I’ve been not around for a while, in the blog world or really, in game either. At first it was just a matter of timing. Right around when the expansion launched, I got super busy with work, and didn’t have a day off for about four weeks. When that finally died down, I had some time to level my main, hit 90, and deal with the immediate overwhelming nature of rep grinds, dailies, and trying to gear up. I was still making a go of it, despite rising frustration with the way things were designed because in general, I really do love Mists.
But you see, then I got completely derailed again. And since images really do usually speak louder than words, I thought I’d just show why:
The ocean is more or less my front yard. I live a block off the beach in a barrier island town that was right in the path of Hurricane Sandy. This is a picture that I took on the morning of the storm, about twelve hours before it actually made landfall.
You can see here just how close the water already was to reaching the dunes. The dunes are there to protect the town from storm surges, and slow the water from barreling into the streets and homes of the people who live here. Incidentally, the dunes you see there are completely gone now.
My town was among one of the hardest hit by the storm and my area of New York was crippled by it. Living on a barrier island, we couldn’t be surprised that our town didn’t have power, water, or sewage for nearly a month. But it wasn’t just us. It was everywhere. And despite evacuating my town, which was completely unlivable, we were still living without power for quite some time, staying with family, and generally feeling uncomfortable.
Needless to say, I wasn’t playing a whole lot of WoW.
Those boards you see are the boardwalk, swept up and away as far as the bayside of the island.
The streets were covered in about a foot of sand in some places and nearly every car in the town was totaled.
That boat…totally doesn’t belong there.
Anyway, it was a very stressful experience. And once power did start to come back on, I tried playing WoW again, as it’s always been my escape and stress relief. To my dismay, I found the game wasn’t doing much to calm me down. Dailies were stressing me out, and with a crappy internet connection and only my aging laptop to play on, along with no desk and no privacy, doing randoms wasn’t really that appealing either. Even reading through WoW sites started to upset me, as I realized just how far I was falling behind on gearing and, more annoyingly, getting irritated with people themselves. The final straw for me was when Blizz announced that proceeds from the Fire Kitten would go to benefit the Red Cross and Sandy victims. While most people applauded the move, there were of course those people bitched and got into flame wars about it. While also reading about coworkers who had lost everything and reading emails from my insurance company about how to go through the claims process on a totalled car (something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, btw) I decided I’d had about enough stress, real life or imaginary, and took a break.
Life is much better for me now, of course. We’re back home and I have a new shiny car and my town is slowly starting to rebuild. The Red Cross and National Guard have gone home as well, and things feel normal again. Plus, we were extremely lucky. The only thing we lost was my car, where others around us had their entire homes destroyed. And so I’ve been trying to get back into playing WoW, though I have to admit it’s more difficult than I would have thought. I’m no longer the know-it-all in /g telling people whatever information they need to know.
In fact, I honestly have no clue what’s going on in the game right now. I kind of feel like a newb. My main is completely undergeared, I haven’t run the majority of the instances, I have not yet caught all the battle pets, and I have no clue what’s going on in patch 5.1. I can’t tell you how bizarre it is to be the one asking questions! But it’s nice to have Azeroth to go to now that I’ve calmed down again, and there’s something very comforting about flying over Pandaria and seeing the beautiful landscapes Blizzard has made.
And, as it often does, the game has reminded me of just how much I do love my friends. They’ve helped me out with gearing, presenting me with crafted items to help me along. It’s a very overdue public thanks to them, but to Saph, Bim, Xall, and Tor, all I can say is thanks. And to Coups too, for keeping me company on a day when WoW was not where I wanted to be and hanging out with me in GW2 all day. I love you guys so much, and you’re the reason I keep logging into the game.
Anyway, that’s enough depressing stuff from me. I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite some time, and I guess I finally feel ready to get back to things now. And one of the nice things about taking a break from the game is that I had lots of time to write, and I have some fun stuff that I might want to share here at some point. I tried my hand at writing a Pandarian fairy tale and provided I’m ever happy with it, I’ll definitely be sharing it here!
I had to double take when I saw my name, literally, it was quite humorous. I’m glad to see you posting again, that in itself is a sign that things are going back to “normal”. I can’t imagine what you have gone through but I imagine it wasn’t fun. I’m glad to see that you’ve recovered and I don’t think you’ll be a “newb” in WoW for very long lol.
