PGFFAP #1: Your Yak is in Another Stable
... it seems only right and proper to return to where I enjoyed it most ...
Once, I had a dream that people would pay me to write about video games. For just over two years, it happened: every month, I’d get a modest sum in my bank from an op-ed on World of Warcraft. It made me wonder: if someone would take writing about a virtual world seriously, perhaps it was time to try something harder. I could have pushed into streaming, YouTube or online commentary, but instead it was poetry that became the pursuit I’m now being paid for. That’s not why I’m here, though.
This wasn’t the post I was going to begin with either: that’s going to be picked apart and the many points within given more space to breathe over time. For now, I begin where my true interest and joy with the game ended, back when my husband still played regularly, where my son would often take part with us. The youngest had worlds to play in too, but their interest was never the same, and I’m glad for that.
It was them that first suggested I should return to Azeroth to heal.
It was nearly ten years ago that the Expansion was launched that would be the last one I played with both husband and son. There have been many since: Legion, Battle for Azeroth, Shadowlands and currently Dragonflight. The War Within is due to launch next month, but there are a number of major concerns over the viability of this decision considering the state of the Beta Client thus far.
When Shadowlands was announced in 2019 I'd had a really successful year poetically and a very casual approach to Battle for Azeroth was finally left behind. I can remember the actual relief I felt as I handed my logon authenticators to my son (who was still playing) and told him he could have all my stuff. It’s the running joke when someone leaves the game: you’ll ask at least for the gold, because that’s the hardest thing to work for. Everything else you sell, for the same reasons.
The other reason I left was the toxicity of the environment: as a female player, it was often impossible to be taken seriously. It seemed the right thing to do: without anyone really to play with on my terms, and genuinely too frightened to try and start from scratch with another Guild, the sensible solution was to just pack up and leave. As it turns out, the clean break was exactly what was needed, and helped solve some other issues in the process. In the next few years, a lot of backstories came to light.
Why then come back? When Microsoft officially bought Activision Blizzard after a long and complicated process last year, their CEO was summarily ejected. At the same time, I’d been encouraged to investigate one of the most difficult periods of my life (which I blogged through and which began my journey to becoming a Warcraft commentator) which coincided with being asked if it was something I’d consider writing poetry about. As that process began, I’d considered a possible return.
The biggest issue was my authenticators were now dead, and I had no real idea of how I’d get back into the game. Fortunately for Present Me, Past Me kept decent records, and after a week of back and forth with CS representatives, I was back in my old Hunter’s mail armour. That was September of last year: the Guild my son is an officer in a Guild which allowed me membership as a Casual [TM] this year… and here we are.
Except for the last two weeks, I’ve been playing Draenor content.
Here is the closest thing WoW (which is how I’ll refer to World of Warcraft from now on) has ever had to ‘player housing’. The Garrison is your base of operations in Draenor, allowing you to set up everything you’d need: access to a bank, an auction house (both easier to buy now than they ever were) and an amazing minigame involving followers and missions that I enjoyed so much I’m back to play it again.
This time, I’m using it as a means to make gold, which became the main thing keeping me in game once most people I knew either left or went onto other things. I have a max level Warlock (hence the Voidwalker pet) who was used as a mule to transfer the last of my stuff that the son didn’t sell to my new server. Now they have a mini-empire to supervise, and I couldn’t be happier.
Well, I will be when I have my naval fleet sorted, which is the next job on my list.
The whole gold making thing is going very well. Having a long memory is really useful. It is also increasingly satisfying to realise that sometimes, it’s just important to walk away from one thing to do something else. There’s more than a possibility that these posts will end up as therapy, as moments from my past and the time I spent on the planet of Azeroth (and under it, and in outer space, and going backwards and forwards through time) make me think critically about what really ailed me back then.
Most importantly, I’m not writing this as a means to engage an audience or indeed make a living. It’s all about closure and acceptance that the past is, what it is, gone and over. If it helps me to understand why certain things remain so difficult to rationalise, then it’s of absolute benefit. It doesn’t matter who reads this.
It matters more that I’m finally able to say it on my own terms.