The lifecycle of an avid WoW player.

[Deleted]

I've just finished my first year as a full-time employee, and I was looking back at what changed. Without really realizing, it was mostly my gaming habits that changed a lot compared to my years at university. And among those habits, WoW took the biggest hit. I basically quit raiding altogether halfway, which quickly led to me quitting the game about 2 months ago.

Why? It was not that I could not make raid hours. Sure, there was the odd day where I wouldn't be home by 9pm, or where I'd be abroad for several days, but most of the time I'm comfortably home by 7.
It wasn't really general WoW related fatigue, I have been playing this game mostly non-stop since closed beta, but that never led to me quitting. I've been through periods like that before.

To me, it was more like being forced on a raiding schedule, often forcing down my dinner at my desk while making sure my character was ready to raid. It was mostly realizing that I spent 3-4 of my evenings, entire evenings, on the game. Somehow, working made me realize more how precious my spare time has become. Am I spending my time better now? Yes and no. I go to the gym more often, I'm enjoying more quality time with friends, but I also spend more time just idling in front of the TV.

How did you guys 'evolve' as WoW players during import transitions in your life? Did you step back from it altogether, was your gaming behavior unaltered, did you switch more to PvP or PvE?

I'm looking forward to this, it's an interesting concept to me how deeply ingrained behavioral patterns (you don't quit raiding overnight after doing just that for 9 years straight, at different levels of competitiveness) change over time.

[MetroStratics]

A huge part of the video game is playing with people that you come to call friends.
Originally, I was a loner and found myself pugging mostly and trying to fit in with guilds.
After a small break from WoW for my first year of College, I returned with a bunch of people in my Dorm.
We immediately established ourselves on our server, started guilds and began progression raiding.
Nearly 6 years later, I am not the Guild Leader of a 25 man heroic raiding guild that raids only 2 nights a week, yet has cleared 11/14 heroic bosses.

Even more important is that I have made a good 10-15 friends in the game that I would consider some of the best friends I have in any semblance.
This is the pinnacle of the game IMO, and if you haven't reached a level yet where you have found a comfortable group that you do everything with then you still have some growth to reach.

[Tedstery]

I've just finished my first year as a full-time employee, and I was looking back at what changed. Without really realizing, it was mostly my gaming habits that changed a lot compared to my years at university. And among those habits, WoW took the biggest hit. I basically quit raiding altogether halfway, which quickly led to me quitting the game about 2 months ago.

Why? It was not that I could not make raid hours. Sure, there was the odd day where I wouldn't be home by 9pm, or where I'd be abroad for several days, but most of the time I'm comfortably home by 7.
It wasn't really general WoW related fatigue, I have been playing this game mostly non-stop since closed beta, but that never led to me quitting. I've been through periods like that before.

To me, it was more like being forced on a raiding schedule, often forcing down my dinner at my desk while making sure my character was ready to raid. It was mostly realizing that I spent 3-4 of my evenings, entire evenings, on the game. Somehow, working made me realize more how precious my spare time has become. Am I spending my time better now? Yes and no. I go to the gym more often, I'm enjoying more quality time with friends, but I also spend more time just idling in front of the TV.

How did you guys 'evolve' as WoW players during import transitions in your life? Did you step back from it altogether, was your gaming behavior unaltered, did you switch more to PvP or PvE?

I'm looking forward to this, it's an interesting concept to me how deeply ingrained behavioral patterns (you don't quit raiding overnight after doing just that for 9 years straight, at different levels of competitiveness) change over time.

What kind of job makes you work till so late?

[dacoolist]

I started August 2005, almost quit immediately, game was INSANELY Grindy, AND I didn't have internet at the time (MAKES SENSE)
- When I moved to CALI, away from Friends, I found myself with a SOLID internet connection, and picked wow back up August 2007-NOW

BETWEEN the time I started really playing in August 2007 to now, is really the interesting stuff:

Have played wow without a job, with a job, and during the different times I've played, I have to say, back in TBC (previous times), you literally had to be a HUGE guild to do the content.

The way things are now, you can literally hit a button, and get to see ALL of the content (MINUS high end hard mode obviously), with LFR, and just queuing up with random nooblets in pvp.


Overall, the game is the same hamster wheel of death grind, but you can stay competitive as long as you balance your RL, with WOW.

[Perryn]

I'm a bit older than the typical wow player I believe so I was already working fulltime when I started playing, so I haven't had that great drop in spare time that many experience. I do agree with Metro though that the single most important factor with both how much you enjoy the game and how much time you will spend in it, is whether you can make friends that enhance your experience, in a guild or as a group of friends. The game and RL has also positively influenced each other where accomplishes in the game has made me more confident IRL, or vice versa. Or where the game has let me establish RL connections that has helped me professionally.

