[Cue western music]
It was a hot day in Shattrath. A real scorcher. Tumbleweeds blew across the lower city pavement as a few lone dweebs argued semantics in [2. Trade].
The regular crew in the World’s End Tavern hoisted their brews, and cursed the heat of the day. Even the plaintive cries of Murdo, explaining that “It’s a dry heat!” did not lessen their annoyance.
Suddenly, a figure appeared, sillouetted in the door of the bar. She wore brown leathers, and held a staff in her hands that writhed with TENTACLES!
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Clearly, this was a figure of power and menace. You did see the tentacles, right?
As she entered the tavern, the crowd leaned forward, eager to see which guild this figure of power and menace hailed from.
Was it Divine Might ? Legatum Ignavis? The Bloodship?
No! The crew drew back in horror, for before them stood not a proud and valiant raider, vanquisher of the end game foe, but instead one of the unwashed, the unclean… the Guildless!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Welcome one and all to a new day in the life of Windshadow and Cassieann.
Tonight, I made the break and left Legatum Ignavis, to head off into the cold, lonely world.
I doubt there will be any lessons for anyone to learn in any of this.
I just found myself in a difficult position, without even understanding how I got there in the first place.
I’ve mentioned before how I had left a previous raiding guild because the raiding tempo was too high. But I wasn’t going to leave my new guild, no sir.
So, WTF, you might ask?
It all comes down to a final epiphany, where I suddenly realized last night that I had absolutely no reason to be frustrated with the way things were going in the guild. It wasn’t a problem with the guild, it was a problem with my vision of what the guild was supposed to be.
Back when I was invited to join the guild, there were very few players that would be online at any given time. The highest aspiration any guildie could have was running in a ten man raid like Karazhan, and those were very lofty heights for a casual player like me.
Guild ranks start with Bum, go to Little Bum, Big Bum, True Bum and so on. The Guild Leader, the Raid Leader, the other players, were all fairly relaxed and laid back people. They were very skilled in playing their characters, but didn’t take things too seriously, they didn’t get all wound up. There would generally be a scheduled Karazhan raid every week, as the guild worked to master the instance, but other than that playtime was entirely unstructured and anything was fair game. And they obviously understood about family, the Guild Leader’s wife plays in the same guild, and he has a son old enough to raid (on another server).
This was an ideal situation for me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; I’m not about big raids. I only want to play with friends, or people that could possibly become friends. I do not want to play with asshats, and when you get 25 dedicated hardcore raiders together for a run, you HAVE asshats. You get arrogant, bossy, judgmental and condescending people that make me want to punch my monitor. Fun? Hell no.
So here was a guild that raided a few times a week at most, and had great people in it. A casual, friendly guild that sometimes raids, right?
Right there was my problem. In my mind, that was the heart of Legatum Ignavis. And I was dead wrong.
No one ever said that was what we were about. The Guild Leader and Raid Leader and others often said that what they wanted to do was get more people in the guild, advance through the content and take on the raids someday.
I just didn’t internalize that. Not emotionally. I heard the words, but I saw the actual gameplay, I saw the slackers (that I have ranted about in the past), I saw the casual attitude, and thought, “Yes, you have high aspirations, but it takes more than 7 solid players to raid”.
Now, we fast forward over many months. The guild has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams… but not our Guild or Raid Leaders’ dreams. We are finally reaching the point they always planned for us to get to.
I see Zul’Aman as the turning point. Once Zul’Aman was released, the solid players went into Zul’Aman and took on the challenge of beating the heck out of it. As the core players have progressed, other players on the server have joined in to see that new content. And as new players come in, more runs can be scheduled, more bosses attempted, and new progression is made. And new success brings in even more people in a domino effect. The better we do, the more folks want to join in.
Nothing succeeds like success, and I want to make sure the record shows that the people that made it happen, who started this and stuck with it, who never quit, never wavered, and never lost sight of forging Legatum Ignavis into a hardcore raiding guild were Whirlish, Joppers, Kellas, Rynadur, Gerolan and Elystia.
Others, like Occulus and Nawat took the guild a long way, but eventually had to leave for personal reasons. But those people started it, and those people stayed, and everything the guild is today is due to their hard work and dedication.
But this is the key to the whole thing. All those folks were up front about what they wanted; a hardcore raiding guild.
All I wanted was a casual, fun guild… and I had blinders on as things changed around me. I just didn’t see it happen.
As more people came into the guild, every single one of them came to raid. The guild is an absolute success.
A month ago, we had Karazhan on partial farm, usually being too lazy to take down Netherspite and Nightbane, and had the first two bosses of Zul’Aman down. The largest number of players online at one time, during peak hours, was 17.
Last night, while two Karazhan teams were in and moving forward, there were forty level 70 players online… at 11:00 PM on a weeknight.
Times change fast.
You know how overwhelmed Cassie and I have been feeling. Cassie has felt like she could sit some stuff out, but I have been just taking on the additional raids, and continuing to push. I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated, to almost rage proportions, when I try like hell to schedule raids in advance on the website to instill some order and stability to the way we did things, only to have raids thrown up at the last minute, taking up my few nights off.
This is where I was dead wrong. As a reader pointed out yesterday, the majority of players on the server would kill to be where I was today, a counted on, relied on, stable and welcomed member of a successful raiding guild, amember that had been there from the start.
But I still felt, emotionally, that I was in a casual guild. I don’t WANT to be required to play that much. Five, six days a week when you count multiple nights of ten man content are just insanely way too much for me. I still felt that this was all a mistake, that we were being way too busy and raiding way too much.
But we weren’t. The guild is raiding just fine, and the players are loving it and kicking ass.
It was only me that had my head up my butt about our plans and where we were going.
I finally realized this last night, when I was talking to our Guild Leader. Something he said, when he was talking about why he had to remove a player, finally made something click in my head.
He has been, all along, taking what actions he thought were necessary to make the guild a strong place for serious hardcore raiding.
And those of us that are casual players at heart are not going to be of much help in the long run. Not if I resent the time I’m spending away from my son.
Like I said, I finally ‘got it’ last night.
So I had to leave today.
It should come as no surprise that I have some strong opinions. But I am also decisive. If I think something through to figure out what is right for me to do, I act on it. Period. I make the decision and I take the consequences for my actions.
And I will not screw people over.
I knew today that I could not stay in a hardcore raiding guild. It’s not good enough to say “Oh, I’ll just not raid some nights.” A hardcore raiding guild needs dedicated, reliable people. Especially in the officer class. Anyone who is not pulling their own weight is not helping the guild progess.
So I knew I was going to go.
