It's still called being lazy. However, I would say that the reason this is happening is because of the boomer generation being the ruling generation atm (no offense intended to anyone). The millennium generation can barely even get their foot in the door and work their way to the top, without having a 4 year degree.

Back to the point. I prefer to play a game that is challenging. Remember how hard some of those old side scrollers were?
I personally am enjoying the current Cata end-game!

Every generation thinks the next generation is far lazier than their own. I'm not saying it's inaccurate, but it's a recurring theme throughout history. :)

Citation, plz.

Some of us want to work hard and actually *get ahead* not fall further and further behind so others can profit obscenely off our labor, while real wages remain stagnant and the cost of everything from healthcare to basic necessities of life rises to meet shareholder profit demands.

That's not "being lazy." That's "being ruthlessly exploited and then being called a lazy, slacking whiner when you object to that exploitation."

But, on topic: back in Wrath, I regularly ran dungeons and raided lightly with my guild because I felt, even with my relatively limited play-time, that I could add something to the group and not be a weight to carry. This is absolutely not true of Cataclysm, where things are not only difficult, they're almost prohibitively so for many casual raiding guilds. My own guild's raid sector has repeatedly imploded from a combination of burnout and drama occasioned by punishing learning curves that have stymied our progression.

Being Lazy...

You are all aware, of course, that sitting on a chair playing a videogame is the definition of laziness for the unwashed masses ?

So this would mean laziness squared ? the mind boggles !

I wouldn't call it lazy at all. As Scrooge McDuck used to say, "Work Smarter, Not Harder."

The end goal is not to accomplish less, but to do it more efficiently. Doing something the hard way for the simple sake of "it builds character" is not how civilization progresses.

Hesiod, 8th century BC:

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint."

@ Nagaina,
For the last several months our guild's "core" raid team has had regular Firelands on farm. We have be pugging several "casual" raiders every week till we get to the heroic boss we are currently working on.
The main thing we stress to these players is that Firelands was tuned for players at ~ilvl 355 and that if you are now sporting ilvl 370+ through VP purchases you are approaching "overgeared" for the content.
Blizzard has made raiding "harder" in one very important way. In most encounters there is at least one mechanic that will wipe a raid if it is not executed successfully...i.e., it cannot be healed through. This is very unforgiving and is only overcome by a group of dedicated raiders "progressing" through and encounter and committing the mechanics to instant reaction.
The biggest problem we have in Firelands is raiders who have high latency or inconsistent internet connections....if you miss a mechanic you will wipe.

My grandpa, with no education in the 50's, earned as much (adjusted for inflation) as a four-year graduate from engineering school. My father, with a two-year tech certificate in the 70's, made TWICE what I make now.

Both of them paid one-fourth as much for their mortgage and they had far less to pay in taxes and utilities.

People are motivated relative to their incentive. When the new retirement age is 80 and the boomer generation won't give up their jobs and die like the previous generations did for their parents... the problem isn't simple laziness at all.

Parents = children.

This website needs an edit function.

@ Metric,

That is, admittedly, part of the problem we're having -- the burnout and frustration occasioned by the raiding learning curve has more or less decimated out ability to keep a "core" progression raid group intact for more than a few weeks at a time. This problem is sharply exacerbated by the fact that our current Warlord (officer in charge of raiding) despises Vent and tends to think that issuing raid warnings for auto-wipe mechanics is unnecessary hand-holding -- and he might be right *if* we had a totally consistent group of core raiders that go out week after week and everybody was using a top of the line machine without any possibility of latency issues. We most emphatically do not have any of those things. Part of it is leadership not wanting to bend to the realities of the situation; part of it is the realities of the situation, the unforgiving nature of high-end Cataclysm raiding, exacerbating flaws of leadership.

I apologize that wanting to play a game for entertainment's sake makes me lazy. I usually devout my serious time to finding a job and figuring out a way to pay off my student loans, but I'm in the wrong. Then again, I guess since I haven't found a job yet that makes me lazy and unmotivated, too.

I'm just a bad egg. : /

"The end goal is not to accomplish less, but to do it more efficiently. "

Nobody's (well, to be realistic, almost nobody) is complaining about folks doing things more efficiently in game.

The problem is the meta-gaming. When your first solution to the problem of 'I'm not gearing up as quickly as I would like' is to whine on the forums rather than set more realistic goals, evaluate whether you actually need that gear, and/or spend more time gearing, that's a problem. At that point, we're not really playing the same game any longer, and what's worse, breaking my game of WoW has become one of the winning conditions of your game of Buff Me (or sometimes Nerf Them. Whichever.)

It's not so much a degradation of values, as it is a paradigm shift. It's been observed in various realms of humanity, and is causing a significant schism between the old generation and the new.

Previous generations were built on concepts of loyalty, mutual dependence, and hard work. The theory was, "we'll take care of you, and you take care of us". People could realistically expect that if they went to work every day, put in a solid 8 hours, and met the requirements, that they would be paid a fair wage and be assured of their career. They were exchanging effort for security.

Well, all of that's gone, and I don't think we can blame the rising generation. Most of us grew up watching our parents work long hours for little pay, scrape to support a family, and then get laid off by the faceless corporation. Whether that teaches us that the world is based on an "eat or be eaten" mentality, or fills one with a righteous indignation that anyone could be so abused, or leads to a despair that things will ever be different, the fact is that this generation grew up in a very different world. Can you be surprised that we see things in a very different light?

The modern generation is not willing to wait years or even months for the payback, because they know that the relationship might not last that long. They don't show loyalty unless loyalty is shown to them, and they feel that it's their right to expect that. They believe that position does not mean value, and expect to be judged on their individual merits. They watch the super-wealthy get huge quantities of money without matching effort, and they translate the jealousy into a question, "Why should I have to lose so they can gain?"

Look at the world around you, and imagine that you grew up with the understanding that investments were likely to be lost money, rather than a guarantee for the future; in a world where neither the quantity nor quality of work relates to the reward. Can you honestly be surprised that children don't want to wait on a hope and work for a dream?

Everyone want to do less and get more, regardless of what the venue is.

Back when I was a kid that was called 'being lazy'. What's it called today?

Today we call it "progress".

regardless of the venue we are doing a lot more with far less effort than 50 years ago, if anyone thinks "let's take it further", I agree.

@Nagaina,

Sounds like your Warlord is a big part of the problem. We rely on vent for communications and also set up markers everywhere to help with raid awareness. Your Warlord is doing you a disservice. We call out everything and people talk all through out our raids. It definitely helps. Your warlord may think baby-sitting or hand holding is bad, but he is cutting off his nose...as the saying goes.


We are farming 6/7 hard modes and I don't consider us an "elite" or hard-core guild, but we do have an active boss strategy forum, we steal ideas liberally from Fat Boss and L2Raid, and often challenge/make suggestions to our "warlord" when she we believe we have contributions to make. We also have 10 raiders that show up each and every week, which helps as well.

I know for a fact that lag can kill tanks on Heroic Alysrazor for example, so I feel your pain. But, these fights are not that hard if you prepare a strategy and make sure everyone does their part. Replace those that don't pull their weight if progression is that important (as opposed to friendship and loyalty to guild mates, even the baddies).