How come you don't do it?Follow

So I'm eating lunch on a beautiful Friday afternoon and my mind has started to wander, per usual. So I decided to share.

Blizz has done all sorts of things this expansion to open up end-game raiding to the masses. Dual specs, extended lockouts, aided in gear progression, and the list could go on. However, I've noticed there are still a number of people who haven't jumped on the "I'm a raider too!" trolley yet. There's also seems to be a large collection of causal and PuG-only raiders out there, who never hunker down and join a serious raiding guild. So...



1) I tried raiding, but didn't like the content. I'd rather do solo stuff, play the AH, etc. PvE is for hippies, real men/women PvP. PvP is more of a challenge, more interesting, etc.

2) Kids, family, work, real life, girlfriend, etc. keep me from doing it more. I would if I had the time, but can't commit to a raiding schedule, etc.

3) I'd be interested in serious raiding perhaps, but my friends/guildies aren't interested so I've never given it a try, or only PuG, etc.

4) I've tried raiding, but I didn't like the people. They were laughing at me over vent about my slightly lower DPS, gearscore, whatever; while standing in a puddle of green goo and spamming /rw HEAL ME!!! It made me wonder how anyone enjoys this.

5) Computer crashes in raid? Wild muskrats keeping you away? Fear of spiders? Or something even more fiendishly sinister perhaps?

Please share!

As a "casual raider" myself I've often wondered why I don't just give it a go with a more serious raiding group, or get my guild more progression orientated, etc. For me at least, #2 tends to be the most common reason/excuse come back to. I just recently had the chance to get my 4t10; months behind most of the 'serious' raiders. Of course that was fine, because most of the people in my guild are in the same boat; where time for the game is limited, and sometimes they want to do other things besides raid with their spare time. It's nice to have a group where 'my daughter grabbed the mouse' is an acceptable excuse for a wipe, or I can be 15 minutes late because we had some unscheduled bath-time.

There's so much to do in Azeroth, and raiding is only a small portion of it. But given as much attention as the 'we're opening up raiding to the masses' thingy got this expansion, I couldn't help but ask.

Anyway I'll stop rambling now. Thoughts?

This with a side of "my raiding guild more or less fell apart for Wrath" and "I've come to realize that I have to choose between consistent sleep or a raid schedule*" for dessert.








*It's due to the fact that I can't go to bed right after getting home from work, which is what I'd have to do to get enough sleep before raid time. I have to unwind for at least 3-4 hours or I won't be able to go to sleep easily. I've since chosen sleep and am loving it.

Raiding isn't challenging.

Basically the hardest thing is finding 25 of the least retarded people that are on the same schedule as your group.

Having raided on every tier up to and including T7, even T6.5 (sunwell) wasn't that hard, it was just finding people that didn't sit in the fire and could optimize their DPS (guild was stuck for months on Brutallus).

Option two is the main reason as my work schedule does not account for it. Most serious raiding guilds tend to raid Sunday - Thursday nights where my job has me out of town probably 26 weeks out of the year where attending those times is impossible. I don't think I've ever seen a serious raiding guild that has progression raids scheduled on Friday and Saturday.

I'd honestly love to find a more serious guild as my personality would click better with those that tend to play in those guilds. As a hardcore gamer who likes to challenge themselves and try to adapt from mistakes, I would like to play with others that feel the same way. Hell I'd even kill to find a casual guild with a serious mindset that when they play, they use their time really efficiently rather than the jerk-off fests a lot of the casual runs I tend to play with seem to be. My account isn't even active at this time because I wasn't having fun due to being unable to find a more serious setting.

I should try again with Cata coming around the corner, but I have a feeling not much will change in regards to finding a place that works more with my play schedule. Oh well at least I have more time to play other games.

A combination of I enjoy playing with friends and timezone issues. Timezone issue is the largest.

I chose number 1 but it's really a combination of 1 and 2. I have tried raiding, and in the end I gave it up because:

1.) I'm unwilling to schedule time, which is not the same as not having time. I spend plenty of time playing WoW, but it's irregular and completely at my whim, and if I decide at the last second to shut down my computer and go read, it doesn't make me an irresponsible jerk. I don't want to commit to a set schedule.

2.) Late nights. Don't like.

3.) Reading up on fights, memorizing phases and mechanics, and watching videos feels too much like homework. This is pretty much the same reason I don't do book clubs despite being a voracious reader. I don't want chores and assignments related to my entertainment.

I can't raid very often because of time constraints outside of summer (school -_-;), and because of my computer, the 6 year old Dell. When I raid 10 mans, I'm choppy at best, but when I try 25 mans, even Archavon, I literally can not move.

So, options 3 and 5 for computer issues.

1.

