That’s a nice insight there. It’s never occurred to me since I identify so strongly as ex-hardcore.

I burned out once, hard and heavy, and have always believed that everyone has to go through all of Nick Yee’s phases at least once in their lifetimes, in order to get to phase 5: casual/recovery, older, wiser and more experienced and well-informed to avoiding burnout. As echoed by “Unfortunately you probably need to have burned out on a game at least once to do this accurately.”

On thinking it over, I certainly have made the acquaintance of many game dabblers who play a game casually for a while and put it down without having moved beyond Ramping Up, or indeed recognised that there was more to learn or improve or master. They were quite content at their current level, or didn’t care for the game being played at higher or different kinds of intensity. So these players do exist.

In contrast, I have hardcore tendencies, and need to keep a tight leash on them, keeping aware of my actions in order to maintain a sane casual pace.

Many WoW players will no doubt think my labeling of myself as ‘hardcore’ as asinine. I only began experimenting with raids in Age of Conan, with no EQ, DAoC, FFXI, or WoW background whatsoever. Sorry, the hardcore world consists of more than owning multiple level 50s (or is it 85s after Cataclysm now?) and knowing intricate patterns of specific raid boss encounters. I freely admit I’m a beginner at group raiding and quite happy to keep it that way because I find little fun in scheduled massive-group events.

On the other hand, I like reading tons of class and stat guides, and would rather bend concept to play an optimal build than gimp myself in the name of roleplaying. I enjoy min-maxing, dabble with multiple accounts and dual-box in various games. I empathize strongly with players who try and solo a team challenge and do other “climbed it because the mountain was there” stunts because of the crazy difficulty. I am terribly proud of my Alien Swarm Insane Campaign achievement (1.1% only have done it!)

People can be hardcore in teams, hardcore solo, hardcore in terms of time played (9-12h or overnight marathons, anyone?) – any time you push to greater levels of intensity than the average majority would, you’re more hardcore than not.

The only question is, are you all playing the same (meta)game?

One last comment on burnout. It happens “when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands.” Demands from who? Other people? Friends, family, bosses, guild leaders, raid members, PuGs? Or are you demanding too much from yourself?

Perhaps that is why raids burn people out the most. The reliance on other people and the social obligation not to let them down. There’s less pressure to perform in a PUG – though I’m sure some people still feel pressurized (especially if you tank or heal in a holy trinity game).

And unrealistic expectations and demands from yourself may add to the feeling of burnout. “I want shiny piece of gear by X date. Thus I must grind YY hours repeatedly!”

Soloing has one controlled variable – you.

Grouping or raiding has several uncontrolled variables and one controlled variable. How those other variables play out forces you to play differently than you would as just you.

I know, I delved into ‘solo’ instead of casual. Casuals can and will master a class – not all of them, but some of them. Soloers? Not so much.

I don’t mean to pick on Ysh, but it’s like claiming to be ‘worldly’ without leaving your home continent. You can know, but not experience. Hard to be a master with just knowing and not experiencing.

As for burnout?

Gah. I’m the worst for that. I’m a little burned out on WoW at the moment, but that comes from months of running ICC in 10 man and 25 man modes. The churn of people giving up, or disappearing for a time or taking a break or burning out sooner.

It takes a toll on you. That and I’m not sure there is much else that I want to do or see until Cataclysm comes out. It’s funny, I drag ass to log in but I nearly sprang from my seat to try to find where I could order the Collector’s Edition of Cataclysm.

Go me!

My suggestion is sit down and imagine for a moment that you have either closed the guild down or told everyone that you will not be raiding any more until the expansion, and taken people’s realID or email address or whatever so you can keep in touch. Is your first reaction to feel a wave of relief that the burden is gone and you can go off and play alts and enjoy the game without feeling guilty any more?

It might also be that the other people are feeling burned out, and that’s one reason they’re not stepping forwards. I just think that once you know it is making you miserable, it’s in your power to make things better and it’s not at all an unusual decision to take right now.

I love the guild, the people, and even the raiding, but Wrath content is so stale right now. I want to raid with these people come Cataclysm, but I don’t want to drive myself nutty getting there. We took a two week break from raiding to give all of us a chance to recuperate from the summer doldrums. Now some folks are excited to raid again, but others wish the break would last longer – and sign-ups are suffering.

Husband said to me last night that he understands why people in positions of responsibility in games like this often end up getting burned out. I’m not sure if there’s an alternative. I have been playing my alt mage on another server to escape the pressure, but I feel guilty about that, and even guiltier when I just don’t log in at all. I guess I need to find a way to implement number six… but all of the people who’ve been approached about taking leadership roles of any kind have balked. I guess everyone wants to raid, but not many people want to be the ones responsible for leading a raid.

The problem is now that I am in Tier 4 I have noticed I am in the same boring cycle. Do Orvr, get gear, raid city, do scenarios, get weapon,.

It is different class completely, but in the end the game is the same no matter what class you play. I think I may enjoy the lower tiers more than getting to the end game, and putting myself to sleep from being bored.

I stopped playing the last week, and I can’t say I am missing it. I am enjoying my free time. I keep trying new games outside of the mmorpg genre, and it isn’t quite the same.

I really think the hype of GW2 has also had a huge factor in my boredom of WAR. I know I am going to play it, and so now I feel I will be playing a game that once GW2 launches I will drop, and never look back.

Currently I am hanging on to WAR because it is all I feel comfortable about. I think my relationship with WAR is similar to a bad RL relationship. You know you hate it, but without something new to go to you just hang on because something is better than nothing.

Although, mastering a character in a very competitive environment (like high end raiding or PvP) is pretty demanding compared to most soloing. I mean, in terms of being able to instantly react to what is going on around you and press the right key in second perfect timing.

So there’s mastering and then there’s Mastering. But I think mastering here just means mastering the stuff you actually want to do.

Non-hardcore speaking out for freedom and liberty and l2p!

Actually, thinking about it I’m starting to wonder if raiding even is a hardcore thing anymore these days. Being a regular attendee probably is, but the rest? Hrm. Blog fodder. I’m outta.

In the future, if I continue to play, I’ll bail from any guild that starts to go down that path. If there’s no fun alternative, it’s /gamequit time.