I think that when a person no longer intends to stay in a guild, the person is being dishonest if they remain guilded, coasting along, while looking for and applying to other guilds. That’s crap. If you’re in a guild, you are part of that guild. If your heart ain’t there, get the hell out and stop wasting peoples’ time.
But there was another reason why I could not wait another day.
Tonight was a Gruuls Lair run. And I was going to tank. I hadn’t signed up, but everyone knew I’d be there.
And I have max DKP. Most other people in my bracket have gotten their loot or used their DKP.
And chances were very high that my Tier 4 shoulder token would drop from high King Maulgor.
I WILL NOT be a person that takes an end-game raiding progression armor piece and then /gquits.
Not now, not ever.
So that set the time frame for me to quit. I had to take action prior to the raid so that I didn’t take loot that needs to serve the guild, and also so they had time to organize around a new tank.
I got onto Teamspeak and was lucky enough to be able to get the Guild Leader and Raid Leader and some other officers and good friends on so I could tell them in person, or at least in voice, what I was doing and why. It is the best way, I think, to make sure that, as much as possible, misunderstandings are avoided.
Then I let everyone online at the time in guild chat know what I was doing, and to thank everyone for basically kicking ass and making my time in the guild be so damn cool.
I have a lot of friends in Legatum Ignavis, and I wish them all the best. I know they will continue to kick ass without me, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss them.
I’ve been through this once before. We can all say we’ll keep in touch, but the fact is that when you aren’t bumping into people on guild chat or Teamspeak, you tend to form new friendships in the game, especially when the friends are hardcore raiders. You log in, see they are online, go to say hi, and then note they are busy in SSC or Gruuls, and say to yourself, ‘I’ll whisper them when they get out.”
It’s sad, but true. I hope I will see them around and have the pleasure of chatting with them again.
But, it is done, and there you have it.
Big Bear Butt is now back in my little alt guild Sidhe Devils along with Cassieann, there to bum around mostly solo or in two person teams, doing quests and dailies and the other things that the game has to offer that are not WoW.
In time, I’m sure I will find some new friends, and they will want to have some fun in 5 man content, and we’ll start the guild game anew.
But let’s be honest here… I doubt I’ll ever find a guild that fits our rather unusual dream.
“Looking For Guild; Feral Druid and Rogue on Kael’thas looking for a guild that is not raiding hardcore, and doesn’t ever really want to. Must consist of mature, friendly people, preferrably married couples or having children, but being emotionally mature and possessed of compassion and patience will do nicely. Interests include Karazhan runs for group activites once every week or two, occasional heroics and regular 5 man instances, doing dailies and chatting and questing. Must be willing to be patient when we have to go beddy bye time during the week. Must love Irish music and Guinness. Be prepared to have anything and everything that you do be recorded or blogged about without warning. PST.”
Yeah, we are so totally going to be guildless forever, lol.
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A tough decision, but the right one. Good Luck in your new adventures!
It’s hard to leave a guild, but when your goals don’t match up with those of the guild, it’s the only logical outcome.
As for your LFG, sounds like the perfect guild to me. Despite how many idiots there are out there, I’m sure there are plenty of decent players who want the same things you do. Finding them, that’s the tricky part.
There is a horde guild on my server called “Deathdealers.” Their recruiting statements are absolute nonsnse strung together with good-natured humor, their antics regularly include making their characters drunk and taking over ships and zeppelins, and they basically play the game just to play the game. They’re the only thing that makes me regret being on a PvP server.
This is just to tell you, those odd guilds with the unique vision and the casual play are out there. And I wish you the best of luck in finding one, and if not, simply still having fun with the game.
Pop over on Dark Iron sometime and I’ll do Deadmines with your little bear. ;)
Good luck with your choice. And, having been in the exact same situation as you pre-BC, I think you will be much happier.
I have read your blog for a while now, and only recently put it together that you are on Kael’thas, as am I. You may be shocked by the answer, but my guild damn near fits your description to a T. Most of us are RL friends, co-workers, and a few kids of the same. Since most of us have families (myself included), we will never be a raiding guild. We have only just started trying for Kara this week, and that is with an alliance with another guild because of lack of numbers on our part. Most of the time, we run 5-mans or heroics, and then maybe just a few times a week. Mainly we just quest, do dailies, level alts, and have fun.
Feel free to ping me in game on Begbie or Brassneck if you ever want to chat.
“you get 25 dedicated hardcore raiders together for a run, you HAVE asshats. You get arrogant, bossy, judgmental and condescending people that make me want to punch my monitor. Fun? Hell no”
Getting yelled at / insulted / told how stupid you( the raid is ) by the raid leader is not fun – while nothing is directed personally ( usually) at anyone, I find that its an adjustment to deal with/put up with someone yelling at you – but thats the sorta of leader arguably that makes a sucessful raid – I’m looking for a home, and I don’t think I’ve found it in a raid guild – there is a drive to Succed, to be the best you can be which you won’t find in a casual guild, but then the question is at what cost –
Your Utopian Guild does sound what a game should be like…. and I hope you find it one day..
Ahh – many of us want that guild that you describe. I think I had it for a little bit, then we started doing Karazhan and people wanted to move into more “hardcore” content, but I just don’t want to. Luckily, I am the Guild Leader and I can kinda control what happens. But, as you say, I’ve seen friends move on and some of them have downed Illidan. I am very happy for them, but it’s just not for me.
Big ups to you for being a stand up guy and doing things the right way.
Your LFGuild description is just like what my first ever guild has going for them on Azgalor when i first rolled my NE priest. It was a group of people who had families or lives other than wow who played it just because it was fun and had people they could relate to and talk to about stuff. We did a weekly UBRS run with the regulars and it was always so much fun. There was accually a poll on wether or not my devout shoulders would drop from the FF event, the reward being 25G to whomever guessed on the correct day. =) Then we had a few more people join in the family and it got a little larger. Fast foward a few months and we were ready to try our first ZG raid. We downed a couple bosses and called it a week. FF again and now were in a 3 guild alliance and attempting MC. I had to leave the guild then with much saddness in my heart because my “home” had fallen apart due to the raiding success we were having and losing the “family ties” that were such a great part of the guild. I know what your going through and im really sorry for you. I hope all works out and keep on tanking B3. Your blog is the reason i decided to reroll from my 70 Hunter to my new up and coming druid. (currently level 42(one more and i can use warden staff ^_^ ))
~Kitiaria
Kudos for moving on with class.
Reading your post, it was obviously difficult to step away from people you cared about and a guild you felt a lot of loyalty to. It says a lot that you recognized that the goals of a player and a guild can grow to be different without either party being wrong.