The game is what you make of it, and it can be both good, bad and indifferent, all depending on you and what you wish it to be.

[roboscorcher]

I play completely casually now. I'm in a guild, but I never raid with them. I'm sure I could do progression raiding again, but it eats up waaaay to many nights. 3am raiding got stale after a while and I don't want to go back to that. My playstyle is leveling alts and doing dungeons/LFR/BGs. Would be nice to do organized raiding again, but I can't commit to gearing characters to 540+ ilvl. That may sound lame to raiders, but I am casual and have 5 level 90s that I all enjoy raiding with.

[Allarius]

I started August 2005, almost quit immediately, game was INSANELY Grindy, AND I didn't have internet at the time (MAKES SENSE)
- When I moved to CALI, away from Friends, I found myself with a SOLID internet connection, and picked wow back up August 2007-NOW

BETWEEN the time I started really playing in August 2007 to now, is really the interesting stuff:

Have played wow without a job, with a job, and during the different times I've played, I have to say, back in TBC (previous times), you literally had to be a HUGE guild to do the content.

The way things are now, you can literally hit a button, and get to see ALL of the content (MINUS high end hard mode obviously), with LFR, and just queuing up with random nooblets in pvp.


Overall, the game is the same hamster wheel of death grind, but you can stay competitive as long as you balance your RL, with WOW.

You did not have to be in a huge guild. I was on a low pop server when I first started out and was in one of the 3-4 guilds capable of doing BT/Sunwell(This made recruiting a nightmare). A huge guild would make farming certain things easier, but you by no means needed a huge guild to succeed. We had our core raid group and a handful of socials; that was about it.

[welcome2life]

Started playing when BC came out. I was just working at McDonalds at the time and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I had almost no obligations at the time and all of my real life friends played wow so I devoted most of my free time to it. At first I was terrible, but I was getting better with each day.

I raided in a few guilds once I started working graveyards. It was easy to make the times since they finished raiding long before I needed to haul my butt to work. I started yearning for more challenge... we were not progressing, but it was due to our dps being too low to down bosses before enrages. So, I found a new home in a progression guild that was competing for server firsts. The healing core group was actually really nice and this is probably when I learned the most about the game and how to contribute 100%. I went from wiping on lady vashj to sunwell plateau... and the first few weeks were pretty messy.

It was then that my girlfriend at the time really started pushing me to finish college, and so I began taking classes and quit my job. I still managed to squeeze in time for raiding, but I would miss the occasional night due to a massive load of homework or a big upcoming test. I ended up taking a short break during a particularly heavy term. (Organic Chem, Genetics, Physics, and Literature) and I missed raiding dearly.

So in the summer I returned to my progression guild and had a great time raiding again but when school loomed it's ugly head... and cata was about to release... I knew I was going to have a hard time making raid nights again and I decided to quit the progression guild so I would not have as strict a schedule to adhere to and more flex for growing needs of school. It was then that I joined some of my old friends and began raid leading their casual guild. We raiding one night a week... sometimes two on the weekend.

The casual guild didn't hold enough people to raid and my play time dropped as fewer and fewer of my friends were logging in. I spent a lot of time idling. When me and my girlfriend split my school loans were not enough to live off anymore and I moved out to a place with much higher rent so I pretty much quit the game altogether at that point. I tried logging in the other day but apparently my client is broken and needs redownloaded. I'm excited for warlords of draenor, and this spring will be my final term before my degree... so being without a girlfriend and just working I might hop back into the raiding scene. Not 100% sure what the future will bring.

Sorry for the long boring rant. xD

[Deleted]

Started playing when I was 16, back in Vanilla. I was a hardcore raider at the time, first Ragnaros, Nefarian, C'Thun and Kel'thuzad kills in my server. WOW was my first experience playing an online game and it completely blew me away, it was nothing I had ever seen and I can't deny that there was immense pleasure and a sense of acchievement in being in a guild like mine and having high-end gear(If you had amazing gear you would wreak 90% of the people playing on bgs).

BC arrived, I went to university and I noticed raiding was harming me IRL and I wasn't having as much fun as before. With university new responsabilities arrived, I had less time to play around, there were works everywhere, mandatory presences in classes, difficult exams to study, it wasn't the same as before and I started feeling exactly as the OP described, raiding had become a "job" for me, one that I had to prepare 4/5 times a week for and it was messing with my ability to focus on other things. I decided to quit WOW completely at the time because I figured out that if I couldn't raid there was nothing for me to do.

