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Friday, March 4, 2011

Burnout

It's funny how fast things can go from being okay to just total crap.

This week's raids have been the worst in months. Struggling to get even simple bosses down, and just a total lack of communication until I have to ask the same question eight times to get answers from people. The kind of nights you just want to end. And then after an hour of trying to pull things together, someone's connection craps out and you just want to log out and never log in again.

So I called raid, and told everyone I was canceling raids for next week as well. We'll regroup on the 15th - with whoever doesn't leave the guild by then - and see how things go from there. I'm also going to just not log in during this time and try to focus on other stuff. I have a lot of writing on my plate anyway.



It's funny that the news about 4.1 not containing Firelands hit yesterday night as were raiding and it just made me smirk with irony. Their reasoning that most content is still not down across most servers really struck me, it was both cynical and appropriate and for the first time, really, I'm very disappointed with Blizzard's decision to reuse old content exclusively in the patch.

On another level, I'm profoundly disappointed with myself. As a raid lead I take very personal responsibility for any failure and I square blame this week on myself, despite the issues with individual people. I should have been able to fix the situations that were causing the issues, and since I couldn't, the failure is mine, and that stings a good deal.

Raiding is what I love to do in the game, it's why I play this game, and when it goes badly, my whole taste for the game goes sour. I get that everybody has an off week now and again, but I don't know, this was just so hideously discouraging.

I'm hoping some time away from the game will give me perspective and  I'll be able to come back and have fun again. But for now, I'm going to leave my Authenticator at work and just not log in for a while.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting, because I was going to have to e-mail you to ask if you were okay. You logged off just as my finger hit the enter key to ask you. :(

    A lot of people don't "get" (and could never get, I think) just how crushing it can be when you're the leader and things go wrong in a guild. Even just minor things, let alone major ones. Remember that even though you feel as if the weight of all that is on your shoulders, you're only one person and some things are not preventable or fixable.

    We've been fighting a general malaise in our guild and last night one of our three tanks told me he didn't want to raid anymore. To say that I was devastated would be an understatement - and it's not that I can fault him for losing interest in the game, although I do wonder, "Is it is? What could we have done?" Mostly, the responsibility of worrying about and finding another competent and awesome tank that will work well with the other tanks seems so daunting at this juncture.

    I didn't mean to make this comment all about ME, as it isn't - just that I understand what it can feel like to be so frustrated by things in this game that it makes you want to not even login. I hope some time away helps, and I hope things work out for you guys. /lame-o internet hugs

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  2. Bad weeks always can happen! Patient is a must! A small break also helps a lot. As a RL for 5 years now i can completly understand you :)

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  3. Thanks guys.

    And thanks for writing me, Vid, it's good to know that it isn't a localized issue, but rather something that's affecting other people too.

    I hope things work out too. I don't know if I have the energy to start over and build from the ground up again. But hopefully I won't have to!

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