I hope you find (or build) a new guild whose playstyle fits better with your own current needs. Don’t give up — they definitely exist out there (I’m in one that comes very close to your ideal — hurray for kids and Guinness).
Thanks for a great blog and good luck!
My wife and I play on a different server, but if you ever do form a guild like you described let me know, I would be keen to join, even with a server transfer.
I was happily running my own guild with about 15 70s. Friends and people we had leveled up to 70 with. We did PVP, heroics and normal instances every day. We could afford to take our friends, even if they were not awesome at the game, because the difficulty level allowed us to make up the slack. But as we trained up and helped our members get better gear they wanted more, so we worked out a guild merger to allow those who wanted to do Kara to have the option. I stepped down and allowed the other GM to lead and took over raid leading a Kara group.
This was over a month ago and I knew I would be moving countries soon in RL and need to back off leadership. I was/am planning on taking a break from WoW when I move, so this seemed like a good plan to get everyone a new guild leader, access to Kara, and see a bit of Kara myself. Our guild now has 3 Kara groups, and we are downing Gruuls every week, Mag is next, with SSC coming. We are downing 3/5 in ZA each week as well. I am the main tank, feral druid of course :) , for the Kara group I lead, and we downed all of Kara in about a month, doing 2 3.5hr raids a week. My raid has also downed 2/5 in ZA in our first night there. I respect the players I take to my raid and enjoy 5/10 maning with them. I know I am starting to feel the stretch you are talking about, pressure to tank when I would rather not so that the group isn’t let down.
My wife and I enjoy the 5 man and 10 man raids, but the increased number of people in 25 man raids definitely leads to an increased asshat quota. The guild is constantly recruiting to fill slots, and the people we get in are nowhere near the quality we had in the old guild or started with in the new guild. I am an officer, and remove as many morons as I can, but the GM ties my hands on some as he needs them for slots in the 25 man.
I definitely feel like the 25 and the old 40 man raids are not fun and locking heaps of the content in the end game behind those limits hurts the enjoyment of the game for many people. Give me a guild like you describe and heaps of new 5/10 man content and I will be happy for quite a while.
Since this is currently a limitation of WoW design, I am considering finding another game entirely. I have been playing WoW for 3 years, and a new world to explore with a design that fit my preferences would be very appealing. I will be looking in a couple months, and I may let you know how it goes if you might be interested in a new world without some of the issues of WoW.
Grats for having the wisdom to recognize a non-optimal situation for you and the missus, and having the courage to do something about it. Life’s too short, and WoW’s just a game afterall.
It took me months to find the right home – and today am lucky to be a member of the kind of guild you describe. When you’re ready, I hope you’ll take a gander at our code of conduct and charter at chivalry.guildportal.com. Our membership spans all ages young to old, from all walks of life, with married couples and single folks too – but what we have in common is respect for each other and those whom we share bandwidth with on Eonar.
This invitation is not just for BBBB, either – we’re always on the lookout for gamers who want a little more from WoW than just zomgpurplz, etc. :)
I have been in the exact situation that you were in, only it ended turning the other way. I am a married man with children and I would describe the guild that I am in as a casual guild, we raid, but it was decided that raiding would not be our focus. We had many members who were pushing the guild into progressive content and many simular things happend, just as you described. Only we decided not to change. We still raid Karazhan, ZA and occationally do Gruul, but fun is really the main focus for us. Guilds like you describe exist. Don’t give up, you’ll find a good fit again!
Big fan, and keep up the good work blogging.
Foxael of Draenor US
Its a tough decision to leave a guild that you have called home for such a long time. Ive done it a couple of months ago and then also changed servers because i wanted a change. We took a bunch of our friends with us and formed our own guild. Some joined some didnt. But to stay in contact with eachother when we would move into other guilds (some wanted to raid some didnt) we made our own chatchannel. This channel is used as guildchannel more then the actual guildchannels of the guilds we are in. This way we stay in touch with the people we love. Might be an idea for you and the friends you left behind in Legatum Ignavis
Good luck with the change, I truly do hope it works out well for you.
I have in my guild on another server what you’re looking for, but we fill a niche position – raid start time is 1am EST – so it’s night owls or a wide range of time zones. Problem is, it’s an RP server with low progression (which means high end patterns/mats are insanely expensive), and little RP. We rolled RP to avoid the leet kids and asshats, which I suspect is true of many others on the server. We started our guild with a couple of friends because we were all sick to death of big-guild/raiding drama, and wanted to get back to basics and have fun with friends. All in the guild are adults, many married, with young kids. Many are easily T5 standard. We simply insist they be good people, and good players.
I’m not trying to recruit – just letting you know there are plenty of other people and guilds out there with the same goals and interests you have – I’m sure there must be one on your server. Good luck!
I know how it feels to leave a guild that you have been with for a long time and with a lot of people that are like family to you – I did it some months ago. It was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders – not until I actually did leave did I realise how miserable I had been the last months.
The clincher in my case was some personal difficulties with one of my fellow officers, things that could have been sorted out easily if we had wanted to, but beneath it all was the accumulated stress from raiding, guild admin and trying to keep everything together.
I have been guildless these last months, playing with my friends and family, and I feel much better now – I have actually started thinking about looking for another guild (your LFGuild sounds just about like the kind of guild I want too, throw in some barbecue picnics at the beach and I’d transfer in a sec, too bad you play on US servers :-)
Anyways, I just wanted to say that you did the right thing, and things will work out for you, in a small guild or a new one or wherever you go :-) Goold luck!
It is not the end but a new beginning =)
I totally understand your decision, and the strange thing is I found that guild you’re looking for. Silver Moon on Argent Dawn European Server http://www.silvermoon.moonfruit.com/#
I was in the guild a long time ago and then switched to horde, now i’m back with them as a druid starting out and I have to say, I love it. my wife loves it, teamspeak is very active and you have about 15 people online most evenings. They are doing Karazhan on friday’s and saturdays and officially have it on farm status right now. it’s very cool, after a boss goes down the question gets asked. “if you are feeling tired or bored please say so now so we can find a replacement” and if you do feel tired or whatever, it’s cool, nobody gives you grief, it’s just cool.
That’s the great thing about having a guild leader that’s old enough to be my dad and I’m 32 and married, and Irish, so yes, Guinness is a must as well as the Irish dance at the end of a successful kill of every boss in Karazhan (mostly involves playing Irish music over TS and spamming your A and D keys really fast :D), shouting EPPIICCCSSS over TS is optional when you get one.
