Where have I gone?

It’s been a while since I wrote on a regular basis!  I wanted to make another post and explain where I’ve gone, because I’ve gotten a few message from people inquiring where I’ve disappeared to.  I haven’t fallen off the face of earth-  I’m still here, but I had to make some decisions in the last couple of months in regards to WoW and this site.

I went browsing through some of my older posts, and there have been several mentions of what I was going to do if something happened to my raid team.  I was worried about what would happen if my team disbanded, that I would be forced to quit raiding altogether.  I was worried about a lot of things, stressing out over my own raiding performance and whether my team was going to make it through the post expansion blues.  I also seriously questioned whether I even still liked to play WoW, whether it was still worth dedicating a good chunk of my time to raiding.  I didn’t realize at the time that my decision to take my leave from WoW were already made, even though I felt that I was on the fence at the time of writing those posts.

Recruiting was tough, especially at the end of an expansion where all enthusiasm has waned, reduced to endless grinding of doing the same thing over and over again as we awaited the release of MoP.  It was a struggle to keep everyone interested in raiding, especially at the end of this expansion.  On almost a strict 10 man roster, we got by because everyone has been so wonderful in their efforts in showing up and plugging away together at bosses in our raids.  We managed to acquire new players, providing much needed relief to players who wanted to take a break from raiding.

I jumped at the chance to take a temporary break from raiding, because at the time I was starting to juggle new responsibilities and real life obligations that were making it hard for me to raid.  I was starting to go insane with all the stress that were happening as I tried to get new projects started so I really needed the break.  It felt impossible to do what I wanted to do and dedicate the same amount of time to raiding at the same time.

I’m tired.  I’m exhausted.  This break would honestly be the first long term break I’ve ever taken from WoW and I have been playing since late BC, just before the release of Wrath- nearly five years ago.  I’ve been playing this game for far too long, that it is no longer entertaining to me.  I still log on once in a while, mainly on my priest, Miriamerle, enjoying playing her as a Disc/Holy priest but that’s the extent of my game play in WoW now.

It is unfortunate that my raid team had to disband, because the replacements who were supposed to cover for me and a couple of players, they quit a while later and that put my raid team back to square one.  I had to come back temporarily, but everyone knew of my wishes not to continue raiding and that I had too much on my plate.  So we finally had a serious discussion on the future of the raid team, to talk about whether we wanted to continue until MoP came out, or stop for now.  Recruiting was tough to start with, and it also did not help that we were nearing the end of this expansion.  Many players had already left for greener pastures in games like Diablo 3, or they simply stopped playing.

We decided to stop raiding, and take the summer off to enjoy for ourselves.  Many of our raiders shared similar feelings, so the decisions were made together as a team.  I haven’t raided in nearly two months, believe it or not!  It wasn’t an easy decision for me to make, because I’m so attached to the WoW community, and I still really do love writing about WoW.  Lack of time was a major contribution to why I wasn’t writing as much, on top of my disinterest in the game.

The time off from raiding has been a god-send to me, because I’ve been able to do things like this…

5×5 Films

This is a film group that I’m part of, I started this with a couple of good friends a few months ago and it’s been going wonderfully.  I’m so incredibly excited about where we’re going to go down the road with this group, and the huge potential it has.  This was taking up most of my time, but some equipment went missing recently, so I was forced to put our first project on hold, a film we have spent three months on so far.  I’m somewhat bummed out by it, but while we figure out our next step, I’ll be redirecting my attention to my own projects.

I’ve really missed writing, so I think that’ll be my next step in kick starting the film group and another website I’ve been working on…

www.ebon-sky.com

I’m really into making digital stuff, pictures in photoshop or editing videos in video editing software.  I also love messing around with themes in WordPress!  That’s why I decided to start this website, it’ll be the home for all of my projects that I do in the future.  You could say it’s a bit like a virtual sketch book, it’s my goal to write about creative processes I go through as I work on projects.  People absolutely love those, it’s always interesting to read what people’s thought processes were, how they approached problems and the kind of solutions they come up with to make it work.

So for the next few months, I plan on just sitting down at the computer and mess around with my God given talents, putting it all to use.  In some ways, this is also going to help me prepare for school, which I will be returning to finish my degree this fall.  This site will eventually be turned into a portfolio site, but right now, it’s just a mish mash of different things that I’m experimenting with it

This is what I’ve been up to, and I’ve been doing very well being busy with a lot of different things.  These things are what I want to concentrate on because I love doing that stuff, and who knows, maybe I’ll make a living doing this stuff one day.  I’m sharing this with all of you because it was easier to just show you guys why I’ve been so damned busy lately, on top of juggling paperwork for applying to school anddddd working at a new job.

This is why I simply can not sustain raiding any more, and I’m just as uncertain for when MoP comes out.  I don’t know if my interest will get renewed, or if this is really the end for me.  Either way, I still don’t regret starting misspewpew.com because if it wasn’t for this site, I wouldn’t have gotten to meet so many great people, online and in person.  It’s opened many doors for me, and I’ve had wonderful opportunities to do things in the gaming industry, that I never dreamed that I would ever get to do.  This site essentially turned into a gate way for me to step through, to explore new horizions that didn’t have anything to do with gaming, like my film group and my personal “portfolio” site.

It’s been an amazing journey, and it’s been a honor having met all of you.  I still have plans on returning to writing on misspewpew.com once I’m able to settle down in my new routine.  I miss writing like crazy, and it’s been driving me crazy not being able to write like this for weeks at a time.  Could I write as a casual player?  I don’t know, but some people have been able to continue running their blogs as casual players, so maybe I can too.

Of course, y’all are totally welcome to follow me on my other sites if you’re also interested in other things, other than WoW.  I hope everything makes sense now why I’ve been away from misspewpew.com for a while.  Make yourself at home there too