Tuesday, February 21, 2012

You Can Never Go Home Again

Sometimes I find myself waxing nostalgic for World of Warcraft.

It tends to start like flashbacks:
A mental image of a night elf, probably the last alt I played for a night, in an appropriately elf-colored forest;
That Forsaken in Felwood who ended up corrupting everyone at the Horde outpost that back in my day didn't HAVE a nice convenient trail;
The cove on the southern coast of Dragonblight that's filled with the ghosts of a doomed expedition;
The perfect Naxxramas playlist;
The view from Scryer's Tier looking out over Shattrath, tinged with the creative rush of massive RP drama;
Listening to the second-hand accounts of higher-levels friends telling me about Un'goro;
Fragments of years of my life spent Somewhere Else.

The saddest thing is that it's really no one's fault but my own. Yes, Blizzard has made a lot of controversial changes with Cataclysm, and I've posted before about how much I dislike them. But if I was still as desperate for what World of Warcraft was selling me, I could cope with it. I could find people to RP with - possibly on a new server, but I could find them nonetheless. I could find a new class or hit a new groove with one of my old classes. I could form new memories.

I just don't really want to. After 6 years, I'm Forsakened out. I'm maged out, I'm warriored out, I'm even Death Knighted out. I'm huntered out, after rolling a dozen and only getting two past level 20. I may be Big Open Community RPed out.

I've toyed now and then with the idea of resubscribing, but I'm not sure what I'd do if I did. I barely play SWTOR at this point. The idea of doing much of anything in Azeroth now leaves me with an odd sense of nostalgia tinged with a certain dread that I will not find whatever it is I'm looking for there. That day is over. I can never go home again.

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