The reasons we raid
The way I see it, there are three main reasons why people raid in WoW.
1. Raiding for Glory
You raid because you want to win and because you want the prestige or satisfaction that raiding can provide. There’s differing levels of this, too. The top end of players who raid for this are the ones chasing world/server first kills, honing their gear and their skills to the absolute best that they can in order to stand tall and proud against all comers. But it doesn’t have to be so extreme – some may just want the glory of having the kills and titles under their name so that they can show off to others or simply feel proud of their accomplishments.
2. Raiding for Profit
You raid because you want the gear, plain and simple. Whether it’s because you need the gear to tear up PvP, you just want to look impressive and have people inspect you constantly in capital cities, or you just want to be the strongest you can be for whatever you want to do in the game, your aim in raiding is to walk away with as many purples as possible.
3. Raiding for Fun
You raid because you find it fun. Either it’s the social environment that spurs you onwards, or the thrill of the boss kill, or just because you have fun seeing everything the game has to offer, you’re here just because you get a kick out of it. Plain, simple, effective. Gear and kills are usually second nature to it.
Those are the three reasons I see that people tend to raid. An important thing to keep in mind, however, is that they’re not all necessarily exclusive. The people chasing server first kills probably still enjoy getting gear out of their madcap runs, and probably still have plenty of fun with their guild and in their raids. A person who raids for fun will still likely proudly show off their gear and titles like anyone else. I do feel sorry for the person who raids for glory and profit but not fun… but other than that, you could easily be any combination of these three. I consider myself a mix of all three, but primarily Fun and Glory: I raid for fun with my friends first and foremost and I thrive on having shiny titles, achievements, and the thrill of the hunt. It’s always pleasant to see my gear scale in power, too.
Once Cataclysm comes out, however, many people will have to reevaluate how they perceive these three reasons and probably change their stance on raiding entirely.
One of the biggest and most controversial changes to the game that Cataclysm is implementing affects the settings of raids. 40 man raids are well and truly dead and have been dead since vanilla, regardless of the minority who still cries out for “that epic kind of raid” which was really more of an organisational clusterfuck than anything. That’s not changing. BC established the 10 and 25 man raids… Wrath made it so every raid could be swapped between those settings. Suddenly everything was accessible to the small groups and you didn’t have to join a competitive raiding group to see all the content.
The nature of gear and item levels, however, suggested that you really did. When I killed the Lich King on 10 man, most of the raid was wearing at least some stuff that they’d picked up in ICC25 – my gear is presently about half and half. It’s not essential, you can kill him without it, but why would you? If you have access to the better gear, more often than not you are going to take it just to make it a bit smoother. For the best chance at seeing all the content, you have to suck it up and do the 25s for the gear, even if (like me) you don’t particularly like 25s.
So Cataclysm is doing away with that. The 10/25 mode for each raid will still exist, but the difficulty and gear levels between the two will be identical. 25 mans will obviously drop more items per boss total so that if you *can* do 25s, you *should* do 25s just to gear up at a more efficient pace. But if you’d rather not or don’t have that luxury, worry not. You’ll still have access to the exact same gear as everyone else and thus, accessibility to all content has been heightened even further.
I don’t like 25 man raids, so this change suits me personally. I do them now because they’re available in the guild I’m in, I like getting gear upgrades, and because I like being amongst those people. Unfortunately, though, you’re really not amongst the people when you’re in a group of 24 others. Some people thrive in this kind of environment and get to know everybody there. Me? I don’t. I know a reasonable amount of people in the group, but there are always the stragglers who come and go each week that I know nothing about. And even assuming I knew everyone there, how are you meant to get to know each other when there’s that many people vying for attention at any given time? Say you’re in Vent with the whole raid… you can’t all talk at once, so only a few people end up in the limelight and a whole bunch remain silent. Plenty of people just come along for the raid and nothing more, never talking in guild or chat or Vent or anything like that.
For those of you who say you should be in a raid to focus on clearing the raid, fine, that’s fair. But I’m a social animal and play WoW to be part of a community, so this kind of thing concerns me and affects how I play the game. I’ll work to kill a boss in ICC25 to the best of my ability, and oft-times I’ll work a lot harder at it than any one of, say, the fill-in DPS that come and go each week. I’m a tank, it’s crucial that I’m working to the best of my ability as often as possible. But you can never be sure with 25 people that each and every one of them is willing to bring their A-game. At the end of the day, I just don’t enjoy it as much as I could in a smaller raid. The social environment just isn’t the same.
10 mans are a different story. It’s a small, select group. The Fist of Reckoning 10 man saw me personally knowing and trusting and respecting every person in the lockout, and I liked it that way. There wasn’t a struggle to build a social network – we’d all be chatting and laughing and joking and strengthening the existing friendships in almost every raid. I could depend on each of them to help out and do their best to make sure we walk away victorious at the end of the day. That’s how I’d rather see the game played. Since Cataclysm is changing it so I can still be competitive and see what the game has to offer without leaving the comfort zone of that group of friends, then it will probably always have my support.