I returned for Wotlk and was introduced to a more casual-friendly expansion and from there on out I have been playing WOW casually, no raiding(except LFR in MOP), no schedules, I do things when I can, when I feel like it and things have been working out for me. I dedicate myself to farming rare mounts, getting some decent gear from world bosses/dungeons/crafts/LFR, farm some gold whenever I can to buy a mount that I really want from the black market, play a few PVP pet battles here and there and that's it. I usually play the expansion for a period of time before I get bored with it(around 8 months +-) and eventually return for the next expansion.

[Lightwysh]

I was 24 when wow came out. I've always had a full time job. I was never super hardcore raider but in wrath I did a stint during ICC where I raid led for 3 groups. After that I decided never again will I be that involved. I'm 34 now, I work the same amount but my kid is growing up so I spend more time hanging with her.

Some people come home from work and camp in front of the tv for 3 hours. I'm happy playing wow for a couple hours. Even on my busiest weeks I still manage to log in a couple times and tinker on some toon.

[Zka]

2006: 5mans and raiding with friends, playing 30-50 hours per week. I was 29 at this time but had no kid and my gf was really patient with my gaming. Most friends really suck at the game.
2007, 2008: fuck friends, they can't raid properly. Rerolled on another server and joined a new, mediocre raiding guild, became the MT. Still wasting awful lot of time, but now I have splendid fun. My best period in any game ever.
2009: fuck game, my daughter was born and GF is no longer patient with my gaming time. Had to cut back a lot. Switched main to healer which is less needed than a MT.
2010: can't play before 21:00 because of kid, but want to raid heroic raids. Thanks to my wow blog, I was semi known in my country's wow community. Recruited 25+ people and found a new 2x10 man guild on late night raid schedule 3 days per week. (Guild still thrives and successful, pulling in hc kills on a tight schedule)
2011: heroic raiding is a disappointing dexterity game now and I'm really tired because of the late night schedule. GF really hates the game now. Cancel.
2012: returned for MoP just to level and check out stuff casually. LFR won't keep me playing, it's totally crap. CM... my guild is progressing like mad on a tight schedule, they have no time for such things. 3 months and cancelled. Checked out a few other MMOs: Rift was junk, GW2 was also junk. Aion, SWTOR, and many others looked so junky I didn't even bother to try them. EVE online was good, but way too much of a timesink.
2014: got hyped for WoD, could not resist to return. Of course I didn't do anything important, just some leveling and LFR (which I despise). My gametime expires in 10 minutes, probably staying offline until WoD now. Many of my friends got sucked into EVE so I'm subbed to EVE again and waiting for them to skill up for small gang pvp.

To be honest, as a casual I'm looking for challenging small group content. We aren't getting that. CMs are a good step in the direction, but I really don't want to farm the same 5-10 dungeons for 2 years... For WoD I'm planning to grab some wow friends and do 5man hcs and flex (normals?) together. Maybe.

[Sevyvia]

How did you guys 'evolve' as WoW players during import transitions in your life? Did you step back from it altogether, was your gaming behavior unaltered, did you switch more to PvP or PvE?

I'm looking forward to this, it's an interesting concept to me how deeply ingrained behavioral patterns (you don't quit raiding overnight after doing just that for 9 years straight, at different levels of competitiveness) change over time.

I've just (Last week) started a full time job, so I'm sort of in the same boat. What I'm finding is what you mentioned as well. I realized very quickly, after only 2-3 days, how precious my free time now was. Too precious to spend hours half-idling in WoW. I haven't unsubscribed yet, but I'm not far from doing it. It's not that I hate the game more or less now than I did 2 weeks ago, it's simply that my free time being drastically reduced has made it much clearer to me what I really want to spend it on. And here, WoW lost compared to other things, such as writing fiction. I've maybe clocked in 1-2 hours since last Monday, and I don't picture that count going up more than 1 hour in this coming week.

So yeah, I'm pretty much preparing to step back from it altogether. It's a nice distraction, but distractions are for when you have too much time. And I don't, anymore. I've noticed, even before I started this job, that my gaming taste switched to things I could more easily pick up and put down while still making progress. I'm not shifting to Farmville or someting, but like... The recent new episode of The Walking Dead was a good, bite-sized chunk for me. I've also picked up Diablo 3 again after the recent patch that changed up a bunch of things, and that's great as well. I can log in for half an hour to an hour and progress a bit, and then leave again without issue. While I loved WoW raiding back in TBC, even if things became like that again, I wouldn't join in. Life moves on, priorities shift. It'd take way too much time. I don't know how the older folks we had in the guild back then did it.

