To Play or Not to Play? That is the question!

Good Tuesday all,

I would like to start off today's post with an explanation of yesterday's end:

The rules in my house regarding my hobby are simple: I'm allowed to make one purchase a month. The value of this purchase is flexible, but it should include no more than 1 box, or 1 box plus accessories.

This 'allowance' was agreed between my wife and I after 9 months graft to get my money out from the red and into the black.

You see, when it comes to money I am rubbish, I always have been and I always will be, so we've created these rules to stop me maxing out my entire payslip on models and not allow for bills and mortgage.

-if anything, id say the current set up is very generous, because my wife is now on statutory pay, she has even less to treat herself.

The reason it's been so long is for one reason: advanced purchases!

You see at Xmas my wife bought me the Dreamer's crew. I knew I would need Day Dreams and a Teddy to make it playable, but that counts as 2x purchases which covered December and January.

Then in January I picked up some GorkaMorka stuff off eBay, that covered my February payment meaning nothing till March's pay.

Since then there have been countless trips to B&Q for modelling supplies, SSX and other things, we're being nice and combining all of that into one purchase.

This means nothing till April, which works for me as there should be plenty at Salute I want to grab.

That said, I've requested 2 days leave for the end of this week, if I can wrangle it (it requires HR getting a data report to me on Wednesday rather than Friday, not easy) then I should be making a trip to Stevenage HobbyCraft. I have no idea how this will fit into the budgeting - I'm sure my wife will be more than happy to let me know after reading this - but there is one thing in particular I've set my eyes on:


They're 1:72 scale, which from what I have read is marginally bigger than GW minis, and as Malifaux is marginally bigger than GW it should be perfect, but I want to see it for myself before I purchase.

Anyway, my thoughts today are of a suggestion a friend on Facebook made, it was about World of Warcraft and arranging some sort of Guild Catch Up.

You see, WoW has been playing on my mind a lot recently, and my wife and I have discussed this in great detail.

It's not that I hate WoW, I don't! As a game I love it, and I have many fond memories there, it's just with the current content Cataclysm, I have very little to do.

You see this expansion has been more difficulty focused than any other before it. Because of a vocal minority, the game has been staggered to make even the easiest of end game tasks very difficult and requiring constant team synergy.

Sure, I know what your thinking: "what's wrong with a game requiring skill?" nothing! I just don't want to have to spend 2 hours planning and running a heroic run after I've been out for 12 hours at work.

The way I see it, I get paid to work, my hobbies that I pay to do, they should not feel like a job.

When I first started playing in TBC? That didn't feel like work. WotLK? That wasn't work either, plus the theme of Northrend and ol' Lichy Poo himself was fantastic.

But Cataclysm, with it's 'IM DEATHWING! I'M A FLAMING DRAGON OF BEARDY HOT MAGMA' yeah it gets old.

So what do I do? I miss playing with the guild, but with my free time existing only in short - baby free - blocks, do I really want to spend my free time playing a game I really don't feel the desire to play?

I think I'd rather wait till Mists of Pandara expansion myself.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley