Five Game Challenge Day 6 – Shadowlands over for Me Before It Begins?

When it comes to WoW expansions, I have a fairly tried and true process now. It dates back a long way, all the way back to Mists of Pandaria in fact.
The process runs something like this:
- Expansion Announced: But I don’t much care, because I’ve convinced myself I’ve quit wow. (For real this time!)
- Expansion Details Emerge: Still of no real interest to me, though.
- Expansion Launch Date Nears: I suddenly discover that, no, I’m not near so done with WoW as I thought I was. And so I jump back with a fervor toward the end of the previous expansion to ‘get ready’ for the incoming one.
- Expansion Launches: Mad dash to new max level! New gear cap! Heroics! Mythics! RAAAAAAIIID!
- Expansion Launch Raid Content Complete: Quit WoW again. (For real this time!)
And of course it’s circular, eventually starting all over again.

Except this time it’s come off the rails a bit. Right now I should be right into WoW. All about getting some alts of interest geared up and ready to go. At the very least with the expansion itself being so close I should be feeling excited about the prospect of playing that…
But… I’m just not. Instead I already feel some regret at committing to even an admittedly light raiding schedule.
I keep hoping this feeling will change. And it still might when Shadowlands itself arrives. I may yet get swept up in the current of the routine feel and flow of the leveling and gearing process. I’ve long since learnt the folly in thinking I might be forever done with WoW. Yet… Still the thought has crossed my mind.
I even thought to shake things up with a change of main, in class and role. (To a mage!)
Whether or not I end up feeling like playing WoW again or not, I can at least tell you that I know what a large part of my current disincentive to play is. The blasted ‘borrowed power’ mechanics. I am so very done with them. I thought the BFA essences would be gone with the prepatch. Suffice to say I was bitterly disappointed to find out this was not so.
And with that discovery, all interest in playing ahead of Shadowlands itself evaporated.
Will it come back? I don’t know. But I do have to wonder — yet again — if my time with WoW might finally be at an end. (More likely by far though, in a month or two I’ll look at this post and laugh.)