Being a recovering WoW addict myself, I know from experience about the end game. Unfortunately, those sort of guilds are the norm. Actually, I was a member of a guild very similar to that. It was the guild with the highest number of sixties on my particular server. They were an okay group of guys but they totally sucked the fun out of the game for me. I later joined another group that was way more relaxed and fun, but even they had raid rules. I guess some rules are unavoidable in order for the raids to run smoothly and not waste everyone's time. However, those rules that you posted are ridiculous. Still, the end game does not have to be work. That is, if you are willing to play the game without those "super" items, which I did for a long time until I got tired of paying. And alts are fun for a while which is another alternative.

Currently playing WoW, actually, at the time of writing this, in Blackwing Lair working on clearing through it.

I can say that, yes, there is guilds like that...and there is guilds that succeed that do not require such stringent rules. I find raiding with the group I'm with fun, and more of a social event than a job.

Each to their own though!

This is why I hate these "grind" type of MMO's. It's the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over (ok, you get the idea) again. It's just so boring, even working in a supermarket all day, every day is more diverse and exciting than grinding. And you even make some money by doing so!

"Of course, how else are you going to get that wicked cool Tier 2 Epic Armor?"

You take your sweet damn time.

Yeah, I've never played an MMO, but this whole idea of "level grinding" I find to be a complete and total turn off. As in, "if I have to do that to play I'm not playing." The words "game" and "grind" should never ever ever be used together. Ever.

Apart from having to put up with guilds that require so much of your time practically every night, Molten Core and the other dungeons are just so boring. Plus there's usually 10 min of prep time spent between each mob we kill. And I get the joy of doing this couple dozen more times? Wonderful :P

So I just say forget it.

I've settled on just going for the PVP Epic gear. It will take 4+ months to get, which isn't too hard to do since I'm on a server that has a very low Horde population. I'm already over half way there.

I'm on WoW hiatus again for the 2nd time in 6 months for the same sort of BS Steve talks about above. One guy doesn't like how something is run so he gets mad. One guild leader give preferential treatment to a member because she's female. Anyway, I'm really enjoying Burnout: Revenge...

Well, sounds to me like there is part of this game I'll never see. But then again, I'm not a 'must have the Super-Mana-Frag-A-Listic-Mace-Of-Head-Implosion' type of person anyways.

Super-Mana-Frag-A-Listic-Mace-Of-Head-Implosion
Everytime I hit and Orc it make a neat explosion
Its so strong when casting spells there's no mana errosion
Super-Mana-Frag-A-Listic-Mace-Of-Head-Implosion

(I'm tired and have to do a 3am service call... later)
-Lego

This is sick. Do these guys have a real life? In our german guild we play Molten Core 3 times a week. Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday from 6pm to 11pm. These are 15 ours of only playing WOW in the same level!!!!

I for myself only go to Molten Core on Tuesday because I have a girlfriend and I also enjoy spending my time with my other friends and my family...

cya

I play just about every MMORPG that comes out - for about 4 to 6 months.

I like the early levels where everything is new and rewards are frequent - I have no stomach for the endgame or even higher levels where I need to grind and grind just to get to the next level to grind and grind.

It becomes like The Sims - do I want to play a "game" where I go to work, wash dishes, etc? Err, no.

That being said, of course I preordered D&D Online!

I had mentioned end-game guild raids stuff and the momentous time expense they entailed in a "Wow vs CoV" post a few days ago.

http://www.gamingsteve.com/blab/index.php?topic=1521.45;topicseen

And yes, many of the things that Steve had pointed out are very much correct - at least in the guild I was in when playing Wow. They raided MC, Oxyina, BWL. up to 5 or 6 days a week. They also used a very intricate DKP system - you'd get bonus points or being on time - killing certain boss, etc. People would save those DKP points and "bid" when purple (epic) or orange EQ from a Boss drops. I'll say one thing, fighting the highest elite bosses (and mobs) required incredible strategy, coordination and teamwork. Things like rotating healer or tanking groups, aggro control, mob holds, delays etc where crucial to a raids success. Just a few badly timed spells or a single rogue doing TOO much damage to a elite mob or boss could cause and entire 40 man party wipe in a matter of seconds. I've seen it many times. It's really does become a MMORPG in the truest sense. When raiding these places - your with 30-40 other players and you are counting on each other to stay alive and perform like a perfectly tunes machine to accomplish your goal (beat that next boss).

