WoW Petopia Community

Ok, due to a bunch of RL mess going on, I stopped playing right around the end of MoP. Just recently managed to get WoD and have been easing myself back into playing. Used to be a regular raider with a guild on Vek, since stuff's changed so much though I decided to go leveling a few toons on a diff server to get the hang of all the changes. Some people I know told me to jump to the server they were/are on so I could join their small guild to level where I wouldn't feel worried about getting asked to fill a raid spot before I was comfortable with the changes. Sounded like a cool thing, so I did. And managed to talk my current roommate into doing RAF with me so I'd have someone I could run around leveling with, since 99.9% of the toons in my bud's guild are all 100's and I kinda hate asking one of them to come around lowbie zones with me to level.

So my current roomie RAF's with me, and I manage to ask another pal I've known for years to make a new toon on the server to level with us too. Things should be going good, right? Well they were, until I invited my bud's new toon into our little guild. I didn't think it'd be a big deal to have a couple of my pals in the same guild while we were leveling together. But the guild leader flipped out over it. I'm sitting here days later trying to figure out why. I mean having another skilled player isn't a bad thing, could have given more options for us to go do raiding with a guild group, getting achievements and stuff for the guild. Plus it'd give me and anyone else who wanted to level up an alt a couple active people to run around leveling with. Honestly to me it seemed like the tantrum was more about me having other friends on the server I could go do things with, but as the guild leader didn't seem interested in helping me get back into learning things, as it was more a case of 'Do it my way because that's the only right way to play', where my style has always been jump in and learn and tweak as I go to fit my style.

My roomie's been having fun with me rolling around with her, questing, seeing new stuff, learning the lore behind the game. Rather than say 'you must do it this way', I've been trying to get her to use the in-game tools to figure stuff out. Like I'll tell her to open her map and look for the quest markers there, instead of throwing a fit about how she's gearing/speccing and how she should be reading up on a zillion and one things before even making a toon.

So my current roomie and I left that guild, can't stick around someplace I get yelled at for trying to have fun with a couple old friends.

I can't help but wonder if people are forgetting about the fun aspect of the game, if there's a drive to be perfect, cookie-cutter, super-cereal. Is that how the playerbase is heading? Is there still room for those of us who just want to have fun and tweak and learn as we go? Those of us who don't want our funtime to feel like it's some exam we gotta do a ton of homework for?

Nothing against any of you who like to do the homework before making a toon. If that's your way of fun, good for you.

I think that the most important aspect of any game is to have fun. When it becomes stressful or more like a job or task with things that "MUST" be done, then it stops being what it was meant to be, entertaining. There is a difference between entertainment/enjoyment, and something to kill time.

I have noticed a more drastic shift in (some) peoples mindsets when it comes to WoW. There seems (to me) to be more uptight players who just loose their temper on even the slightest of things and it continually confuses me. I think I started noticing the shift back when the LRF/LFD was added and players no longer had to form their own parties and manually go to dungeons (because after looking for hours for a 5 man group for Zul'farrak or something, no one wanted to leave before the end of the dungeon) but now its become so easy to replace someone. There's a loss of "Value" for teammates. As such, the value of fellow players has also decreased.

However, that is not me! I love to get together with random people, take on tough challenges, run random dungeons/raids no matter how many times we wipe. For me, the fun is simply playing my character with my friend, whether the dps is good or not, so long as we have fun!

Okay so I logged in for the first time in years to respond to this.

I quit WoW about a year ago because I 'got in' with the uber-serious lot. My boyfriend being one of them. I was interested in becoming better at WoW as he was on of those hardcore first-to-do-a-thing-on-a realm raiders. Quickly realized that it's not for everyone, including me. I'd be doing something I enjoy, taming rare pets, pet battling, exploring w/e and him and his guild just could not understand why I wasn't gearing up, why I wasn't doing Mythic/Hc stuff etc and constantly striving to be on their level. When I explained I was having fun in my way in their view I was "wasting" my money on the game. I'd seen them go absolutely ballistic at people in their raid group, one healer was kicked for making one mistake in a raid causing them to wipe. The whole thing made me very self-conscious on WoW. I had post-it notes all around my PC with tactics because I was so scared of forgetting them and messing up. It got to the point where I genuinely belived I just wasn't up to par and quit.

I'm still terrified of messing up or being bad at this game and It really is ruining my enjoyment to a degree. I recently made friends with someone who's a very good player but very chill which made me realize I probably just had a bad experience and am beginning to relax a little. One of my favourite memories of WoW was learning as I went along. I've recently made a new toon without looms because I want that experience again. It sounds dumb but I kind of miss having that naievity lol? It's honestly my dream to be able to do content with a group of super-chill friends. One day.

I started playing WoW in 2006 and Legion will probably be the first expansion I'll let pass.
I've have two accounts and, all in all, 11 characters with Level 90 or higher.

Did I stop playing because WoW got boring? No.
I stopped playing because I couldn't find any guild or group that I could play WoW with, the way I want to play it.
I'm a role player and role play was the initial reason for buying WoW Vanilla way back in time.
Pretty soon, I realized that most people do not like to role play, not even those on RP realms. And also I realized, some take the game pretty serious. I do remember playing my first ever toon, a Tauren warrior and got an invitation for a dungeon run. I told them that I just started to play the game and I got no idea what a dungeon is or how it works but they said that wasn't a problem.
But it was! Automatically assuming a warrior being a tank, they pretty soon found out I wasn't lying: I didn't even have any idea about what the hell a tank even was!
Despite of me telling them I got no idea, they turned pretty unfriendly and rude. Not only kicking me from the group but continually whispering what kind of an idiot I was.
This happened to me more than once, so dungeons and raids were off limits for me.

There was a time that I really had fun with WoW. I joined a level stoppers guild. Unfortunately, they never did any role playing but were very group oriented. 5 of us made alts that were leveled up to 15 and then were only played in PVP, leveleing them that way. Did we win a lot? No. But we had fun. And the level stopping was aimed at two things: Keep the guild together and to not advance in level before all dungeons and raids on that level were done. No matter how many wipes, how many tries, we did them all. When Star Wars: The old republic was released, half the guild switched over and the good times were over. We had just started WotLK and that's been it.

The social part, playing with other people, is what makes WoW different from other computer games for me. I really think that, being 46 now, I am to old. Most of the other players are way younger than me and do have some completely different reasons to play WoW. And that is what turned me away from not only WoW but all other MMORPGs: I can't seem to find a guild that I fit in, that I can have fun with. Would I return to WoW? Yes, I would. If I knew that I have this kind of people around. But after almost 10 years of playing, I gave up hope and so dropped WoW for good.

My guild is pretty casual. We wipe frequently because of boneheaded mistakes, and fortunately the raid/guild leader is responsible for his fair share of them. People do get frustrated sometimes, but nobody gets kicked. If we're progressing too slowly for some people, then we'll have a "everybody" night and/or time, and a "core group" time. It's important to the guild leader that we have a time when everyone can join in if they want, even if we end up doing pretty easy bosses.

We have a harder time filling, especially on fridays, because of people's schedules (and during content droughts when regulars feel burnout/boredom). Oh, nobody gets guild kicked because of not showing up, we just like to know ahead of time who to expect. It's a little frustrating to be months behind, and when we don't end up raiding on raid night (or end up with prima dona pugs when we fill with randoms). But I think that's worth the friendly guild atmosphere.

Your guild sounds identical to mine, Xota.