Breaks or breakups are healthy in this case, methinketh. If you can maintain interpersonal contacts through breaks, hey, the people are the best part anyway.

I might try SWTOR and am definitely going to try GW2.

Which is why I must find time to take an evening or two off Rift and go play LotRO very soon. Once Tremayne the cleric hits 50 I’ll spend a couple of evenings back on Tremayne the loremaster, trying to come to terms with the LI changes and maybe paying a visit to some of the new instances with a kinship group if I’m lucky. It probably helps that I’m in a “social kin that raids” rather than a hardcore progressive outfit, and I’ve not been a regular raider – so there’s no feeling that I left a regular raid in the lurch and am noe trying to take a spot back.

Interestingly, I’ve had no problems with dipping into and out of Champions and Star Trek Online – probably because I never put roots down there in the first place.

I’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’ it seems.

I’m playing Rift now, but it’s more of a break from LotRO than WoW. I had been raiding in LotRO for about 5 months when Rift was released and needed a break. My WoW ties were severed when my pally mount that I quested for was changed to an Elek. Yes, it was the elek over the pally mechanics, which I got use to pretty quickly. And that is what it will likely take for many to leave a game permanently, a change that breaks how you look at that world.

But if people are leaving because they’re bored, then waiting two or three patches should at least bring in some new content.

Well, it’s partially that, and now that Rift has taken over my backup…yeah. But I just love Aion’s visuals and music a lot, damnit! Rift though I have some actual social ties to now.

And I’ve taken WoW breaks as well, though not for like a year, maybe 4 months tops at my longest. I take 1 month a year off for visitiing the US. For extended breaks? Sometimes I think it’s fun to try something new-I did that after my 4 month final break, I had rolled my paladin and decided to focus him on my new main(way back in TBC). So I definitely think it’s fine to start anew-it’s easy either way, to be honest. If anything I think starting anew can be a big help, it helped me get back into it playing nearly the complete opposite of what I ran in Vanilla. (I was an undead mage, and I went belf paladin, so a cloth ranged pure class-he was an ugly SoB too-to a plate hybrid who is still quite the handsome fellow. )

Rebuilding a social network? This can take time, and keep ini mind these days it’s different. In Vanilla, we didn’t have server transfers until very late in it’s cycle, and I noticed it wasn’t used *all* that often. Now Server Transfers, Faction Transfers(with possible upcoming Guild Transfers) can leave a server looking very different-I know MG has changed a lot since I rolled my pally there in the first few months of TBC. Real ID will keep you in touch with friends-but they might all be scattered about. It’s kinda freaky to think about, but it’s definitely a thought for these days. People you knew might want to find greener pastures on other servers/factions or both.

So I think it’s possible to take breaks and still get back into the game. But I think right now the way WoW is changing….if people left due to generally feeling burnt/etc with how the game is going now-I have a sinking feeling it won’t be getting much better. In other words, I have a feeling that people who are taking time off now, waiting for things to ‘get better’…won’t really find that upon coming back unless they have a big change in design philosphy.