The original poster, Fappa, level 13 posting alt of the Argent Dawn realm, wrote:

WoW is the first MMO that I’ve ever really played extensively and gotten into, and it’s clear to me after playing the game since 2005 that raiding is and will always be the endgame to WoW. Yes, there’s arena (which occupies like one hour a week), and there’s daily quests, heroics, professions, etc. to do at 70, but really, if you want the best gear and the hardest challenges this game has to offer you have to raid.

Since I haven’t played any other MMOs extensively, I don’t know what their endgames are like. Is the endgame to MMO always raiding (10+ highly coordinated players)?

Reply #8 described DAoC’s endgame:

The endgame of DAOC was entirely PvP based, and still is if you want to play it… Game goes like this:

-3 factions
-Level to 50
-Do some raids and get some gear crafted
-Enter the frontier, an area as big as the leveling areas for the 3 factions, had like 24 captureable keeps, siege weapons, like ballista, catapults, and boiling oil you could dump on people trying to break into a keep you were defending… each faction had a relic that if captured, gave your entire faction a boost to damage, as much as a 20% bonus if you held both relics. Also, there was a whole system of PvP experience points that opened up a whole new progression of abilities that you could get only by PvPing.

I really wish WoW would steal this concept.

Reply #17 recounted old skool Star Wars Galaxies (pre-that mess where they turned everything upside down):

Sadly with the success of world of warcraft, many companies will keep thinking this is the way to go. Before SWG got forked up “endgame” was what you made of it, some of us were content with running our businesses, trying to create items that were better than our competition. Or organizing player cities and keeping them running, things that didn’t always involve scurrying in the same dungeons week after week. However I can’t speak for what everyone else considers fun, just more or less it would be nice if a game offered more options for gameplay than simply tossing instances at us that not everyone wants to do.

Reply #20 Lord of the Rings Online:

you obviously didnt play lotro. The max raid size is 24 people for one and the best gear and crafting items absoltely come from the high end raids. People were hitting max level crafting in open beta and it was nowhere near the epics from the 50 dungeons.. Very very few people have done the raids in LOTRO so im gonna assume you’re talking completely out your butt. Also, from the monster side you can start raiding fellowship leaders as early as level 10, as well as fighting raids of fellowship players.

I think maybe what you’re calling a raid are the “elite” quests you do at low levels. This is like killing Hogger than claiming you know what its like to raid Gruuls.

Reply #27, Beware, level 67 cow of the Sargeras realm, summarized his experiences in MMO endgames:

There are 3-types of “endgame” I have encountered in MMOs so far. Raiding, PvP and Leveling.

By design, the lure of MMOs is that they take a lot of time to play, and to do this they need to give players a reason to keep playing. The best way to do this is to have players create their own experiences, usually with other players. A developer can only create so much content before players go through it all and get bored, so they create repeatable content.

Raiding is somewhat repeatable content, simply because you need to grab a large collection of other players, and you need to repeat it to obtain loots to progress to the next encounter. The large amount of time it takes for groups to learn, beat and gear up encounters is why developers like raids.

PvP is great repeatable content, since people all play differently and this makes for a highly unique and different experience each time you fight another player. This is why designers love to put PvP into MMOs. Usually requires very little development time for huge returns of replayability.

Lastly, older MMOs, which usually had smaller budgets or were just older used the leveling repeatable content. They basically made leveling take literally years to keep you playing. The repeatable content was the constant leveling and seeing your xp bar go up. This is, in a sense what rep-grinding is, and as you know for some people this can get boring very quickly. Even though it is, it’ll give people playing, because people love getting levels, it gives them a sense of accomplishment.

Notice the Blizzard uses all three of these types of repeatable content in WoW; except they’ve placed the biggest emphasis on raiding, simply because it takes the most time to do (gearing up 25 people + once a week) and the fact that they just have to make one new dungeon every few months to keep people happy for the next dungeon. While if they did other types of content, people can blow through it in a few weeks.

Reply #51 City of Heroes:

I know, I keep up with City of Heroes and it’s updates. I logged in for the first time in two months today, and it’s still pretty boring.