[Azaael]

Cool thread here. For me to sum it up:

2006: Worked at a bar, but was able to raid here and there. Really dug the game. (Was interested in trying the game before Jan 2006, but I was moving country and thus wasn't really able to settle down to any gaming, let alone an MMO, back in 2005.) Guild was cool enough to give me a spot when they could(I didn't do stupid things or stand in anything bad, that was enough in a lot of the 40 man days. )

2007: Still worked nights, and had an extra one; raiding got pretty much shut down after awhile. Took light weeks off here and there, but not full lapses; swapped to a Prot pally later in the year.

2008: Joining up with what would be my favorite guild later in TBC, was able to get back into raiding due to adjusting my schedule and starting to work freelance from home writing; was much nicer. Gave me more free time.

2009-2010: Probably my favorite time in terms of the people I played with. Game wise I admit I'm a Vanilla fan, but me and my buddies(whom I'm still friends with) were having fun with Heroic modes and the whole nine. Alas, nothing lasts forever and we lost a big chunk of people to RL; we swapped the guild to casual and me and a couple others joined another guild(whom we did get to know well and liked a lot of the people.) We finished off almost clearing ICC-25H. Played a DK.

2011: Frustration starting. The new guild ended up, over the year, losing some longtime members due to attrition and RL, which made raiding Heroic modes rough, particularly in Cata, since we had to replace them with people who weren't particularly versed in Heroic modes. (I was an officer.)

2012: Halfway through the year, I finally needed to take a break. Besides breaks taken for vacations and the like, I had never taken an actual voluntary break. I had enough; I was frustrated with the game, Firelands wasn't that hot(hurr) to me, and Dragon Soul was crap(IMO.) I was burned out, I couldn't write(I was completely blocked), and my health wasn't even as good as it could have been. So I decided to step back for the summer. I was inspired to step back of all things by picking up and playing through a PS3 game one weekend-I hadn't really gotten to enjoy playing through a non-MMO game in a long, long time due to having been an officer in two different raid guilds from 2008 until this time, helping with logistics and strategy, and all of the stuff that goes with it. The game was like a breath of fresh air. So I took time off(my guildies understood completely.) I got a ton of writing done, played through lots of games(including a console games that would become one of my favorites), and got healthier as well(due to working at a computer, AND gaming, my back was really in trouble after awhile.)

Came back to WoD...but something was different in the game. I couldn't explain it. It was like after the 4-5 month break(okay, I DID play some of the MoP beta during this time to give Monk feedback-I swapped to Monk in MoP, leveled him up, etc.) I started to raid, but my heart wasn't in it anymore, along with enjoying the free time I had leftover from the times I was writing(WoW ended up taking up a lot of the free time I had again.) I tried...but come December, I retired. I didn't delete any characters or give away ALL my stuff(I gave some gold to my good friends), hey, never know what it'll be like.

2013: Around December, I tried one month to see how I still felt about the game. It was okay...but heart still not there.

At this point, I'm curious to maybe try WoD(3rd times a charm train of thought), but it may just be after that many years, I felt like I did what I wanted and the game wasn't as important to me anymore. I'm not even 100% sure if I'm trying WoD yet.

It's kinda funny-in 2012 during my super-burnout, man, I had some choice words to say about the game and Blizzard. I was pretty much full of bile toward them. After my break, though? I retired without any issues with no bad thoughts toward the game. At the end of the day, I don't think what they did with WoW was bad at all, but I think my tastes just changed, and that I'd rather spend the free time I had with other things besides MMOs(honestly, I haven't been into MMOs particularly deeply since then either-I play Rift and Guild Wars 2 from time to time, but very, very casually.) Of course, with less free time as time goes on, MMOs at this point I'm not sure are the best thing for me these days. But I wouldn't be surprised if I guess my WoW time just sorta ran itself out.

Lately I'm into console games, Steam games, and Torchlight 2.

[Notorious]

Everyone is different, as some of you mentioned, you realize how valuable your spare time is when you start working, you have those precious 6-9 hours (if you're lucky) free in the evening and the weekend just flies by... Sundays does not even count, that day is just filled with angst anticipating the new work week.
As an introvert and selfish 30+ year old (with the mentality of a 20 yo) i choose to spend most of that time on things i want to do, be that gaming, watching movies or sports. Most "normal" people tho will of course, get married, have children, loan a bunch of money and buy a house they will work a lifetime to pay off. I do not foresee myself going down that route anytime soon tho. If ever.

