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A year of World of Warcraft.
The beginnings
I wanted to write this down for a while now, but today I'm in the mood. I've been a World of Warcraft player for about a year now at maxlevel. I just checked my achievement, I hit 80 on the 8th December 2009. I was playing on the worst German server, Area 52. During my leveling I was invited to the „best“ alliance guild on the server by a friend, some very old Broodwar verterans may remember him as Avenger, former admin for the Germany-A Nationalteam.
My motivation for playing back then was mainly of social nature. I've moved just a few days ago into a new town and I'm not a very outgoing person and don't find new friends easily. WoW and my guild provided my needs for social interaction, especially since because of the economic crisis quite a few guildmates were online as much as I was. I played 5 raids a week (2+1 10man, 1+1 25man), but my online times were more close to 12 hours a day, every day. Unfortunately, the players were – with two or three exceptions – extremely bad.
A break and reorientation
Sometime during the summer, when a friend of mine really put an effort in getting me out of the house, I left that guild and transferred to a really full server. I wanted to cut back my time spent playing, and since raiding was most of the fun for me I decided to go to a server where I can get a random raid every hour of the day. That went good until early fall. I transferred back to my old guild, but got no raidspot. So I was just lurking around, idling in Dalaran. Around that time someone I met during leveling came along, he was the guildmaster of the former best alliance guild on that server but they transferred all away. He came onto the Teamspeak to chill a bit with old mates, and he told me that he is starting up a new guild for Cataclysm. Knowing his hardcore background (meaning he was a hardcore raider for the better part of the past six years) I was immediately hooked and transferred once more to join him. Life was good, until Cataclysm.
Another bubble burst
The expansion hit, I and two others started leveling like mad and began grinding heroics about 24 hours after launch. At the end of the week, we had our best in slot dungeon items, but except two others no one else was 85. The two who were were nowhere near their gear they needed for raiding.
We began looking for other players on the server who were as far as we were, and started doing random raids two days a week. The official guildraids didn't start until the beginning of January.
We were doing 10man raids, and had quite some talented players. Unfortunately, they were never there. So here I was again, stuck with six to seven players who wouldn't notice if the floor beneath them in real life was burning, instead of the promised land of fairly skilled progress raiding.
I myself buried myself whenever I was bored ingame into theorycrafting. After a year of following every discussion, playing with spreadsheets and closely monitoring how other extremely skilled players of my class reacted in certain situations through livestreams and killvideos, I became a fairly good player myself.
A new hope... or not?
In the middle of January, I finally decided (thanks to a hard push from someone who was sick of hearing me whine about how bad my guildmates are) to leave this guild behind and apply to a hardcore guild. I thought it would be the natural end of the road for a WoW player with ambition. Become good at your class, find a guild with twentyfour other good players, slay dragons. I really thought I knew what was expecting me.
Here I am now. After about a year of on and off raiding, I play in one of the very best guilds of my country, my region and the world. And I am not happy. Or am I?
Instead of the end of the road, the journey just begins. The atmosphere is loud, heated, aggressive. Twentyfive really big egos, contained for twenty hours per week in a single channel. The pressure is insane, every single wipe gets analyzed during the corpserun, and pray to god you didn't make a mistake. Expectations of everyone are through the roof. Playing flawless while doing 30k DPS is the aim because in theory, it's possible. In reality, its more like little mistakes – that don't wipe the raid though - and about 24k DPS. Healers that are untouchable in other guilds are under close scrutinity. Tanks have to put threat out like theres no tomorrow, coordinate the raid and generally yell at everything they see. You know, situations that cause almost all other guilds to cancel a try are in fact saveable if everyone does the right thing. Even if your mistakes have nothing to do with the wipe, you will get called out during the corpserun.
Sounds like heaven for every ambitious progress raider, right? Well here's the truth why I am not sure whether to be happy or not. I'm not quite there. I fancy myself a good player, but I still have much to learn to compete at that level. I am good, but not exceptionally awesome. After only one year, I have achieved more than 99% of raiders will ever achieve. In the past four weeks, I have learned so much more than the other 12 months before but I still don't perform as good as neccessary for top level raiding.
What now?
I'm torn. With a reasonable time investment (raiding times being 19:00 – 23:00, Sunday – Thursday) I know I can learn so much more and get so much better within another three months. But I really don't enjoy being the one person in the raid who is constantly underperforming. I have the „make no fucking mistakes“ down by now, but am still not able to keep up with the average DPS and facing to get kicked out of the guild. Plus it's not much fun getting yelled at 20 hours a week. In addition to that, I would really like to try out tanking, but there is no chance in hell I would be able to play on that level without any tanking experience. On the other hand, I finally play with people I wanted to play with since I started playing, and the feeling when a boss finally dies for the first time is just... unbelievable. And as someone warned me before I joined my current guild, I you have once, just once experienced raiding on such a high level, you can never go back to playing with average players. And it's true, I'm currently tanking an alt raid for my very first guild, and I get almost physical pain seeing how bad they are.