Tasks Forces are a poor excuse for endgame as well. It’s a chain of missions that, for a level 50, is only good for a badge and a good story. After that, it’s just the same damn thing. Why do it again? Not only that, but the few true end game Task Forces are just that, rare. There is one exclusive to Villains, one exclusive for Heroes, and one for both. After that, you just have the lower level Task Forces.

The loot system they added is only useful if you are diehard enough to work to get full Invention Origin enhancements and all the costume pieces. However, the drops on the rare items are so rare, the prices get jacked up on the Auction House and it becomes a chore and a waste of money on something purely asthetic or only partially useful.

Oh yeah, and they added a new Raid. A level 54 Giant Monster in the Rikti Crash Zone. Big whoop, it doesn’t give special loot, it doesn’t give particularly good xp, and it isn’t up enough for a casual to fight it.

But yeah, you are right about one thing. The travel powers kick ass.

Reply #64, a shout out to Ultima Online:

Everquest is such a terrible example. I like SOME raid content, but it should never, ever , be the only option you have or take up 90% of your time in-game. A lot of people like to hate the recent expansion but I was ready to call it quits right before it came out. I hated molten bore and bwl, but I loved AQ20 and ZG. Unfortunately my ZG blues didn’t touch someone who spent 30+ hours a week in AQ40, BWL, and Naxx. I accept being at a disadvantage in PvP because I don’t have the time or desire to raid day in and day out, talk about boring. TBC really helped even out the gap. Do people have better gear than me? You bet. Can I kill them? Absolutely.

People like flexibility. Sure UO had plenty of problems, but there was tons of things for you to do and none of them were raiding. Go pvp, hunt some monsters for monies, decorate your house for the holidays, or setup a makeshift bar outside the bank. The world was just so much more moldable, and you could do a lot of quirky and fun things with it. It has nothing to do with “solo content” or not wanting to work with others, just that if they don’t want to raid, they would like other options available to them.

Whether those options are smaller groups (heroic was a great start but the gear is really meh), more robust crafting systems so that players can be more like merchants or trade their way up to better gear, or a housing system.

Everquest was a static world and an awful, mind-numbing grind.

Reply #88, Kastchei of the Argent Dawn realm, summarized WoW raiding (and spot on):

I (and some others) do not doubt that for you raiding has been the most fun you’ve ever had. However – and I have no sound statistics other than the ones others have posted – I think your experience is somewhat unique. Certainly, I personally know folks who have your experience. However, I know a lot of others who used to raid who no longer do.

The reason I do not think raiding is as great for a lot of people, yourself excepted, is because they do not have the guild/time/dedication/resources that you have. What guild (or who you raid with) makes a huge difference between a fun, exciting night of raiding and a long, frustrating, unpleasant one. You are very lucky to have found a guild that gets along smoothly, or at least smoothly enough to down the raid content you have. But what of those who do not have a good guild/raid? Sure they can find another, but for every good, well-oiled raid group out there, there are dozens that aren’t. You could hop once a month and not find a group before next expansion that makes raiding fun, and as we all know, you can’t hop that often for long before guilds turn you down.

Raiding is very difficult, but largely for a lot of extra-game reasons. I said a lot, but certainly not all: certainly strategy and execution play a role. Difficulties in raiding, which match and in some cases supercede the actual strategy/skill needed include (but is not limited to):

organizing a time when the appropriate classes can raid
organizing a system for keeping those players happy (DKP, fairness, rules, etc.)
maintaining people who can concentrate on a game for hours at a time
maintaining people who will not be distracted (pets, children, food, bathroom, etc)
finding individuals willing to give up free time to run the group (designing a website, monitoring the website, keeping track of DKP, farm for materials)
maintaining people who are willing to make raiding a priority in their life
maintaining people who get along with each other or at the least do not cause strife, etc…

As you can see, there are a lot of people problems to overcome with raiding, much more than simply showing up to play the game. My guess is that your guild has managed to solve all of these, but more importantly, your guild members do not mind putting in the time/effort to solve these. There are many people who do, and to be sure, there are many who used to put up with it solely to get better loot. If all raiding took was showing up, devising strategy, and implementing it, I think raiding would be a ton more fun for more people.

