The Hunting Lodge is a World of Warcraft Hunter community website. We’re here to help you improve and enjoy playing your hunter. If you don’t find what you’re looking for on the blog, make sure to check out the Hunting Lodge Forums. Also, make sure to listen to The Hunting Lodge Podcast
There is nothing more true in life than change. We face it from the moment we’re conceived until we’ve drawn our last breath and the beetles and worms have consumed our remains. (Honestly, it didn’t sound as morbid before I wrote it down.) We go through our lives constantly searching, improving, earning various achievements and the hopefully settle into the nice easy rhythm of retirement.
No, I’m not hanging up my mouse and keyboard. I’m just realizing how much like life playing WoW and to an even greater extent, a Hunter within WoW really is.
See, from the moment select you character and name it. You are on a journey of change. Look back at your playstyle. And if you’re like me, go back to the very beginning. Go back to when the level cap was 60. There wasn’t an Outlands or Northrend. No flying mounts. Back to the day you would do anything to earn enough gold for that first mount, much less your first Epic one.
But this post isn’t all about reminiscing. It’s about how we change as we play this game.
See way back then, when I was a wee little hunter. Heck, I was a Night Elf back then. I remembered doing things that today are just stupid. Take for example my odd habit of always trying to make the killing blow a Raptor Shot. I don’t know why, but I had it in my head that if you killed using a melee attack you’d get better loot. No I really didn’t give the whole RNG any thought.
Then I leveled and read about the game more. And like that, my innocense was lost. No longer would I worry about using my melee attacks. But I would find ways to stay at a distance and inflict as much pain and suffering as possible until either my pet or I from a distance landed the final deat blow.
I changed more when I realized that I really wanted to stack specific stats. Off chipped a little more of what little innocense I had remaining.
And finally, came the death blow to any innocence I might’ve had. I started to raid. That’s when I realized I need to stack specific stats. Use macros, have the right pet and achieve some sense of greatness.
As I pursued this greatness, I saw friends fall by the wayside. Cursing my name because I started to make them feel less important than my own pursuits. I hooked up with the elite (well not really, I’ve never been in that great of a guild.) and started raiding seriously.
Bosses trembled and fell and my journey’s took me to strange lands and different worlds. And I continued to change.
Maybe it was the fatigue of battle. Or maybe it was the realization that I had probably lost more than I gained. One day I realized that though the journey was fun. I had tired of the pursuit. I truly just wanted to sit back, and enjoy my time in Azeroth.
For me that enjoyment no longer meant slothing around as I had in my lower levels. No there was no going back to that point. But neither did it mean that I had to pursue the absolute best. No longer did I have to use spreadsheets or other simulators to help me figure out if an upgrade was truly worth it or not. Afterall, isn’t an upgrade really just that, an upgrade?
So here I sit. Slowly leveling a hunter that by all accounts should be at 80 and raiding by now. But truly enjoying every moment. I still watch my spec and gear selection. One never knows when they may be called back into action and have to perform to the best of their abilities. But being able to perform well is not necessarily the same as being the best.
So yes, the game has changed and so have I. But I’ll be honest. I’m enjoying having the wisdom and knowledge that came with all those challenges and changes without having to pursue each and every upgrade and minute change just because I may actually have a chance at being the best.
Brigwyn is the owner/operator of The Hunting Lodge. He created The Hunting Lodge blog and Hunting Lodge Forums in response to players requesting a safe spot to talk about their class. Recently Brigwyn has started The Hunting Lodge Podcast that you can find broadcasting live on Ustream each Sunday at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Also, if you want more of Brigwyn check out his columns over on WoW.com. You can always contact Brigwyn at brigwyn@brigwyn.com.
Brig has played pretty much hunters exclusively since about the end of December 2004. In that time he’s leveled 3 hunters to max level and raided end game content. He’s currently leveling his 4th hunter from scratch and is planning to raid it when he hits max level.
Reading the mussy wall of Text made me Slightly Emo Brig.
I’m Shocked that you didn’t think our guild was a great guild D:
Other than the Whole Going Casual Thing it was a great guild.
Also, First.
Yea, it was a slightly emo post. Sorry about that.
As for THL Guild. It was a great guild. Well at least until my friends left and it never reached it’s purpose. But that’s a lesson learned now.
Great post, and I recognize myself in this an awfull lot. I’ve been through the journey myself, now ending up as a top end raider almost downing Anub 25 HC. Although I love my guild and the ppl in it, I’m missing the old feeling of amazement WoW used to give me when I was exploring all the amazing aspects of the game.
We all know how the game can drag u in and be a time-sync. For me lately, more often then not, without the satisfaction of having fun spending my time. I wanted some more ‘return on investment’. For me what helped was the following:
1. Tune down raiding times to max 2 nights a week. It was make or break for me, luckily my guild is great and let me know, they’d rather have me 2 nights focussed and doing top dps, then some others being there half focussed 5 nights a week.
2. Stop spending every spare minute of my time in WoW. Next to all my duties, work, gf, family, friends etc, I found myself spending time in WoW, just as a given. Me thinking,”Oh after this ‘task’ I’m done, gogo wow”. Last week I actually bought COD6, started it up and found myself having a blast(no pun intended)! Spending less time in Wow, makes u enjoy the time u do have ingame a lot more.
3. Stop raid pugs alltogether. We run HCs, so normals are mostly up for pugs if u happen to miss out on the guild run. Pugs in my experience always fail on one ore more of these aspects: time efficiency, lootchance and most important, mutual respect. Therefore, a waste of my time.
4. I know this is blasphemy here, but I started a healer and put 5 man pugs together with mostly inexperienced ppl, and loving it! Helping them out, playing their class, get to know the content and boss strats is great fun. It allows me to log on, play for 30-45 minutes, have a great time, get thankfull feedback from ppl in the groups and just plain old having fun. Can’t wait for the 3.3 LFG system, that will support this mode of gameplay even more.
So if the game is not giving you what you want out of it, rethink and take action!