Ever since quitting World of Warcraft over a year ago, I always ask myself this; Will I ever be able to play MMOs again? I had a fantastic time leveling, raiding and even the little bit of PvP I did was pretty fun. In retrospect, WoW was a time well spent. But now...
I've been playing Rift over the past few weeks. To those uninitiated, Rift is an MMO much like WoW - in fact basically the same thing, just different world and prettier graphics. I leveled to 50 on a warrior, I ran some dungeons, closed a few rifts, got some achievements... and today I raided for the first time. Few of you that know about my WoW raiding history likely also know that I have a very short temper. The raid I participated in was absolutely awful. We killed what we set out to kill but it took us 5x as long as it would take my old guild, Still Life.
Unfortunately, raiding is the end game of every game. To get to the pinnacle of awesomeness, you gotta raid, because that's where all the best gear is. This is true for every MMO, not just Rift or WoW. You raid, you are the best. But this past week I actually came to a realization that hardcore MMO players actually have no life no matter how much they claim they do. When I raided with Conquest and Still Life and we did 20 hours a week every week or more during progression, I literally had no life. After content was put on farm (meaning we got so good at it, we would ace it every week), we'd raid two maybe three days tops, but then we would be logging on anyway to do other stuff like run daily dungeons, do daily quests, play the AH, PvP, etc... you don't just log off and do other stuff with your life, because you would fall behind in the game. Hell, when I raided with CQ, I was basically sleeping, raiding and working with food done on the fly. Fortunately I had a job where I got to move around a bit so I didn't become a lardass like the stereotypical MMOer.
In retrospect, those were good days. Not a care in the world, just raid. But as I grew up and got older, I suddenly found that I had a lot of other things to do. I found and befriended the mythical creatures known as women, I went back to school and suddenly was drowning in pointless homework, and I started being proactive about my career and my future. This leaves little time for MMOs. Even now, as I have some time to burn, I keep thinking that my time would be better spent elsewhere.
All in all, I think I'm done here. I can't raid, because I'm intolerant of idiots, and without raiding, I can't be the best, so I should just stop playing MMOs altogether. Diablo III, where art thou...