Fated Raiding and Burnout

 For some reason, the advent of Shadowlands Season Four hasn't really gripped me.

The biggest change here, with this mid-patch seasonal shift, is that earlier raids from Shadowlands are now on a weekly rotation where the bosses are tougher and the rewards are better. "Fated" raids, including the world bosses associated with those raids, drop better stuff than what was in Sepulcher of the First Ones prior to this patch (SotFO is also on the rotation). Also, some dungeons have been taken out of the Mythic + system while others from expansions past have been added in.

In principle, I love this.

I did a little LFR in 9.1 and saw the first wing of Sanctum of Domination, but I think it was around then that the scandal at Blizzard broke, and I took some time to wrestle with my feelings about the game. When I stepped back in with 9.2, I played a bit and then Elden Ring came out, drawing me away before the Sepulcher raid came out on LFR, so I didn't get into it.

As such, I've actually wound up seeing roughly the same amount of raiding in Shadowlands as I did in BFA.

Part of this, of course, is that LFR is not a great way to experience this, and I don't have the social energy to organize my guild to run raids anymore (and the guild has mostly dried up at this point).

But I also think there's this issue with revisiting old content, which is that it shines a light on the treadmill element of gearing in WoW.

There are aspects to how getting higher item level gear in WoW feels good. The raw numbers are kind of whatever - I think ever since they started doing item and level squishes, the numbers you put out feel pretty arbitrary (it's hard to get excited about doing over 10k dps when two expansions ago you were doing over a million). But as things like Haste and Crit go higher (and if your mastery is one that feels really noticeable) things start to feel really cool - on a Frost Mage, when you get your crit up to around 33% and all your Ice Lances are critting, that feels awesome.

I'd also say that tier sets are great for this purpose - assembling your bonuses can feel really great - depending on the set. For example, the 4-piece Retribution bonus causes Art of War to reset Wake of Ashes 50% of the time instead of Blade of Justice. Wake of Ashes does immense damage and gives you 3 Holy Power, making this feel like a massive boost to your rotation.

The Creation Catalyst, which lets you transform helmets, shoulders, chestpieces, gloves, and pants into tier pieces at the same item level, is a great way to make gear exciting (it is limited to pieces from specific sources, though - it'd be nice if my 252 gear from Zereth Mortis world content could be upgraded, instead of having to use the 246 ones from Sandworn relics).

But I had this realization when this patch came out that I really didn't care much about getting better gear at this point - doing the content for that gear. I mean, this is the last real phase of Shadowlands before the next expansion, meaning that I'll likely be replacing all of this stuff with leveling gear or maybe early max-level dungeon gear not long after the expansion comes out.

WoW, and I'd imagine a lot of similar MMOs, are sort of built to be the one video game you play (admittedly, it's less of a time vortex when you aren't an altoholic like me - with my Druid hitting 60 a couple weeks ago, now that you can trade Sandworn relics between your characters, I have every class' 4-piece tier set).

I started playing WoW in 2006 - just about four or five months before Burning Crusade came out (so yes, I do remember a time when only Alliance could be Paladins, but I didn't hit the level cap until it was 70, and even then only in the fall of 2007. Leveling used to be way slower).

And, honestly, I think Dragonflight looks very cool. I also thought Shadowlands looked very cool (and given my taste for really heightened, out-there big-concept fantasy, the concept of it really fell into my wheelhouse) and while I think it was better than BFA (and would have been a lot better if they'd kept up with the patch cadence, but then, no one planned for Covid-19) I must admit that it's not going to be remembered with the best of them.

I remember feeling real burnout in Warlords of Draenor - I liked Mists of Pandaria all right, but I certainly didn't love it the way some do (I place it at #3 expansion after Legion and Wrath,) but I was starting to fade.

Then, Legion was excellent - not only did I find the story compelling, the new class fun, and the artifact weapons and individual class hall stories really cool, but my guild was also much more active (we downed the first boss of Antorus in the first week, which I think was a first for our guild, which has always been very casual). Legion reinvigorated my love for the game (it was also an escape from some very painful stuff happening in my personal life).

Given how long I've been playing WoW - I started at 20 and I'm now 36 - I've often wondered about what it will be like when I finally hang up my hearthstone for good. I guess I'm more in a place right now where I can imagine myself stepping away for extended periods of time. I don't know that I'll skip a whole expansion - I think I'm probably going to get Dragonflight when it comes out and roll myself up a Dracthyr Evoker - but I think I've already begun to release that fear of missing out that is perhaps one of the more dangerous elements of MMO design.

It's not the end of the world if I don't see every raid boss, and I don't get all the gear I want.

Honestly, this has kind of been my practice even since late Legion. I did see the whole raid in LFR, but I didn't really re-run it after I got Argus down - I might have done it on a few key characters who I feel really would have wanted to be there for that (certainly my Argus-born Draenei Death Knight.)

The greatest strength and greatest weakness to the MMO-RPG is the way it keeps you moving along (I realize that this is sort of the opposite of the Fated issue). Azeroth has been transforming for the last 18 years within WoW. The way my Protection Paladin main plays today is almost completely different than how it did when I had my first (terrible) experience raiding Karazhan. And I like following the plot, even if it's definitely hit that comic-book like structure where it's just different arcs instead of building to one grand epic conclusion.

But it's getting easier to feel like I will be able to pick things up again even if I miss a chunk.