I’ve been in good raiding guilds and bad ones (note, I haven’t raided since BC) and the difference is night and day. One case I wanted to tear my hair out and kill my guildmates [sarcasm], the other I thoroughly enjoyed and often times wanted the night to go on longer. For me, doing or putting up with all the extra stuff I mentioned above is generally not worth the reward (either in loot or fun form). You and your guild do find it worthwhile from a fun-only perspective. However, judging from my experiences, trends on my server, stories from friends, and the statistics that people bat around here from time to time (including a few in this thread), I would say you are in a very small (and perhaps lucky) minority. Moreover, I think there is a sizable number of folks who used to raid and now no longer do, because they can stay competitive and advance without needing to raid.

And there’s lots of other thoughtful, heartfelt posts about raiding and guilds in that thread.

Contrary to what I’ve read around the intarwebs, there are a lot of players with good ideas who’ve spent considerable time thinking about the games they play and why they love or hate raiding, PVE, PVP, guilds and the endgame. Imagine that.

In the meantime … I’ve done some work on back info you might find amusing. As you’ve probably noticed, I revamped the look around AFK Gamer. (And if you’re reading blogs via feed reader only, you’re wrong.) More importantly, I fixed some of the static pages and expanded the historical record. If you’re the type who enjoys second-guessing others’ poor decisions (e.g. mine) — and we’re talking YEARS OLD decisions here — you might enjoy this.

Within the limits of blurred memories, I documented my game characters and guilds over the past ten years. Here’s an example of why this is mildly amusing: EQ – Original Main: Druid (soloing juggernaut), Next Main: Bard (post-Luclin soloing juggernaut), Constant Alt: Cleric (equip my Mains, kthxbye).

Takes me a while to figure out the system, but once I do, immersion and community be damed, I’m working it.

While it took me weeks to remember all that and piece together the dates, I realized that most of the memories had become fond ones. That’s one of the advantages of losing your mind.

Schild of f13 caught wind of some Wall Street presentation by Castle Blizzard warning of discussing their plans to create MMOGs from all their franchises: “All Blizzard franchises will become MMOGs.” (f13 link reblogged around the world) No other details are immediately available like, oh … where on Wall Street this was or to whom was it directed — I spent five minutes of fruitless googling, that seems plenty. Hey. f13 redesigned their site. Looks good.

Penny Arcade, the comic lifestyle, has inked some sort of deal with the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) for a public service ad campaign targeted at gamers. From GameDaily BIZ, the purpose of the campaign is to “… inform the gaming population why the video game rating system is important to them.” (GDBiz link) Is it? I don’t really think it is. It’s important to me the citizen, it’s important to parents certainly, but me the gamer, it’s only important so far as I avoid the “E – Everyone” games, like I avoid the “G – General Audiences” movies. Y’might think this is exactly why I need to be educated about the benefits of the ESRB, but I think it’s just a “W – Waste of Money”.

That combat revamp many months ago in Star Wars: Galaxies just might go down in history as the worst business decision ever in gaming — and I am hopeful because I like to witness history in the making, like I enjoyed being part of the Anarchy Online launch. Unlike the typical major retool where players become resigned to their new fates and move on with their lives (usually elsewhere), there’s a solid core of old school SWGers committed to resurrecting the pre-CU/NGE SWG world. (ShardWire SWGEmu link: The First Step into a Larger World) Sony, there’s opportunity knocking. Also, a SWG-classic-ruleset server would eliminate future emails in my inbox from the old SWG gang about getting the pvp guild back together for some wtfpwnage and I would very much appreciate that. Thanks.

