Warcraftrealsm published their latest US & EU WoW activity numbers showing an uptick in November, although the numbers are still below the peak in Spring. My anecdotal evidence tells the same story, my guild is full of people coming back after taking a break. If you ask around, there are two major factors to that revival: Patch 2.3 and the fact that all the games we have been hoping for for 2007 have either been cancelled, postponed, or turned out to be less good than hoped. Michael Zenke from MMOG Nation lists why he hates 2007. Lord of the Rings Online gets my "best new game of the year" award, but for me and many others that game lacked long-term motivation. So while I don't regret having taken a break from WoW, for me there is nothing but WoW to play for christmas.
When I'm looking around to how other people are playing World of Warcraft right now, I notice that I'm playing the game differently. I am less goal-oriented, and am concentrated more on the playing aspect. While my level 70 characters certainly aren't well equipped, I don't have a list saying "need to go to dungeon X to get item Y for my warrior". I just play whatever comes along, when somebody in guild chat says "need a tank for this or that", and I have the time, I usually just join without checking what's in it for me. Then when something drops that I can use, it is a nice surprise. Of course that isn't "efficient", I don't even have enchantments on most of my gear because I haven't got a clue whether it is something I'm likely to carry around for a while or whether I'll find something better tomorrow. But I find playing like that less stressful. I'm never disappointed if some loot didn't drop, because I didn't know it could drop in the first place. And I'm certainly not doing stuff I don't like just to get the reward, for example I haven't done any PvP battlegrounds or arena in spite of people claiming there were easy epics to be gained there.
I'm not saying my way to play is better, but it certainly suits me better. And it is also a reasonable strategy in view of the long break I took. Nobody knows the WotLK release date yet, but my 7 months of break will probably be around half of the time between the two expansions. Everybody else is far ahead of me in level of gear, and I'd never catch up to them if I tried. So I avoid the stress, try to have the maximum of fun, and I'll be where everybody else is when the expansion hands out green level 71 items that are as good as the current epics.
Of course that doesn't mean I don't have goals in WoW. I'm making good progress on the money for my second epic flying mount, from 0% to 75% of the money needed in just one month, and that without me having the feeling that I was grinding for it. If I don't have it for christmas, then certainly early next year. I'm also quite happy with my new mage. Again not with the thought of "I need to get to level 70 as fast as possible", but experimenting with how to play that new class, and enjoying the way more than the destination. It isn't unlikely that I manage to get the mage to level 70 before the next expansion comes out. But although a dps class is sure more fun to solo than a tank or healer, those characters are first in line to be leveled to 80, because I love playing in groups with my guild mates more than I like to solo. Having fun with friends, that is what World of Warcraft is all about for me. Shiny epics are secondary.
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