I do have to agree… When I left my raiding guild, I promised to keep in touch with everyone, but eventually, we all moved on and except for the occassional whisper and /wave when we bump into each other in Shat City, there’s little to no contact…
Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find that you are not alone in wanting a guild like that. My group of friends in our guild sound that way… We even suspended a LBRS run halfway for half an hour once while I tended to my crying baby… :p I felt bad about it but all I needed was to endure lots of ribbing for a month… I heard they tried out just about every sort of emote, and silly things to do in the middle of an instance while waiting for me…
Except for the fact that we are in the different timezone, different server and different faction, I’ll welcome you guys into our group in a flash… (we’re very forgiving people… we’ll even forgive the Irish music and Guiness…)
Well I was never in a serious raiding guild, and I did Kara only until Opera with a PUG. For me gear is just a bunch of pixels that look nice. It is not a real sword that you can hang on your wall in you living room to impress chicks or friends. There is no prestige outside of the game for downing any of the bosses and thank God for that.Perhaps I am lucky to discover WoW quite late (6 months ago), but having a great fun, not in getting purple items but laughing and making fun with friends.
We tell stories an make up all kinds of different mischiefs just to re-tell it later. Like the time I went to HC Ramps with friend and 3 biggest ninjas on server, of and two of those ninjas are couple in RL, then I talked my friend into flirting with a boyfriend, by the end of instance all 3 ninjas almost jumped to each others throats; or when I whisped my extremly beggar-alergic friend to give me 10g from my alt, and the other friend in group was saying he just gave me that. With friends, even 10 constant wipings are fun. I dont dream I will down Ilidan ever. Perhaps after 25 expansions and when I am lvl 758 I will go and solo him, but atm I am enjoying my time like this.
No guild? So what? Include a little bit of RP in 5 men HC instances and you might be suprised how the content of the game suddenly gets a new dimension and becomes fun. I am not talking about “Thou shalt down that monsterah!”, but something like: “Guys, I ran this dungeon last night, and as I was steathing I heard one of the mobs whispering that you guys are hitting like girls, and wont be able to cure Rockmars hangover, less being able to kill him”. We are doing it over and over again and its fun.
Just take it easy and light, and if that is not possible there are other games out there and coming soon so you can always change it. I hope that with WotLK Blizzard will include more options for casual players, but somewhat doubt it. If that is not the case, well there will always be Connan, Warhammer or EVE
All the people who comment here and agree with you should transfer to the same server and form the SometimesWeRaid guild.
I would also love to be in a guild that is casual and might occasionally raid. I tried that with the guild I currently run. From the start it was clear that, due to family and work responsibilities, we would only raid on weekends. That pretty much limited us to Kara. We had a a guild that numbered about 60 people with a core of about 15 that were great friends and good players. Gradually, those who wanted to do 25-man content left for bigger guilds. Some left on good terms, others left with drama.
Now we are a guild that is like what you want, but with too few people to make it work. We do dailies, an occasional 5-man, and level alts. We don’t raid, even though we fondly remember our Karazhan runs. Unfortunately, my goal (and yours too) is not shared by enough people on my server to be viable for the long haul. I would think about /gquit like you did, but as the GL I’d hate to see the guild fall apart and leave my friends and the lowbies out in the cold.
So good luck in what you do. I hope things work out for you. I’ll keep following the saga.
Good to hear you made a decision. Even if it is sad to leave your in-game friends behind.
There are guilds like the one you are looking for. At least one ;) (One of …) Our basic statement(s) says “we will never become a raiding guild”. We have very great and dedicated players. Lots of couples, a few with kids. Only we are on a European (German) server. We do run a single Kara group about once or twice a week, we do Heroics and have fun events together, yet leave every member the freedom to play his or her game. Our guild is about forming a strong community. We communicate a lot over our website. We have in-game meetings … we’re committed to staying small and personal. We meet iRL once a year – many of us at least and go to a theme park for roller coaster rides all day.
If you’re in for some “work” (less than being a hardcore raider), start your own guild. Find 10 likeminded people to start with. That’s what we did 2.5 years ago. Make your own rules. There are a lot of people interested in small “casual but serious” guilds. Most people just don’t want to put in the time to lead such a guild and many people sooner or later turn into “oh maybe we will start raiding seriously now”. By founding the guild yourself you know you can trust your guild to stay a casual place … one caveat: there’s the same amount of drama in casual guilds as everywhere else. Being a guild leader/officer is always work … it takes time to make that position “casual” and create a guild with enough veteran members that it can survive if you don’t show up for a week.
Good luck for the future. I am curious to hear more about your guild adventures!
Bye
Yashima
Just a random aside, but some people in my guild have an addon thats like a pop-quiz, you start it and it asks questions, anyone in /g /p /raid whichever channel you pick can asnwer if they feel like it, whoever is the fastest to respond with the correct answer gets a point and its all automated with user-settable time settings, ie 10seconds after the question is posted it will close that question and ask another one if no corect answer was given.
It’s absolutely fantastic if one of your team has to go afk for longer than a quick bio break, it keeps the rest of the group entertained and unaware that you were even gone for 10minutes.
I’ve got two level 70s who were duoed with my wife. We have only ever seen Hellfire Citadel and it saddens me that we’ve missed out on all the other 5 man content the game has to offer.
Now we’re at 60 with our rogue/druid combo and would love to find a guild as you described. Casual, fun and slinging together occasional 5 mans. If anyone knows of one on Shadowsong EU let me know :)
It was definitely the right call for you guys. You will be much happier now that the stress will fall off your backs. I would recommend staying in that small guild of yours, or be guildless for a while. It’s a good feeling to not owe anything to anybody and be a ‘lone ranger’, or ‘2 lone rangers’ in your case. ;-)
Just make up your mind what server you want to have that guild on and Id be willing to transfer my chars over.. I have a geared 70 druid, a 70 lock and an upcoming Draenei priest (not sure yet if she will be shadow or disc/holy).
I started a guild like that myself on rexxar, but did not have any luck recruiting.
BTW, double-druid-tanked Kara last night. Me on Waldengel and another fellow, Letum. He MTd, I OTd. We cleared Start-Opera in 1 hour, pull after pull after pull, skipped Illhoof and had 1 shot at Prince.. unfortunately, the infernals locked us into a corner where we got ravaged by Prince, and then Letum had to log (was almost midnight, I was overdue as well). This was probably the most fun Kara run I ever had. :-)
This gives me WAY enough kicks to enjoy the game. I had fun. First time in a while.
You ought to re-roll horde. =)
What you described is my guild. We’re all in our 30s to 60s, have ZERO requirements to raid. However, we do get up to Gruuls. We don’t require people to bring mains if they wish to come raid. Alts are encouraged. DKP? Pfft….you come to help on a raid, you have the right to roll on something you need. Most people pass on rolls if they feel others can use something more – we’re mature that way.