In the end, it just wasn't a game anymore - it was work. I already have a full time job during the day. I don't need a second one at night.

This is why I don't play any subscription-based games.

It was good to see Steve playing Guild Wars after he put this small "rant" up. :)

Chaper 2 FTW!!

Steve i cant agree with you more man, just about a week ago i got lvl 60 and i was real happy for about min. It did not take me long to realize my roll as a paladin was to sit back buff and heal. I really wanted the lightforge shoulders so i ran UBRS about 10 times lost twice on the shoulders then i began to think why the hell am i even doing this, i dont want anything to do with pvp or the big end game raids so, i just started making a undead warrior and its a great time, it should keep me til the expansion comes out. I understand now why you would say that WOW did not have a good end game lol.

Steve i cant agree with you more man, just about a week ago i got lvl 60 and i was real happy for about min. It did not take me long to realize my roll as a paladin was to sit back buff and heal. I really wanted the lightforge shoulders so i ran UBRS about 10 times lost twice on the shoulders then i began to think why the hell am i even doing this, i dont want anything to do with pvp or the big end game raids so, i just started making a undead warrior and its a great time, it should keep me til the expansion comes out. I understand now why you would say that WOW did not have a good end game lol.

I usually only last one month with online games; if there's a free month, I use it up and I'm done with it for a while.
I came back to WoW again in December and played a paladin with my bro. I found I just don't have the patience that it takes to level up your guy, even to level 40. I just can't be bothered with it.

So I figure I'd certainly have some problems putting up with these high level guilds that insist on all these things from you.
I don't really care if I get PvP kills or high level equipment. I just kind of want to coast through the game, enjoy the sights, fight a few boss elites in instances I don't even need to be in...
I just want to hang out. Too bad like 1 in 50 people I meet feel the same way. Always in this -huge- almost life-or-death hurry.

I love treasure hunting and all, but not enough to sacrifice the entire point of my getting the game in the first place.

There has only been one good MMO; old school UO.

Ditto. Factions FTW.

I'm talking about pre-UO:R.

I"m glad I"m not the only one that feels this way. It's just not fun anymore when you get to the end game.
It was really fun when my first guild was around, cuz everyone was really cool and friends and such. Now it's just a bunch of impersonal people 90% of the time. It definately feels like a job the way they want you to show up everyday at the same time for 5 hours as if this is the only thing you should be doing. Like most guilds I know wanna run MC on Fri. and Sats. nights and I'm like "Don't you ever go out and get wasted???"
I think I'm about to stop playing too unless it suddenly gets way more fun. I agree that alts are fun though. It's like reliving the past lol. But now it's to a point where i can't even get a group for regular instances...

I have a question: do you really need this equipment? I mean arent the highest mobs in the dungeons where you get this stuff? Do you really need it ouside?

See, this is what bugs me about MMORPGS, I just can't stand it when it becomes mundane and absolutely boring... Even before you get to lvl 60, even up to lvl 20 gets boring.

I'm not going to ramble about this, but I'm going to put in my last .02

When you end up playing for stats or the satisfaction of getting that one thing, instead of playing for fun, its not worth it.

Guilds with such rules are called raiding guilds in MMOG and this is not something new. The concept of raiding guilds became widespread in EQ where you need big raid groups to kill high end boss mobs which were time consuming and required dedications. When I was still playing EQ, the goal of raiding guild was to conquer the Plane of Time.

On WoW, the goal of raiding guilds is to conquer Blackwing Lair at the moment. In raiding guilds, people came together not because of friendship most of the time. They are guilded with the intentions of defeating the most difficult boss mobs and get the ultimate gears to show off. To members of the raiding guilds, they are the elites where the rest of the players like me are inferior. Do not bother to apply to these raiding guilds unless you play a class they need.

In conclusion, raiding guilds are base on what class you play and not who you are. It's all business, not suitable for the casual gamers.

Pretty sure everyone knew as much already..

Raiding guilds aren't even suitable for most hardcore gamers, they're that ridiculous!

I've been in a MC/BWL guild for about two months now, and although it is similar to the one you are discussing, our rules are slightly more relaxed. We're expected to raid 3-4 nights a week and there are 6 raids scheduled a week. To me end game raiding is just like any other serious hobby one might have. If you are going to do something you might as well do your best at it. And I know for everyone in my guild we don't raid for the "Uber Leetness Polearm of Awesomeness" but for the experience of downing some of the hardest bosses of the game. I have really enjoyed learning the strategies of each boss and knowing every night after four hours of raiding I just did my best.

