Old Curses Never Die
So I started playing WoW again. Apologies for the melodramatic title, but it's curious how the game feels like an old friend and a terrible curse at times.
Somehow, I feel like WoW is a crutch for friendship and a need to accomplish something with stringent, identifiable goals. Then, in direct opposition to that, it feels choresome and laborious. The opposite of gaming vibes I want. But it will often happen that one person picks it up in my friend group. Then another will dip a toe in, maybe to the very strangely lush free-to-play WoW experience. And then I'm talking about it all the time to my partner or my friends.
Oh, I'll never go back... Oh, it'll never be as fun as before...
And then I'm loading up a new main character and asking which key we're gonna push. It's a blur nearly.
What I always want from the game is something almost cloyingly sweet and indulgent: an extremely tight gameplay loop with just enough rewards to keep me hooked and a sense of teamwork underpinning it all.
For me that's always been mythic keystones. Sure, raids are great, but they feel less intimate somehow. But mythics! Here's a moment where 5 people can share an experience of trying to perform adeptly at a practiced route and apply their experience to solve problems in the fly. That's the stuff I dream of! Those are the moments in having the most fun with friends. When we're all jamming on all gears, fully in sync, and shifting through pulls like a rowing team. It's as close to playing a sport as I've ever had and I hated playing sports.
The downside is obvious: the game is a grind, it gets old fast, and has so many chores during the main part of an expansion that it's hard to step away for a day let alone a week. Oftentimes, this is coupled with burgeoning demands from real life, general fatigue with the systems (looking at you, shitty affix weeks), and overall burnout from doing the same content everyday.
No I don't think I'll be fully degenerate with my resub this time around, especially, in light of all the news surrounding Blizzard, but I'll enjoy my month with friends and then reassess. Mythics still slap when you're chilling with your friends chatting.