"Life is a cycle, No beginning, no end."

[thistlechaser]

On 9/28/2005 I joined WoW.
I left FFXI for it, after much foot-dragging and months of lingering on the game long after I stopped having fun.
Today, 4/13/2014, I quit WoW for FFXIV.

Want to see something scary? This is the amount of time I spent online on WoW on one character (I had ten total).


More than a year spent on WoW, on just one of my characters. It's a boggling thought. I can't believe how many years I've been playing. I can't believe it took me this long to quit.

As when I quit FFXI, I stayed on WoW too long. Outside of RP (which is player-generated, not something offered by the game), I haven't had fun in two expansions (so about two years). And, as my friends kept leaving for other games, there were fewer and fewer reasons to stay.

I don't know if I'll ever go back. I worry I might run out of things to do on FFXIV. I'm only in my second month, and I'm almost done leveling all the craft and gathering professions (and I don't really like leveling the battle jobs).

I sort of wish I had sold my gold. Doing that is against the rules, but what would they do, ban me? I would have liked to have gotten some RL money out of all that time playing. On both FFXI and WoW, I quit the game as one of the richest people on the server. I've always kicked myself for not giving my FFXI money away (or selling it), so I gave a good deal of my WoW money to a few people.

I'm a little sad to let it go, but I'm sad over the loss of what could have been more than what really was. I had some very good times in the game and some very bad ones, but lately it was mostly all bad. The game felt like a job, something I had to do, which means it was time to go. FFXIV makes me happy. I love the lore, I love the artwork, I have new and old friends I'm playing with. WoW was a part of my life for a long time though, so there will be a hole for a while.

Key for the non-gamers on my friends list:
FFXI = Final Fantasy 11
WoW = World of Warcraft
FFXIV = Final Fantasy 14, A Realm Reborn
All are MMOs/online games.

(Quote in the subject line came from a random online person, though it's hardly original to her.)

Comments

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

You have spent over a year of your life playing one computer game? Heavens to Betsy!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Sort of. I was online for a year on that character, but at the same time I was chatting, watching TV, RPing, online at work, any number of other things (luckily!). Still, a good part of it was likely staring at the game screen!