Goodbye!

Sorry folks.

We're done.

Likely, you've noticed that our blogging has been non-existant for several months now and that's largely due to my waning interest in WoW. I've been playing here and there, but 8 months ago, I embarked on a journey to fix up my life and since then, I've lost about 40#, gotten better sleep, and have achieved a much better outlook on life.

It's a win.

Don't feel sorry for my languishing Arena ratings. I don't.

All that means that I don't have much time to really get fully invested in WoW...which I've realized is the missing ingredient to become and stay competitive in this e-Sport. More on this later.

So what have I been doing?

Well, I have replaced alot of my interest in WoW with fitness and diet health. I've been getting my workouts from the great folks at Crossfit and have cut alot of junk from my diet. I've pretty much cut out all wheat, corn, potato, rice, sugar and pasta products and gone from a near size 38 waist to a 30-31. I even signed up to run a Marathon in January, 2010 with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Before this life turning point, I had never run more than 5 miles, and that was in highschool.

Here's the shameless self promotion link for those that might care to read about the training progression and possibly donate to help the LLS out:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/pfchangs10/chucifer

So why did I quit?

Well, the big issue was time and energy as aforementioned. With so many new things to think about, I naturally had less time on my hands. Coming home to cook/eat healthy takes time. Exercise takes time. But most importantly, an active lifestyle begets an active lifestyle. You want to go do stuff. You want to try new things. You want to spread the word about how awesome your new experiences are.

The smaller issue behind quitting was the immense amount of time staying competitive in WoW required. This season started off with a whimper and the honor grind pretty much killed any desire of mine to keep playing. Endless BG's sucked. Poor comps sucked. Poor class design (reliance on Mortal Strike debuffs) sucked. It all combined to literally suck the life out of my WoW experience.

I won't hide it: I like to play with smart players. Sitting in a BG where 90% of the players are both undergeared and underintelligent is frustrating at best. If you've ever been on Ventrilo with me, you'd likely be familiar with the torrent of cursing that usually comes with my Honor grinds and that usually preceeds my sudden logging out of WoW in utter frustration and disgust.

For me, the Battleground or Arena experience should be the reward for your effort. Not the gear. And this is where I believe that Blizzard has ultimately finally & successfully created something that is unsustainable. The reason why an e-Sport is sustainable (Starcraft, CS, etc) is because the reward is the feeling of accomplishment, not something that is only relevant for the current Arena season. I can take my feeling of hitting 2200 in 3's with me forever, but will I remember my Furious Shoulders? Well, that's pretty unlikely.

So, will I be back?

Well, to be honest, I already tried coming back. With some generous help, I was able to level my Warrior from 70-80 and do a little bit of Honor/Arena grinding. It was fun in a way, but ultimately more of the same old, same old. The feelings of frustrating kept coming back and because of them, I haven't been back in the game for a while.

Will I come back with Cataclysm? Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. If Blizzard gets rid of the stupid Honor grind then there's a good chance of that happening. If I break my leg before my Marathon, then it's likely as well. (stay away, all you would be Tonya Hardings) I am looking forward to Starcraft 2 and a little Diablo 3, however, so you might see me pop up there.

So what of the blog?

In some ways, I wanted to be the next Resto4Life or the next BRK, and get widespread acceptance as a go-to person for my class, but my general distaste for raiding and talking about what I view to be mundane (anything not associated to PvP) didn't exactly make me a popular destination with the general masses. I think

As such, It's unlikely that there was -THAT- much traffic here, but from a casual writer, it was a good exercise in expression. I was able to give a bit of info, get a sense of level of effort that some of the more prolific bloggers output, and vent a few frustrations all in one outlet. Hopefully, I was able to do it in a easy to read and readily consumable form. So, thank you, reader(s), for giving me the space to be creative.

I'll probably leave this as the last post until I come back or move on to another MMO or competitive video game.

Any regrets?

Nah. Things are better now from a macro perspective.

Actually, scratch that. I do have a regret.

I regret that by leaving, there will be one less PvP healer willing to subject themselves to the mindless paintrains and that my friends who are still playing this game will be forced to find other healers to help them out.

Because, in the end, it's about the people, not the game.

Cheers!