I think Blizzard should re-think how these rare and epic honor sets are given out.

Instead of making so that everyone has to go to the same dungeon dozens of times in the hopes that the boss at the end will finally drop the weapon or gear you need for your set. Why not move WoW more towards Reputation rewards, where turning in trade goods or fighting members of another faction gives you access to buying what you want from special vendors? Battlegrounds and the new War Effort mission scratch the surface of this idea, but I think Blizz could take it a step further.

So instead of fighthing the same boss over and over again in 10-40 man raids (and as Steve said in his 1st review of the game, makes it seem less like an event and more like a game mechanic) you can carry out mini-quests that increase your faction and gives you access to speciality items.

to will i totally agree with everything you said. i think thats how it should be done for the casuals and hardcore that don't want to raid 20 times in a week and not get what they want.

I never even got to the end game, stopped playing around level 56 because it already felt like work and I wasn't even in a Guild. I don't have 9-13 hours to sit in front of my computer to finish MC with a group, it's just not a reality for me.

Personally I can't stand mmorpgs, just because they are so demanding of your time and patience. single player rpgs arn't nearly as bad but I still find myself getting bored of trying to level up all my stats.

I played WOW for about 3 months near it's launch, then got bored of it.

LOL, how did you know about this stuff steve?

Blizz’s endgame is an afterthought. It’s something they put in place to keep people busy, sort of “wool over the eyes.” I know of guilds like this. Depending on their progress, they raid nearly every night cycling through Ony, MC, BWL, ZG. The officers of the guild have the best gear and complete their sets before anyone else. Member’s are required to raid, and lose DKP or loot ladder positions if they miss ONE scheduled raid. Now it’s gotten to the point where some large guilds are bribing casuals (and small guilds) to open up the AQ gates for them asap so they can begin farming the instances there. For contributing mass resources to the war effort bribes can include MC runs with their guild (yay, MC yawnfest), Ony run, and outright gold. Sorry mates, you can open your own damn AQ gates if you want to farm yet another 40 man instance. The endgame in WoW is truly sad. I don’t believe it is what Blizz intended, but what else can they do? It’s approaching 1.5 years since release with no expansion. Appalling.

I hear you brother. I was in a similar guild, DKP the raid schedules and all. If you do not make it on time and on a regular basis you get shut of the raids or even kicked from the guild. Somebody above talked about the "challenge" of the 40 man raid and strategy, etc. Well thats fun till you get the encounters down. There is NO randomness in these inststances, so once your guild has these places on farm status there is nothing more boring then going time after time to these raids.

It becomes worse then a job, because its the same content run over and over and over and over. I left the hard core guild to join a guild with less rules, and am now having fun again. I may raid less, may not get fitted out with tier 2's in every slot, but I can have a life outside the game and play nice and relaxed.

Thats why 1-59 in this game was so great.

lol, this is why i just quit WoW yesterday, grinding to get gear, rep, rank and getting on the waiting list for tier 2 set is not how i am going to waste my life anymore. while i was ranking up, reached marshal, and as i wondered to myself "damn, next week i can't be in front of the monitor 24/7 (to play the few games that come in during the day depending on the hordes), so i'll lose rank, and many will pass me too," is when i finally woke up and quit. this game is best designed for farmers, blizz does not know how to maintain it's clients other than by having gear through a probability. sad because i love these games and play from the days when it was pen and paper only, but just not going to play anymore games that it's about leveling or wishing for a gear to drop.

i should have stoped during the early levels when a skeleton did not drop a bone finger. the grinding system is obsolete from the days of D&D meetings with paper character sheets. in real life it's possible to beat up someone or anything who would be several levels above you in the game, but these games you can't do anything until you've wasted your own life invested in absurd requirements and rules in the game.

i'll make a game some day and liberate everyone from the grind XD

When I played subscription MMOGs, I think it was more out of wonder of what was actually happening (the Internet-- used to bring people together in this really cool way) than for what the game was actually about, once we were all used to the wondrous content. When that initial wonder faded, we were once again grinding our way to the top, and for what?

As soon as a game becomes work, as described so well by all of you above, I find I'd rather put my time and energy into real world accomplishments, like school, expression (writing, making a website work), and spending quality time with my family, than sitting there, like one of many lemmings, and basically being owned by this...software.

