WoW and I mostly play SWTOR mostly to help tank stuff for friends. I PvP for the fun of PvP and if I can't get the daily done, its not a problem. The personal story really paid off though so now I want to see how the other classes' stories play out, but in a much slower pace.
No, I have not unsubbed from either game. The time may come soon where I will get back the drive to play like I used to, but I doubt it will be the same. What becomes fun for me has changed and will change further.
No comments:
Post a Comment