What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been Indeed!

All I needed for the What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievement was the Sinister Squashling pet found during Hallow's End. I have been logging on every waking hour since the event started on Monday to trick-or-treat, and was beginning to get discouraged, but as I have found with most of the Holiday Achievements, all it took was a few days of serious commitment!

So I got the squashling in my treat bag this morning, which got me the Hallowed Be Thy Name and What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been achievements. After my initial happy dance and victory flight on my new Violet Proto-drake, I began to question how much of an achievement this all was...

In order to get the drake I needed to complete all 8 of the yearly in-game holiday event achievements (To Honor One's Elders, Fool For Love, Noble Gardener, For The Children, The Flame Warden, Brewmaster, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Merrymaker). Each of these holidays had me running all around Outland and Azeroth or logging on every couple hours and during actual real life holidays!! For a whole year now, every time I thought of a holiday, I would think of this achievement and the fact that I was one event closer to my proto-drake... I don't feel like it's such an accomplishment now, more that it's just kind of sad! Does WoW seriously control that much of my life!?

It has been somewhat lacking in appeal lately, and logging on is becoming somewhat of a chore (especially to get this damn proto-drake), so I am beginning to question why I am playing something I am not having fun with... I have never actually tried to quit WoW before, but I have taken breaks now and again for a few months at a time, but I am wondering if it's time to sheath the sword and give away all my gold to the poor(noobs)...

The social aspect of the game was always what I enjoyed most, meeting and interacting with new people, but lately I can't even keep a guild for over a month, and haven't made any new friends in over a year. Any friends I had made in WoW, I don't speak to anymore, and real life friends seem to be disappearing... I had never really thought that WoW was hurting my life in any way, but maybe all these social, employment, self image issues I have been having over the past few years, are all because of WoW! Looking back, I know I was in a better place before I stumbled into Azeroth 4 and 1/2 years ago, lots of friends, a job, acceptably outgoing, and now not so much...

It would feel like a bit of a waste of 4 years to quit now, leave all my characters and uninstall such a big part of my life... I don't have too much going on either, so without WoW I am kind of worried I would be bored... but maybe I wouldn't be? Maybe ditching the WarCrack would help me have a more normal socially acceptable lifestyle! I am not committing to uninstalling the game or anything... but it is something new I will consider... perhaps I am a bit addicted to it, or maybe logging on is just such a routine now, and I always hate to disrupt a good routine...