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Food for Thought: When to Say When
By Cameron Sorden | June 18, 2008
Monique of Girls Don’t Game wrote an autobiographical post about her experiences as a hardcore raider in the well-known WoW guild Death and Taxes recently, and it really got me thinking. I’ve been a semi-hardcore raider in a serious raiding guild since sometime in March of this year. It was sometime in April, I believe, that we ramped things up a bit by merging with another guild and started the current mandatory three-night per week raiding schedule that I’ve attended religiously, with a few notable breaks and exceptions, for almost three months now.
I originally got back into the game on the invitation of some good friends with the promise of getting to play with some cool people who were capable of doing 10-man instances together. When I started over on my current server in February, I solo leveled to 70 at a crazy pace (181 hours played) for someone who was a full-time college student with a part-time job, but fortunately it was during my last semester and I was able to do it without my grades or work suffering (although my sleep schedule sure suffered).
I had a blast for a long, long time. I met some great people who were a ton of fun to group with, and I’d actually consider some of them friends: people I’d be willing to go hang out with outside of Warcraft. It helped that these were prior friends of the guy who sucked me back in to begin with. We were a close-knit, fun-loving crew that had a good time whenever we were on together. No fighting about loot, no pressure.
Over time, we collapsed a few smaller guilds into our own, with the promise of the same laid-back atmosphere and opportunity to raid 10-mans that we were enjoying. Eventually, however, running Karazhan and heroics while making occasional excursions into ZA or joint-effort Gruul’s wasn’t enough for some people. We lost a few members to real raiding guilds, and we decided that we wanted in on that action.
We handed off the guild leadership to a seasoned veteran who didn’t really want the job, but he stepped up admirably. With the help of a few key officers, our guild transformed in just a few weeks into a well-oiled machine that’s managed to burn through Gruul, Mag, SSC, TK, and now Hyjal and BT. It’s been an absolute blast seeing those fights, getting to go to those places, and being a part of a team that slew Kael’thas after three solid nights of attempts.
But it’s the nature of the raid game to chew people up and burn them out. There isn’t much room in endgame raiding for laid-back, casual fun. I’ve watched “the regulars” change at an alarming pace over just a few months, and the names I know and enjoy seeing in guild chat seem like they’re on less and less, only to be replaced by random people I don’t know at all.
After a while, you start to wonder what the point is. Why I am I spending time reviewing raid strategies, learning how to maximize my DPS, and showing up three nights a week when I only really know and like maybe six or seven of the 24 people I show up for? Seeing endgame is cool, and loot is great, but I watch all the fights in advance and know exactly what to expect anyway. Loot only lets me pass another gear check on the way down the treadmill (despite how alluringly it shines). Am I addicted to something that isn’t really fun without even knowing it?
Most of the friends that started with me on this server, the people I know in real life, don’t even play anymore. With one or two exceptions, the only people left are the ones I met when I came here. The game is even starting to wear on them, though. There have been a few whispered conversations about burnout, about how tiresome the raiding game is sometimes. Why do we do it? At what point is getting that next uber item just not worth the time you’re investing into a game you play with mostly strangers?
What else are you going to do at 70, though? I like playing WoW. I could just walk away, but this is my hobby, and WoW is the game I keep coming back to. Leveling another 70 is about at appetizing as eating roadkill, and at least raiding gives me something to do, somewhere to go flex the gear I’ve collected. Even if gaming hasn’t taken over my life (other than the fact that I write about it for a living), at some point you still have to wonder if the effort is worth the reward.
I think I’d be happier in casual heroics and 10-mans with my friends. Food for thought.
Topics: Random |
June 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Good post Cam.
I am in a guild similar to what yours used to be. The guild as a whole is currently working on Vashj and have downed one boss in Hyjal and one in TK - nothing in BT or Sunwell. Myself personally, I’m only recently 70 and have done Kara twice and a couple heroics. I like the casual pace of optional raids, doing heroics with my friends, and working on dailies and stuff. The day my guild becomes the type with mandatory 3 day/week raiding and that kind of turnover is the day I leave it. I did that once already in WoW (in the days of BWL/Naxx) and I’m not doing it again. =)
Come play on my server. =)
June 18th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I agree. I’ve done a few 25 man raids, but I think the smaller heroics and 10 mans are more fun because they are small an you can do them with friends, rather than a group of strangers.
And I think Blizzard understands this, and wants to capitalize on it by making the 10 man and the 25 man raids out of the same instances in the next expansion. No more needing to see different content, its all going to be in the same place, just harder. I think this will reduce the stress of people feeling like they are missing something if they don’t do the 25 man stuff.
June 19th, 2008 at 6:40 am
I’m only doing 10 mans on my Belf, and I have refused to do any 25 mans (but still doing 2 raids a week on my Alliance).
Our Horde guild is small, and cannot do 25 mans without either joining up with other guilds, or massively recruiting. So far the guild has resisted both options, but I know one or the other is already being proposed.
I’m looking forward to Wrath, so that we can continue doing the 10 mans.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:31 am
You can’t discount the fun you had while the times where good. I do have to say, I had fun raiding–but things change.
After a 5th reroll to 70, I too can’t fathom another one when I’m only bored. I decided to join the PvP train that Blizzard is setting forth as the new direction for WoW. Now, it’s the AFK’ers and general lack of teamwork thats getting on my nerves.
I’d like to do the 10 mans and 5 man heroics. A no 25 man rule would be nice.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I just decided to quit until WotLK comes out, so iu can get together 10-12 people so i don’t have to question their intelligence and raid all 10-man content, without ever expanding in size.
The more and more i think about it, 2 raiding nights/week is probably the schedule for me.I am quite active in TF2 clan, which is night and day difference, i can talk with them, laugh with them and I’m quite confident i can meet them in RL and actually enjoy being with them, something i can’t say about my raiders.
June 21st, 2008 at 10:30 pm
[...] very illuminating article appeared at Random Battle this week. Coincidentally Cameron has summed up where I am with regard [...]
June 24th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
“But it’s the nature of the raid game to chew people up and burn them out. ”
That’s pretty much the conclusion I came to over the course of TBC. I really like raiding, I don’t especially like having to be raiding 4 nights a week. And I wasn’t gutted when my raid imploded and I could go join a friends’ guild and play more casually. But at the same time, I miss the actual raids.
What I really don’t know right now is how much I want to go through the same thing again in the next expansion. It’s so very draining to keep trying to support a raid, then watch it dissolve, then find another one and do the same thing again. I just want to hang out with my friends and have some fun. Not to sign my social life away or have to turn friends away because they’re not well geared enough or not the right class.
And while they are at it, all classes/specs need to be viable in heroics.