Return to Raids

So last night Bennedit dusted off the old gargoyle femur and headed into the dreaded Icecrown Citadel to challenge the forces of the Lich King. This is honestly the first full raid night I've played in World of Warcraft since a night, roughly this time a year ago, when I told my friends that I simply couldn't handle it anymore at the end of an Ulduar raid and that, pending how things had gone over the next several days while I was moving out of the house and setting up inside of Mike's place, I would likely be done with raiding for a while. "A while" stretched out to more than a full 365 day rotation 'round the sun, wherein my real life no longer even resembles that guy that had to quit, frustrated tears crawling into the corners of his eyes, while Mimiron basically laughed at us and our sad attempts to bring him down and my soon to be ex and I were preparing for our last night together.

Why did I walk away from the game for so long? The answers might take another year to fully describe and, ultimately, I'm not even sure what exactly I was thinking. A good part of it was a knee-jerk, obviously, to the rest of my life sort of falling apart around me and my own attempts to find any kind of validation I could. I think a big part of it was simply discovering that there was so much going on in the world I was missing out on while I had myself plugged into the proverbial Matrix three nights out of the week. I had found distance running, yoga, and was busy rediscovering who I was and what I wanted out of life. Also, if we're being fair, there was a really negative feeling projected by some members of my old guild that made something I really loved, working together as a team with people I enjoyed, and turned it into almost a part-time job that chewed through far too much of the free time I had left after losing two hours out of the day to commuting. I was burned out, sick of the game, and wondering why I had spent so much time on it to begin with.

People who tell you that MMOs are addictive have it half-right, in my opinion. The reality, I've come to discover, is that the world of warcraft and games like it give people a way to step away from the numerous struggles that we go through on a daily basis and enter a world where, unlike ours, objectives are simple and clear-cut solutions are always present and able to be found. There is no Kobayashi Maru when you play WoW, no unwinnable scenario. There's always a new strat to try, a better spell rotation to push up your dps, or new gear to acquire between raid weeks to eventually max your performance enough to get through the fight and get those sparkly purples that are the black-tar heroine dragging us back to the game week after week. The real world isn't like this. Sometimes we spend hours at work and end up with absolutely nothing to show for it. Sometimes things just don't turn out the way we want. I can't go wander out into the hills outside of Lincoln with a mining pick and farm ore to fix my financial troubles. If someone is irritating me, I can't just put them on my "ignore" list and then move on with life, happily ignorant of their comings and goings. At no point during my daily grind at the lab has a bright golden flash gone off, accompanied by a triumphant crash of symbols to signify my reaching level 49 graduate student status. So no wonder that, with my marriage finally coughing up its last gasps on life support and my finances drizzling down to almost nothing, that spending as much time on the internet away from all of this trouble was appealing.

However, there comes a time when all good illusions must come to an end. That time was approximately one year ago. I was glad to be rid of the game. It was a relief. I came to the Bat-Cave at the end of the night and, to my astonishment, had no pressing guild requirements clamoring for my time. I didn't need to go grind heroics for somebody else's gear. I didn't have to defend my ex from their expectations that she hold herself to the same performance requirements as the other nine people putting their time into raiding. Instead, I suddenly had time to go run every night. I could work late at the lab. In a word, I was free! It seems comical now to think about it, but it really felt like I had this massive responsibility week in and week out that I couldn't live up to and now, all of a sudden, that weight was gone. It was fantastic!

But for whatever reason, the itch never seemed to leave. You've probably seen a bit of that chronicled during the course of my postings here (thanks for reading K-Money). One week I would be canceling my subscriptions to the WoW related podcasts I listen to. The next I would resubscribe. I floated through a number of alts trying to find the same sort of feeling and being reminded, repeatedly, how much I hate doing the exact same things I had done months and years previous on my main. I would watch other people raiding, and a part of me would really wish I was a part of it. At points I was telling my raiding friends about the strats I had heard about to help them past bosses when I, in fact, had never set foot within the Lich King's fortress. Why, oh why, couldn't I get this game out of my blood?

If you've figured out an answer to this, go ahead and let me know.

The truth is, I just enjoy raiding. It's the teamwork, the ten people putting their head down and pushing through a challenge. It's the poetry of watching your group working together as a unit, moving in concert on the screen, to avoid the boss's attacks. It's the hillarious moments when my Mike's tank, who stood toe to toe with the toughest bosses in Karazhan, would be repeatedly foiled by jumping over wooden chairs. It's John's character "accidentally" letting Pat's toon get killed repeatedly. I missed the frantic button mashing when I would try (and occasionally succeed) to pull the group's collective asses out of the fire when some idiot PUGger stood in the fire and tried to get us all killed. And more-over, there are few things to compare with the feeling of achievement one gets when that last boss we've been struggling with for weeks now finally goes down and the "Great job guys," goes out over the ventrilo channel and we start to divvy up the loot drops.

So Bennedict, in his shadow form, is back to Icecrown Citadel. I'm working with a different group this time since my grad school schedule lends itself to a slightly less serious group of raiders than my old crew. We pressed in through all of the Upper Spire bosses and cleared the Blood Quarter, taking a couple of stabs at Valeria Dreamwalker before calling it a night. I got phat lootz (turns out everybody else has been farming this content for a while now so they don't need drops from Marrowgar, who knew) and, most importantly, I had a great time. I even went to the Vault of Archavon and killed the new boss in there (I just call him Iceavon, since that's pretty much what he is) and the game handed me a couple of nice tier 10.5 pants for both my healing and dps specs as a sort of "welcome back" present.

Over a year ago I stood in line at a Wal-Mart for a midnight release to buy Wrath of the Lich King with the express purpose of working my way to fighting Arthas and getting revenge for Lady Sylvanas. Nobody is more surprised than me to see that there's actually a chance I'll pull it off.

Dark Lady Watch Over You.