The thing with WoW is that it doesnt really matter if you press the Enter key or not since even if you do go ahead and delete your character you can still come back a few months later, send an E-mail to the customer support saying that you needed a break from the game and deleted your character but now want it back and you can have it restored to the point where you last logged out. Ok so your character would be naked since you threw away your gear but that can always be obtained again.
I find it interesting how it seems that a lot of WoW players seem to be unable to walk the middle path between actively playing and not playing at all, often its either one or the other. Ok a lot can depend on wich part of the game you are on and in wich kind of guild you are in, people in the so called hardcore raiding guilds may have tougher time trying to fit the game in with real life obligations due to the fear of losing a spot in the guild should they suddenly decide to cut back on gaming whereas someone who is still leveling up may be hooked to the whole questing thing and getting those missing levels.
I play/played in a casual raiding guild of a sort, we are serious about our raiding but we only raid 3 nights in a week since a lot of us have real life matters to attend to and its been working quite nicely since 3 x 3 hours in a week isnt exactly impossible to do and we've progressed into the 25 man content with Hydross the Unstable downed in SSC, Gruul and Magtheridon both have kicked the bucket and we have poked our noses into The Eye. I think we've done alright seeing that we dont raid that often when compared to some of the other guilds who raid way more and i still remember some of the reactions and crap people were throwing at us when we first announced the birth of the guild a few years ago. People were saying things like "Casuals wont get anywhere in the game" and "Have fun raiding UBRS ( 10 man instance and one of the tougher ones in the old content ) over and over again", those comments became a driving force for us to progress and we've showed the doubters repeatedly that the more casual gamer can still progress with the right attidude.
With that said however, i myself have on a few occasions got into the whole "i quit this crap" mood and decided to leave the game behind but ive come back to it eventually after realizing that its a fun game and i miss it. Ive never understood the whole deleting your character thing though and ive decided that i will never do it myself since it would be such a waste so instead ive started to simply play less. First i started to slowly cut back on the amount of hours in the game, partially due to boredom and partially because i wanted to. Then i only came online for raids and to grind some consumables for them and these grind sessions lasted only about 2 hours once per week.
Now a week ago i got a bit fed up with the attidudes of some players in the guild during raids and i found myself being quite cranky after raids so i decided that a small reboot was in place and made the decision to simply not renew my subscription for the time being wich also gave me the chance to concentrate more on the contents of The Orange Box and check out some of the new changes in EVE Online and play other games on the consoles like PGR4 and im thinking of checking out Sam & Max Season 1 and Rogue Galaxy too. When i told my guild that i havent renewed my sub, most of their reactions were similar, they all thought that im gone for good and ive once again done the whole "i quit" routine that so many have before me even though i said that i might be back as soon as the next week, some members have been sending me PM's on the forums asking if im alright and all kinds of hassle and some people who i used to communicate with regulary via different instant messaging programs have now suddenly stopped communicating with me almost completely.
The lack of communications outside of the game from some members wasnt the thing that surprised me. What did surprise me was the thinking of several people, a lot of the guildies seem to think that ive completely quit the game just because i decided to go away for a week or so.
