(11-20-2014, 02:27 PM)Zyrusticae Wrote: I get that having it there looks good. It appeases the e-peen players to some extent, gives them some sort of bragging rights (even if I reserve the right to sneer at them for it). It's more for the game's image than anything else. Yet I wonder if that's actually worth it? I wonder if it actually hurts the game as much as it helps, because, seriously, it's just a massive brick wall for people to band together and bash their heads against repeatedly until it crumbles under the force of their collective head-smacks (and unfortunately a lot of players lack either the strength or the endurance to just keep smacking away at it and oh wow I am really running away with this analogy *ahem*). Â How much value does an experience like that actually have?
I may not do it anymore, but there was a sort of visceral feeling of accomplishment when overcoming raid bosses in WoW. I didn't face it because of e-peen, I challenged it because I wanted to see what was beyond the normal. What few people actually got to see and participate in. That in and of itself was enticing to me.
You bang your head against a wall, yes, if I may use your metaphor. And you do it often, oh so often. But when you break through, you're like the Kool-Aid Man - "OH YEAH!" You get tense and nervous as you realized you're gonna do it and when you DO... the euphoria is something else. The gear just makes the deal sweeter. You've accomplished what few have done AND you get some neat stuff on top of it.
That was never really the problem with me, though. It was the guild politics. It was the people who used our guild as a stepping stone to get gear before bailing for a further-progressed guild. It was spats over inane nonsense between members and the audacity of others to demand more than their own fair share. I literally had a tank bail in the middle of a classic Molten Core run because he demanded he get one of the Thunderfury wraps if it dropped, "because he's main tank." It was the drama, it was the drama that burned me out of raiding, and makes me so tentative about starting up again.
To that regard, I liked WoW's Looking for Raid. I like the Duty Finder. Sure, you will oft have to deal with jerks and idiots and elitists... but only for that fight, for that dungeon. You don't know these people, you don't NEED to know these people.
Afterwards, you can say "well, that was obnoxious" if they were bad and then go back to yelling at mobs ten levels lower than you aggroing on you while you're trying to transport pumpkin bombs until you feel better. Or break out your Opo-opo and run around in Hide with it on your head, proclaiming you've perfected "hovermonkey technology." You're done with it, you've washed your hands clean... rather than have to deal with the fallout in guild chat and be left dreading trying again the next raid day.
... Holy crap that got lengthier and more visceral than I intended. Point stands, though.
...
*breaks out Opo-opo minion*