Don't get me wrong-- as an avid (casual) gamer, I still love games (my xbox 360 is seeing a lot of me, lately), but as Steve and you others said, when a game becomes work it ceases to be an escape and becomes an extension of chores I'd rather not do.

Guild Wars has managed to keep my attention because I haven't once felt like I was grinding. I'm not at the top yet (level 20). I'll get there slowly, and accidentally, as I complete quests which are part of a storyline and have real objectives which don't feel repetitive. My understanding is that it then becomes about my guild competing with others in strategic PvP that has been a lot of fun to watch so far. ArenaNet has managed to accomplish this with no montly fee. Good stuff.

Why grind when you could be enjoying yourself? If you enjoy yourself while grinding, then I can't help you and you probably don't understand a thing I said.

Being that this is basically a total wow flame fest, and so full of negativity, I think it would be fair to see the other side of this.

I started playing with a few of my friends back in October. One of my friends had endgame experience, and had a few 60s on another server. They had run MC up to rag, and for whatever reason his guild fell apart. There was a new server opening up (RPPVP) and he wanted to start fresh and bring us all along with him. Other than him, none of us had even seen WOW, but read about it and figured we would give it a shot, especially since we had his guidance along the way. So we all rolled complementary characters, and set off on our journey total noobs.

We leveled pretty much evenly, with the expert in our group always keeping a little ahead to give us incentive. We set up voice servers, and each evening we would all meet online after our jobs, and hang out, chat, and play wow. It was great fun, and I have since made best friends with the guys that were just acquaintances before.

Fast forward to current day; we all hit 60 this week, are in an end game centric guild. We still run together most of the time, and have picked up a couple of other guys who complement our play styles, who also joined the guild, that we do most of our 5 man runs with.

You see, it was the plan from the beginning (4 months ago) to be a part of an organized “end game” centric guild. We guild hopped a few times, working to find a good guild we meshed with, agreed with their rules, and had a GM with strong leadership abilities and time to dedicate too the guild. That was the plan, and here we are.

Our guild raids nightly, but there is no pressure like; "YOU MUST JOIN THE RAID 5 DAYS A WEEK OR LEAVE THE GUILD!!” It's pretty mutual that the 60+ people in our guild all enjoy accomplishing the task of downing what most people will never have the chance to even see face to face. We don't NEED to enforce rules like that, because it's not needed, people enjoy raiding, and it happens naturally.

Our GM is a very patient understanding person. That's pretty key to having a good guild, you can't imagine the frustration of 40 people wiping because you didn't see the mob to your right, and you moved just a little to close. They just about want to lynch you, but the GM keeps everyone cool, calmly explains what went wrong, if it was your fault, he will let you know, you learn and we move on. Its team building, group coordination, and learning to work together to accomplish a common goal, not feed some individuals rock star ego. You have to be equally able to give criticism as much as you are to take it. In addition you must be willing to sacrifice for the better of the group.

I think a lot of people get really tied up in getting the QUICK AND EASY UBBER LEET LEWTS & SUPER EPIC GEAR!! Why bother? Yes, it's there, and you can "GRIND" your life away with that being your only aspiration, but you loose the point all together and eventually the fun of the whole game (as all of the above post point out).

For me, and a LOT of other people out there, the endgame challenges are very rewarding. Given you find a reasonable guild, not a slave pit, and enjoy the camaraderie of your guild mates; the amount of excitement and pride you take downing a world boss is absolutely astonishing.

Then the gear becomes less of the focus, and just a nice afterthought when something drops and you get it. The reward should be the sense of group accomplishment, not GRINDING FOR GEAR...

It’s just a little discouraging seeing someone like Steve (which I enjoy his commentary very much) missing some of these key points, and setting everyone here into a WOW hating feeding frenzy. Yes, some guilds are insane, but there are mature guilds out there with people who live ordinary lives. These guilds are able to accomplish the same great things, and I think have more fun in the process. WOW End Game could be a job, but only if you make it so, and then it’s your own fault not Blizzards.

I don't blame Blizzard for anything. If you choose to pay them each month so that you can "play," that's entirely your fault. Hard for me to blame them when all I had to do is hit "cancel."

I check out just about every MMOG I hear even slightly positive things about, and they all have most of the same problems. I'm looking for that elusive, ultimate MMOG experience, and I'm patient.

