I feel some kinda hilarious writing this but: WoW is really fun, you know? Crazy, huh?

I’ve written before about my love/hate relationship with World of Warcraft, but I finally feel like I’ve moved on from the bad old days of Beta-and-just-afterwards to a new and really wonderful place. New class, new faction, new race, new server, new server rules set, lots of fun with tradeskills and such, actual goals for my character … it’s like I’m playing WoW for the first time. And (I realized the other day) I’ve been playing the game for over 3 years now. Yeesh.

For me, it all comes down to motivation. Moment to moment, am I having fun? I’m playing a rogue, and the basic act of combat – once a bleeding chore as a paladin – is now effortless and enjoyable. I know it’s there still because the shiny is on, but I’m even finding grinding enjoyable for the moment. Those turtles along the river in Hillsbrad have got to be really really sick of seeing me coming by now.

I’ve gained levels faster and more effortlessly in the last few months (starting in August) than I ever have with a character before. I know it’s not a land speed record to raise a character from 12 to 32 in two months, but for me that’s really really good. I’ve been piling on the levels since Brewfest started, because I’m within striking distance of 40 and would like to snag a Riding Ram mount.

PvP has been another big part of my rogue-ish experience. I’m not all that good at it, even compared to others of my level. Instead, I try to do the ‘right-place-right-time’ thing. If no one’s on defense, I’ll happily play D in Arathi or Warsong. If someone snags the flag, it is one of my favorite things in the world to wait stealthed at the exit to the tunnel. (Why do Allys always come out of the tunnel?)

Hilarious aside: The battleground of the weekend was Warsong, and twice – twice – we lost because the Flag Carrier was an idiot. In one of them I was working with another rogue to end a standoff, to get our flag back to base. We bring down the FC and the message from our own guy is: “We should farm some more.” I will own up to it (and I’m not proud of this), I got so angry I actually wrote “Screw you, man. Score!” You have to understand at this point I’d been hunting that damn flag carrier for about 20 minutes. I was ready to move on. But of course, the guy with the Ally flag wanted to farm and stayed outside the base in front of the tunnel. And he got killed, and the flag returned, and they managed to come back at us. Bah.

Brewfest as well has been a big motivator. I love the daily quests, the atmosphere, the music, and most of all the goblin on the soundtrack that screams “I can’t feel my legs!” Good times.

I try to make this site more than just “I did this and it was fun”, so let me try to broaden this out a bit: Why is it that I’m only now having a good time with this game almost three years after it released? Obviously, this isn’t the first time I’m having fun with it. Playing with RL friends was a blast the few times I did it, and I have two near-60 characters on Argent Dawn that prove out my initial allegiance to the Alliance.  But why is coming back to it now such a revelation for me?

I’m beginning to think of it as a form of therapy, actually. I’ve put a lot of effort this year into working with new people, writing articles, keeping the site going here. My two months of travel was a ton of fun, and I think I got some really valuable experiences out of it … but now I’m ready for some ‘me time’. Thankfully for you, ‘me time’ means playing Massive games. I’m going to have to pick things up again with reviewing for Slashdot and all that, but for the time being it’s been great to step back a bit and enjoy this game that almost everyone else is already over and done with.

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