Raiding

The Other Content

By: Savanja

There are a few different types of guilds. You have the small friends and family types, the casual, yet somewhat more
active guilds, and you have the raiding guilds.

My guilds fit the first two of those descriptions. I have one character in a small friendly guild, mostly just pals who
hang out and play together. They have a useful alliance with a larger guild, my main guild Aggro Fish, which is very much still
a casual guild. Raiding is something that we do occasionally when people need a quest completed. So pretty much, once every
few months we gather forces and we raid.

I’ll admit it’s fun. I always feel a tiny bit bad for the poor soul organizing the raid though because it is rather difficult
to get that many people together in the same place at the same time. There is inevitably a lot of shuffling around and
pre-raid work to do, which in my experience, ends up taking longer than the actual raid. So why do we do it?

Fame, Fortune, and all the Hawt Chicks

Hardcore raiding guilds always get all the attention. They typically hit the server firsts, and they are the wealthiest,
best dressed, and best known characters on server. A good raiding guild is easily known far and wide in any game. It’s simple;
you need to be a top-notch player to be useful in a raid. You have to know your place, and you have to perform well.
If you can do that, then you get a shot at the nifty titles, the awesome fabled gear, and all the Elven women and jum jum wine
one could ever want, and perhaps even offers from svelte Barbarian hotties that offer to be your love slave for always.
So those perks right there should make it all worth it, except that has anyone noticed that they have to work it, I mean
REALLY work it like a job?

Workin’ Nine to Five

Raid guilds vary of course. Some may raid once a month, once a week, a couple days a week, and some raid every night.
It’s a commitment for sure. One that I would never be able to make, as I typically just wish to play, have fun, and chat
far too much. You have to have a certain amount of drive for it. A friend of mine, who I will leave unnamed, mentioned having
to make the push to level 70, partially to keep up with his regular raid group, most of which had already made level 70.
I mean, here I am, at level 63, slowly watching that experience bar move up for the first time in months, completely content
to putter around on this character, and a couple of my other alternate characters, and people around me are making the mad push for level 70?
I feel so alone! Don’t leave me behind!

But it’s true, if you want to raid like some of the guilds raid, you have to keep up with the grind. Your gear needs to
be updated, which cannot be hard with all that fabled loot hanging around, and you have to keep ahead of the game in levels.
So what if you’ve topped out the game a week after the newest expansion has hit the shelves. You can always pick up a trade
and top that out too! Or maybe just sit back and enjoy your fame, and that hawt Barbarian love slave.

For the Not so Uber Gamer

Okay, well, if you are anything like me, then the idea of hardcore raiding makes you tired. I don’t have the patience,
the time, or the desire to raid regularly. But I would like to raid sometimes, just to experience some of the cool content,
to get some of the more involved quests done, and to generally hang out and say “Yeah, I’ve been there and done that”. The
problem is, in a casual guild, we don’t have a lot of characters in the high level range. We tend to be all spread out in
levels. So more often than not, my Monk is mentoring down to the lower levels and still working on some of the mid range raid
mobs. It’s okay though. It’s a good way to get my noob feet wet. I think that soon we will have enough players in the same level
range to make raiding feasible for us, which would be awesome, because that is content that I’d definitely like to see. In the meantime,
I’m happy to mentor down, alliance with other small guilds, and take on itty bitty baby epic mobs with a darn good group.

But I don’t Wanna Raid!

It’s not a must have, I don’t believe. Really, fabled gear, master drops, and all the cool stuff that raiders get, is
generally just needed for raiding. I am quite content with crafted and typical dropped gear, with the rare good piece,
and it does me fine for my brand of gaming. So if you are the sort that isn’t all that into raiding then don’t feel left out.
There is so much content out there for solo’ers and groups, that really, raid content is just a small slice of it. You just
can’t be focused on being the awesomest player out there, because yeah, those tend to be the raiders…or the botters, but that’s
a whole ‘nother article. But if fun is your goal, raiding is not needed for that at all.

Gaming Made Your Way

In the end, raid type content is not the pinnacle of gaming. You don’t need it to be a happy, well-rounded character.
It’s really just there for the more dedicated, and more hardcore gamers as something to do, a goal to reach beyond topping
out level and having a complete set of fabled. It gives the larger guilds something to compete for, and some notoriety for
all their hard work, because it definitely is hard work. But it’s nice content to have, and for the average gamer, if you want
it, it’s there and it’s usable. You may not be taking on the server or game wide firsts, but raid content is easily accessible,
and everywhere at every level range. You just need a bit of patience, and a good-sized group of gamer pals, and you are set!

Please feel free to post your opinions and thoughts on the TenTonHammer forums thread
"Why Raid?". I'd love to hear
from the raiders and non-raiders alike on their opinions of raiding. How neccessary is it to the gaming atmosphere,
and why does one raid at all?

Happy gaming to all, happy raiding to some! If you have something you'd like to share with me personally, I'm
always available via e-mail!