“You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.”
Robert Anton Wilson
Thursday’s Thoughts
Honestly, my thoughts won’t be very deep but there are things I think worth commenting on as I play through the Legion expansion.
The use of the Looking for Group tool and the addition of Mythic Plus has pushed the idea of “every man for himself”. It is an easy tool to use and no one can hold you back from playing however you’d like.
I see no reason to support guilds and that breaks my heart.
My guild did some raiding last night. DPS is not a concern, many of our players have +12 Mythic tokens. I’d say about a third of our raid had already run the raid, saving bonus rolls for the tier pieces. I’d guess that after the three hour raid about half of the players continued and pugged in players. Some were raiding at 2am, six hours later.
Our Raid Leader added another voluntary raid night which means our team is not progressing as a group. Why have a guild at all? The boss will be the boss that our Raid Leader is on, right?
And it doesn’t matter. I can join a pug group too. I can save my bonus rolls and roll and roll on a tier boss. I can join for one boss and leave with zero guilt. A lot of groups will exist just for the tier bosses.
Why are we striving for gear and not enjoying content? I need to learn from a page from Gnomecore’s philosophies.
I have maybe five guys that I look to in my guild. The other 200 flow in and out, joining us because we are pretty active. Active in that players want to achieve their goals and will ask in guild first; that is about it.
The players are playing, no doubt about it. We have good healthy niche groups who always party up. Our guild chat is pretty healthy. It is working. That guild is cooking around the clock.
Still, I wonder about five weeks from now. The LFG has made it so you can push to get your tier sets quickly. Will players still want to raid? Won’t they be “done” and pretty sick of the fights because they ran and ran and ran in these first few days. I mean, it’s only Thursday; two days after the raid came out.
The fun of settling into a group, getting on voice, chatting with friends is slipping away. Establishing new friendships through common content is harder not easier because it is “every man for himself” discouraging any generosity in time or spirit.
It is a game. People come and go. Players run hot and then fade. Players move to other guilds. Favorite friends play less or play Overwatch now. Can I call them friends, that is my question.
Like I said, no deep thoughts. Watcher admitted to not supporting guilds in Legion and said nothing (nothing!) would be done this expansion. He is a dick.
Coffee Cakes and Crits 
You pretty well described my guild. Prior to Tuesday, we had dipped to about 20 odd on in the evening, but Tuesday jumped back to near 40, and just like you we have those that will push for more outside of the guild, while others look to do things together. I am torn. There are aspects of the one click looking for group that I feel may be the downfall of guilds, but then I have to look at the other side, the people working swing shift online at 7am with only 2 or 3 online with them, never having an opportunity, those people that are uncomfortable doing things with people they know until they have had a chance to run it with strangers, and like you said, those that want more faster than others.
I can’t say if I like the feature, but I prefer the feature being in game over an outside source like we had in MoP.
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I’d forgotten about that grouping in MoP. I used it a lot. Blizz had to wrest control of that thing, for sure.
Legion has brought a lot of changes to the culture of WoW, I guess we’ll have to trust them to do a good job to keep the game fun. WoW is different than many games in that it can almost be a lifestyle rather than a computer game.
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Look at how Best in slot gear has changed, MR Robot makes a lot of money making choices for you, so now Best gear is a lot more situational. I see AMR no longer has a log feature, wonder how long before people realize they don’t need to spend money outside of WoW.
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I empathize a lot with this. It’s hard to build and maintain a sense of community in a guild, and it requires a lot of officer effort to keep that going.
In wow, like in life, you can get a lot more out of relationships if you proactively go after them and maintain them. Once you get comfortable with new guild members, add them to Battle.net ID and organize your own groups.
You aren’t as constrained to your guild as before – this can be a detriment but can also be an opportunity. Make friends and lead groups, or join new groups. You get out what you put in.
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I agree. It is hard to be a leader!
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