Graphiya's Garden.

Not like molasses at all. More like a really big bowl of oatmeal.

What I like about many games is the grindiness – the good grindiness – the meaningful grindiness – of something important to me that is gained by the time invested or a repetitive activity endured. However, if I am not growing, more specifically learning, through that activity, then it’s not really meaningful.

I don’t like things to be handed to me. I like to earn them and to understand the cost and benefits in the process. I’d rather make a corpse run over and over until I understand the timing or synergy of my abilities, than have a buddy or well-meaning stranger “help” me take out a particularly tough mob. That’s what makes something a game for me. That’s why I can get engrossed for hours. I’m just working on this one little goal and I’ve almost got it.

Unfortunately, that’s also why I’m not good at grouping. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried.

So the past couple of weeks, I’ve been spending a little time in Project: Gorgon, anticipating the upcoming Animal Husbandry skill addition. I’ve also returned to OSRS where I had started playing as an ironwoman last winter. Have I mentioned I like grinds?

However, now I’ve added WoW and WoW Classic to my personal game roster. Since they’re somewhat unfamiliar territory for me, I’ve been giving them most of my attention. When I first re-subbed in mid-April, I had intended to try Classic. After the first night with a my new dwarf hunter in Coldridge Valley, I had second thoughts. By the second day, I decided to give Retail a look. I hadn’t played for a couple of years, but remembered having fun the last time I played.

And, yes! I really have had fun. With the double XP boost, I’ve been able to take my little Alliance toons to zones I’d never visited before and finally to Outland. Yeah, I finally made it to level 60. So trying new zones and using the achievement panel as a guide, I’ve been sampling story lines, seeing the sights, and trying to understand the lore, a thing I’d never done before.

The only problem is the flip side of the XP-bonus-coin. I out-level the resource nodes for my professions too quickly. It’s boring (non-meaningful grindy) to go back to completed zones or to double up gathering professions on other toons, just to get enough of the right ores and leathers to properly advance my production professions. Those are still all far behind the corresponding combat levels of my toons.

So my initial enthusiasm for Retail has begun to flag somewhat. Much I read disputes the utility of the professions in the current game. I probably should just set them aside and play for the zone stories and the class mechanics. The little internal character RP I do is based on these, of course.

So…I have returned to Classic, and find I can savor that grindiness, after all. Engineering is helpful and easy to keep on level.  I’ve just gotten my pet. There’s a bounce in my step, but the ground is sticky enough to keep me faithful…for the moment.

Yesterday, I mentioned the most important lesson I’ve learned during Blapril – read for joy, write for joy.

A practical next step for me is to learn my tools, particularly the WordPress site tools. For example, I remember that during the first week I was able to create and select tags for each post.  At some point, that option went away. Did I change settings somehow? That kind of fogginess makes me crazy.  Guess I’ll have to read the instruction manual…

At the beginning of the Blapril run, I had planned to focus my playtime and commentary on Project: Gorgon and on Old School RuneScape. I totally blame other bloggers for tempting me back into WoW, of all things. This is not the first era in which I’ve played, but perhaps this time I’ll explore Azeroth for more than a couple of months.

My history with the game began after my final career change, from manufacturing to public education.  As a newly minted high school language arts / special education teacher, still in graduate school, I ran across the work of Peggy Sheehy and Lucas Gillespie (here and here).

Before long, I logged into WoW, joined the Cognitive Dissonance Guild, and was the grateful recipient of gentle newbie guidance from hard-core raiders, most of whom had just spent their daylight hours running college and secondary classrooms. I never progressed beyond mid-level newb-hood, but it was a delightful introduction.

My new Fury Warrior. Gnomes and Goblins lead the best lives.

Well, I do like writing, but I’m afraid I just forget it’s a thing I can do, or even should do. Writing has not been a habit for a long, long time – since before the internet became a standard utility.

Most of my writing for the last twenty years has been for an audience of one – myself. One lesson Blapril has taught me is that posting something online has a great advantage over jotting down ideas in a journal.  It is so much easier to search for a string or a tag in a previous post than to rummage through boxes of old binders and legal pads, looking for an elusive scrap of a half-formed idea.

However, when I started this month of “daily” posting, my intent was to meet and grow into becoming part of an established community of other writers, many of whom I had been enjoying for years. I had hoped to pay tribute to the encouragement and insights I’d so long received while perhaps adding some novel, amusing reflection of my own.

I realize now that was an overly ambitious, nonspecific goal. The first week I read everyone else’s posts daily, recording notes on a little spreadsheet I’d devised. I highlighted ideas I wanted to save for possible future comment and elaboration.

It was fun at first, but it quickly turned into work. Real work. Then I began to feel that I wasn’t really “participating” in the community if I couldn’t comment in a timely fashion. Certainly, it would be self-centered to post without having read what everyone else had to say recently.

So I just dived more deeply into my renewed interested in WoW, and am just now reemerging to say, “Hi. I see the error of my assumptions. How have y’all been?”

I plan to continue by posting as I can, and by appreciating what others have to say as I can.  So many of you are among the kindest, most inspiring folks I “know.”  And I thought that before Blapril ever started.