You most probably know that Phaelia abandons blogging and most probably WoW too. Hers was the first blog I was reading, not just about WoW but at all. Before that I believed blogs are for 15 years old girls desperately needing attention.I've learned lot of restodruid stuff from her blog and also seen that blogs can be used to spread some intelligent idea. I've seen Larísa first as a commenter at Phaelia's (she shown me the tricks of actually starting the blog.)
But sentimentalism is not for goblins. I've seen good blogs go down and go forgotten. I read them, I linked them, I even put them to my blogroll, than they stopped writing and I stopped reading. Others came, created their own blogs and I started reading them. No big deal and I don't think this case would be any different. (I know I'm heartless)
The reason of this post is that Phaelia wrote very insightful things in her goodbye post that helped me understand my own choices.
However I have similar feelings as Phaelia about raiding. I couldn't write these feelings down as she did but I had them. Don't get me wrong, I like raiding. This is the only challenging content in WoW and the point of the whole thing. Even a bot can reach lvl80 (and often does) so why bother playing if you are not raiding? If I wouldn't like raiding, I would have left WoW long ago.
Thanks to Phaelia I can explain why I will not join any guild and try to PuG the content instead: because I don't want to be compelled to raid. Besides useless social guilds, every guild demands raid attendance. It's obvious since the smooth guild raid is based on the fact that nearly the same skilled and geared group bash through the instance. If I take a leave, others cannot raid either. They won't tolerate such behavior, I either raid every week (with a few exceptions) or don't raid at all with them.
I don't want to grind raidbosses the same way I don't want to grind elementals. Sapphiron was new and exciting first, boring for the second (poor Faerlina was boring first). The bosses don't evolve, so there is no point killing them again. No more challenge, no more content. I've completed Naxx10 before Christmas, I completed Naxx10, there is no point for me going there. I try to organize PuG there to prove that PuG can do it, and also to get the Malygos key.
If I'd join a raiding (as opposed to social) guild, I'd love it for a week, than hate it until the next content patch. Or I'd stop raiding and they would hate me like Matticus hated his paladin (and would probably kick me too).
I won't burn out like Phaelia. I won't raid when I don't want to. Since I'm guildless, I started playing another game, I started watching DVD-s, reading books, spend much more time on blogs and feel much better. I love the game much better despite the fact that I still couldn't finish Naxx10 with a PuG, what I've done months ago with a guild.
The key of not burning out is simply saying No! to anyone who ask you to do something you don't want to do. And if they don't take no for answer, say goodbye. That's what I've said to all guilds, since they are either useless socials or HC boss-grinders.
I'm a casual player, meaning I play casually. People use "casual" as "M&S". I'll prove them wrong. Not playing 24/7 does not mean being moron or gearless. I have 1900SP in tree form, never seen OOM, I can heal Malygos. Maybe I lack the skill, but no Naxx farming can give me that skill.
And as soon as I finish the content, my main go to vacation until the next content patch. I will never burn out since I never do something I don't want to. Most of you surely think that without sacrifice for "the guild" one cannot be successful and I'm doomed to PuG spider quarter forever and ever. I can't tell how much I'll enjoy to prove you wrong!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just yesterday (last evening before reset)
And I shall be doomed to boost friendly helpfull ppl to eternity if I ever set foot in Naxx again!
The reason of this post is that Phaelia wrote very insightful things in her goodbye post that helped me understand my own choices.
I take pride in the readership I’ve garnered and the reputation I have for helping others. All of which are positive emotions. At the same time, however, feelings of guilt, disinterest, stress, and unhappiness have lead me to conclude that it is time for me to move on to a new chapter of my life. Hopefully this will be a chapter where I can consider playing another MMO, drawing, or rereading a favorite book series without feeling a sense of guilt that I’d be stealing time away that could be devoted instead to improving Resto4Life.I never felt this about blogging, but my situation is special, since I blog about making gold. If I don't want to write a well composed post, I just create a business report or write about some tradeable item, so I can create a content that has some use for minimal effort. Usually I do have ideas that I write down happily.
However I have similar feelings as Phaelia about raiding. I couldn't write these feelings down as she did but I had them. Don't get me wrong, I like raiding. This is the only challenging content in WoW and the point of the whole thing. Even a bot can reach lvl80 (and often does) so why bother playing if you are not raiding? If I wouldn't like raiding, I would have left WoW long ago.
Thanks to Phaelia I can explain why I will not join any guild and try to PuG the content instead: because I don't want to be compelled to raid. Besides useless social guilds, every guild demands raid attendance. It's obvious since the smooth guild raid is based on the fact that nearly the same skilled and geared group bash through the instance. If I take a leave, others cannot raid either. They won't tolerate such behavior, I either raid every week (with a few exceptions) or don't raid at all with them.
