Saturday 10 August 2013

How To Avoid Gold Making Burnout in WoW


Well it's time for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival again, hosted now over at Selltaculars blog & this month, he has a really pertinent question, inspired by a twitter comment from @Wowprofitz! With the latest subscription numbers showing another drop in the last quarter, burnout & people leaving WoW is a popular topic at the moment. It's also relevant to gold making in that markets change as server populations dwindle & of course, less players to buy your stuff off the Auction House!

Burnout is not just for those fed up with dailies though - I wrote about my apathy after reaching Gold Cap for the first time in my 20 Days of Gold Making project and now it seems that the latest bunch of enthusiastic millionaires are feeling the same way. We spend so much time, heavily focused on that magic goal that it can become the only reason for playing so once it's reached - what do you do next?
What keeps driving you to make gold? What do you do to avoid getting burnt out?
This is a tough topic for me in many ways, I had an emotional reason for making gold rather than a practical one. I wasn't raiding, didn't need to spend gold each week to maintain my gear at the highest level, no flasks, gems or repairs to pay for. I just needed something to do alone whilst I licked my wounds from the guild drama that left me wandering lonely as a cloud in game.

I wouldn't say I'm driven to make gold in any way, it's just part of what I've always done from the very beginning. I'm an accountant by trade so gold, making money, playing with numbers is second nature to me and even though I'm not aiming for anything, I still poodle along, craft a bit here, flip a bit there and it's building again, almost without even thinking about it!

I can't even put my finger on what stops me getting totally burnt out with regards to gold making - I'm definitely not as compelled to log in to actually play the game as I used to be & I think the speed of patch releases this expansion has burnt me out in that respect - I just wasn't able to keep up & instead of working hard at catching up, I'm just dawdling along now. I do know that I don't want to stop my subscription though so the gold making is something I do in the way that some people play solitaire on their phones - it kills a bit of time and of course, I need material to write my posts here!

I'm not sure I even have advice to stop you getting burnt out - reading back what I've just written, it seems to me that I'm more burnt out than I realised! I've focused solely on gold making for so long, I find it really tough to be sociable in game. I've stepped down as GM of my guild and I really should try to find a more active one - try to rebuild that social aspect of my game that I loved so much at the beginning and although I've had lovely peeps on Twitter invite me to their servers to play with them ( *hugs to you guys*), I still hesitate for some reason. It doesn't help that certain people keep enticing me to other games either!
So I guess my advice would be
  • don't let gold making become your sole reason for logging in 
  • don't lose your friends & social contacts because you're too busy crafting, milling etc to chat or join in.
  • DO keep doing dungeons, raids, PvP, leveling or whatever it is you enjoy most
  • don't set yourself a big goal far out ahead, set smaller in between ones that you reach & keep going to the next. Hitting gold cap is a big anti-climax so keep going with small goals!
  • DO sit down occasionally & think to yourself - do I still enjoy this or am I just doing it out of habit/boredom?

Having said all that, I do still get bursts of activity - something catches my attention or my mood shifts & I'll have a week of furious achievement chasing or pet battling or something. Or I get a flood of ideas for posts here & they need data so off I go to get it. So I'm not totally burnt out - I'm just not as focused as I used to be!



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