The End of the Expansion Blues?

Is it possible that people are already suffering the end of the expansion blues?  I've seen a few posts around the net recently speaking about having that feeling.  There was even one this past week as a reply in the Queue on WoW Insider.  One of the comment on a recent post I had here even suggested the same, that they are feeling the end of the expansion blues.

It makes me think, can we really have end of the expansion blues when the expansion is not even close to over yet.  We still have a full raid tier to go, 14 new bosses to beat, flex raids to try, virtual realms to test, proving grounds to prove ourselves in, and so much more to come.  Not exactly the sign of the end of the expansion when there is still so much more coming.

Add all of that to the fact that they have recently said that a patch 5.5 is not out of the question.  Personally if I had to guess, and I've been pretty accurate on a lot of this junk lately, I would say a 5.5 patch is all but assured based on the current design philosophy of this expansion.  So lets just assume for a moment that we are waiting on 5.4 and 5.5 will come, even if it is a tiny patch, why are so many people feeling those end of expansion blues?

I know there is still a lot for me to do.  I've yet to beat the sha of fear even.  When the first tier ended I was not there yet and I did not go back for it yet.  I will some day.  Do not say I have beat it in the LFR so that means I did beat it because in my mind that does not count.  You need to beat a boss on at least normal, even if it is going back when you over gear it, to actually consider it as you have beaten it.  I would have liked to get ahead of the curve for it and kind of upset I was unable to so with my raid group but I am not overly upset with it either.  It happens.  I am not one of those people that feel the need to beat everything as soon as possible.  As soon as I can get the chance to is fine enough.

I have not even tried to get the dungeon glory achievement after having gotten it early on in the last two expansions.  I'll have to go back one day to get it but I don't do dungeons any more so it would require a special trip.  I have not even started trying to get all the Klaxxi archeology achievements.  The raiding with leashes achievement will continue to elude me as long as I keep getting no pet drops while running it with multiple characters.  My legendary cloak is still at worst 6 weeks away even if I started collecting as early as I could thanks to my horrible drop rate luck.  Thank god for the guaranteed drops now or I might never get it at the rate I was going.

I've still not stepped foot into the brawlers guild even if I bought a ticket right away.  There is a battleground I have yet to even try once and even as someone that does not PvP I would at least like to take a peak at it.  I still have 1 class that has not made it to 90 so I would have all classes at 90.  I still have 5 hunters sitting at 85 that I would like to take up to 90 at some point.

There is so much still left undone in the expansion and we still have a raid patch to come and possibly another small patch some time thereafter.  It is absolutely not like there aren't a million and one things I could be doing.

I still need two of the three warbrigner mounts.  I still only have one of the raptor mounts.  I still need to catch an unborn valk.  I still need to solo this expansions heroics, which is another thing that is different from the previous expansions.  I soloed Nexus within a week of hitting 80 and I soloed VP within a week of hitting 85.  Yet I have not finished one 90 heroic yet even with much more gear.  But that could be from a lack of trying.  Unlike the other expansions I just do not have the time to expend much effort in doing so.  There is always so much to do.

Then on the guild front.  The first tier saw my guild have the worst showing ever progression wise in the history of the guild since I have been in it.  As the raid leader that is all my fault.  I can not pass that to anyone else.  We were still a top 10 guild, so perhaps that just tells you more about the raid tier than it does about our personal ineffectiveness.

It did leave us with a lot to do and keep up busy for a long time.  Which is a good thing right?  Some would say better than burning through it and burning out.  This tier is not much better progression wise.  Only half way through something we should be done with by now.  But at least we are the #1 25 man guild on the server while doing it.  Not really saying much when we are the only 25 man guild on the server however.  But it still sounds nice.

So it is not like we are running through raid content either.  There is still a great deal of big baddies that need to find their blood at the end of our collective swords.  So with so much casual content, solo content, raid content, PvP content and fill in content still left undone, why are other people feeling the end of the expansion blues?

Or perhaps, what they really feeling and just calling it the end of the expansion blues, is actually burn out.

That is what I think it is.  It is not the end of the expansion blues.  It is burn out.  Burn out on a global scale of the game like it has never been seen before.  I suffered it big time back with the double zul hell of cataclysm was par for the course and I felt as if I needed to grind two dungeons I did not enjoy doing over and over. So that feeling is not far off for me and in a way, even if for different reasons.

