A fair number of players in my guild, along with a rapidly growing population in the game in general, seem to be starting to burn out on running the same old content ever week. During TBC or even vanilla WoW there was a far greater variety of instances to raid. 10 man raids could tackle Karazhan or Zul’Aman with the option of scaling up to timed runs when players start to grow weary of killing the same bosses time and time again. 25 man raids had a completely different set of instances to look forward to, along with some very exhilarating fights to take part in (Personally, I found Kael’Thas to be an absolute rush and the best designed encounter in the game…WTB Kael’Thas 2.0?).
In today’s WotLK there is no such variety as of yet. Naxxramas is the only real raid instance in existence at the moment (with exception of course to the two one boss wonder instances that seem to take longer to summon your entire raid to than it does to collect your loot). Even more depressing is that there is little challenge; it can be effectively farmed in a single night by PuGs in crafted PvP blues without any class synergies. While this may not be any different than the days of Molten Core or Karazhan being the only active raid zone, Naxxramas is recycled content. But the coup de grac is that Naxxramas can be run twice in a given lockout period via both 10-man and 25-man raids. The end result is players are growing bored with Naxxramas at an alarming rate.
This is starting to lead me to an interesting line of thought. I am sure that many people out there will disagree with my sentiment, but I personally adhere to the old belief that guilds don’t gear players…guilds gear raids. Raiding isn’t an exchange of goods and services. It’s not like walking into restaurant, eating the meal prepared for you and offering them monetary compensation at the meals completion. The guild does not bestow you with that glistening new sword as payment for your long hours of invested time in raids; you receive the sword to enhance your performance in the raid.
Whether it may be a sword, or a trinket or a ring that drops, one thing never changes. Only one person will receive the item that 25 people worked to get. Thus, the winner of the item doesn’t just get his or her new trophy, but they also win the responsibility to use this item to the benefit of the other 24.
Am I suggesting that you are a possession of the guild? Of course not. It’s not like receiving an item is the final stage in some dark pact that requires you to drink demons blood and surrender your soul (believe me, I should know! After all I am dating a warlock). You aren’t expected to skip out of work early to make raids. We’re not going to call you in the middle of your anniversary dinner with your significant other and tell you that your presence is required. But there is an intrinsic understanding that you will use your new power for the guilds greater good.
Suppose I’m running Naxx 25 with my guild and we come to Heigan the Unclean. We do our dance, make a clean kill and go through our loot. We discover that Demisehas dropped and our 2-handed dps classes are beginning to drool. We go through our bids and via our EPGP loot system determine that I’m the winner. I gladly take the mace, hearth to Dalaran, and inform my guild that I’m bored with Naxx and that I am going to retire my druid to PvP until Ulduar comes out.
If this was the case, clearly, I would be abusing my guild. They reward me with a new mace and I turn my back on them until the next content patch. Obviously this is a rather extreme scenario, but where do we draw the line? When is it okay to call it quits after the guild has extensively geared up one of it’s raiders? When is it acceptable to take a break and when is it in bad taste to do so?
This is a problem I am currently faced with. A few of our raiders are starting to become bored with the games current content. They already have most of the best in slot upgrades they wanted and are waiting for Ulduar to come out. Our main death knight dps let his account expire without even running it by us and expects us to still have a raiding slot for him when he comes back. Our main rogue since mid way through TBC doesn’t log in for days at a time and doesn’t even bother to sign up on our raid calandar as not attending.
We don’t by any means need these two players present to clear Naxx. Their absence won’t be the difference between wiping on Kel’Thuzad all night and failing to get the kill in before reset. But it does mean that bosses die slower and raids take longer. It does mean that Heroic: Make Quick Werk Of Him will need to wait a few more weeks until we get the gear for it. It does mean that our progression Sartharion +3 Drakes attempts are short two of our guild’s best melee dps.
Whats worse is the situation that it puts me in. I am now in an awkward position where I need to make the choice between the lesser of two evils. I can recruit new raiders to fill these roles so we aren’t forced to clear Naxx without a full raid or cancel our Sartharion progression attempts. But then when Ulduar comes out and those players taking a break return, I have the unfortunate task of deciding who to bench. Those that took a break from the game or those that have been helping us raid for the last few months.
Either way, the guild loses.
What a punk. Just another example of how the youth of today feel that they are entitled and are selfish little bastards.
[...] this one: after farming Naxx-25 for two months, everyone is bored. Although this brings with it a whole new set of challenges, it also gives us some common ground — and thus, a new foundation to build [...]
[...] 23, 2009 by Keaton This is a follow-up to my With Great Loot, Comes Great Responsibility post. As players started to become bored with WotLK content, our raid numbers began to dwindle. [...]