I Think I Hate Garrisons

Garrisons, as a functional mechanic, are pretty cool. I am the commander of my own little army of duders who go out and get me gold and loot, I can make them work for me or follow me around, and I build workshops and gardens in my own little outcrop of Frostfire Ridge.

I am master of my domain

I found no fault with garrisons as Warlords made its first impressions. I wrote before about how I actually love follower missions. I thought garrisons were cool and I found that they were entirely optional if you wanted them to be. I was in favor of them as a non-stressful daily activity that gave you access to a lot of cool stuff.

I haven't been playing a lot lately, but I've started to notice something when I do log in.

I hate my garrison.

At first, I wasn't totally sure. When I get the itch to play WoW, there's a certain predetermined kind of feeling I expect to get when I log in. I launch the game and I log into my druid and...

Ugh.

I can't stand it. I'm instantly disappointed just by logging in. I wasn't sure what it was at first. "I guess I'm really just over Warcraft," was my initial thought for the first few weeks.

I've written here and there in several different posts that I'm not sure if it's me or the game - I'm incapable of understanding if I'm just finally over it after ten years or if this expansion really actually sucks. I'm still probably not qualified to make that distinction, but there's one thing I'm finally sure of...

I hate seeing the garrison. It just creates these lonely, disappointed feelings. It doesn't help that my guild is absolutely dead after the calamity, which only helps to amplify how dead my garrison is. It makes the game feel abandoned.

I've taken to hanging out in Warspear. Just existing in Warspear with other players around instantly makes me feel better, and logging into the game while in Warspear keeps that instant disappointment feeling at bay.

just a deer chillin' on the road

I was partially convinced it was just the horde garrison. The desolate, blank and dismal landscape of Frostfire Ridge was not a great choice of where I should spend the majority of my time, surrounded by typical, default horde architectural buildings, especially if all of my friends were going to be repetitive NPCs with nothing new to say or do, ever.

An alliance buddy told me that the Shadowmoon Valley garrison wasn't much better. Still desolate, still lonely.

The concept of the garrison is not awful. In consideration that my garrison feeling lonely and uninviting is "just my opinion," I can't declare that garrisons as a functionality don't have their positives and well done aspects. I still really like follower missions, but honestly I dread going to my garrison to do them. The thing is, phasing out the 'main city' of the expansion so that you see yourself and only you there all the time is, well, it's just awful. It's the worst. I can't even level alts because I'm so sick of seeing Frostfire Ridge's landscapes.

I just hate it.

guess I'll just do Ashran