There is a time for everything . . .

. . . and the time for me to stop subscribing to World of Warcraft is now.

That's right. After just over five years, I'm hanging it up as a subscribing player. I'll still play occasionally, since now WoW has gone "free to play" to level 20. But my days of raiding and playing at level cap will end as of next month when my sub expires.

This is not a sudden decision; it's been coming on for the last few months. It's not because I cannot afford it.

Basically, I'm paying for a sub I am not using as much as I once did. I've logged into WoW maybe three times in the last week for maybe an hour or so each. Before this, I was spending in excess of 20 hours a week playing the game or reading up on the game or researching specs, raid strategies, gear, etc.

Now, with all I have going on, I have a different set of priorities.

There's also the fact that Jameece no longer plays. I really enjoyed playing WoW with her. However, she did not enjoy raiding, she hates PvP and is far more into the social element of the game. I like having her along for my adventures.

Finally, there are the changes that went in with the latest expansion. There's some awesome stuff in there . . . but when they dialed the difficulty up on normal mode raids, it hit a point where I could no longer keep up. My reflexes are not that good to start with, so I tend to stand in fire too much for the folks for whom this game is life. In the last expansion, I could keep up with the kids in terms of staying out of the bad stuff. I cannot do that anymore.

Even now that they dialed down the difficulty a bit on the previous tier's raids . . . I just don't have the time or inclination anymore.

Right now I am getting my game itch scratched through Facebook games like Backyard Monsters, Galaxy Online 2. I'm also active in the Central Valley Pathfinder Society, doing table top RPG at Fresno's most awesome game store, Crazy Squirrel Game Store.

I am not rage quitting and it is not goodbye forever. It's a sober recognition that now is the time to go do something else. After all, things change, people change, and under a different set of circumstances I could see myself going back to Azeroth.