Sweet Surrender

First of all, apologies for going dark without any notice or explanation. It's been an unexpectedly tough summer due largely to the necessary evil known as the dayjob. I won't go into boring details here; this is supposed to be a blog about WoW and those of you on my Twitter stream are probably inured to my stress!rants anyway. ;) Once upon a time I used to work well under pressure. Now I just seem to fall apart -- mentally, physically and emotionally. I can only wear so many hats and juggles so many fires at once before something's gotta give. Since the stress-filled-dayjob is what pays the bills, everything else becomes expendable.

The blog was the first sacrifice. I just didn't have the time or the mental capacity for it. My play-time was the second sacrifice. There were many weeks where I only managed to log in once, and some weeks when I couldn't even manage that. The results were predictable. A guild, especially a small RP guild, without an active GL doesn't last very long. I was down to two active members and my Officers quietly and mysteriously disappeared into the ether. I finally had to face reality and about a month ago I "suspended" the guild. I didn't have the heart to disband it. But with little to no time to log in and no end to the dayjob-crazy-madness in sight, there was no way I could possibly do a recruiting a blitz.

It was tough. It felt like Failure. And I hate to fail. Trial and error is one thing. I'm not the sort to rage-quit after a wipe or three. When you fall down, you get back up, dust yourself off, analyze how and why you ended up on your ass in the dirt and then you try again. Giving up... that's something else entirely. Admitting defeat was bitter to say the least.

It was also a relief. The game had lost something. At the time, I thought Cata endgame just didn't appeal to me. In retrospect, I think that was influenced by a good deal of GL burnout. So, yeah, it was a huge relief to come home mentally and physically exhausted, often near tears and not feel obligated to log in. It was a relief to not feel guilty about letting the guild down. To not feel guilty if I don't want to run Hyjal dailies. To not feel guilty if I want to hang out with Tweeps on other servers. To not feel guilty if I take a writing night. I'm a bit surprised at just how much all those self-imposed GL obligations affected my game play experience.

Things have let up a time or two this past month, and I've rediscovered my love for the World of Warcraft. I've had a blast hanging out with Stormy and Rush and the crew of Sane Asylum over on Garrosh. To my astonishment, the hubby even logged into WoW for the first time in months and rolled a toon or three over there. I'm actually excited about WoW news and I've missed blogging about the game and my experiences.

I wish I could give this post a happy ending, but the truth is that things are in a sort of stasis at the moment. Work stress flared back up this week and has triggered the pinched nerve in neck to protest most vehemently. I think I'm getting a cold too. This inability to handle boat-loads of stress, especially over extended periods of time, is very annoying! I don't know if or when the dayjob situation will ease up. Despite how much I have to do, I don't know how long I'll make it at work today since my neck is already screaming at me for the time at the computer that it's taken to write this. 

I don't know what I'm going to do with the guild or my ten toons (including my one and only level 85) on Moon Guard. I'm trying not to think about it. It just stresses me out and WoW is supposed to be my avocation. Y'know, something I do fun to escape the stresses of the real world.

Homeless

A link to World of Warcraft Players Could Be Homeless Forever came across my Twitter feed Tuesday and it got me thinking.

Player and/or Guild housing isn't a new topic in WoW. RPers especially have been asking, screaming, whining and begging for it since Beta. I appreciate the unique challenge it provides to developers and I can completely understand why Blizzard has shied away from it. And I agree with the statement J.Allen Brack makes in the article about there not being a need for player housing beyond just saying, "Oh yeah, we have housing too." Player housing has no relevance on gameplay in WoW (though, if it helped clean up whoreshire, that's more than enough reason IMO!) and there are plenty of other games where people can buy and decorate houses if that's what they're into. Guild housing on the other hand, is something I'd love to see and I think the new guild perks system is the perfect vehicle for it.

True, guilds, and players, can, and do, use some of the spaces already available in the game world as guild halls. The main drawback to this, especially on a high population server, is one of supply and demand. Or as they say in real estate, location, location, location! The good spots are popular and therefore in high demand. Sometimes you can share a space with another guild or two quite amicably. Sometimes not. Guild housing that's specific to the guild and only accessible to guild members would solve that. How great would be it to have guild meetings at your guildhall and not have random players wander by and interrupt/interfere? True, the drawback is you couldn't hold rp events at your guildhall for other players if it's only accessible to guild members, but it's a drawback I'd be willing to live with. After all, if I want to host a server-wide rp event, I can still do it in a public location in-game.

As far as where such housing should be or what it should look like... well, I could ramble on about what I'd like to see, but it would be what I'd like. I'm sure each player would like to see something different, which is one of those challenges that has probably had the devs tossing in the towel each time housing comes up at a meeting. Still, I'd love to see Guild housing introduced as a guild perk option sometime in the future. That's an objective I'd definitely be willing to dedicate guild time to unlocking and spend guild gold on purchasing.

Progress

Wow. Has it really been nearly a month since I posted? When I started the blog, I figured it'd be at least a weekly thing. But life is what happens when we're making other plans and the majority of mine happens at the office, which is like one giant f'ing Drain Life. Not that I'm here to bitch about the daily grind that pays the bills, though the time constraints it applies to my avocation are part of what's been occupying my thoughts lately.

A few noteworthy things have occurred since my last post.