Seen this kind of image? Then you aren't casual
-via ElitistJerks |
Recruiting issues promoted me to write
the latest in
the line of DPS guides. By the end of the day, the guild's officers and GM had tossed in their towels and canceled raiding for the foreseeable future. For most of us the news wasn't exactly shocking. Over the past few weeks the mighty force in
Naxxramas known as the Warriors of Faith had degraded into Warriors of Whenitseemsnecessary. Sign-ups remained incomplete, those that did lend their John Hancock were no where to be found for invites, and players began disappearing earlier in the night than normal.
It isn't that the guild is dead, far from it. The former trio of raid leaders simply got fed up with all the extra work they were putting into the guild, with little to show for it besides stress. After all their recruiting, hand holding and calming efforts, raids failed to materialize. Rather than continue their struggles, they have put the pressure on the rest of the guild to step up and form raids ourselves. The irony is that this is exactly what many of the newer members were doing rather than joining the guild runs.
I think that the current raids have harmed casual guilds. Being a group of older players, our time is often limited by other obligations (family, friends, work, this blog). This in turn means that many of us have unexpected things come up fairly often, causing us to miss invites, sign-ups or raids altogether. Who cares when you can PUG all of the available instances? My point is this, since you don't need a guild to get through the content, most players feel less inclined to actually support their guilds. This is especially the case if they have no other reason, like long standing friendships, to guilt trip them.
At first, I simply thought that it was just our little guild that was having issues. But if my other WoW playing comrades are anything to go by, that isn't the case. According to them, their guilds are also struggling to get guild runs together. Their plight is for the same reason, many members are running PUGs on their own time. Hopefully, most of you will read this post through before commenting, because here's the kicker.
It isn't a big deal. Yea, there are some hiccups to scare out, but casual guilds won't be going anywhere, ever. The early raid content has shaken things up a bit, but as Wrath of the Lich King matures and Blizzard ramps up the difficulty - we are looking at you,
Ulduar - the guilds, all guilds, will collapse back into themselves.
It's just interesting to see how fleeting these online relationships can be. One minute you are joking about this druid's mom or laughing about how the RL proposed that all Gnomes are drunkards IRL. Then a freeze on raid leader lead raids is handed down, and boom, a fistful of long standing members gquit. It's fine that they are leaving to pursue what they want from the game, but I have never been one to guild hop. How are the more casual, small scale guilds doing for the greater ProjectLore Society? Possibly more importantly, how goes those Heroic Naxx/
Malygos PUGs? I have been somewhat successful in my PUG attempts, still haven't managed to take on the Eye though.
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