I don't want to grind raidbosses the same way I don't want to grind elementals. Sapphiron was new and exciting first, boring for the second (poor Faerlina was boring first). The bosses don't evolve, so there is no point killing them again. No more challenge, no more content. I've completed Naxx10 before Christmas, I completed Naxx10, there is no point for me going there. I try to organize PuG there to prove that PuG can do it, and also to get the Malygos key.
If I'd join a raiding (as opposed to social) guild, I'd love it for a week, than hate it until the next content patch. Or I'd stop raiding and they would hate me like Matticus hated his paladin (and would probably kick me too).
I won't burn out like Phaelia. I won't raid when I don't want to. Since I'm guildless, I started playing another game, I started watching DVD-s, reading books, spend much more time on blogs and feel much better. I love the game much better despite the fact that I still couldn't finish Naxx10 with a PuG, what I've done months ago with a guild.
The key of not burning out is simply saying No! to anyone who ask you to do something you don't want to do. And if they don't take no for answer, say goodbye. That's what I've said to all guilds, since they are either useless socials or HC boss-grinders.
I'm a casual player, meaning I play casually. People use "casual" as "M&S". I'll prove them wrong. Not playing 24/7 does not mean being moron or gearless. I have 1900SP in tree form, never seen OOM, I can heal Malygos. Maybe I lack the skill, but no Naxx farming can give me that skill.
And as soon as I finish the content, my main go to vacation until the next content patch. I will never burn out since I never do something I don't want to. Most of you surely think that without sacrifice for "the guild" one cannot be successful and I'm doomed to PuG spider quarter forever and ever. I can't tell how much I'll enjoy to prove you wrong!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just yesterday (last evening before reset)
And I shall be doomed to boost friendly helpfull ppl to eternity if I ever set foot in Naxx again!
12 comments:
Being a quite casual player too, as well as leaning somewhat into economics (especially the behavorial side ^^), I've been enjoying your blog quite a bit so far - challenging, interesting ideas.
2 points I wanted to make:
1/ I 100% agree with you on the fact that everyone plays for himself, for what brings him pleasure (broadly defined). But for some folks, helping others is gratifying to THEM (self-fulfillment, sense of importance, etc...), and that's quite ok. Combined with the social aspect & convenience factor of finding reliable players, how does that fit in your picture of joining a guild?
2- as for challenges, not sure if it's been mentioned elsewhere, but you should try arena play. I wasn't into pvp at all (pve all the way since early wow), but arena can be massive fun, even for a resto drood. And it's challenging all right.....
Cheers!
Probably the lack of challenge is the curse for the more skilled player. You think that boss encounters are like grinding elements and if that is the case I can understand that you don't want to be bothered raiding at a set schedule. I still have a lot of struggling to do. Moving out of fire and void zones at Sarth, keeping an eye on the threat, understanding when to switch over to aoe adds instead of the boss... I'm so glad that I still have to fight to make things right, to survive, to position myself. There's always room for improvement. It can't be fun to be a super player.
I understand where you are coming from a lot better now.
however.
have you concidered that some poeple actualy enjoy repeating activities. the way you would enjoy watching your favorite movies over and over, or listening to the same album or reading a book you've read before?
some people enjoy changing it up, but changing up their favorite activity, not jumping into new one. like skydivers who jump over and over, love it each and every time and yet they play up they subsequint jumps, make them more challenging.
some popele do see they weekly raids as boosting other players through content - they see them as a weekly party, a game of checkers with their friends. the raid is a setting, a framework.
there are different raiding guilds,with diffrent goals and rules etc. the reason for that is becasue not everyone plays the game the same, not everyone enjoys the same thing and casual doesn't mean non-raider, just like casual doesn't mean incompetent.
you found something that you enjoy and that's great. you found out that you dislike some things and that's also great. why is it that you cannot accept that other people might, just might have found out what works and doesn't work for them as well its simply different from your likes and dislikes? it doesn't make them apes, it makes them different.
incidentaly - it is apparently an ape subruitine to regect things that do not appeal to us, to fear things we cannot understand, to vilify ideas that go against our beliefs, try to explain things using our own perspective rather then objective reasoning. you remind me of John Dee sometimes.
Yesterday before the reset we cleared Naxx for the first time as a guild (yay Soulblade). Clearing something the first time is much fun, like you said. I think you're also right about clearing something the second time, or even farming it every week. That's why I think it's good to be in a somewhat bigger guilds, so you can pass up your raid spot so other guys can go instead of you, that is if you don't feel like doing the raid of course.
