...the Monday raid came to an end.
After last night's raid, where they failed to down Kalecgos, there was an announcement in Team Loki's chat that the raid leadership had made the difficult decision to shutter the Monday raid. It was becoming too difficult to recruit given that Alliance players were abandoning Myzrael-US in droves, and while there was an option floated about moving the Monday raid entirely to Atiesh-US for next week, apparently enough people didn't want to move that it would be difficult to replace them on the fly.
I know that things were difficult in keeping a single day/week raid going --I mean, I was in the Monday raid up through Phase 2, so I know this personally-- but I also know that the grind as well as the perception that the Monday raid team was somehow "less than" hardcore enough that it became mentally taxing to a lot of people.
***
Yes, I was aware of how mentally taxing the perception that the Monday raid was a bunch of "casuals" was. I kept my mouth shut about it in general, both here and in guild, because it wasn't my place to say anything as I was no longer progression raiding*, but I knew it really became a thing when we were unable to get people to come to our Saturday afternoon/evening Zul'Aman runs.
That becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course. If you avoid running with people because they're "not hardcore enough" then they have to backfill with undergeared alts who can't clear content quickly enough, so the perception is reinforced that "they're too casual" or "they're not good enough". Rinse and repeat.
Sure, there were other issues with the Saturday ZA raids, such as other raids happening that would suck away personnel and we were caught in the crossfire, but perceptions are hard to shake.
***
Now that the Monday raid is well and truly dead, I guess I'll have to come to grips with the small(ish) fantasy I had that somehow I could get back into progression raiding before Wrath Classic dropped.
I mean, I now have the time on Monday nights to be able to raid again, but I am so far behind --both in gear and more importantly in understanding the fights-- that there's little chance of me catching up in time. As my questing buddy put it the other day, by the time the Shamans were really needed in progression raiding (in Mount Hyjal), there were so few left of the original group of leveling shamans that it was essentially worthless to make them run through the gauntlet at the beginning of TBC Classic. All it did was burn them out and cause them to quit.
Gear drops --or a lack thereof-- also hurt the Monday raid. For most of Phase 2, we got so few decent drops out of SSC and TK that it really hurt our DPS and Tank output. When your Pally tanks and Warlocks are both competing for the same tier gear, and both need the same drops off of Vashj and Kael'Thas, then that's going to hurt your raiding quite a bit. Chasing the BiS gear --and not getting it-- was mentally taxing on my questing buddy too. I did my best to try to support her and the others with the Friday Karazhan raids (badges, you know), but I was pretty limited in what I could do without burning her out further.
***
At times like this, I just wish I could have done more to help out and keep the raid running. Even though I know intellectually that you can only do so much, that doesn't stop those feelings from coming. You never really stop caring, and when you say you've stopped caring that's probably when you actually care the most.
Yes, there's a selfish element to all this, because I'd love to be able to stick it to the doubters, and even more than that I'd love to finish my personal goals in TBC Classic. But part of being an adult is that while I can keep my dreams, I can also acknowledge reality.
*It was brought up with raid leadership as well.
It really is a shame that BC Classic ended in so much disappointment for both of us. Though I'll admit I've taken some comfort from the parallels in our stories.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it did end with so much disappointment.
DeleteStill, there are friends that I've made that I'm going to try to keep up with their friendships in Wrath, just like how you've got your SWTOR guild. (And your Pet Tank!)
Just last Friday I got a whisper from one of them, saying how they missed the Friday Karazhan run. I missed it too, I replied, but I knew I couldn't force them to stay when the decision was made to go to Atiesh.
Your in game life is so complex. Reading your experiences and Shintar’s though, reinforces for me the concept that Raiding Is Bad. Give me a nice dungeon crawl any day. I hope you get to raid somewhere, anywhere, though, if that’s what you want. Atheren (Google login doesn’t work for me, in case you wondered. )
ReplyDeleteI think raiding itself isn't bad, it's the people you raid with --and the associated drama from getting people with different goals into the same space-- that can make it bad. Or when people start off with a specific set of goals, but over time some of the people evolve their goals into something different than what was originally the case. (Such as found in Kaylriene's most recent post.)
DeleteOh, are you using Firefox? I discovered that Google login for blogs stopped working on Firefox, and I had to go back to Chrome for blogs only.
Sorry this seems to be putting an end to things. I too had hopes and plans for TBC Classic. I got as far as Kara and then let it drop. Maybe I shouldn't have given up so easy, but so much happened then that I am probably better having taken a break. And yes, I feel for those other 25+ people who didn't get the chances they wanted.
ReplyDeleteYou know, for every person who went absolutely bonkers into TBC Classic and blitzed through content, there's probably an equal number --if not more so-- who became a casualty of the expac. From those who found it simply didn't capture the magic to those who burned out to those who found that blitzing through the expac by following the meta wasn't what they signed up for (or some combination of all three) TBC Classic certainly didn't measure up for a lot of people.
DeleteEven today I heard some people in game talking up how great TBC Classic was and that they had a blast in the expac, and I could only shake my head. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, I guess.
It's entirely feasible that if I'd have stayed on Cardwyn as my main I would have had a much more enjoyable time of it in TBC Classic, but knowing me I would have likely rebelled against the hardcore expectation to go through the meta. I also kind of resented being roped into joining the guild in the first place, but I had made a commitment before I realized the cost involved, so I can't really complain about that.
But forging my own destiny, apart from things? Like what Shintar is doing in Classic Era with a baby Rogue? Yeah, I'm up for that. I'll be happy to jump off the hardcore train in Wrath Classic.
For me it was the chasing meta on my hunter. Leveled from scratch on a new server and hit the dungeons so hard to get the bus that by the time I got it all (damn shamans stealing my pieces...) I was already a bit frayed at the edges so when I find there's a million hunters and I can only get into the third Kara group that can't even finish, I hit a wall. Maybe I should have taken a break, but FFXIV called and honestly, it was certainly a better choice at the time.
DeleteI do regret not getting an attempt on The Great Winged One, but changing jobs and then shifts has really had an impact, along with some other things. I would honestly clone a character or 5 if they kept even just one or two BC realms going.
If there was going to be a TBC Era server or two hanging around, I'd be up for that as well. If nothing else, it'd be nice to not deal with the rush rush rush mentality that so permeates the Classic community right now.
DeleteOnce again Red, your experiences just make mine seem that much better. The choice I made to drop out of raiding after Tier 1 and work on alts has kept me coming back night after night, day after day to the game with full enthusiasm. With finally pulling the trigger on doing the Isle dailies in order to outfit all my toons with epic flying before Wrath I'm having a blast watching the gold count get up to 5.3k, then buying the next mount, then back up again. It hasn't felt like a grind at all, and that's all I've done for 3 weeks straight. Ticking off the box beside a toon's name that covers epic flying is just soooooo satisfying. I'd equate the dopamine rush to getting a tier piece dropping off a boss.
ReplyDeleteDamn, I'm sounding smug, and that's not my intention. It's to say, once again, 'thanks for showing me the other side of the coin'.
Bill
I'm planning on waiting for the Wrath prepatch to go up to Quel'Danas, because at that point everybody will be rushing around to do prepatch dailies, so nobody will be up there at Q'D.
Delete