As for WoW, end game is gruelling, no matter how you tackle it. It's a drag and a chore, and when it's done even an endgame-centric guild is glad it's over. Glad it's over? That's odd, for a game one is supposed to enjoy. And that's all you've got to do once you hit 60. So, here come ten more levels for you with that next expansion. Gotta keep you guys around. :)

What's WoW up to, now, anyway, 4 million users? What percentage of those people are like you, Warlock, and play the game for friendship and group cohesiveness? I think that's admirable. You made great points and showed that people like you exist out there. You're just increasingly harder to find.

When I was trying WoW, I found a great group of people-- a very casual guild. It was very forgiving toward people with demanding jobs and families, like me, and I felt vindicated belonging to a guild like that, one with a lower bar than the extreme one that Steve cited. The problem was that this guild "wasn't getting anywhere" according to its own members, and before long they started trying to compete. Next thing I knew, they were shaving off members that didn't show up a certain number of hours per week. It's just a game. I play it when I get a chance. Sorry I can't devote more time to it. :)

But yeah, keep on truckin', Warlock. You've got a good thing going there with the guild you're in, and you have a good attitude about the game.

To Warlock:

If you like to be a simple Joe in a game, like you claim to be, then it would be easy to play a game that as you say is what Blizz intends with WoW. I on the other hand am ambitious, and when Blizz makes my game too hard for me to accoplish anything in it as it would not be for me in REAL LIFE, I simply go back to where my accomplishments pay off, and have no penalties. Hence my concentration to real life things and why I quit WoW this last Sunday.

If you dont like to be better than the rest in a game, you can be less than me and be beaten everytime. Of course, I know that once I beat you a few times, even though you were as skillful as I was in those matches, heck maybe even deserved a few of the wins, you are going to want that nice gear. In the meantime, you'll try to find someone you can beat, and when there is one that beat you like I did and laughs at you... Now you are on a mission. You are going to grind harder. All you do now is MC and BWL and where ever else there is a drop that may help you beat me or those who laugh and abuse you. Blizz knows this, and they exploit this quality with probability drops because it keeps customers paying. You may say you are not like this, but I've had many friends in the game who claimed to be like you until the bug bit them. What you say is negative is what you deny with positivity.

NO gaming company is going to deliver a game to its customer when it knows that it can hook them up on grinding and wishing for the probabilities of a drop to happen for them. BUT! unlike in Las Vegas, you win nothing but that brief satisfaciton that last as long as the next set comes out for you to grind again, and again, and again, again, gain nothing....

You miss the point, not Steve.

btw, i am not losing focus of steve's article about end game guilds and their rules. the things i put in about the rediculousness that blizz has people running in for tier 2 sets is because of how the devs have designed this game to be with all it's grinding and what not. i didn't come in that late into the game, i left Lineage 2 and after a while wanted to play another mmorpg and thought WoW would be different, but despite what the critics say everywhere, it's no diffent except for safeguarding your gear, no death penalties, and you can't kill your friend save beating them in a duel, oh and mounts are easier to acquire.

Like in L2, to have a guild or be part of a guild requires your actual life invested in the game. My main problem with this is that blizz in not considerate of all the adults in these games or even care how they keep kids at home from experiencing anything else in life other than the game. BECAUSE if you leave the game, others will get ahead of you, and everyone is competitive, even if they deny it, or dont know it yet, it is when you become competitive that you are sucked into the game.

until i can do it on my own, and i hate to design a game that i know everything about, i wait for a game with no grinding and need to be part of a giant membership club just to get gear. if it's really about friendship and fun, devs would designed quests and mission for people to defeat. but blizz does not trust that without a carrot at the end of the quest. people like winning more than what they would get from a quest. i don't know about guild wars, but they are going over a million accounts because it evidently demonstrates how supporting your guild for a win gets more dedication than carrots at the end of a stick. i bet guild wars is not even explointing this aspect of their games for maintaining their cusotmers, but it's the best things for the players and cleanest way to do business.

Otherwise, games like WoW and L2 will always born you into their games at the mercy of those you need to become dependant once you want more for your character.

