Like I Never Left

Like I Never Left

[Note: Sorry for the head fake! Seems I can't quite quit this game yet. I'm going to continue this blog, although you should go to the JadedWalker blog first as I will post a link there to any new Wild Family posts. Hope that isn't too confusing.]

My addiction to the World of Warcraft (WoW) has kept me playing for more than eight years, including the purchase of thousands of dollars worth of game time and upgrades/expansions. I even had two accounts so that I could have as many as 22 characters and be able to play two characters at the same time.

Those who follow this blog know I stopped playing WoW on 7 August this year. That's a whole three weeks away from the game before I started thinking about playing again. Yea, there should be a support group I can go to.

My new idea was to ease off playing by starting back up only one of the two accounts. I even had a plausible rationale for doing so. First, it would cut the cost of playing in half. Second, while I love to write and spend many hours a day at it, I still need some other outlet outside work. The extra time I had quickly started to get in the way of my better half, who began making pointed suggestions focused on getting me out of the way and out of her hair.

Playing just one account, though, had it's drawbacks. Each account can accommodate a maximum of eleven characters. Not all of the characters I wanted, though, were on the same account. The cost to get all of my characters into the right account was $130, and that was a lot more than I wanted to spend. I went so far as to ask Blizzard to shift characters around for free. The expected answer was No. Ultimately, I moved only one character, Wildshard ("Wild"), which cost $25, and then activated one account.

Changing accounts created some issues I would have to work through. Wild lost his guild affiliation, and will have to ask to be invited in again. Many of the addons that I typically use have to be updated. Wild's user interface (UI) also has to be updated. Wild pretty much stopped playing for more than a year, so a lot of rust has to be shaken off.

Part 2 - I wish I Had Never Left

Despite all of my planning and preparation, I missed a critical element. When I decided to retire from the game, I spent considerable effort cleaning up loose ends so that should I ever return, things would be in order. Well, it didn't occur to me at the time that I would one day want to activate only one account. That oversight, of course, is why I had to pay to move Wildshard and why I decided to leave my level 90 character, Plumrosefist ("Fist"),  behind. I plan to level Wildshard, now a level 85, to 90, with an eye to getting back into raiding. As much as I loved Fist, I had no plans to turn her into a raider.

That decision has come back to haunt me. One of the things that I thought very smart of me was to collect all of the heirloom gear with one character. Very good idea, except that I left the gear with Fist, not Wild. Guess what else she has? Fist has all of the pet battle rewards, too. At least, I think Fist has them. I know for sure that none of the characters in the now active account have them. Guess what that means? I'm going to have to activate the other account, at least for the minimum thirty days. Sigh.

Maybe the silver lining is that I'll now have thirty days to discover what other things I bungled.