Today is the last day of the European ID, and I'm considering leaving after tonights raid.
What would you do?
 
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I would post this on a WoW board.
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You got what you wanted. You need to ask yourself what you want now.
The conventional wisdom is this: When you make a post like this, you've already made a decision and you're asking for people to validate it for you. Wow is a game and you're playing it to have fun. Do what's fun.
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Everyone thinks they'll be happy after killing some insane boss or getting a rare piece of loot. And they are, but only for a short moment. I saw 2 OFFICERS of my guild going into semi-retirement after getting Shadowmourne, and they're supposed to be the most dedicated people in the guild. Personally, after acquiring the best raid gear possible in WotLK (except that on H LK), I stopped raiding 2 to 3 weeks later, sick and tired of having "wasted" a few months of my life.
The gap in happiness cannot be fulfilled by virtual achievements. It is a never ending rat race that perpetuates itself in real life and especially in MMORPGs. So in my opinion, find something you really like DOING. It should be an activity, and not a goal, because once you reach the goal, there is only emptiness again. Sports, dating, reading, etc. can give you a lasting feeling of joy. And no one else can tell you what you will like, but whatever it is, let it not be a computer game again.
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On February 23 2011 01:58 Vinnesta wrote:
Everyone thinks they'll be happy after killing some insane boss or getting a rare piece of loot. And they are, but only for a short moment. I saw 2 OFFICERS of my guild going into semi-retirement after getting Shadowmourne, and they're supposed to be the most dedicated people in the guild. Personally, after acquiring the best raid gear possible in WotLK (except that on H LK), I stopped raiding 2 to 3 weeks later, sick and tired of having "wasted" a few months of my life.
The gap in happiness cannot be fulfilled by virtual achievements. It is a never ending rat race that perpetuates itself in real life and especially in MMORPGs. So in my opinion, find something you really like DOING. It should be an activity, and not a goal, because once you reach the goal, there is only emptiness again. Sports, dating, reading, etc. can give you a lasting feeling of joy. And no one else can tell you what you will like, but whatever it is, let it not be a computer game again.
Very interesting post. Will have to think about that.
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On February 23 2011 01:58 Vinnesta wrote:
Everyone thinks they'll be happy after killing some insane boss or getting a rare piece of loot. And they are, but only for a short moment. I saw 2 OFFICERS of my guild going into semi-retirement after getting Shadowmourne, and they're supposed to be the most dedicated people in the guild. Personally, after acquiring the best raid gear possible in WotLK (except that on H LK), I stopped raiding 2 to 3 weeks later, sick and tired of having "wasted" a few months of my life.
The gap in happiness cannot be fulfilled by virtual achievements. It is a never ending rat race that perpetuates itself in real life and especially in MMORPGs. So in my opinion, find something you really like DOING. It should be an activity, and not a goal, because once you reach the goal, there is only emptiness again. Sports, dating, reading, etc. can give you a lasting feeling of joy. And no one else can tell you what you will like, but whatever it is, let it not be a computer game again.
ehh, there's no reason it can't be a game, some people really truly love gaming. The important part is finding something that you enjoy the actual process of doing, not just the eventual goal or the notoriety that comes with being really good at it. It can be really hard to find this, so don't give up and just keep trying new things until you find some.
As long as you really enjoy the process it doesn't really matter what the activity is....Sure, if you spend tons of time playing SC or whatever then at the end it was only a game, but so is a career in basketball or as a stock broker. Whether its a videogame or art or real life, everybody dies at the end. Its the way it made you feel that is real.
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whats the point in raiding if u dont even compete against other players in pvp or w/e other competitive modes there are. wow just seems so pointless after u've finished all the quests and maxed out...
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And as someone warned me before I joined my current guild, I you have once, just once experienced raiding on such a high level, you can never go back to playing with average players.
This right here. I know exactly what this is like about a year ago i started playing wow again on a hardcore level in both arenas and raiding. I joined the best raiding guild on my realm with two friends I had met online whom i did arenas with. I had always been mainly a pvp player never getting into hardcore raiding in BC but decided to give it a go in WOTLK. The main problem I had with trying to play with real life friends bless their hearts i love them, is that they just dont understand that even though they do 70% of things right with just a little reasearch into their character and class they could be playing so much better. It made me quit playing a game because i couldnt play with the very friends that got me into this game int he first place. So nowadays i just play counterstrike and starcraft on a more casual level even though i loved everything about wow PVP and i considered PVE and raiding as just a giant math problem that once everyone got was EZPZ.
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Sevyrn, i can relate to everything you said. Going from hardcore to casual blows.
