The first couple of months of not playing WoW were easy. I had plenty of other stuff to do and I was able to focus on it quite nicely. I had fond memories of the game but I didn’t really miss it.

Then the Significant Other began playing again after a long absence, and it was making him act like someone who had just fallen madly in love with an old love again, and it was making me nostalgic, and Bad Things happen when Pike is Nostalgic.

It also turns out about this time that he revealed he was playing a ton of his alts. Newsflash: He never really played alts before, at least not to the extent that a lot of people do.

And suddenly playing with him sounded really fun, so of course I did the only sane thing to do and resub’d to WoW, although I did it in a terribly complex and convoluted way in order to ensure a couple of things.

See, what I wanted was to be able to play once every couple of days or so as a social activity with The Boy. Maybe five hours a week max. The definition of Super Casual with a capital S and capital C. I know myself well enough to know that if I unlocked my 80s I’d soon be back to where I was before in terms of WoW playing all the time, and I didn’t want that.

So, I didn’t resub to my main account. Rather, I resub’d to that side account I’d started on a whim for Recruit-a-Friend at some point last year. This account has three characters on it– no more, no less– none of which are close to level 80, and the only one I am really actively playing isn’t even close to level 60.

I am playing Super Casually, really logging in only to play with The Boy for 45 minutes or something, or to do something dumb like check the Auction House or work on tradeskills. I don’t have any heirlooms, I don’t have any access to gold/help from higher characters, I’m playing a class/spec combo that I had never touched before and it’s pretty much the most fun I’ve had in WoW in years. I’m happy with the way things have worked out.

No, I have no current plans to go back to Aspect of the Hare unless I actually “really” start playing again. I don’t know when that will be– I really don’t want to fall back into the trap of playing-all-the-time when I have so much other stuff that I am working on (and I’d like to think I’m doing pretty well with that– making good progress on the latest edit of my book, for example.) So in short this is going to have no bearing on my blogging or anything.

Why am I telling you this, then? Honesty, mostly. It would be super easy to be that blogger who “quits” and then plays a new anonymous character under-cover… and I have no doubt tons of people have done that. But eh, I don’t like keeping things from my friends, and you guys are my friends.

Also I figured I’d might as well pull a BRK and come full-circle…

(I figure since I already wrote about a Linux Conundrum, I might as well write about the WoW one also.)

When I was blogging about World of Warcraft I had the honor of becoming a very visible member of the WoW-blogging-community. When I stopped blogging about WoW, I didn’t want to remove myself from that community entirely, because I had made so many friends there. So I still talk pretty frequently to other bloggers, or people who used to comment on my blog. One of the side effects of this is that “Are you going to play WoW again”, “When are you going to play WoW again”, and “Do you miss WoW” are questions I hear very, very frequently.

So here’s the scoop:

I don’t know if I’m going to play WoW again– leaning toward yes but no promises.

I don’t know when I’m going to play WoW again. Leaning toward “Cataclysm” (or the Pre-Cata world events) but no promises.

Do I miss WoW? Of course I do. But not really in the way an addict misses her fix. I won’t deny I was, at one point, pretty addicted to the game, but that was then and this is now. No, I miss it in more of a nostalgic way. A “man, remember when I used to run around Westfall collecting Red Defias Bandanas and that was the only thing that mattered?” way, or a “Man, remember 30s-bracket Arathi Basin?” way.

As such, when I do feel the WoW urge, it is almost invariably an urge to play a low-level toon. Like my warlock, or one of my other lowbies. I really have felt no desire to return to my 80s or to raid. In a way, I feel as though I’ve closed the book on their stories, but that there are still chapters to be written for my other characters.

Now I know what you may be thinking. You may be thinking, “Well, why don’t you just go back to WoW and play your lowbies?” Mainly because it becomes a matter of worth. At this point in my life I would have time to log in maybe three or four hours a week. And for me, three or four hours a week isn’t really worth the $15 a month. Especially because I’m broke.

And before you offer to pay for my subscription, I already have people lining up at the door offering to do so, including my own parents. But I have turned them all down because I still think I have other things to focus on right now– like artwork, or like editing a certain novel of mine.

That’s not to say I haven’t had moments of weakness or cheated a little. Some of my friends/relatives have let me dink around on their toons on occasion, just for fun. And it’s hard sometimes when exciting new WoW news spreads through Twitter or the blogosphere like a forest fire. But for the most part, I do still consider myself “Done with WoW”. For the time being, at least.

So, that is that.

All that said– Tawyn’s “story” may feel over to me, but her legacy lives on. She’ll always be a part of me, I think.

In my opinion, cracked.com is basically one of the most addictive websites out there. Worse than TVTropes and possibly worse than looking up old 80s cartoons on YouTube. As a Mr. Munroe once put it, “They could write a list of ’17 worst haircuts in the Ottoman Empire’ and I’d read through to the end, then click on all the links at the end.”

Anyways, I’m browsing the other day and they happen to have this article about World of Warcraft up there, so I was reading it and it wasn’t a particularly great article but it was mildly entertaining, and then I get to this picture:

And the first thing I think is, “How silly, the article is talking about mini-pets at this point and they show a picture of a hunter pet.”

And the second thing I think is, “That must be The Rake, since the hunter is in Mulgore and doesn’t appear to be a very high level.”

And then the third thing I think is, “…huh… actually… that looks pretty… familiar… is that… no… is it?”

I went on a searching spree on Aspect of the Hare. Scoured all my old screenshot posts. All my old “I rolled a new hunter” posts. I didn’t seem to be having any luck, though. Maybe it was just coincidence…

Then I went to my Photobucket:

A-ha. I knew it. I knew that wasn’t just any ol’ hunter and pet.

That’s Althalor. And Kolya. Yes, formerly the Rake.

You know, it’s funny. Screenshots of my hunters have been on WoW.com and I’ve been linked on all sorts of big-name sites, but nothing quite prepared me for having a (uncredited) spot on freakin’ Cracked.

It made my day.