Right now my 25s see me raiding primarily for Glory and Profit, but I want to raid for Fun again, and I always feel closest to that when I’m playing with my friends in a 10 man. Cataclysm may just make that primary for me again, and so as a result I can’t wait.
I will be so happy when Cata comes out, just to solidify my niche and really enjoy the game again. Don’t get me wrong – I love tanking on Vaniah, and even to a group of strangers. The problem is I get lonely, very very lonely, and I tend to space out. I lose my focus and lose my aggro. I play the game for social interaction as well, I loathe quiet groups and I especially loathe a single person talking an entire run and leaving no time for others to enjoy themselves over vent or chat.
I think I am an only fun raider, though. Sure my gear is awesome – but I just accumulate it. I don’t really want it in a ‘LOOK AT ALL MY PURPLES LOL’, I only *need* it to progress. My raiding needs are met with 9 friends and hilarious wipes, or completely unexpected wins (i.e. Cilim jumping across and killing the mage when everyone else is dead). That’s what I raid for. When I killed Lich King… I was happy – why? Because the sucker should have died months prior. And now that he was gone, I felt done. What else did I really need to run it for? I had my laughs, and tanking isn’t *really* challenging enough for me to thoroughly enjoy boss fights. I do love heroics, though – those give tanks something to do. The problem lately is the lack of such attempts. If we aren’t doing heroic, I feel as if we shouldn’t even try. I mean, I’ve already run ICC10 since January. That’s a long time.
And my enthusiasm ebbs the more our original 10 falls away. I tanked Saturday for Gorlando. That was the only person I knew in that raid, other than Chris who tagged along.
I don’t want us to ever be like that in Cata. I want to raid with you guys only, and if it can’t happen then I won’t raid. I don’t feel comfortable enough in ICFB to stay, and I’ve largely made that move already in preparation. Like you, I know and trust and respect every one of the FoR team (except maybe Lachlan).
I was shocked when we started getting people who just ‘wanted to focus on clearing the raid’. What’s the point? I don’t want to deal with those kinds of people again, and I don’t think we will if we can stick together in Cata like we hope.
I guess I can empathise on pretty much every point there, though I tend to be stubborn enough to stick with it and get a raid done just for the sake of it even if I don’t know anybody else, etc. If I can try and make it fun, so be it, though I am admittedly not very successful in most attempts. Like I said, I’d rather see the game played with just the little Fist of Reckoning 10 man. If we can’t make that… well, I’ll probably just do all the solo stuff and run 5 mans with you guys until I’m sick of it, then stop playing. But I assure you that part will definitely be fun at least. =3
Heroic modes are fun too, though, simply because it’s that added challenge which doesn’t involve us just sitting there and taking repeated blows to the head. But for now, they’re not happening, so Wrath is effectively done for me. Cataclysm will be the answer to all our prayers… or we’ll just have to find new stuff to do. So be it.
Lachlan seems to think it’ll be all the answers. As does Megan. And Brad. And you two seem to think it’ll be pretty good. It may be the wrong impression, but it feels like I’m the only one expecting our old ten man to *not* work out.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d absolutely love to raid with just our old group and have a blast. And I’m still going to do my part to try and make it work, but I just don’t think it will. Mainly because of scheduling.
More work. More school. We’re getting older. Moving out to live on our own. Getting married. I don’t even know what else. I mean right now everyone is only in college 3-4 days a week and we still can’t manage it. On top of that, the old FoR 10 is right now more like the FoR 6. We’ve got me, Anna, Kris, Lach, Megan, and sometimes Brad. We’ve got Aud and Will as well, but I rarely talk to them and even when we were the FoR 10, Aud wasn’t around a whole lot.
I’m guessing we’ll do plenty of heroics and BGs. No doubt those will be a blast. But we’re going to have to either find another small group of people to befriend to make a 10 man(assuming we can pass the challenge of the damned schedule) or we’re going to have to forsake raids. For my part, I’m going to remain optimistic and like I said, try my best to make it work, but it still feels a bit bleak at times. If nothing else, I look forward to working on BG titles for all of us, and if we don’t raid but have time to hang out? Hell, let’s just RP some shit lol.
You pretty much just voiced the things I have considered, but don’t really want to say out loud. I’m afraid things won’t work out like you say, especially since the FoR plan has a hard enough time as is, but I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to make it work out. And if it doesn’t, well, we need 2400 BG rating to get Grand Marshalls anyway so that’s something to shoot for. Cataclysm will be plenty of game even without the raiding, after all, so as long as you guys are around to have fun with then I don’t care. It just would be nice to excel at every part of the game.
Also, RP is definitely what I’m looking forward to if you guys are ever up for it, so that suits me.