Also, most of us have run together since the old days of Ultima Online or at least Everquest. Many of us are husband-wife teams as well. Kids? Yeah, many of us have em (some even grandkids), so we all know and understand very well about short notice afks for real-life stuff.
Most of us know how to play our class very well. However, if others prefer odd specs and don’t perform as well as they could, we don’t care. As long as all are having fun.
I’m sure we could push further and down harder content in TK and beyond, but most of us don’t want to. On a typical night, we have 30 people on. Of that 30, the typical breakdown is:
5 are running a heroic instance
5 are doing pvp bgs
10 are doing Karazhan
5 are running misc. quests and dailies
5 are running lower lvl alts
By the way, even though we welcome brand new, fresh 70 guildies in our Kara runs, we still clear the whole thing in 3 hours. None of that silly stuff about requiring them to run heroics until they’re blue in the face before they can supposedly pull their own weight. Pfft…
It’s a tough decision to make, but it definitely sounds like you’ve made the right choice. Good luck to ya, enjoy you’re new lease of life on the game, and being able to enjoy your evenings how YOU want to!
BBB -
My guild is a small guild. We have – maybe – 20 members. I’m an officer in the guild. My guild is run by a married couple – 4 kids! All of us are over 25. I’m going to be 36. I’m engaged – ready to be married. In fact – more than a few of the members are married and have kids.
I love the game. I don’t stress over the game, because, after all it’s just a game.
We just finally started getting into Kara. We took a little break for a while because people in the guild had RL stuff to take care of. Did we get upset? No. I started playing an alt to learn it’s play style.
We have a fantastic group of people. On our first foray into Kara we one-shotted everything up to ‘Curator.’
Right now we have to pug a couple spots out if we want to get back into Kara because of guild members RL committments.
We are just biding our time – blasting through heroics – until we can eventually get back into Kara.
I’m a respected member of the guild – one of two people that have full access to the guild bank.
I offer you and your wife to join our guild with open arms if you still want to get into kara and raid casually.
Drop me a line: kapolani@hotmail.com
That’s a good writeup. Guild dynamics are incredibly difficult. Best of luck finding a good home for both you and your wife.
Congratulations on a brave decision…
It’s always hard to change the status quo, but you are to be contratulated on your strengh of character (even though agility is better to stack…) in making that decision… It was apparent from Cassie’s post that there was a lot of emotion floating about chez Bear about this – your decision sounds like the absolute best way to resolve that…
I’m in a different, but related, position… I’m the father of an eleven week old baby, and my wife doesn’t play WoW, and am officer in a guild that is “venturing into Kara” on a regular basis – I tend to play “most nights”, but only after wife and baby have gone to bed, which limits my playtime quite a lot. I’ve personally only been into Kara a couple of times, as I’m not online at the time that would enable me to join the raid at the start. My guild are happy for me to play like that – I DPS or Tank in Instances when I’ve the time, and I’m starting to make that Heroics now…
I’m (cough) late 30’s and am probably one of the older players in my guild – but there are a good mix of people, from “young enthusiasts” through to “old hands”. There are the occasional “why aren’t we doing xyz” cries in Guild Chat, but in general it’s a guild that gets on with each other and has fun – more or less what you’re “after” – so they do exist…
From a purely selfish point of view, that probably means that the Druid-y content of B^3 “the blog” will be more relevant to me! However I enjoy most of your posts, regardless of whether it’s directly relevant – they’re just well written and enjoyable.
OK – ramble over…
Good luck with creating/finding/joining a guild that suits you – or staying (gasp) guildless… Just don’t stop writing – or I might have to do more work to keep me busy!
Cheers,
Stobs
“Extends a paw of sympathy, understanding and encouragement.”
Gratz to you and Cassie for the difficult but well-thought-out decision. I, too, have been “guild-less” for about two months now, and it’s been GREAT. I know that, at some point, I’d love to find a guild home again (and much like the one that you describe/aspire to), but for now, I’ve had a lot of fun PUGing (well, most of the time it’s fun…), doing new Sunwell stuff, levelling up cooking and fishing, doing BG’s, and — in general — learning to enjoy the game again, stress-free, and at my own pace.
Bravo, and I also offer gratz to the lucky guild that will eventually offer you a new home. ; )
Never an easy decision, but I’m sure you’ll both do better having made it. I’m sure you can already feel that weight lifting from your shoulders.
Too bad you’re not Horde. :P
Good luck! You’ll find what your looking for, whether or not you have to make it yourself. Just dont settle for something less!
BBB, I would join that guild in an instant! I am a 27 year old guy, married almost a year ago. Started playing about 2 months back when some local friends talked me into it. Wife aggro when I play is avoided by helping and interacting with her and the household while playing.
I tend to not join in on raids my guild (the RL friends above) does as I may be called away to walk the dogs or i may be in the middle of making dinner or what-have-you. I hate to inconvenience people who are so dead set on progression. /tangent
Anyhoo – What I wanted to say is that you should form your *own guild*. As part of the application process, set an age minimum, a marriage/relationship status so that you are playing with those who can empathize with your need to spend time with your son and wife.
Just a thought…
Ray
BBB/Cassie,
This may or may not have been suggested already..but why not start your own casual raiding guild? I think it would do well.
First and foremost, you guys get to set the raiding schedule. You guys get to set the when and the where. You can tailor it to your RL needs. Trust me when I say that there are more raiders out there like you..that have children and RL issues that should take precedent.
Secondly, you can put the expectations to new members when they come in. You can say, “We are running this and this on these days for now. If you are looking for hardcore 25-man raids 5 days a week, this guild isn’t for you.” You can hand pick people who share the same views with you when it comes to raiding.
If it hasn’t been brought up, I would really go for it. I think you and Cassie would make a good guild leading pair. You know this game and you know what you want to do in it. Think about it guys. I think it would be a good thing.
TriB! I want to join your new guild! Its sounds exactly what my wife and I are looking for. I don’t really drink, so more Guinness for you :) However, I think it would be great to team up wth you.
I’m the GL of a guild now and my guild is going through the transformation. When the guild was first formed, the founding members wanted a casual guild that would raid occasionally, but more importantly have fun and do things together without taking things serious. Things were going well. We got a lot of good players, most of them were really great people. However, the more we grew, the more interested people became with raiding. Eventually we got more and more people who were wanting to turn the guild into hardcore raiding. A few of the officers were that way, while my wife and I stayed casual. I don’t run every week anymore, I let the officers that wanted progression so much take over the raiding part of the guild for the most part.
I will totally agree, the more hardcore raiding we got (from 2 days a week, to about 4 now, at least) the more bad people we seem to get. Being GL, I don’t tolerate some stuff so I’ve had to kick some, even though it set us back a bit. I realize what you want, andI just wanted to tell ya that you’re not alone.