[OzoAndIndi]

What kind of job makes you work till so late?

Plenty of businesses have later hours, particularly those that deal with customers face to face.



Having only started playing four years ago at the age of 30, after previously leaving my game playing years behind in my teens, can't say I ever really experienced the serious side of WoW playing. Not that I haven't played for long hours at times, but still just a "casual" player by nature, and I guess age. But when you're just looking for something fun to do and actually want to enjoy it, playing causally isn't so bad.

I can't really see life changes changing the fact that I play though. I've had times where I've played less due to other commitments or had to take a break for a little bit, but for me WoW is largely something fun to do with friends who do not live locally and beats just sitting there bored on an IM/Skype all the time.

[Kickbuttmario]

Find a way to put that spare time into something positive. Trust me. I didn't and it ended up backfiring for me. I ended up hating my job, found multiple excuses just to quit, and could not stand going there and meeting the people. And it was a part time wendy's that did this to me. Watching TV for no reason isn't a good hobby as it is obvious that it isn't something you like. WoW could be.

[mistahwilshire]

I started raiding in UBRS10 at very high level while working a full time job and I've continued to do both things for nine years.

[eschatological]

I was already done with University when wow launched. Actually, I was already living in Africa working for USAID. So I didn't even start playing until 2006 when I came back to the states for law school. I've been an avid online gamer since the 90s though, with text-based games on the old bbs services like compuserve and prodigy, and later AOL, so I had lots of old friends who had migrated to wow. I didn't do much serious raiding while I was in law school, and in fact quit after finishing most of ICC to concentrate on graduation and the bar exam.

Since I started working though, I've become more of a heroic progression raider. I think for people with highly detail oriented, analytical office jobs, raiding never seems like a hassle compared to what you deal with on an everyday basis. The only thing is finding the time. Even as a profession raider I've never raised blood Legion-esque hours, I think my most heavy schedule was 13 hours a week, Friday through Sunday, when I could make the time. People think working full time is not conducive to playing games seriously, but most of my colleagues spend more time (and much more money) in bars around NYC. You must have to put it in perspective. I'm not really a fan of drinking and clubbing, so I have my own leisure time activities.

That being said, working 60-70 hours a week AND having a girlfriend makes wow nearly impossible, if you value your relationship. Those have been my most casual periods since becoming a heroic raider. Luckily for my guilds, I'm much worse at relationships than playing Hunter so I'm never out too long. Sad, I know.

[Solmyr13]

I started playing in Beta back when I was still in high school. I went through college playing and it's funny to think, like you, the sheer amount of time I spent when I was younger. I cleared all Vanilla raids, TBC and WOTLK raids before I completely burnt out. I still play casually from time to time but you have to accept that most people who raided back in Vanilla/TBC/Wrath just can't adhere to a "normal" raid today. It's not to be demeaning or say people aren't as good but there was just a higher standard. I've joined normal raiding guilds now and people don't flask, don't enchant, don't gem and just do LFR. They try to do 25 mans with 19 people and 6 pugs. It's just unrealistic. I think for me to ever raid again it would have to be a hardcore raid and I simply don't have the time anymore.

[Aus Nate]

I started back in 07 was very scrub, played solo for 50 odd levels on a pvp server, recruited a mate of mine, we got to level 40 on character we leveled together, he quit, I got bored, 08 when wrath was released, I rerolled on a PvE server made a 55 huntard (and played a huntard like a true huntard) as soon as I could I rolled a DK, got it to bc.
Mate came back to wow and brought another mate in as well, we rolled different factions on same realm, we both go to 80, he went to start raiding end of Wrath (toc onwards), I started raiding ICC on a druid (dot and alt-tab) then I ended up dating my GL, I then slowed on the game time.
Got a job as a courier, played nights 7pm-2am (worked 3am-2pm) 5 days a week, became an alt o holic, this continued for 2yrs.
'12 almost got cleaned up by a semi trailer, developed anxiety (couldn't leave house) WoW became my way to become more social and open, fell in love with my monk, was my first 90, ended up raiding as holy pally for 5.0 (poor guild never progressed)
'13 was level alts had 11 90's by end of '13 had 2 cloaked.
'14 has currently became my more important year in the game, I've done 14/14N on my DK, 5/14N (garrosh) on my Pally, I've had more fun this year than I have since I started (although I love wrath xpac) I'm generally, mixing my time between, getting fit and enjoying the game after being so slack for past 2yrs, so with WoD coming and my wow being in a good place, and life in general being in a good place, I'll enjoy rest of WoW I think, don't think I will ever quit fully as long as I have fun and server is still up