Why do I think it is burn out?  It is a simple reversal of events really.  We have so much to do that it is hitting people from every direction.  Something that normally does not happen.  Burn out usually will effect a certain part of the player base but now it is effecting so many parts all at once.

The strange part is the reason it is doing that is a good reason.  We are getting more content at faster intervals in more exciting and easier or more challenging difficulty levels. That is great, isn't it?

Well, not exactly. 

The hard core people suffer from burn out because they have to try and keep multiple characters geared which proved uniquely challenging from a time investment stand point.  Last tier they needed to cap and grind rep on all those characters.  This tier they needed to run the LFR to be able to gain valor that would be capable of being spent because it could not be spent without that reputation. 

And the LFR is no better than the zul hell, as a matter of fact it could be worse.  Sure, if you had enough raid teams to run through current raids, which the most hard core of hard core might, you can skip the reputation for gear through the LFR and just do the real raid but if not, all that extra stuff was required and that is a lot of work.  And stressful too if it meant many trips through the LFR.

The casual people that just like to play felt like they had so much they wanted to accomplish and not enough time to accomplish it in.  They wanted to do all that stuff they figured was meant specifically for them.  Dailies, pet battles, the farm, and of course get upgrades in their own way. 

In the first tier it made the dailies feel mandatory as that was the only place to build reputation to spend valor and in the recent tier it meant doing the LFR if you wanted gear   Anything that might feel mandatory to the casual player will be frowned upon, right or wrong.  Not just to the casual player but to anyone really.  When the only way to get any gear for the casual player is with valor gear and that valor gear requires anything more then running an occasional dungeon, it was met with a feeling of outrage as evident from the initial glut of posts about it, and the continued glut of posts about it.

From the all the timers (hard core) to the some timers (casual) to everyone in between there was just so much they felt they needed to do, wanted to do and it was just not possible to do everything.  At least not if you were gainfully employed.

I don't think people are really feeling the end of the expansion blues as much as they are confusing the burn out feeling they are getting with that feeling you get at the end of the expansion where you have been doing the same thing over and over for so long you just want to see a change. 

There are yet to be a moment this expansion where there was nothing to do.  Nothing you wanted to do yes, but always something you could be doing.  I could be running the LFR to gear up alts I do not raid with so if I want to use them they are not far behind.  I could be leveling my warrior so I have all classes at 90.  I could be running more alts through the raids to get the raiding with leashes.  I could be trying to solo a heroic on my hunter like I have in the expansions before this.  There are a lot of things I could be doing.  I just do not want to. 

There has been no down time, no time when you could just sit back and say, okay, I've done everything, now what.  See, that is the end of the expansion blues, that is not what people are feeling now.  There are things they could be doing.  Winning PvP pet battles, chasing achievements, finishing off raids or professions, exploring the world, killing strange and interesting mobs you had not even noticed before because you were too busy running from one task to the next.  They are just burnt out from having so much to do and attempting to do it all.

While end of the expansion blues and burn out could mean the same thing they are not.  People are liking the expansion, more pro than con over all it seems.  It is not like they want it gone but it is like they are burning out.  The reason this feeling is more wide spread than ever before is because it is reaching people that have never experienced the burn out before.  They have only experienced the end of the expansion blues.  That is why they are confusing the two.

This redundant, I've been doing this forever for what feeling, is burn out.  It is not the end of the expansion blues.  For a lot of people this is their first time ever feeling burnt out and it is easy to confuse it.

Mists has done a lot good for the game in my opinion but it also has done something that I don't think it has ever done before.  Cause many different types of players of the game to experience the same thing, burn out.  For many this was their first time ever experiencing it.

Sometimes having a lot to do is a little too much.  Perhaps that is why people are feeling burn out, or the end of expansion blues as some relate it to, because this expansion did not leave anyone out.  It let all types of players experience it.  If blizzard wanted all players from top to bottom to have the same experience with the game then they should hang a huge mission accomplished sign over their headquarters.  They did something I would have figured impossible.  They made vastly different types of players all experience burn out at the same time.

No folk, the expansion is not over and you are not feeling the end of the expansion blues, we still have over a year left of it.  You are just burnt out.  Sucks, doesn't it?

Take a break and come back fresh in a few weeks or a month.  Perhaps that is just what the doctor ordered.  But don't take it from me.  I can give that advice but I never take it.  I play though the burn out.  I guess that is why I am grumpy all the time.