I understand what you mean. I've been guild-free since my BT-raiding guild died pre-BC. It has its pros and cons, but I'm getting used to it. I haven't found one that really "fit" since the one my friends built collapsed. It is much easier, though now I feel obligations to a wide variety of friends rather than an establishment!
I don't really understand what your motive with pugging Naxx is, other than to prove it can be done.
I don't think anyone believes it can't be.
This is not Vanilla Naxx; if it was then I could see some point to your project. That would be a real challenge, but Naxx in its modern form is not difficult, so 'proving' that you can lead a pug there is a bit like proving you could pug UBRS 10 man.
Everyone knows it can be done; it could be done in a day if players know their roles, and lets face it, most of your puggers will be people who have already done the place in raids already, rather than the m&s brigade who fail to get or stay in raid guilds,because you have already said that you won't have m&s in your pugs.
This was nice personal post for a change, do you have any ideas for 3.1 and goldmaking possibilities yet? I'm still pending for PTR even though I started the process 2 hours after it opened :/
Farming bosses is boring, but every now and then it's necessary to gear up for upcoming challenges. And there's no way Blizzard could design remotely good content if they'd want to do it whenever last instance has been devoured. I'm lucky to be in awesome guild that has beaten all raid instances to date since 2005 and is also succesful in various other online games (with expection of old Naxx back in the days, we got stuck to 4HM because of overhelming tank requirement) but still doesn't play hardcore. I'm sure there's one guild like us waiting for you somewhere aswell.
I truly pity your limited definition of a guild. You see a guild as either a casual guild which exists purely for social reasons, or as a hardcore raiding guild that does nothing but grind the same content over and over.
What you fail to understand is that there are so many different levels between the two.
The guild I am in is what I call a casual raiding guild. We form 10 and 25 man raid groups every week. They are scheduled and people sign up for them. If we don't have enough sign-ups, we PUG to fill in. If a player wants to take off some time from raiding, no one has a problem with it. People need breaks.
I don't understand what has made you take such a negative outlook on guilds, but maybe it is time that you stepped back and re-evaluated things.
I think if you bothered to read Phaelia's post a little more closely that you'd see that her situation and yours have pretty much nothing in common!
Too much raiding didn't burn Phae out--part of her uniqueness as a blogger was that she wasn't a hardcore raider, just an incredibly good player and theorycrafter. I actually think Phaelia is an excellent model for a happy player who kept her play time and her real life in balance. No raid addiction there!
It's real life changes, man. Priorities tend to shift about from time to time.
I just recently found your blog, and wanted to voice my appreciation for it. I too enjoy the "game within the game" and make my fair share of gold. I am curious if you have ever read any of the works of Ayn Rand or Objectivism in general? They somewhat relate to your "Goblin" way of looking at things.
As for the guild/no guild argument... I think you truly can have a guild that is neither hard core raiding or a "useless social". I've been involved with a guild for over three years that does just that. We have raid groups within the guild, we have level 80's that are happy not raiding, and we have several members that have switched between both.
Keep up the good work... I know I will be enjoying your blog as long as you are doing one.
Santyn:
For ideas about the next patch you might like to take a look at Markco of Onyxia's blog - http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/
Hes starting to look at the patch notes and I expect between the posts Gevlon and Markco will be making everything is going to be known ahead of time.
Gevlon:
While 9/10 times I agree with you, i'm standing with Santyn this time. There are more than the useless guilds filled with the 'freindly helpfull ppl' and the hardcore raiding guilds. The guild i'm in is exactly as Santyn describes, we schedule raids and heroics and invite people from the guild. If we need more people then we PUG the slots and it works out fine. And, we usually only PUG one or two slots with 25-man content so it doesn't affect our run for the most part.
I actually just left my BC raiding guild for this reason. I've killed this boss a dozen times, he doesn't drop any loot I need, so why am I raiding? Because I feel obligated to.
I get home after work and I'm really tired, all I want to do is fool around on an alt for a while. But I can't because I signed up to raid. I can come up with some excuse to get out of it (like my boss asked at the last minute to have me work overtime) so my alts had better be on a different server or I'm pressured to not log in at all.
I found a good PuG group that doesn't have any kind of DKP loot system, appreciates my skills but has other people who can fill in for me if I don't feel like going. I gquit a few days ago and made my own personal guild for all my alts just so I can have some extra guildbank space. It's so relaxing not to have all these responsibilities, and just to enjoy playing the game.
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