As I mentioned many months ago I am a hardcore World of Warcraft raider turned casual due to long breaks from the game and after another year-long break from World of Warcraft I return to being a casual player with a new problem I never thought I’d face. I honestly used to think that casual players would come up with tonnes of excuses about not being able to raid to compensate for their lack of skill or just plain laziness but returning to World of Warcraft has made me realise that there is a lot of truth to their claims. The current state of World of Warcraft has reached a point where I the newbie can no longer raid.
Because of Blizzard’s actions in trying to make the game more casual friendly (which I applaud) a lot more guilds are able to easily progress through the high-end content with minimal effort. The side effect of this is they have made it even more difficult for a newcomer to break into raiding. Back in vanilla and even the first expansion, raiding was very difficult and had prerequisite attunements which meant a lot of guilds never progressed past a certain point, this worked to the advantage of the new comer. Since many guilds had not progressed very far the gear requirements to get into those guilds were still very achievable by one’s self, this however is not true with the current state of World of Warcraft. Very few guilds are still running the entry level raids so the only chance a newcomer has at getting into the current raid game is to have close friends on the inside of an already well off guild who can speak on their behalf.
Pugging raids seems like the ideal solution to the troubled newcomer, gearing up and learning encounters in the hopes that you may have the experience and gear to one day apply for a guild. Sadly this is not the case, in fact it is actually more difficult to get into a PUG raid than it is to get into a raiding guild. While a raiding guild is willing to give anyone a chance who shows enthusiasm and a willingness to learn a PUG raid will have stricter gear/raid experience requirements and quite often a much more elitist attitude towards those that stand in the way of their epic loots.
Luckily all is not lost to those that wish to experience the current content before the next expansion. As has happened with the previous two expansions; when the release day of Cataclysm draws near many guilds will stall in their raiding progress due to their raiders not seeing a point to it anymore as their gear will soon be obsolete. At that time most people find enjoyment in running the lower tier raids with their alts in order to gear them up and make leveling easier. Getting into a raid will become much easier as people will be more willing to accept lesser experienced players into the raid as there isn’t anything riding on its success. If it fails oh well, that’s just one less epic an alt will replace on launch day.
But until such a time I shall be making money off of the raiders by selling them overpriced gems and enchants while they still need them.