It is a bit scary, isn’t it? And at the same time it is quite a burden to be lifted from your shoulders.
I was there just a little while ago. My husband and I were officers in a fairly successful “casual” raiding guild until we realized we would never be happy with the way the officer core was structured. There was no one person in charge, so the work division was unbalanced and the communications were uneven. I was drowning in guild management work and had no means available to repair the situation.
Luckily, I am a member of the Chamber of Guilds, a cross-realm group of current and former guild leaders and officers. (http://tankspot.com/rt/news.php) Once the decision was made to leave, I was so lucky to know a group of GLs who I know care about effective guild management. I server transferred to join one of those of those guilds and now I can relax and not worry because I trust the people in charge. That is an amazing feeling.
When I went through this, several of the other members of the CoG stated that it was very reassuring to see that in addition to being a great resource and a group of friends, the COG can also act as a bit of a safety net. If you fall, you are not alone. You already know the GLs of some of the best run guilds out there.
Now we are just leveling alts and laying low. However, our new guild is a casual raiding guild (three nights a week for progression and a very effective schedule and sign-up system for all events) so we know that if we choose to raid again in the future, we are in the right place. If we just decide to stay purely casual, we are in the right place for that too. It feels good to be in the right place.
Good luck in your search. There are many wonderful guilds out there and a new experience is just waiting for you.
Decisions like these are never easy, but you seem to have made the right one for the right reasons.
/salute
BZ, well done.
Good luck wherever the path leads.
Let’s all just go to Drenden.
Its a tough situation. My progression started with a guild of my own creation. Well, actually “Eternal” was created by merging 2 existing guilds and then recruiting vigorously to fill our week points for a full Kara raid. We built it, it happen and we were victorious. We continued to progress, clearing Kara, Mags, Gruul’s and 1/2 of ZA. We were doing so well. Then, just like that, we lost 7 of our best raiders who had decided to move to other servers for a fresh start.
After that, more people left because they had lost hope, which was a personal dig to me *IMHO*. I built the guild, I can rebuild the guild. But alas, they were gone. So, rather than rebuild I made the tough decision to disband. I have since moved to another server, an east coast server, and in addition to the time zone being a better fit for my needs, our progression together has been fantastic. We downed Winterchill in Hyjal this past Sunday and I can’t wait to get back in there. I love my new guild.
So, BBB. I am hoping that what I said gave some inspiration that change is good. You did the right thing. You may have been progressing with them, but at the cost of going beyond your desires. You need a casual raiding guild.
Btw, the guild I am in is Enlightened on the Exodar server. We 25-man raid 4 days per week (Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue) and people are only required to attend 2 of the 4 raids. We use SKG GEO for loot distribution, GroupCalendar for raid management and we are currently doing SSC, TK and Hyjal. We have Kara, Gruul’s and ZA on farm.
If the idea of changing servers doesn’t scare you and you are interested, let me know. You can also apply at http://enlight.guildportal.com
Way to go, BBB. You clearly have done what’s best for you, and in the end, that’s what matters. I admire your integrity and your honesty – especially to yourself (so easy to not be honest with yourself).
I’ve been feeling the strain of being required to raid aswell, my guild is in BT atm (pre 2.4 even) and i can happily say we form a tight bunch.. no asshats at all. Then again personality is a selection criteria when entering, not just skill. We’ve failed trialmembers on just having a rotten character, eventho they were very skilled.
Recently RL commitments made it harder to attend raids and i started an alt on a different server. Now i’m level 66 i can tell you that starting over like that makes you feel damn lonely. If i would ever be totaly sick with raiding i’d request to stick around in my current guild on social basis, starting over once again and committing time to making new friends and maintaining new contacts… that’s just to hard nowadays when most people are locked away behind an instance door.
I respect your choice but i seriously hope you won’t regret it.
There is a big chance you just ended your Wow carreer if you don’t manage to find a friendly group fast or go back to your previous guild. GL either way ;)
*nods sagely with the wisdom of the Bear*
It is a hard decision, but a good one (like many others have said).
It seems many others have the same experience, so it’s probably not that uncommon. Our own guild lost about half it’s active members a few months ago since they wanted to raid, and the rest of us are slowly working through the Hellfire Penninsula right now (two 70’s mostly upper 50-65s)
I wish you luck!
After all, constellations are forged of single, bright stars such as yourself. :)
(yes, I’m on an RP server, couldn’t help it)
A couple of months ago I removed my main character from the guild I had been in for over 2 years. There were two reasons. One was that the guild raided at a time I wasn’t online due to a schedule change, and the other was to progress faster since this new guild raided up to 3 times a week in Kara and recently started on Gruul’s.
I left all of my alts in my original guild so that I could still keep in touch. Now that they have started a second kara group I run with them on the first half of Kara every week. I don’t think changing guilds or quitting like this shows that I’m uncommitted, neither guild is really a hardcore raiding guild. It does however give me an opportunity to make new friends.
I hope you find the guild you’re looking for!
Like you I am more of a casual player, but more often then not I am pulled in because I am uncrushable. If I am on an alt, the gm and head raid leader pester everyone until the log or log over to their raiding toons. So now the only reason I stay with my guild is because of the friends I have made. Not 2-3 months ago we were wiping on Mag and Gruuls, now they are on farm and clear KZ in about 3-4hrs.
I like to chat and talk on TS or vent, do quests/dailies/etc. If I get a set piece woot, but I am not trying to progress like a mad man.
Its a sad thing when you leave behind something you worked so hard for, only to see it no longer becoming the thing you envisioned. I also went through a gquit this week on my main, but my reasons were quite the opposite. I left my alt in my old guild because that guild is the place you mentioned you were looking for, a place where folks hang out, have fun, raid kara, raid alliance towns etc, the fun stuff. It was my desire to see end game that prompted this move on my part whereas you were prompted by your own. In a game where we all are paying customers it is only right to do what makes you happy the most. Best of luck with your move and hopefully you’ll find your dream guild, else if not re-roll(being horde) on my server and join my old guild, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to oblidge your blogging habits along with giving you more than enough content. =D
“Looking For Guild; Feral Druid and Rogue on Kael’thas looking for a guild that is not raiding hardcore, and doesn’t ever really want to. Must consist of mature, friendly people, preferrably married couples or having children, but being emotionally mature and possessed of compassion and patience will do nicely. Interests include Karazhan runs for group activites once every week or two, occasional heroics and regular 5 man instances, doing dailies and chatting and questing. Must be willing to be patient when we have to go beddy bye time during the week. Must love Irish music and Guinness. Be prepared to have anything and everything that you do be recorded or blogged about without warning. PST.”
