On the pre-expansion doldrums

Having grown bored with my shaman, my priest, and my level-cap druid, I have given in to my alt-itis and rolled another alt. This time, he's a warrior, who is currently level 15, and I will likely leave him there for a while since he ran out of rested experience this morning. I did roll a rogue before him, but I have more-or-less decided that my inevitable Worgen alt will be a rogue, so I dropped that idea out of fear of becoming bored with the rogue class before Cataclysm comes out. I knew I wanted to play a class that was as melee-based as possible, though, so if a rogue wasn't in the works, a warrior seemed like an acceptable substitute. Thus far, he has been pretty enjoyable to play, his lack of survivability notwithstanding, and he is serving his function as a pre-expansion diversion quite well.

And yet, playing my warrior alt is a bittersweet experience, and that bitterness comes from the fact that he'll likely be more fun to play in a few months. Once Cataclysm is released, the questing will be more enjoyable, the more even rate at which I learn new moves will make the evolution of the class as I level it up more interesting, the quests (from the looks of it) will reward more useful gear, etc. In other words, I won't fear leaving Bloodmyst Isle for the older content; hell, I may look forward to is. Those are the pre-expansion doldrums, and I'm sure many players are feeling them right now. The raiders are probably feeling them because it seems pointless to try to get better gear when the expansion will make that gear meaningless. PvP'ers might not be feeling it as much, because PvP always seemed to me to be a part of the game that derives the most its fun from the experience itself, rather than the obtainment of the end goal. The manifestation that is affecting me the most, however, is the knowledge that leveling alts is going to be more fun once Cataclysm comes out, so any alt I level now won't be as fun to play as it will be. Thus we are forced to ask ourselves: why play when the game is going to get so much better?

Thankfully, there's one question I asked myself that re-motivated me to continue leveling alts: isn't it still fun? Most players would say yes, and then follow it up with some "but" about Cataclysm. But here's the thing; as it is now, the idea that leveling alts will be more fun after Cataclysm comes out is just an abstract concept floating about in our minds, the result of news and announcements about an expansion pack that we have not yet experienced (well, that those of us who are not in the beta have not yet experienced). We are comparing our current gameplay to content that we have only heard about (in descriptions and announcements) or perhaps seen (in screenshots or videos). Thus, we are our own obstacles when it comes to playing before the expansion is released, because the game we are comparing our current experiences to exists only in our mind. Yes, it does technically exist on those beta servers and in Blizzard's development HQ, but in our own realm of experience, it's just in our minds. Once I recognized that, my warrior no longer felt bittersweet to play.

Of course, that can't change the fact that it's more efficient for me to use an AoE ability as my primary attack than a single-target ability that is probably supposed to be my main attack, but at least it allows me to feel more intelligent about the way I play my character. And hey, it's still fun.