The Wall Street Journal, the spam of American offices everywhere, published an article last Friday about gamers that meet in game and get married in real life. GOD NO! When did this start happening?!? (Uhh, back in Ultima Online … seven years ago.) You know all that. What caught my eye were some stats they quoted, courtesy of Nick Yee, game industry voyeur of Stanford University: 29% of women players and 8% of men said they had gone on to date someone they met in a game. Edge Online and We Make Money Not Art chased down this additional stat from Yee’s website: 80% of females and 60% of males have engaged in a little light flirtation [in game]. Holy gender gap. Age? Lying? We’ve got some real playahs in MMOs who are too busy working the shemales to log out and complete a survey?

Lastly, no patch this week in World of Warcraft. Still. It’s like watching a glacier carve a new landscape — which makes me think I’ll be buying that Starcraft MMO for my grandkids, and I haven’t even started yet.

Not just in our own minds either, although we each had a healthy ego — we were regularly called hackers, stackers, bangers and motherf, well, you get the idea. We weren’t particularly skilled or talented. We were, however, extremely … how to say? … intense. Focused. Every guild and member activity was focused on improving team pvp activities.

That was our super secret strategy: exponential teamwork.

After Sony announced that the combat and pvp revamp was delayed until after the Jump to Lightspeed demon expansion, we decided it was time for a gaming vacation before the arrival of World of Warcraft.

The requisite timesink for a (maybe) ten-minute squirmish by the Coronet cantina became a burden: dancer + musician buffs several minutes, and heaven help you if someone was late in arriving for the buff rounds, doctor buffs another couple of minutes, check combat supplies (and there’s always some idiot that doesn’t have food, drink, med kits, needs repairs or what the fuck ever) — it was all so whacked.

Then YAY!! Thirty minutes later we were ready to ride out for the interplanetary hunt of any other players who weren’t whoring for a jedi unlock. We’d have our ten (maybe) minute fight, and about then it was time to watch the buff timers, repair bikes and armor, and juggle the food/drink timers.

Anyways.

Warcraft was on the horizon and the guild collectively voted to move there, although a few guys went to EverQuest 2, and a few stayed behind in Star Wars to unlock jedi. Guild management remained largely intact and we had reason to hope that a successful transition to a more loot-centric game would be possible. (I didn’t say “probable,” I said “possible.” Remember that.)

Few days into Warcraft, the clerics priests started bitching that they’re having trouble soloing as quickly as the rogues and hunters. Actually, it wasn’t bitching so much as grumbling and asking for help.

Foton to the rescue! Because goddamn, if there’s one thing that gaming has taught me, we will need priests for the endgame … LOTS of them. From what I heard then (and of course know now), once a priest is solidly shadow specced, they won’t need help from anyone, in fact, the rest of us poor SOBs will begging them for help.

I did what I could, but damn, one rogue dragging around 3 or 4 priests is slow going in that game. So a couple of the priests posted on the boards asking for more guildmates to help the cause. We had all these rogues and hunters racing through the levels and instances, how about a little help here?

Here’s where my story turns a little ugly. You might want to turn away.

This college puke, that never had the time to PvP or do anything even remotely guild-oriented in Star Wars and SOMEHOW talked his way into guild leadership, posted that he was willing to help with info and tips (tips. heh. what a fuck.), but he’d be damned if he was going to do quests for anyone in this game.

I’m paraphrasing here, but was something like he “wasn’t going to carry anyone through the levels, and the posters could put in the same effort that he and the others (rogues and hunters) were.” Y’know, meaning that the priests were lazy and that his work ethic was beyond reproach.

Heh.

With the advent of voice capability in gaming nowadays, I like to save my best work for the TeamSpeak channel where EVERYONE is sure to hear exactly what I think of stupid college fucks that shoot their mouths off. I don’t do it often, I’ll usually choke back my anger, but that hairless puke was asking for it.

From memory, after the first “go fuck yourself” flew in the channel, the guildleader hauled all the parties into a private channel to chill. College puke wanted an apology for my insubordination (o ya, that was going to happen in his lifetime) and I wanted him to drop the attitude (also not going to happen in a lifetime).

I’d like to say we reached a happy happy joy joy compromise, there was much hugging, back pounding and hearty handshakes. But that would be lying.

Tomorrow: I become persona non grata and the mighty falls to its knees.