Otherwise known as “Why I Don’t Post About New Content Right Away,” I suppose.
Everyone has their own reasons for playing any game in a certain way. It could be that they feel that’s the only way to play, they like playing with people, they like playing at their own pace, or any other reason. While I definitely like being able to play at my own pace, and according to my own schedule, without any guilt, there is definitely a more prominent reason.
Introversion is something that I feel has gotten a lot more press and discussion than it used to. Maybe the internet has just made that discussion more accessible for the general populace. Either way, I feel like it gets cited in, or, and for all sorts of things, up to and including Youtube comedy skits and graphic t-shirts.
I am definitely introverted. I preferred my own company as a child, and often as an adult. I could generally always find a way to occupy myself, even as a young child, and frequently found reading for hours on end to be more engaging and enjoyable than any other activity. I even would forget to eat and drink water.
Introversion does not mean that you don’t enjoy people or that you never want to be social. I prefer small groups and find that I feel drained sooner than some other people. In particularly large and noisy crowds I can even feel overstimulated, overwhelmed, and a bit lost. It’s not generally a pleasant experience and is mostly why I never go to work’s holiday parties or other events if I can manage it.
So then, I can hear people say, do you play a massive multiplayer game? I’m sure every solo or solo-ish player has their own reasons, or variations of a similar reason, but for me it’s that I enjoy the ability to have other people around without having to interact with them. It’s the same reason why I can enjoy busy cities. I can go along, do my own thing, but not feel alone in the world. When I want to be alone there’s always something I can do that doesn’t have a lot of people, or players, around. I can move the General , Guild, and Trade chat channels to other windows that don’t visually fight for my attention. I can be, essentially, pretty alone and solitary when I want to be.
When I don’t want to be alone, I can join a PUG, hang out in a city, join in on a holiday event, lurk in the chat channels, and feel that there is a whole community around me. It’s a nice thing to be part of. It’s also a nice thing to be able to turn off.
When the first Hardcore Classic realms went live I logged in and created a character about five minutes later. My husband and I grouped up and competed for mobs and generally enjoyed the protection of having fewer things available to kill you because there were more people killing them. It was crazy, and hectic, and it was exactly the experience I was curious about. When I got tired, overwhelmed, and frustrated by all the competition for mobs I logged off.
The Hardcore realm release was something of an anomaly. Generally, when there is new content, I hang back for a few days to a week. I want to be able to experience the quests and content without a crowd. I find it easier to focus on what is happening story-wise when I don’t have a lot of players visually inhibiting my ability to see NPCs and chat bubbles.
What I want out of the experience is the story, not the crowds, and so I wait. I wait to play through the new stuff, and I wait to write about it as a result. I know other websites will post previews and content updates super quickly, but this was never meant to be this website.
This is a website where some players, tired of trawling through content and opinions that don’t align with the way they play, might find something to relate to. It might not be as current and up to date as other websites, but hopefully it makes you feel less alone in the way you play the game. I’ll get more content posted soon, it just won’t be as immediate as perhaps we might be used to in this day and age.
warcraftsolo.com 
Leave a comment