I think the problem with most MMORPG's is after you achieve a certain level it gets harder to acheive the next. If you think about it a bit, it has to be that way or there would be such an uber toon in the game that you would never have the chance to even stand in the guys shadow. So WoW's solution is to make it so only the most dedicated gamer will achieve king like status. I mean seriously, dont we all want to slide into that epic outfit and go to the AH bridge and wear out our spacebar so other toons will ohhh and ahhh at our greatness? Then enter the BG's and one shot the opposite fraction so other people will talk about you? I know I do but like the rest of you..........screw that!!! Too much work. This may be WoW's downfall.

They forget that the game is suppose to be fun. One of the coolest things I ever seen in the game was not some toons shining armor, or "omg, that's the biggest crit i've ever seen". Nope the coolest thing I have ever seen was someones imagination. Bare with me.

We were in WSG and as usual the Horde had us 2 to 0. Like so many of times we would get their flag and they would get ours. We would rush bach to our bases and hide. Then the horde would find us, kill us and cap the flag. It was a long game so people were asking for a stratigy. Finally, a priest said give me the flag, i got a plan. A PRIEST.....WITH THE FLAG? OK!!

So this priest gets the flag and goes to the top floor of the base, flag in hand. What he did next was just awesome. He jumped off tward the center of the flag room, and using an item he got during the Winter Vail time of the game, turned himself to a snowman and stopped in midair. At first I was thinking wtf.....get down here....they're coming!!! But this dude done figured it out...all the horde had were warriors, rogues and healers. All of which couldnt reach his mid-air stunt to do any real damage. We protected that flagged snowman priest with 3 hunters, while the rest went to get our flag back.

We came back to win that game. But the point I am trying to make is this. End game raiding is there to get uber yes. I dont like it but it must exist. But for us people who can only stand so much of it, why not make the pvp part of the game(the whole point behind the beginning of WoW - Alliance vs Horde) an equal if not more rewarding part of the game. That way you can play the game as a MMORPG when you want, or you can play it by yourself on your terms.

I dont think there are very many quests to do beside faction rewards that a single lvl 60 toon can do by him/herself. GRIND is a word I use to like. Weeknights use to be relaxing. Hunter item forum bashing is way to common. It is all very tiring yes.

......well.....gotta go......that Mountain Silversage in Un'Goro wont dig itself out of the ground!

I for one enjoy the WoW end game. For me it's fun, social, requires teamwork, and is rewarding in the form of character advancement.

You may not agree... guess the game is not for you then. Find something else to do. It's that simple.

There's always going to be people who obsess over games, so there will always be guilds for those people and developers will need content for them.

If the game has no alternatives then for most of us it is time to leave.

If you are really not that type of person, then why join such a guild? You are forgetting that it is a game and turning it into a job.

So you raid many nights a week and get your 'uber' items. Ask yourself: what are you really gaining? You are gaining a few extra stat points here and there, typically. You can now brag to people that you have 8700 mana rather than 8500. You now have 0.01% more damage absorption. You gain the ability to look just like everyone else of your race/class combination.

Now that you have your "Tier 2" set, what you going to do? Can you retire happy? If you are retiring then why did you need the "Tier 2" set?

"Ah, but I now have an edge in PvP?" Can you really quantify how much more you win now because of gear rather than skill? If you win now do people think you won out of skill or because you farmed gear? Can you afford to PvP if you are raiding 7 nights a week?

In a MMORPG many people seem to forget that the journey is more important than arrival at the final destination. After all, there IS no final destination, other than quitting to go onto something else.

In WoW I notice that many of the 'powerplayers' have several level 60 characters. All that work just to have "Beetlejuice, Undead Mage, Level 60 Tier 2 Set (Retired)" in your signature, plus a link to your character that 99.99% of people don't give a damn about.

I am not bashing WoW, because all MMORPGs are like this, except for the ones that are not released yet that promise to be different (but won't be).

Really interesting thread, came across this completely by accident.

I used to be in one of these "uber-guilds". Top 5 on the server sort of thing. I participated in MC/Onyxia/BWL etc, but as a semi-casual gamer (im a full time uni student and work part time, so my ingame time is limited).
Most of the original members had been playing since US beta, myself and my boyfriend included. We had all been friends or at least aquaintances from other games, namely AC2 for years.

In November, my boyfriend and I, along with a handful of other people, decided that this sort of guild was not our cup of tea, and decided to splinter off and enjoy ourselves again. What had happened was, half of the "friends" decided that warcraft and it's endgame appeal was more important than simply enjoying yourself. They became selfish, self-important, and it seemed the only thing of any consequence was taking down the next boss in BWL - to the extent that they pushed away any real friendship they ever had with us.