Why on earth would I not thank you? That day of GW made me feel tons better. 🙂
Long time no see Faye, but now I see where you’ve been. I didn’t realise you were in the affected area, but it makes me glad that our fun and frivolity for gifts went to a good cause.
Yeah, I’ve been trying to write this post for awhile, but finally managed to actually do it last night. I’ve missed the blogging community though, and am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things!
The devastation and desolation your town endured was extreme! It was really a no-brainer for the rest of the world to come to the aid of the storm’s many survivors.
The ignorant people who complained about Blizzard offering the Cinder Kitten as another way to donate to the Red Cross were blatantly trolling. It doesn’t matter what the complainers’ intentions were; it was trolling, and as such, should be ignored. The majority of the player-base celebrated that they were given another opportunity or reminder to donate, like rational people.
I’m honored to have helped you, in my little way, to get through this rough time. I would be glad to help further, even if it means dragging you by your tail (or ears) through some heroics and scenarios and… maybe even LFR?
Once you’ve experienced them (preferably with guildies), they are not so daunting. I speak from my own initial reluctance about getting into the current content. Since letting go of giving myself a hard time about being “behind” in the game, I’ve been having a better time. I hope the same for you. 🙂
❤ you. 🙂
It wasn't just people being bitchy about the Flame Kitten, obviously. The WoW community….how shall I say this. It tends to…complain an awful lot. And it was just really difficult to read that stuff after waiting in line for gas for three hours. Similarly, it was distressing to be around the douchebags who inhabit our "community" in places like LFR or randoms or forums when in my own world, people were going to great lengths to help each other. I just needed to unplug for my own mental health.
Glad to be playing again more though. I'm working on doing randoms. It's not that I'm worried about doing them, it's that I just flat out have no desire to. But I had no desire to play WoW at all a month ago, so hopefully I'll actually feel like doing instances soon. 🙂
Ah yes. I agree that the WoW community habitually behaves like spoiled children. I can’t say that I’ve never participated in the whining. Unfortunately, it often takes a disaster for people to be grateful for what we have.
I’d good to see you back in game, lady. ❤
/Hugs and welcome back.
Thank you! I wrote a story about how Rain Poppies got their name and was thinking about you when I finished it up. I’m going to edit it a bit more, then I’ll share it here. 🙂
I think I have single-handedly populated Azeroth with Cinder Kittens – I know it’s only a small thing, but having spent some happy (and drunken) (and happy) moments at the Jersey shore in my younger days, I was really saddened by these events; I haven’t lived on the east coast in many years, but know that my heart goes out to you, the bruised lands and shores, and all that suffered. Pay no attention to the trolls out there Faye – seriously. There is always more good than not. Welcome back!
I spent a lot of time at the south Jersey shores too when I was younger. I cried when I saw all the damage done there!
I’ve only been to New York once, and I knew what was up with you from hearsay but I don’t really have any way to reach you and give like moral support or something. >> I handed out Christmas gifts but that’s about the extent of what I can do.
Glad to hear that you are getting back on your feet though!
If you think about it (which you shouldn’t, it’s sad) pretty much every community is about 70-30 when it comes to decent folks and douchebags, and the complainers always whine the loudest. The real goal of a troll is to obtain attention, right? I went to an indie rock concert with my sis last night and at least 30% of the audience were douchebags who wouldn’t let the guy sing what he wanted. It’s not the WoW community, it’s planet earth.
In any case, as always, let me know if you want to run heroics. We can run them quick, and all of the ones in MoP are at least fast and easy. And if you just don’t want to run them, don’t. If you want to gear, do it through dailies. They aren’t that bad. I highly recommend the Domination Offensive since the rewards are high ilvl and it’s only 5 mostly quick dailies per day. As a bonus, the storyline quests that go along with the faction are really good and finally give the blood elves some much needed plot!
$2.3 Million says the WoW community cared about Sandy (and cute pets)!
I know most of the WoW community doesn’t suck. Really, people being ranty about the flame kitten isn’t what made me take a break so much as realizing that playing was just stressing me out more.
I’ll be home tomorrow if you feel like running some randoms.