BBB, when you find that guild, let me know. Sounds perfect! Better yet–if you and Cassieann want to transfer to Kul Tiras, we can make that happen. :)
Too bad you’re on a different server.
We regularly party with a married couple that has a 10 month old daughter. We’re always taking breaks for ‘baby time’. My husband and I always play together and due to some real life issues he’s having (medical ones), we occasionally have to take breaks or call something short.
And yet we’re always in instances, questing, dailies, heroics (occasionally we all make it into a Kara run together). We have a blast. We’re in a larger guild that is trying to do progression, but for the most part, we avoid it.
(My ‘lock is in a raiding guild, but since they aren’t raiding right now (I have all the bad luck with finding raiding guilds!), I have tons of time to play with them.)
Come to Alleria! Land of sunshine and daisies! :)
Bear’s gotta do what a bear’s gotta do. And a rogue, too.
It’s been sounding like where you were at just weren’t a good fit anymores. It sounds like ya made the right choice, and it were done with style and class. /salute Wishes you the best of luck finding a new home!
Several mature friends on Feathermoon had had enough of periodic guild drama. Our little family’s name is The Guildless. When someone asks if they can join our guild, I say, “What guild?” We raid twice a week; I participate only on the Saturday raid. Other nights, we may form some 5-man groups, join together to run dailies, contribute to the guild bank, make stuff for each other, or work on alts. Very fun, great people, nice and casual.
You know, your guild summary is *exactly* what I’d write. Down to the feral druid, Guiness, Irish Music, bed-times and all!
I would argue that it could be had, for the reasons you stated in your post. What you missed was the founders intentions. Set out to found this guild on the principles you stated, be clear and decisive about members “getting it” and working within those guidelines and I’ll wager that you’ll get what you want.
Gosh, I am so happy to hear you made this decision. If you find that guild let us know so we can jump servers and join. Guinness, and the acknowledgement that we have real lives in a truly casual guild would be perfect. And if you can pipe the Irish music in on TS/Vent even better!
God Bless you both and good luck. Your blog is the best for tackling everyday topics for WoW players.
Seriously. Seriously. Consider coming to Proudmoore US and raiding with my guild. We’re that casual group you’re looking for. We raid no more than 2 nights a week, with other nights reserved for group play and team stuff. We’re a great bunch-of-friends guild that values maturity, camaraderie, and a team atmosphere.
Seriously. Talk to me. I will be pleased to give you more info. I think that you and Cassie would love our environment.
#51 or so,
~Rhoe
I just commented on Cassie’s post, and now this. You guys act fast!
Kudos to you for realizing that the guild’s vision did not match your own. I’ve been in the same situation (pre-BC) but incorrectly attributed my frustration to the guild progressing too quickly when that is what they wanted to do all along.
For over a year now I’ve been unguilded or in a guild The Hubby and I have created for our characters… until last month when some RL friends started playing with us. They have a baby and are of the same mind that RL schedule determines gaming schedule. We have a lot of fun fooling around with them!
Hang in there because there are such guilds as the one you seek. It may take some time, or a transfer (see Rhoe’s comment above) to find one, but they are out there. Heck, your guild could be it – there has got to be some players in the same boat on your server… we aren’t that much of a minority.
I say you start running Kara / ZA pugs without a guild. It’s not uncommon for raiding mains to have decently geared alts that want to run these places. My guild is in BT now (only Illidan left OMG), but we run a couple of Kara pug on Friday evenings.
You have experience. What’s more, you have the gear to fill the most difficult pug slot in a raid (der tank). So, Friday after the kid is sleeping, do a call out for a Kara pug. See if you get any bites.
I hear ya, man. S’why I’m thinking on switching servers. I love my guildies and my RL friends, but what i really want in a guild, I’m not going to get on Ravenholdt.
Best of luck to you!
““Looking For Guild; Feral Druid and Rogue on Kael’thas looking for a guild that is not raiding hardcore, and doesn’t ever really want to. Must consist of mature, friendly people, preferrably married couples or having children, but being emotionally mature and possessed of compassion and patience will do nicely. Interests include Karazhan runs for group activites once every week or two, occasional heroics and regular 5 man instances, doing dailies and chatting and questing. Must be willing to be patient when we have to go beddy bye time during the week. Must love Irish music and Guinness. Be prepared to have anything and everything that you do be recorded or blogged about without warning. PST.”
That sounds like you are describing our guild: “Golden Dawn.” The problem is that its on Maelstrom. Its mostly parents and/or middle-aged people. We raid Kara once a week (although most guidlies don’t make it to each raid). Personally, I manage to hit it about once a month because of family committments. Apart from that there are nightly heroic groups and PvP groups, even arena teams — basically anythting that only requires about am hour or two of committed time.
If you decide to make an alt check us out.
I am very much in the same head space as you. I was at one time interested in doing everything that there is to do in this game. Now that my wife and I are expecting a baby, i know that my 4+ hours a night on the “Wowcrack” is limited. I now enjoy the nightly interaction of my guild of friends. We’ve all geared our main with whatever we could claim from heroics, and augmented the missing pieces with the pvp welfare epics. I long ago gave up my dream of being a hardcore raider because I know that it only leads to the inevitable burn out.
Running Kara more than 2 hours at a time makes my skin crawl. I enjoy Kara, but being in those situations wiping over and over again with no change is the definition of madness. Thankfully on our low population server Drak’Thul, those who want to raid are in the few large raid guilds. Everyone else is content with what else is offered at the solo end game. I my self find that a night in a 5 man pvp squad squishing alliance to be well worth $15 a month.
So thank you for pointing out that there are some of us playing this game because it’s a game, and not a occupation.
I’m sure you’re being inundated with offers for guild invites. This is probably not much different.
On Earthen Ring. I’m an officer in a guild called Lemming Juice. We’re a mature, both physically, and emotionally, guild of people that enjoy playing all aspects of the game. We’re not a raiding guild. We’re not an RP guild. We’re not PvP. We’re a social guild, that does a little bit of everything. If you would like to learn more, feel free to read our forums at http://www.lemmingjuice.net. If you’re interested in coming, I’ll find a way to handle the interview process before you have to commit to a server transfer.
Fair warning, as one of the sticky notes in the application folder will explain. Being a member of Lemming Juice does not mean you’re given a spot on any raid. The raids are best looked at as being run by Lemmings, but not by Lemming Juice.
If you’re interested, feel free to send me a message on the forums, I check it regularly.