I can't help but smile when I think their guild is now falling apart now that the truly helpful and friendly people (i.e. us) are gone.

Anyway.. the 7 or so of us made a little guild (after hours of being told by the guild master in orgrimmar that all our guild names were taken, or reserved, or just too damn stupid to be allowed - we finally settled on Whisky Tango Foxtrot), just so we could chat together and mess around. Well, it gradually grew, recruiting RL friends of current members and generally nice people we had played with who wanted a guild that wasn't full of immature idiots.

Two months later and we're at the point where we have a pretty good playerbase. Guildchat is always flowing with amusing chat and people generally being helpful. We raid a couple of instances every night helping people get their final few levels to hit 60 (we never recruited people "only lvl 60" and all that rubbish), and as a gradual progression we have almost enough people to start running MC. These guys have been intelligent enough to work on their kit while they were levelling up, and two of them even hit 60 last night and their first task was to go buy their epic mounts.

I'm absolutely determined for our progression onto MC not to turn us into an elitist guild, everyone is friendly and helpful to one another, we can all have a laugh, and I've never seen any fights or flames between any of them.

I don't like the word 'rules', we have guidelines, but tbh these guys don't even need them. Their common sense is good enough.

Basically what I'm saying is, I did the hardcore guild, and I'm now doing the relaxed, friendly guild. And it's so obvious which is more enjoyable. I have no problem taking my time to conquer certain areas, or gain desirable items, as long as it means we can all have fun along the way.

I have no desire for glory in warcraft, at least on a server-wide scale. The sense of our achievement, and hearing everyone shout on our voice-chat when we take down the bosses in MC for the first time at our own pace, enjoying ourselves, will far outweigh anything they will ever drop, little purple pixels can't match that :)

Its not that weird to go to BWL , MC over and over again if you wanna have that stuff if you are more casual you can also go with the blue ones but if you wanna have the best than you also have to work the most for it ofcourse.

I quit WOW. Rather go watch a movie now then to waste months on some trial DKP crap system to get 1 stupid chance at a single dumb purple that was never meant for a Family Oriented guy to obtain since he can't ever put 24/7 a week into the game.

I think it is sad that WOW has no tactical solo dungeons for classes to achieve beating to obtain truly worthy items of a solo nature.

WOW is a MMORPG but man don't throw out the solo factor. It's already bad enuff there is no OFFLINE feature of WOW.

Did anyone of you guys ever think about the fact that there might be 40 persons out there playing together 6 days a week 6 hours a night just for their shared goal of clearing whatever new dungeon blizzard just implented in the game not because of the loot but for the satisfaction of beating the developers ? it's like you just play for fun, but you do it after schedules and kinda extremly often. as for the guild i'm in we became the 18# guild in europe (i think) to kill w,e boss blizzard came up with.. and after that the past 2 weeks we've just kinda slacked and beeing just satisfied with what we accomplished. sure thoose 36 hrs / week schedules made us kinda tired on playing but hey, noone else but yourself forces you to do it?

My testimony:

I started playing WoW the first week it came out. At the time I was going to a 2 year college and didn't game much at all, in fact I made fun of my friend for always sitting at home playing EQ. Well, needless to say, the graphics and gameplay were fricking awesome escpecially since it was really my first MMORG. So as days went by I started getting more and more into the game and stopped going to class, and pretty much failed/dropped out of crappy community college just to play this game and try to get to 60.

As I was leveling up I joined up with a few others and got into a good guild and got to level 60 and was so excited. I did all the high level instances like UBRS and Strat, etc which got very boring after about the 20th run lol, then we started doing MC in about April 2005 and I was all pumped up. We were among the first guilds on the server to start doing MC so of course it took us a while to learn each fight, and conviently enough, we got 0 dkp for all those "attempts". And as the months went by people came and went and alot of changes were made to the dkp system, most screwing over of the veterans that had been raiding since day 1 like myself. So after about 6-7 months of raiding 2-3 times per week for hours each night we finally were able to clear the instance and defeat Ragnarous (last boss). All in all it took me about 8 months I believe to get my whole tier 1 set...

Well, that was enough for me. My account expired last week and I am not going to renew, looking back now I regret all the time I wasted playing this stupid game just to keep trying to get the best gear which after a few months is considered trash when new dungeons and such come out. I am not going to spend another 6 months in BWL trying to get tier 2 when it is not that huge of an improvement and by the time I get it, it will be outdated.

