I agree with Rob, Adamantyr, fascinating stuff and very useful for the book. I'm definitely going to be quoting from this in my chapter! It's always fun to read personal accounts rather than just the standard "reference" stuff, bleh.

It's been about two or maybe three weeks since I last cranked up WOW, and longer than that since I seriously played it. I lost a lot of interest when I took a 2-week vacation and came back; I realized I hadn't missed the game at all. It had, in fact, become "work" like you describe--logging in, doing the "daily" quests which were really just chores, running bgs over and over just to get the equipment. I realized I had no real reason to continue.

I think there are several reasons why people stop playing MMORPGs or MUDs, but the burnout is inevitable for most of us. I mean, how long can you realistically be expected to play a game like that? The only exception I can think of are people who have real social circles online. This summer was great because one my best friends IRL was also on the game, and we could play together and talk on the headsets. That made it so much fun! However, I was never able to really connect to anyone else in the game, which was very odd for me. When I played MUDs, I had so many friends and quickly got to know everyone in the game-not just "in game," but a lot about their personal lives. WOW just seemed to stick to in-game stuff. That could just be luck of the draw, though. A few times I quested with folks and thought they were really fun and nice, but then never saw them again (or weeks later they'd be back with "REMEMBER ME?" and I'd be like, "No, sorry.")

I never tried the WOW role-playing servers, but maybe that'd be more fun. I always wanted to play my blood elf as an arrogant, self-centered bitch, but nobody "got it" and thought I was personally a jerk. Same thing with my warrior, who I wanted to play as the blustering type who charged into the middle of every conflict. No one seemed to have any patience for that sort of thing, but I thought it'd be fun to be in a dungeon with people who were willing to play their parts realistically. The "social" aspect just wasn't there. I felt more like part of a military unit going in there than a group of friends on a quest.

Looking back, WOW did do an excellent job handling interplayer conflicts. They had the instances and various means of keeping people from stealing kills or corpse squatting, but PVP could be trying at times. "Premades" were a problem; that'd be when a guild or large group from one of the factions would all enter the same BGS. Since they were well organized and probably well equipped, they'd win every time. OR, they'd just stand there doing nothing, perhaps dancing or what-not until the BGS was over. Since you got some honor and points just for participating, you could just keep doing that and quickly get the gear (honor rewards).

My friend Kevin is much more into it, and I think it's because he's got that social dimension. He knows his guild mates very well, and they play almost every night (and all weekend). He's doing the end-game stuff with the huge dungeons. There's lots of content you can't get to unless you're really with a great group. That could be fun, I guess, but my problem is that I started losing interest when I maxed out my level and got mostly great gear. There's a law of diminishing returns in effect, so you can good gear for a little work, slightly better gear for more work, and slightly better gear for even more work, etc. Eventually you're working for days or even weeks to get a piece of gear with only slightly better stats than what you have already. Meh.

I don't regret playing WOW because it was very fun creating different characters and exploring the world. However, I do think there's a point in these games where they start to lose their appeal; it's precisely when they become more like work than fun.