Their Lives Are Terrible

What is burnout?  In 140 characters?  That’s simply not enough to say it like it is.

Burnout is the point where logging in is exhausting, where the game cannot hold your interests, where you idle in Stormwind (or Org) for an hour then log off without doing anything.  It’s the point when the only gear left to drop for you is on bosses you’ll never see.  Burnout is, poetically, what happens when there is nothing left to fuel your play and the excitement is gone.

For me, burnout occurred twice.  Once, when real life took me away from the game.  When changes outside of Azeroth promised me a greater reward for my time.  Finals during school, a role in a play, and a new relationship took me away from the same old VP grind in exchange for the promise of a future job, the spotlight, and some good old fashioned romance.  But when the fresh paint dried, I found myself missing that good old-fashioned raiding camaraderie.  So, legitimate burnout or not?  That’s not for me to say.

The second experience I’ve had with burnout came after my return to the game.  I rejoined my old guild on a kind of probationary trial period, and I worked hard and fast to get back up to speed.  When I was rejected for my old raiding position though, I was forced to find a new place to play.  This, in my opinion, is the more common burnout.  Going through wow-progress, creating a character o each realm to contact officers, trying to get a straight answer on recruitment needs and guild atmosphere, only to finally transfer and join an utterly toxic environment.  I couldn’t play there, where the jokes were sophomoric and offensive, the people selfish and rude; no amount of epics were worth logging in.  But going through the guild listings again?  Transferring again?  Almost unbearable.

I had lost all desire to play, my character had transferred and changed so many times that they weren’t me any more.  I had no history, no home realm, and no goal that could make it worth the hell of logging into a raging guild leader every night for “temporary ten-man raids due to attendance difficulties.”  Being a twenty-five man raider is hard, and being a homeless one is harder.  That’s the story of how I burnt out.

Epilogue: I still play WoW, and I still raid 25′s.  But now I raid 6-hours a week with little hope of ever seeing H Ragnaros.  My guild is casual and extremely large, and I know nobody there.  I raid more out of habit than out of desire, but without the game my evenings are empty so I persist in the hope that Blizz will fix this game one day.  I keep my UI intact, my logs fresh, and my gear up to date so that one day I can raid with the people I like, and go back home.