How have your gaming habits changed over time? What do you focus on now compared to ten years ago?

There was a time when I played mostly in progression guilds in World of Warcraft, when any game I played I at least tried it on hard first, when I felt like game achievements were, if not important, at least interesting to work out the means to achieve. Over the years, though, what I want and need from the video games I play has changed. While I still love gaming and am as engaged in it as I’ve ever been, I do have different goals now.

I neither have the time nor the patience to spend hours and hours bashing my head against a boss fight until they realize they are a loot pinata and keel over. The Dark Souls franchise essentially missed the period where I would have enjoyed playing it by a decade or so. I have a lot of responsibilities nowadays — I can’t just play games all night and then stumble around with massive sleep deprivation the way I could when my guild was doing realm-first C’Thun.

I was always interested in the story of the games I played — I wouldn’t have been a total squealing hyperexcited rodent for Planescape Torment or Xenogears if I wasn’t all about the lore, but I’ve gotten a lot more into the stories games tell and how they choose to tell them. One of the reasons I’m so gaga over Starfield is, in fact, because of how the game chooses to work its mechanics into its narrative, and there’s something about the unreliable nature of the stories Johnny Silverhand tells you that really makes me intrigued with Cyberpunk 2077.

So how about you? Have you changed your focus in WoW? Maybe you once played mostly alone in the open world and now you do a lot of Mythic+ dungeons. Maybe you switched to WoW Classic, or play a completely different game now. Maybe you just play less, or for less total time, or maybe you’re more into the hobby than ever. Share with us how you’ve changed as a gamer.