Yeah probably a wise decision. As mentioned, I’m in a hardcore raiding guild. I raid only twice a week. We only have 3 scheduled nights of activity. Anyway those types of guilds are out there if you want 25man content. I refuse to be in a guild that is doing stuff 5x a week, and requires you to be there for all that time.
So guilds you can use. The above guild is hardcore but has rules: no more than 3x a week of guild progression nights, you can do less but you may not have first priority on raid signup.
Another guild (my old guild), very much a ‘we’ll go to kara with whoever’s on’ type guild. Attendance aboslutely not mandatory. They usually do a heroic every day. This type of guild might go well with you.
Most important thing is to have fun.
No, seriously, TripleB. Call me. *mouths it again ‘call me’, complete with that weird hand phone-gesture* ;)
Not a Stalker,
~Rhoe
Congratulations on your newfound freedom!
I second (or third, fourth, whatever) the idea a few people have stated already.
Start your own guild and set the requirements exactly the way you want.
Somehow I’ve been lucky enough to be Guild leader of a ridiculously laid back guild. Lots of people have left, a very few have been kicked because we are a little TOO laid-back about the loved/desired/dreaded PROGRESSION – but after (almost) one year of being in existence… we are finally getting into Kara, or at least getting attuned, even though it’s not required anymore.
And now that we can go into Kara – we’ll get there sometime. But there’s no rush. We’re having fun, and we’re REALLY enjoying playing together.
Good luck in your endeavors. But I say take control and do it YOUR way!
By the way, and totally unrelated… a feral druid and rogue husband/wife team is great fun! :D
By the way, and totally unrelated… a feral druid and rogue husband/wife team is great fun!
Why is that? So your significant “stealthed” other can sneak up on you while you’re hybernating and backstab you with annoyance? ROFLMAO
Hey B3 – As this is the end of a long, but fascinating, chain I just wanted to say that I respect you even more for the hard decision you and Cassie made here. I am in a great guild very much like you are looking for on Mok’Nathal. We recently lost members because we are not hard core enough for them. We have done Kara, or at least a few have, but we are not obsessed with raiding and stick to 5 mans pretty much on a casual basis. Most of us are leveling alts, questing, doing dailes, bg’s and arena, or grinding for rep. When not doing any of the above, we are helping each other level up. We have developed the core belief to have fun, stop not having fun, and all you have to do is ask and we will come running. Promotions are actually based on how much you are willing to help others. I myself am the ultimate “completist” and having hit 70 on my first toon 6 weeks ago (DPS warrior) have vowed to see as much as I can to get my monies worth. Great blog and I hope you appreciate the community and discussion your decision to leave the guild has generated. I know I have.
Hey B3 – congrats on the hard decision.
As others have said, there are guilds out there like the dream guild you described. In fact I would say my guild is exactly like that (Soulbound on realm Proudmoore). We only have to serious raid nights a week (sat/sun aussie nights) with kara runs tossed together when people are keen on other nights.
If you guys are keen for this type of guild and havent had any luck yet – Tabby (Tabatha) is always keen to have more mature couples joining up.
Great blog by the way – I Hope whichever way you decide to go that things work out well :-)
good post.
i am in the same situation and have been for sometime.
pre -bc i was in a guild that started off fairly casual but ofc with new members coming on board seeing us progress it got more hardcore and people began to fall out with previous ‘friends’ who were there from the casual days.
i got dispensation to actually only raid 2 or 3 times a week when they required new members joining to raid 4 times minimum.
with a job and a wife 2/3 times 4 hrs a night plus time for getting consumables etc was a lot.
by the time BC came this raid guild had imploded with the hardcore all joining the guilds regularly running Naax (we were farming MC / BWL but were still moving slowly through AQ40).
i moved servers – a few friends came but soon got bored of wow / moved on to consoles etc.
after taking a break i came back as the only member of my guild ! Lol.
i got to know a guy through some quests together and he joined my guild after he got kicked from his guild cos he could not raid several nights a week despite being in the guild – a casual guild – from its inception !
so i doubled the membership at a stroke ;) and with him having a holy priest we suddenly found ourselves with a tank and healer for lvl 70 5 mans – which meant we always found a grp for a 5 man :)
we now have the sum total of 4 members ! and we run heroics most nights with someone we know whose in a bigger guild usually but on an off-raid night ! and for a while we actually had 5 members :p but one left for a Kara guild.
it works for us and its enjoyable. 2 of the 4 are married and are big pvp’ers so if nothing is happening 5 man wise they are more than happy to return to pvp.
i would like to be seeing more of the end game content but my life – now including a 19 week old baby boy – does not and will not allow it.
GL in your future WoW BBB.
When you find that guild, let me know. That is exactly the type of guild I am hoping to find on my server.
My wife an I find ourselves in almost the same situation. We are in a 3 person guild, the remmants of our first. The “boys” started it after they got us to playing. They have moved on, burned out or just gave up. Meanwhile the Mrs and I and my brother are still plugging away.
Shazira, mt wife, is a BG maniac. Shercules, my brother, too has decked himself out in BG PvP gear. Whle poor ole Clapus has his early Kara tanking gear, some cat gear and 20 badges, 3 from the new Sunwell dailies.
What’s next for us, who knows? I guess we are just 3 ronin wandering the wilds of Gurubashi doing what good we can. It works for us, we are still having fun.
Good luck to you and Cassieann.
Too bad you’re one of them. Sounds like our Horde guild is what you’re looking for. http://www.mibguild.com/
Best wishes on your new adventures.
Hey BBB, always love reading your blog postings though I really don’t play a druid. Though I’m sorry to hear about your situation you made the right decision in leaving. Its what makes you happy within the boundaries of how you interact and play the game and what’s fun for you and the Mrs.
Im on somewhat of a Hiatus from WoW but your situation is not that far from mine what happened to me about 2-3 weeks back. Its was a tough decision to leave my casual guild as one of 2 dedicated tanks and me being a very good geared Kara OT. Due to looking at direction the guild/members was going and many other things that was problematic I decided to leave on my own after talking with the GM. Its a tough thing to decide to leave a guild you also help gear and participate in building. But all the same I left back in to the wilderness of being Guildless. Its not so bad being guildless you just feel more free without stress. Instead of making any decision to do anything for a while or consider my decisions going forward. I just decided to take a Hiatus from WoW for a while. So yeah i know how you feel and what your going through.
I’ve read your blog on and off for a while and looking at what your looking for in a guild those are really great ideal to look for as it fits what you and the Mrs want in how you play WoW. The best thing I would say is to “Create Your Own Guild” and thus you have the foundation to create the guild you wish to be in. Whatever you do hope it all works out and Im sure to read about it at some point.
http://ardentdefender.blogspot.com/