A Lesson from a Caterpillar

Anyone who has played WoW for longer than seven months may have experienced the following symptoms:

• Lost of interest in purple items
• Even when you know your pals are on the game, you can't seem you can't seem to walk across the house and double click the WoW icon.
• That epic mount doesn't cause you to spend 12 straight hours farming ore, herbs or killing stuff in Stratholme.
• You start to look up how to create mandalas
• You start to read the pile of books you have been avoiding for months
• You have watched everything on your TiVO.
• You car/house/fridge/laundry finally gets clean
• You voluntary go to your parents house

There are two outcomes to the aforementioned condition

1-You will stop playing the game-permanently

2-You will stop playing the game and gradually return.

When you decide the leave the game for good, you will know. Accounts will be cancelled, banks cleared and in some extreme cases, pretty, purple items will be disenchanted.

But what can you do when you don’t want to quit the game forever, but can’t seem to muster the energy to play?

That is what we call WoW Burn-out.

WoW Burn-out can be especially frustrating when you feel you “should” be playing but can’t seem to do it. You may have friends, or be an officer in a guild, have goals or want to help with the raid. But your heart just isn’t in it. All these factors can add to your frustration with yourself and the game.

How do you combat it? Should you fight your ennui and log-in?

This varies from person to person, but I would say no.

Your mind and your body are trying to tell you something: you need to unplug. I, unfortunately, have the tendency of playing hours on end for months and then wake up one day and all my urges to play are gone. Poof, just like a pre 2.2 pally buff, one second it is there, and then it is not.

This phenomenon has happened several times over the years. Often, I will go cold turkey for a month, and like the saying goes, “distance” makes my wow-heart “grow fonder.” If you are in this stage, try not to fall into another MMO or all-consuming game. Balance is important. Try other non-WoW hobbies you may have stopped or not continued with a great deal of frequency. Read, hang-out with a buddy. Try something new, like taking a spontaneous road trip or that new restaurant down the street. Go for a walk. Smell the roses. You get my drift.

Don’t want to log in but still want to hand out with your friends? Why not log in on vent and surf the web? Or get their contact information and talk to them outside of the game.

You want to log in, but want to be ‘invisible.’ Guild drama got you down? Don’t want to deal with anyone when you get on. Are you evil? A bad friend? No, just human. Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs some ‘alone’ time at some point. This is true in real life and online. Make an alt, either on your server or another no one knows about. More distance? Roll a toon with your opposite faction: Horde or Alliance. And if you use Teamspeak or Vent, don’t log in, if you don’t want to talk. It is okay to take time for yourself. Don’t worry, everyone will still be your friend when you decide to let yourself be ‘seen.’

The point is, don’t force yourself to do something you really don’t want to do and before you are ready. You will know you are ready the same way you carve Italian or want to see a movie. You will just know. Go with the flow and give yourself a break.

So then, what happens if your temporary hiatus becomes a permanent one? Nothing. That’s right. The national guard will not be called in. You will not be dragged off to a gamer jail. No one, with any real sense, will ever give you a hard time about quitting. You will quit and you will move on.

Eventually it will happen. Because if one thing is certain is that nothing ever remains the same.

Take it as is comes and take from it what you will.

Change is a good thing.

Just ask a caterpillar.