Going to be a long one people, so buckle in if you want to read it, or if not I’ll leave a helpful TLDR at the bottom.
I came to a painful realisation over the weekend, one I always knew was coming but never knew how close it was. I think my role playing days are behind me.
I still love WoW (mostly) and I still love the idea of stories happening in WoW with players, I still fantasise about the things that my characters could be doing in the world and dreaming up new characters with rich backstories. But I don’t really want to play them anymore, the motivation just isn’t there anymore.
I rarely log into the game these days, mostly due to a lack of time on my part. Since I got married my playtime reduced drastically, not because being married means you don’t have any time, but suddenly I found myself wanting to do things that weren’t WoW. Then when my daughter was born earlier this year, she took up the remaining free time that was left, and I don’t begrudge that for a moment.
But this weekend I managed to get a bit of time to come in-game and maybe do a bit of RP. Exciting!
This is a rare occurence for me, the last long stint of RP I did would have been sometime during Warlords of Draenor and then only bits and pieces after Legion was released. Finally then I get an opportunity to do all of this backlog of RP that I’ve been thinking up.
What did I do then with this weekend?
Bugger all.
I sat around the Valley of Honour like a common statue, watching things happen around me with some interest but not wanting to actively engage. I was a living Pet Peeve. I almost put “approachable” in my TRP for a bit of irony.
At first I thought it was because I was just too lazy or out of practice to approach people, but after a few hours I realised it was because actually I didn’t really feel like role playing. I wanted to play Cities Skylines or reinstall KotOR2, get through the backlog of games I have or just go out for a walk.
Why is this so important? Well for me it’s kind of a hard thing to let go of. Role playing has been a huge part of my life, as I’m sure it is and has been for a huge swathe of people here on Argent Dawn.
When my family collapsed when I was a teenager, role playing was my way of escaping that and living out lives that were exciting and important and within my control. I lived my life entirely through online role play, not engaging with the outside world and effectively being a shut-in right up until my early twenties.
Perhaps that’s for the worst overall, but those memories and experiences I had in those years online were as real and powerful to me as any that another person might have had in the real world.
Times spent with friends in Azeroth and in the universe of Star Wars engaging in epic conflicts and developing our characters over periods of months and years. Just as valuable to me as having a real campfire with friends on a summers evening.
It’s difficult to explain this to someone who hasn’t lived it like we have.
So that’s why I am writing this here, because I am mourning for a part of my life that is seemingly behind me, for better or worse. I can’t accurately describe the depth of feeling I have for it to my wife, who would do her best to understand, because she has no context for it.
But you do.
We all role play for different reasons, I’m sure a lot of you can’t relate to this because your reasons and motivations are something else entirely. But while I don’t know many of you, have never interacted with many of you, we share a common thread and I’m grateful that you exist.
It’s because of you and my experiences that I would never forsake playing on a role play server, even if I never intend to actively engage in it again. Because at my heart I am still one, I still want to play in a world where character stories are evolving around me and are visible as I play because it makes the experience that much more enjoyable.
Sorry for the long rant here, but there is no other audience I could share this with that would be able to understand where I’m coming from.
Love, Akamito <3 (and his uncle)
PS: I’m not leaving Argent Dawn, just not going to be roleplaying.
TLDR: Realised that I don’t really want to RP anymore, RP has been a significant part of my life and I can’t share how weird an experience this is with anyone other than other RPers.
life changes, evolves, adapts. Like as not, in a few years time, either something new will come out that refreshes your enthusiasm or you’ll perhaps dip back in to WoW and find it more to your liking then.
