World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

As some of you may have noticed, we haven't really done anything since our kill 2 months ago. Some of this time has been for a break, some for considering which direction to go in the future, and some of it has just been me dragging my feet. After a putting a little over 9 years of my life into running this guild (first raid Oct 28, 2014), I'm announcing the disbanding of BDG as a hardcore/RWF guild.

A couple of the bigger reasons for this that all kinda work together:

• Decline in leadership, both in quality and quantity. This has mostly been a recent problem, but I definitely don't feel the same level of desire I did back in the Castle/Sanctum days when I was excited to do work. It’s not fair to say raiding became an obligation for me, but the passion and desire was gone. I could have done better. Couple that with having to change out basically my entire officer team twice in the past year, business partners stepping away, and high amounts of stress/anxiety I've been feeling since Castle, I'm left with little motivation to continue this other than inertia. It doesn't feel right for me to give my guys anything short of my best.
• Losing core players each tier either to retirement/burnout or taking offers from the top 3 (as they should). Regardless of the quality of their replacements, the process slowed us down and created a sense of a perpetual rebuild that gave the guild something of an identity crisis. Anyone who has been here for even a year knows what I mean, and it sucks. This just isn't something most core raiders on roster want to do again for the 3rd time.
• Loss of sponsorship has a lot to do with the above points as well. This mostly ties into the first point of us not doing enough internally to secure our future, but pretty obviously the scene requires money that doesn't exist here anymore. Makes it hard for anyone to justify the time commitment outside of extreme passion, which frankly speaking, most people lose in about two tiers.

As for what happened this tier, I think we always knew a rebuild tier was gonna be rough. I thought Aberrus was going to be a rough rebuilding tier with all the stuff we endured post Vault (key players retiring, new officers, handful of people leaving a month before the tier), but we somehow pulled a W4th out of that. It seemed like it was feasible to match that performance, or at least get close, so that's where the expectation got set. After we realized we were not playing up to this standard (early Smolderon), that kinda set us on a path that spiraled down into poor play and attitudes we had to fight through primarily, rather than just fighting the mechanics. I am proud we stuck it out through all that though and finished the tier, as I think it would've felt significantly worse to end halfway through, which looked like a real possibility at one point.

I do want to express my sincerest gratitude for everyone who has been through this guild, all 295 of you. If I've learned anything in the past 2 months of not really playing WoW, it's the people that I miss the most, more so than the game. Ultimately, you all are what made this special. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about the old days, high points, or low points. Anything from the US200 days in early WoD, or one of our INSANE world firsts (Vectis or Desolate Host or Fated Sire woooo), fun games of League or Tabletop, or any of the RWFs we took part in, or just to catch up! I'd be happy to talk to all of you, and wish you great success in life.

I'd also like to shout out all the officers and leadership that have been in this project with me. I think you all are some of the best gaming friends I've made, and a lot of you have challenged me and pushed me to be a better person and a better leader, and I'll always be thankful for that. There's gonna be a few too many people to list here, but from the early days of US 200th with Glade, Dhaubbs, Comfy, and Bubba, to our nightly era with Maevey, Witts, Cherryvodka, and Darkbard, to our most recent era with Dbzy, Darkfurion, Shampy, Impakt, Hyper, Sloot, Maple, Ftm, Crystal, Wolf, Zoey, and Flawless - I want to thank all of you for the work and sacrifices you put into making this guild a place I will never forget.

I also want to extend a huge thank you to all the people we worked with at Golden Guardians: Hunter, Spellsy, Danan, and Johnny to name a few. You all truly enabled my dream of participating in the RWF, and I'm not sure how to ever properly thank you all for that.

To my analyst team this tier - Choice, Doro, John, and Permok: I very much appreciate all the work you did behind the scenes, prepping, and after/before hours to keep me in the raid. Scared to think where we would've been without the instant WA support, or all the late-night Aug TCing, datamining, or anything and everything else. I hope you all can find another home in the scene if you want. Don't be strangers.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone in the community, in particular the people that tuned into our streams, helped us with crafting, splits, participated in our charity events, or just had fun interactions with our members. You all are the single most important aspect of WoW, and your support meant the world to us. May all your journeys be filled with success and adventure!

As for myself, I haven't committed to a future direction yet, in game or out of game. I still think there's a lot of passion in me for this game and this community, I just need a few months off to figure it all out after redlining it for 3 years straight. Maybe I'll be a part of the RWF elsewhere, maybe I'll reform with a some friends as a chill(er) nighttime guild for the new expansion (any ex-raiders that made it this far hit me up).

With heartfelt thanks and best wishes,
Lozy
GM/Founder of BDG