Raids consist of a single instance with like 6-10 hours worth of encounters. I can't just go in and raid 1-2 hours and leave it because I get saved for the week to the entire instance and will not be able to do the other parts with other groups. It makes the commitment somewhat big and restrictive.

2.

Some chars I only intended them for PvP. Those I gear and spec for PvP and raiders do not want them in raids. I may want raid trinkets and weapons but I don't think it's worth to enlist them on a full raiding structure just for a trinket and a weapon.

3.

I like to play content for content's sake. Being forced to recycle it more times than I want to just for the loots doesn't go well with me. I can replay BGs more because they don't feel recycley.

4.

I like to have the freedom of saying "not this week" without having drama about it.

1) Tried it, but it's not my thing. - with the group I was with at least

2) I don't have time. - working 6 days a week for someone else and 7 days a week as an IT / farmer means when I do get net access I don't know what the schedule will be

3) My guild doesn't raid, or doesn't raid seriously. - the group I was with when I last tried raiding we had a weekly scheduled raid, and the same 3 would show up with 15 others complaining we never raid, but couldn't be bothered to say when was more convenient for them to raid.

4) Raiders are idiot elitists. - works in pugs too, my connection means I haven't had the time to play to keep up to date with the latest changes on all the various specs of classes i play, not doing the latest/greatest thing gemming/ talent wise gets you looked down on

5) Other, please explain... it's all my cell based internet, once I get into the city for the winter I'll give this raiding another shot, the group fell apart, those interested in raiding moved to another casually raiding guild and they've progressed to 11/12... way further than the first group would have ever gotten even if they'd taken the time to show up.

See its my internet, I clicked to respond to this connection dropped, reconnected, and dropped 3 times while I was typing my response. Frustrating to no end. Silly that cell based internet sucks so bad at the farm but in the city where I can/will have access to highspeed at home cell works perfectly... but bandwidth limit on the cell means it doesn't make sense to use in the city.

I feel that I am raiding at about the right pace for me. I have Kingslayer on 10 man and an Ulduar Rusted Proto. My main has 5 pieces of T10 (only wearing 4 usually) with 3 pieces being sanctified. My guild has most of the hardmodes down for 10 man but I'm not in the group that is doing that. While I think I could handle the step up in difficulty, that group raids too late at night for me on work nights so I haven't asked about switching. My guild is 11/12 normal on 25 man mainly because we just don't have enough top caliber people to fill out a 25 man. We take people who are in guild to 25s over pugs that might be more experienced and geared. While I would like the group I'm in to start getting hard modes and achievements done, I don't really want to raid more often. I have 7 80s right now and only really raid on one of them.

When I was raiding more often, I would find myself feeling frustrated that I wasn't doing the other things in the game that I love like leveling, working on rep, farming, doing old raids and casual things like that. I seem to feel the most happy when I'm getting to raid about 3 nights a week and do 'fun' stuff for myself most of the rest of the time. I don't really like grinding dailies for rep and stuff but I try to make myself do that a few days a week (mostly tourney for pets/mounts).

The main thing keeping me from trying to find a guild where I can get more progression is that I'm really shy about strangers. I don't mind a few but I seem to need to have a few friends in the group with me before I can relax and play right. The reason I'm in the guild I'm in right now is because the guild I had been in since early BC fell apart when the guild leader and his wife server transferred so I joined one of the guilds my boyfriend is in. It's a good guild but we just don't have quite enough strong players to do well in 25 man so I'm really not sure what's going to happen when the expansion comes. They want to be a 25 man guild but it's looking like we'll be at best a two 10-man team one instead.

I'm going to say 3, with part of 4, a bit of 1, sprinkled with a touch of 5.

None of the little guilds I've been in can even field a heroic let alone a raid, so guild raiding has been out.

I've tried Pugging either with a partial guild run or just answering an LFM. Either way, every single raid I have *tried* so far has consisted of 1-3 hrs of various squabbling and lineup changes before even starting and I don't think a single one of them has ever ended in even a single boss down. Seems like a massive waste of time and has caused nothing but frustration so far.

Trade PuGs on my server are demanding 5700 gs + achieve links for ToC10. Same or more for ICC.

I'd like to try raiding but haven't decided if it's worth it to me to leave the handful of friendlies in my guild for a chance at maybe, possibly being able to raid with people I may or may not like.

Oh, and as for the "5" part, I have never been able to get Vent to work properly for some reason and most people seem to absolutely demand this. (I never understood this because between game fx/music and everybody talking I can never hear what anybody's saying anyway. Typing is easier to read for me.)

There is also the fact that if you did try most of you wouldn't cut it in a 'real' guild.

I was going with that until I saw:



and decided that held a ton of truth too :)