I came across this article tonight:
Little Article Here
And it got me thinking about something that's been on my mind as of recently. This is basically the issue most people have with today's World of Warcraft, some may not be aware because they've been playing so long it's slipped their mind or most are truly aware of the state of the game.
A while back a forum post on Blizzard's official forums from a player most would consider "undesirable" because of his lack of knowledge towards the game was made. Anyone who has noticed it should had least felt felt some type of sympathy towards said person.
We all started off as rookies in the World of Warcraft. I'll never forget my roots. I made the grind to endgame with a plethora of mistakes that I worked out by the time I began raiding. I would wear gear with the wrong stats, screw up my talent specialization, have a weird rotation because I tried to use every damn ability given to me. It happened.
When we didn't have things like Looking For Group and Raid Finder we definitely had to build up a reputation on the servers we played on in order to get anywhere in the game. You couldn't do it yourself. You needed a team, a guild. What you did on your server was on you. If other players knew you were a respectable and good team player you would be happily accepted into most guilds.
My hardcore raiding years were during the Burning Crusade expansion- I spent a great deal of time trying to find a suitable raiding home after my first raiding guild crumbled. My class wasn't exactly desirable unless you were either the one role it was good at (until Blizzard fixed another) so I was straight out of luck. I went through a few guilds before landing a spot with one of the server's higher-end guilds- most players on the servers quickly noted the guild "application" I had put in and were sending me all kinds of whispers wishing me luck as if I'd truly deserved the moment. I only wanted to raid with a guild that kept its things together.
I eventually was allowed to join, but my character wasn't exactly up to snuff in terms of gear (didn't have much luck with raid drops). I had a Lionheart Executioner and various pieces of my classes' Tier 4 armor. I didn't make the cut but was allowed to remain in the guild, and I took a backseat for a while. The internal issues within the guild finally came to a boil and it dissolved during my burnout period.
When I was finally ready to play again I was quickly offered a raid spot from a guild that had existed on the server for some time (reputation being the key reason) and had finally reached the last tier of raiding in the three months I'd been away. I joined and made the best out of that summer with the guild until the second expansion's release.
