SCHarper,
The problem with teh "dude don't do that again" is that you probably will be with a bunch of people who will do stupid things over and over till they or you decide to leave your raid. Done the right way you become a much, much better player.

Yeah man agreed. Don't get me wrong I'm not putting this article down.

Essentially I'm playing WoW for my version of 'fun' - this isn't it, while I thought it would be. Which is why I'm glad I saw this now rather than stuck in some high end raiding guild i dont enjoy xD

Some people thrive on order and squeezing every last penny out of their subscription. Some people actually view the game as a competition and view people who say "well, it sounds like a job" just as we view those dreadlocked biology majors on the college campuses who smoke way too much pot to actually get anything else done.

To some gamers, this is our *sport* and we damn well will train to the top of our potential. You can keep your "casual" guild setting and enjoy naxx.

Oh, and for the Love of English, please go back to school and learn some grammar. The world will thank you.

@cente_ddr

That's fine for you, mate. SCHarper wasn't criticising the way you play the game, so why should you criticise him? Maybe you should take it easy (and watch your capitalisation of the word 'love', lest you appear the hypocrit).

I also like to use sports analogies when discussing raiding; it also helps when talking about raids to those unfamiliar with Warcraft and the time commitments.

In sports, you have different levels of play. You have recreational, professional, high school, college, etc. But just because someone plays at a recreational level doesn't mean they're not expected to give 100%, players at each level are expected to give 100% (or more).

As a raider, it doesn't matter if you're in a casual raiding guild, a "hard core" raiding guild, or in a PUG. Your fellow raiders are expecting a certain level of performance out of you and one another, just as athletes expect such from their teammates.

As a healer, you're in one of the key defensive positions in the raid. You do have a specific job to do, and you're usually expected to do so in a specific way - casting certain spells in favor over others, following the tactical guidelines presented by your raid leader and/or main healer (in this case, the raid member assigning healing assignments). There often isn't a large margin of error in raids - and losing a healer in a fire because of "healbot tunnel vision" can easily cause a wipe which is fun for no one.

But at the same time, the healers expect a certain level of performance from the rest of the raid. That the tanks have enough survivability to, well, survive between heals, that the tanks are knowledgeable and capable enough to position the boss for effective dps. That the DPS is pushing out enough damage that the boss is dead before the healers are out of mana, and that the DPS doesn't stand in the fire.

Sure, that means raiding's not for everyone, and there's certainly other activities available for those that choose not to raid. As ultimately it's your decision on what to do for fun in this game.

Agreed, with SCHarper. I play for fun as well. I happen to be a good enough healer that I've been asked to join several of the more serious raiding guilds on runs but for me this isn't fun, they turn it into a quest for perfection or an evaluation process.

I've been playing since the game first came out, and the game has become increasingly gear based and necessitating of guild raiding, which has been a major turn off for me. Miss the old days of WoW.

Agreed totally OP. I sure don't mind that some people actually like to build their toons and twitch skillz to the nth level but personally this is not my idea of fun in the least.

I am more of the "Meh, we wiped. Lets go get drunk" school but... more power to those who like living on this edge.

"I've been playing since the game first came out, and the game has become increasingly gear based and necessitating of guild raiding, which has been a major turn off for me. Miss the old days of WoW."

BS.

Which old days were these, when the game was not gear-based? WoW, and every other mmorpg out there, has always been gear-based and always will be.

Necessitating of guild raiding? Only if you want to do the high-end stuff like hard modes. PUG raids are far more common these days than they ever were, my alt does toc10/25 nearly every week in a pug.

I agree with SCHarper and Toph here, and QQInsider maybe you don't remember what raiding and the game was like at launch? Gear was crap pretty much all around, you farmed for dungeon sets in places like Stratholme(before there was a speed run). That was basically the end game content: squeeze as many people as you could into something like Strat or UBRS for dungeon set runs. Molten Core was bugged, and if you felt like snoozing around you did Onyxia which did not require anything but a handful of people to be geared on the raid if they learned the mechanics. In fact, Molten Core was the same way for a good portion once the gate guardian bug was fixed, where what was important was the strategy and a minor part to having a handful of geared players to pull the raid along.

That IS NOT the way the game is anymore. Raiding in many instances has lost 15-30 players. You are lucky to afford having one under-geared person in a raid. Gear checks are mandatory not just to make sure they are in high ilvl gear, but the "right" gear, "right" gems, "right" enchants. You don't just learn the strategy and go have fun with your friends anymore. Now, you are assigned a raid spot among the raid your guild leader tells you to take(and with the size of guilds compared to raids, there is a STRONG chance you aren't even raiding with the people you joined the guild to play with!), you are told what talents to take, you are told what gear to wear and its enhancements.

This is not release WoW. For the better of raiding they lowered the number of people in raids to make it more accessible. In turn, they unintentionally put more pressure on each individual in the game, making it for anyone that is even slightly turned off by that pressure stressed and not having fun. Also, it created a dynamic among players that there was a strong baseline of perfection and nearly nothing else will be accepted. That's not fun for many players, it is just stressful. However, many will concede that a good number of people enjoy the perfection, enjoy having everything work exactly as an in-house testing team would have finished the content. To each their own, but you can't say just because someone else isn't having fun with the way raiding has changed that it hasn't changed.

@cente_ddr

"Yah" is not a word.
A "larger concept" is not a proper noun, and therefore does not need capitals.
Don't criticise people for bad grammar when you're not using it yourself.
Also, SCHarper specifically said "I don't mean this in a negative way". This denotes a personal preference and lack of criticism.

Good on Blizzard for making a game that is accessible to those who wish to 'play hard' and casual players too!