How to have fun playing WoW Cataclysm (at the end of the expansion)

Let me first of all start by saying that this article is meant for the more experienced World of Warcraft player.

As most people know, World of Warcraft has known many ups and downs, often in combination with the time between the release of a new expansion and the time to pass waiting for that new expansion to be released.
I myself have experienced every World of Warcraft expansion cycle, and despite the fact that knowing that there will be coming a new expansion, the time inbetween the current expansion and the new one can be quite a drag.
If you want to avoid being bored after just a couple of months after the release of a new expansion or content, I have one tip for you: take it slow.
For the casual gamers out there, who spend most of there day at work, university, doing volunteer work or saving whales, and do not have a lot of time to spend in-game this will be much less of a problem. But for those that are dedicated to spend most of their time playing World of Warcraft and finding the new content boring after just a couple of months, you will have to ask yourself the question: what can I do to make the game more fun? Eventhough this article isn't meant for those hardcore gamers, they might learn something here (I hereby welcome you, hardcore gamers).

When a new expansion is being released, a lot of people are having the tradition of playing the game the minute the servers go live and stopping untill they cough up blood and/or pass out in front of their computers. Obviously the magic of being able to step into the new land, grabbing new quests and amaze yourself over the amount of possibilities that lie in front of you is something that you can't wait to experience, and surely you want to taste all of it the minute it becomes available to you. But remember what I said earlier, take it slow. Let the new content be something precious, like a cake. You don't want to eat the cake entirely in one sitting. You want to take a slice and be satisfied knowing that you can enjoy another slice later.
How to do this? One might ask themselves. Well, an example is to read quest texts ("What?! Do quests actually have text?! And they even tell a story?!), this way you can understand the context of the new expansion more and experience the new story line how Blizzard meant it to be. Another simple example is to turn on the sound and music while doing quests and dungeons, this will enhance the magic feeling that you get while wondering around in a new zone/expansion.
If you're too pumped up to rush through the new content (for example: you want to level your main character up to the maximum level) and do not want to take the time to read quest texts or spend too much time looking around exploring the new zones, you can always take these tips and do this for an alt character.

To pass the time between a current expansion and a new expansion, make sure you experienced at least every single bit of the current game. What I mean by this is: are you a pvper and never did much pve? Go for some pve, you might even enjoy it! Are you a new(er) player and never experienced older content: do some older content. And ofcourse if you did all this, there are the countless of achievements you can try to earn; some of them are quite easy and others are hard and take quite some time to complete.
As a casual player I am not set on doing heroic raids, I like to do normal raids. I made this choice not because I'm not capable of completing a heroic raid, but because I do not feel challenged enough to do it. In my eyes it is basically the same content as normal content, but with a little twist. I have to admit that some heroic features in some patches/expansions are quite unique and definitely more interesting than normal bossfights, but generally speaking I like to stick to normal raids.

I am too in the "end expansion" zone at the moment, and I still enjoy the current game without spending too much time to the new(er) content. Right now for example I'm working my way to get the "Insane" title, which is quite a rare title and hard one to get.
Concluding: try to find joy in the little things in World of Warcraft, and save new content so that you can experience it to the fullest.

Skinnyjeanz (EU-Silvermoon) 85 Warlock

Check out my other articles on how to level as a warlock in Mists in Pandaria here and here!
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