Sooo, to wrap this up, I wish I never got started with this game, it is a fun game at first, but way too addicting and time consuming. Not to mention that Blizzard has horrible support, unstable servers, 2 years to come out with expansions lol, and was constantly stealth nerfing my favorite class (rogue). For a company that is making millions if not billions of dollars that is just sad. Don't get sucked in to this game!

Cheers =)

I have been playing Warcraft since it was released and hope to point out some exaggerations in this post for people who aren't very familiar with this game.

While there is some truth to this post (you have to run dungeons multiple times to get the best gear) the guild you speak of has stricter rules than the top guild on my server. I am currently a member of the #2 horde guild on my server and even though we are capable of clearing most 40-player dungeons with ease and also kill some bosses in the most recently added raid dungeon, our rules are not even close to those listed in your article.

There are, in fact, guilds that require a certain raid attendance. This is usually for a particular reason, i.e. the guild leaders want the guild to make progress very fast to catch up to others, or the guild is striving for "server firsts" or "world firsts" meaning that that particular guild becomes the first to meet a certain objective on the server/world. Despite my guilds speedy progress and dedication to raiding, there is no required raid attendance.

I have been in four different raiding guids of various skill levels and never have I been required to attend "meetings." There are some guilds that have meetings with the leaders of the guild to discuss strategies, but since it is usually a group of friends who start and lead a guild these players typically meet to hang out and have fun in addition to strategizing. As in all games, strategy is a major part of Warcraft and to learn new and innovative ways of winning fights is fun. Generally, boss strategies are told to the raid just before the monster is engaged in combat, and good raid leaders will give players almost no down time whatsoever. There are several weaker guilds on my server with unskilled or lazy players that can spend up to 10 minutes between each battle, however these guilds make little or no progress and often disband due to poor leadership. As long as all of the players in the raid already know what they are doing, guilds often pull without breaks (very fun and fast paced) and only stop occassionally to heal injured characters.

The DKP system you speak so poorly of is actually a good thing. Usually items are put to an auction where players bid points. Since all gear is designed for certain character classes, there are almost never situations where one player hogs all the items (and in fact some guilds have a policy where a player may only obtain one new item per raid unless no one else wants a certain item). A typical raid dungeon has 7-10+ bosses, each dropping 2-4 items once defeated. In addition to these items, various materials and pieces of powerful gear are obtained from the smaller monsters killed along the way. It is rare for any player to attend one of these raids without receiving a single piece of loot, unless he/she already has almost everything that comes out of the raid and is attending for fun or points.

Lastly, the comment about a 90-day trial period sounds like a gross exaggeration. Even in my guild (as stated earlier, one of the most powerful guilds on my server) allows players to take items on their very first raids. Granted a player almost never starts with any points (used to spend on the gear found in raid dungeons) however there is such a surplus of items in most raids that even first time raiders will occassionally pick up several pieces of the most powerful armor sets in one raid. In good 20-player raids every single player will leave the dungeon with one or two new pieces of armor, weapons or even new spells. The whole point of the DKP system is to prevent new players from getting the most powerful gear available to that guild at the time. Would it really be fair to the people in the guild who are by far the most skilled or dedicated to lose their dream gear to a player who joined the guild earlier that day?

All-in-all there is a reason so many people continue to play WoW and it is not as simple as an "addiction" like cigarettes, which contain addictive chemicals. The game is FUN and people who play it generally enjoy the game (like myself). In my case I have proven that it is entirely possible to maintain a part-time job, attend a four year university full-time, have a steady girlfriend (who now raids with me!) and raid on a regular basis.

Gaming Steve, if you do not enjoy playing your character to the best of your ability, having a secondary social life in a gaming guild and attending some very entertaining massively multiplayer battles then WoW just isn't for you!

Yeah, enough with the WoW bashing. You've taken the rules for the most hardcore guilds out there and are implying that it's like that for all raiding guilds. I'm in raiding guild that raids 4 nights a week, requires a 66% attendance and everyone loves it. We aren't motivated by the phat lewtz. We're motivated by accomplishing incredible goals as a team. The loot is a great bonus, but not the real thrill of being in a raiding guild. The first time you kill Nef is the thrill. The first time you kill C'thun is the thrill. The first time you clear AQ40 in one night is the thrill. Find a good guild and your opinion of the end game will change dramatically.