I've played MMOs for 10 years and though it was fun,i wasted so much time. A never ending grind that nets you nothing. I would just stick to games where the decision making rests on your shoulders alone. So refreshing when your schedule isnt dictated by 24 other people.
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Hardcore guilds (or, at least, iterations of the same hardcore guilds) hardly last longer than it takes to finish a particular instance. After that the guild either splits, dissolves or explodes into a drama hydrogen-bomb.
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Joining a 10-man only guild really takes a lot of stress off. After raiding for 3 years in Vanilla/Wrath I fell in love with wraths 10-man format.
-Less of a time commitment to Raiding
-Fewer people means closer knit community.
-Less drama
10 mans can get away with 4-hours a night, 2 nights a week and still be progressing. Less time commitment to raiding means more time for other things which is a plus. Having a closer guild also magnifies the WoW experience. 25-man guilds tend to have cliques and elite groups which make it so most of your fun comes from downing bosses, but downing bosses with 9 of your really good friends is infinitely more enjoyable.
WoW was a social experience for me and the last 2 years that I played (small guild in wrath) were the most enjoyable even though it had the worst raiding content of all the expansions.
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Join a more casual raid guild that still gets things done, but not as strict.
My guild is just now starting 25 heroic raids, yeah way behind, but it's really stress free and a lot of fun. Nobody takes it too seriously.
On top of that, since we usually finish a raid instance 100% (including heroics) a few weeks before the next patch, there are never periods of months of doing nothing new, which causes people to burn out fast.
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On February 23 2011 04:56 bonifaceviii wrote:
Hardcore guilds (or, at least, iterations of the same hardcore guilds) hardly last longer than it takes to finish a particular instance. After that the guild either splits, dissolves or explodes into a drama hydrogen-bomb.
My current guild is around for over 4 years now, have been on top of the game for the same time and are going nowhere anytime soon.
Anyhow, the problem really is that my perception of players and the game have changed so much since I'm playing with them. However, I will /gquit tomorrow and reroll on my warriortank and find me a nice place with two raid nights or maybe three.
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On February 23 2011 05:03 phant wrote:
Join a more casual raid guild that still gets things done, but not as strict.
My guild is just now starting 25 heroic raids, yeah way behind, but it's really stress free and a lot of fun. Nobody takes it too seriously.
On top of that, since we usually finish a raid instance 100% (including heroics) a few weeks before the next patch, there are never periods of months of doing nothing new, which causes people to burn out fast.
This is the way to play WoW PvE.
Grab 10 or 25 guys you actually like and don't start hating just because one of them wiped you two times in a row and get slow but steady progress done whiteout overworking it.
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It is possible to play on a lower level again celial, I've started raiding MC in classic with casual guys, having fun. Then joined the top guild on the server and experienced hardcore raiding for 5 god damn years... It was fun, it was a lot of time, some of it should have definitely been spent differently
but in the end I don't really regret playing this way (btw that top guild was there for almost 6 years, so no, hardcore raids don't vanish after on instance or something like that, only bad guilds with people who can't do shit together because they actually hate each other experience that)
my point is, now I'm raiding 10s for 2 nights a week, and I don't take things so seriously because there is no f*cking point in it.
Think about how you spent your evenings, you go online or already are and get invited, and from then on it's like 6 hours of "I hope this is over soon... should I just fake dc??"
THAT IS NO FUN!!! competitive raiding can be hella fun and you will be like "that's not just a game for me, it's a hobby I like and I want to win, that's fun for me"
but be sure you actually have fun with that, think about it because otherwise you'll sink alot of time in this game for no reason.
BUT:
If you do have fun raiding like that, and don't see yourself wanting to stop raiding in a competitive guild, then I can only repeat myself, It can be a hell of fun.
But to be really good you have to invest a lot of time into the game outside of raids.
You probably know this at least you should but: you have to be sure that every single attribute on your gear (be it ench's/reforged stuff/glyphs basically anything) is the right thing to have at that point. you have to have your gems planned out so that you really get the max, even if it would cost 1000g to get 1 of something more in total, you have to do that, stuff like that counts believe it or not.
well.... in the end I can also say, players who didn't perform well right from the start usually didn't last long but some made it, people can be harsh but they don't just hate you.
In my experience they will always turn out nice if you improve and show that you're not bad.
well that was a lot of text but.. there is no tl;dr !
gl and most importantly: have fun
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On February 23 2011 01:58 Vinnesta wrote:
The gap in happiness cannot be fulfilled by virtual achievements. It is a never ending rat race that perpetuates itself in real life and especially in MMORPGs. So in my opinion, find something you really like DOING. It should be an activity, and not a goal, because once you reach the goal, there is only emptiness again. Sports, dating, reading, etc. can give you a lasting feeling of joy. And no one else can tell you what you will like, but whatever it is, let it not be a computer game again.
