Why do we raid?

This risks getting both philosophical and controversial. But with the Burning Crusade expansion approaching, the daily life of the average raiding guild is going to change dramatically for a while, both before and after the expansion comes out. And the reason for that is while it is possible to get 40 people gathered into a raid, it is unlikely that they are all there for the same reason. And with the Burning Crusade offering some viable alternatives for some of the motivations for raiding, people are reacting differently to the prospect of the expansion.

Some people like the social aspects of raiding. Hanging out with your online friends in a shared adventure. Helping the guild as a whole, without looking at your own advantage. For example I still participate often in Onyxia raids, although I already have the Halo of Transcendence, and there is no drop from Onyxia which I still need. But obviously I couldn't have gotten the Halo without my guild, so I find it natural that I'm still there helping others getting their tier 2 headpiece or whatever else they want from Onyxia.

Another important aspect of raiding is exploration, seeing new bosses, learning new tactics. Unfortunately progress there tends to be rather slow, it is not every day that you see a new boss. A different motivation, but which sometimes gets confused with the exploration aspect, is the feeling of achievement when your guild manages to kill a boss for the first time. Whether you do it out of curiosity, or out of pride, you end up advancing from boss to boss in the classic raid circuit, from ZG to MC to BWL to Naxxramas, with AQ thrown in as side branch.

Many people are motivated to go raiding because of character development, the wish to increase the power of your character further by equipping him with epics. This might not be the prime reason for everybody, but it is at least a part of the motivation for nearly everybody. Getting an epic is part of a classical effort and reward cycle, where the effort of raiding gets you a reward, and the reward motivates you to further effort. Pretty much a primal instinct, you can train rats to push a lever to get a food reward, and Blizzard training people to go raiding by feeding them epics works the same way.

And lastly some people raid because there is nothing else to do at level 60. Well, there is farming, grinding reputation, or PvP. But for many people these other options are even less appealing. Raiding is the "least bad" way to continue playing at level 60.

Of course you can't easily put people into drawers, sorting them by motivation. In general people have a mix of several of these reasons to go raiding, in varying degrees.

Now Burning Crusade comes and shakes up these reasons to raid. If you were just raiding because you had nothing else to do, the day you get the expansion means you won't have to raid any more before you hit level 70, which might take weeks or even months, depending on how much you play. If you were raiding mostly because of the loot, you probably already know that the Burning Crusade has much better loot right from the start than even Blackwing Lair can offer. In fact some people who raid just because of loot are already stopping to raid now, argueing that waiting for the Burning Crusade is the path of least resistance to better gear.

People who want to explore new places or achieve new boss kills will probably still be raiding until just before the expansion. Some readers commented here that they would like to "finish" Naxxramas before the Burning Crusade comes out. But once it is out, exploring the Outlands and achieving kills of BC bosses whose strategies isn't already posted on every WoW website will make them stop visiting the old raid dungeons. You could image a "tourist" raid of level 70s who didn't manage to beat BWL or Naxxramas at 60 going exploring there at 70, but that won't be considered as much of an achievement.

I could imagine some guilds still running a raid or two per week to the old dungeons for some time after the Burning Crusade comes out for social reasons. Not all guild members might have access to the expansion immediately. And the guild as a social entity needs a purpose, some guild events to organize, before enough people hit level 70 and the next raid circuit begins.

With people having different reasons for raiding, and many of these reasons falling away when the expansion comes out, many guilds will have trouble staying together, due to lack of purpose. Ideally guilds would be busy organizing 5-man events until enough people reach level 70 to restart raiding. But most guilds don't have (or lost) practice in organizing such small events. And people will quickly diverge, leveling at different speeds. By the time the guild officers reach level 70, they will be lucky if they can find 25 people to raid with. Worries that the new 25-man raid cap will prevent you from raiding with your 39 friends you raided with at 60 are probably not very realistic. It is unlikely that the same 40 people would still be together by then. Very few guilds will manage to rush to 70 at uniform speed, spending most of the time to 70 playing together. Most people will see a lot of soloing and pickup groups, in spite of being in a guild. Some guilds will split up, many people will switch from one guild to another, because they either leveled faster or slower than their guild mates. The best chance a guild has to stay together is being a social guild, where the purpose always has been to just play together. If you don't mind the loot or the achievement or insist on always seeing new stuff, you can always find some sort of event for the guild to do together. But with purely social guilds being rare, many guilds are facing stormy weather, with the Burning Crusade shaking up old habits and guild structures. Will you miss having a guild raid on offer every night?
- posted by Tobold @ 3:44 PM Permanent Link