If you're referring to the fact that "as long as I'm having fun, who cares about the hardcore numbers", then you'll probably be in a guild with the same attitude. When Mr. Andrews brought up "criticism culture", that's part of what he was talking about. If you're in a casual guild who's only goal is to have fun and not care about numbers or whether or not you get the Lich King down, that's fine. You probably won't get a lot of use out of this article.

If you're in a guild that wants progression and you're saying "I'm having fun, so what if my dps is lower than average" (or something along those lines), then you either need to open up and accept the criticism or change guilds. It's important to have fun while you're playing this game and everyone knows the "it's my $15 a month" argument, but if you're ruining everyone else's fun for your own sake then you're just an unsuspecting jerk.

Raiding is a team activity. And, in WoW and in meatspace, if you join a team activity you need to do two things: find out what the team goals are; and decide whether you'd have fun achieving those goals and are prepared to sacrifice some personal fun for the fun of achieving those team goals.

Joining a team and then saying "screw the team goals, I'm just going to do whatever I find fun even if it obstructs the team goal" is just plain rude, in wow and "real life".

I should clarify that I play wow for fun and come here to read the articles for that as well, but this one and ones like it make me uncomfortable. The article has little to do with playing wow and everything to do with administering a performance review to a struggling employee. A very cursory rewrite of the article could remove everything having to do with wow and still give the same advice.

I just have to step back and think "to each his/her own" but it's hard not to be turned off to wow by this kind of mindset as a player who lies somewhere between casual and hardcore.

"I just have to step back and think "to each his/her own" but it's hard not to be turned off to wow by this kind of mindset as a player who lies somewhere between casual and hardcore."

If this sort of WoW talk actually makes you uncomfortable, I would guess that you're much closer to "casual" than "hardcore". I've been a very off-and-on player, played in leveling guilds, casual raiding guilds, and ONE "hardcore" guild--although I was never in their progression raid group. In every single one of those guilds (at least among those that ever stepped foot in a raid) this has been an issue. How do you deal with somebody who doesn't seem to know (or care) what they're doing, and harming the success of the group? In fact, I think this article & topic are even more important for the casual raiders--where does one draw the line between casual play and just-plain-terribad, and how do you draw that line so that the players understand? Although I do feel the language of the examples here is tailored to more serious raiders, the advice seems perfectly applicable to a casual guild, too.

Still, if it makes you uncomfortable, then it's probably in your best interest to stick with super-casual groups. And also to probably steer clear of WoW columns about guild leadership. :D