I can personally vouch for this. I played a warrior during wrath and it had always been my dream to get Gladiator, and once I did it was absolutely not what I expected. The happiness lasted for literally 2 minutes, where it went "Cool I got Glad. Now what?"
I quit a couple of days later. Vinnesta is absolutely, completely right. Virtual achievements amount to absolutely nothing at the end of the day. Can you honestly ever remember your first "epic" piece of loot? And if you can, looking back at it, was it everything you dreamed it would be?
Not to sound like a party pooper, but you're only going to live once. And there's really no replacement for spending time in real life with your friends, hanging out, playing sports etc etc. Even if you have an absolutely shitty day, feeling human contact and sharing your achievements with them is what you need to feel truly happy. And don't even get me started with girls.
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I've been in a few very high end guilds, one of which was amazing and the other one was method (i.e. ego fest central).
I'd advise you to find a guild where you like the people. So many players pick guilds based on basically gearwhoring, but the most important thing is the people you're spending your time with.
The other advice i'd give is to just focus on your own game. Don't get upset with other people if you cannot consistently play perfectly yourself. And yes unlike SC, in WoW the skill ceiling is low enough for perfect play.
The best time I had in WoW was when i was in a guild of fun (and borderline mental) guys, all of them decent players and i could just focus 100% on improving my own play. Boss kills, items, achievements etc are all worthless as blizz will always release newer, better ones. Instead, try to enjoy the challenge of taking down the harder stuff and enjoy the atmosphere in your guild.
edit: Or just play starcraft like a boss
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Haha yeah, I'm currently back to nerding SC2 :D
Method you say? Well you guys are sick fuck grinders. Props to that. I personally would never be able to progress 16 hours a day.
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To the OP:-
I am actually the same situation as you. I've only really played WoW after TBC came out, and just before WoTLK. In Vanilla i was a scrub just playing for fun and fooling around on AV at level 60.
in TBC I decided to see what the fuss was all about, since i live in Singapore, there's no real point in me trying to PvP hardcore arena, I decided to focus on the PvE aspect of the game. I got into my 1st Raid.
So on and so forth, until i was raid leader for my guild's run in SSC and Tempest Keep. I've gotten my guild to do full Karazhan runs in like 2hours due to my experience and knowledge of the members to let them do what they do best. Even tho we're not the best, I was having clearing content. That was the beginning to my addiction, having such a good experience.
However real life intervened, i was called to serve my country and i left the Guild. When i finally had some free time to myself, i came back and found that the guild was disbanded almost immediately after i left. It was sad for me, but i figured its a chance for a new start.
Thus i went looking for a new guild. This new guild that i joined was supposedly "Casual Hard-core", as oxymoron as it sounds.
Casual Refers to only raiding 3nights a week, 4hours at a time. Hardcore means your expected to put out the best performance you can just like a hardcore player.And they were clocking extremely good raid results.
I was ridden upon to improve my poor DPS every single raid. I was called out for every single mistake.and the best part? since i was new, i didnt get loot. Now being competitive, i set out to solve all my issues. I visited EJ, I downloaded the newest and best addons, I clocked hours at the dummies to get the best i could out of my gear. But it just wasn't enough. Maybe it was my lag to the server, maybe it was my weakass com. But i decided since i cannot put out the performance they expect, at least i would not be the issue of wipes. I became the most meticous player. I became the one they know would NOT make any mistakes. Thus they accepted my "below par" performance(tho i would rank high in other guilds  ) and i've reached the end-game of WoTLK with Heroic Kingslayer.
After that,i was just burnt out. Being the guy who makes the perfect play every raid is just exhausting. I decided to give it a rest and quit WoW with the guild's blessing.I told them i would be back after Cataclysm, and here i am, still not returning.
Lessons Learnt-
1) Raiding is serious business. Like the OP: every single mistake was called out.Every corpserun analysed and lessons dished out. Performance was gauged every boss(DPS you better do DPS good.) It was a tiring place.
2) There's guild drama regardless in Big Guilds that run 25m. A decent guild should have at least 30-35 members who should be able to raid properly. Spots are contested hotly. Your expected to waste your save for the guild's progression(i've seldom seen some boss as their extremely hard for melee). Your performance is all that matters, though i've cheated on that by being the most consistent perfect player because my DPS sucks compared to the rest.
3) It takes time and effort that can be spent else where.
Suggestion To OP:-
Stop if your burning out.
The grind is horrible and eats up your life and energy. Whats the point of raiding in a game, when a game is about having fun....but your NOT having fun. Like you said,its no fun being yelled at every raid for supposedly "subpar" performance determined by some RL. But its just painful joining a new guild and watching people being bad. The bad players are really just astonishing. And they waste your gold raiding with them.
TL:DR version.
Quit WoW or find a new thing to play FOR besides Raids.
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EPT
