How many of you have raided for years non-stop and actually enjoyed it?

[Deleted]

I've raided one tier per expansion, usually get too bored by the time we're farming stuff. Then come back next expansion when thing's look interesting again.

[Vaelorian]

Very similar experience, except I stopped cold turkey after we went from Yogg0 to the first boss in ToC. After we 1shot him without even knowing any of the abilities I just quit the next day because I was pissed at the low level of difficulty. But yeah, after we downed KJ I raided more or less out of habit, enjoying only the extremely hard fights, if it didn't take 100+ wipes (with competent people) I was bored.

While I get your dissapointment killing the first boss in a new dungeon can be a slap in the face on your first try. (I had many experiences like that) You do realise that everytime you kill the end boss of the last tier, that boss is much MUCH more difficult then the new boss of the next tier right? It's been like that since 4ever. And while Yogg0 was imo a little harder then Anub heroic 25 man, you should have taken the time to get there imo. I was such a fun fight.

[Sussex]

Well since I am more or less the same as the OP, I'll answer this one too.

WoW was very much fun for me. I loved being GM of my guild. I loved making rosters/adminning our website and forum/recruiting/planning for the days or weeks to come/having officer meetings (in real life or not)/having guildmeetings in real life. I loved just dungeoneering with my guildies or leveling some profession. Or just basic socialising ingame.

The raiding part while big wasn't something I looked forward to. You say that you feel it is a false perspective to play a game for admiration. While I would agree with you somewhat, I can just honestly say: I needed it. My life was a total shithole. I had no confidance in real life at all. I shined in WoW like I wanted to shine in the real world. My name was known across the server and at times at others too. If you don't understand that ego boosting feeling is something that you want to hold onto, I guess we can just stop talking about it.

I am not saying this was a healthy mindset. I am simply and honestly stating how it was and why it was how it was with me

Well said.

[nekobaka]

I have had breaks largely due to real life and content lulls, but still raided from BC on when I could even when I dropped to just PuG raiding when Cata launched. If it wasnt for friends made in BC raiding I wouldnt have picked up WotLK and Cata. MoP was a personal choice to see if I could go do the alternatives to raiding and what a tedious chorefest that was, felt like it was designed for no-lifers unlike the casualness of Cata.

I am big on PuG raiding and even solo queuing engaging content like Cata launch heroics. I can accept the risk and the enjoyment of the activity is far more important than getting shinies tossed at me. If I wanted a solo playing game then I would play something else.

[Deleted]

The only time I not fully enjoy raiding is at end of expansion, when the final raid instance lasts for 8 months or longer (think ICC, Dragon Soul and current SoO). And that's mostly because more and people take breaks, so it gets harder and harder to get a full group (25).
Also, at the end of an expansion the balance is completely gone, so other stuff (like dungeons) is not fun anymore either, not even on alts.

Agree very long raid instance just slowly kills the enjoyment. Raiding today in SoO even to progress its like some bored task who you have to do in work some ppl stop playing other just say "oh well we have lots of time to clear that raid so yea lets be lazy"

[Friendlyimmolation]

I used to raid non stop up until Mop where me and most of my guild would do the raid once on Heroic and then called it quits. In my opinion none of the recent raids have that fantasy flair dungeons and dragons feel I grew up playing and therefore I found the new raids mind numbingly dull. Its mostly why I still think the raids in Vanilla and up to Wotlk were the best and run them for xmorg gear occasionally.

[Deleted]

Yes since Vanilla, untill about 3 months ago where I finally burned out.

[Vaelorian]

I used to raid non stop up until Mop where me and most of my guild would do the raid once on Heroic and then called it quits. In my opinion none of the recent raids have that fantasy flair dungeons and dragons feel I grew up playing and therefore I found the new raids mind numbingly dull. Its mostly why I still think the raids in Vanilla and up to Wotlk were the best and run them for xmorg gear occasionally.

Haha so familiar. To me transmog sets stopped being nice at tier 11. And Tier 11 wasn't that great either for me (paladin) but since I completed a fully heroic set and it was one of the best raidinstances for me, I kept it.

[shise]

I am in the same situation as you, just I still enjoyed raiding WotLK (mostly because I raided with my sister and friends I guess plus Ulduar was epic).
I even started Cata raiding, but after the first month I simply stopped raiding for real. By DS I started raiding again in a regular basis and then all the way till half MoP when I stopped raiding again.

Did I enjoy it?

Yes. In fact, it happens to me that, coincidence or not, the "good old days" were also my best years so far. So my memories of the past time of WoW before Cata are simply the sweetest, who could just port back in time...

[rohendar]

From Vanilla till first tier of Cata I raided 4 nights a week main raid, 2 nights a week alt raid. 6nights, 18hours raiding a week. The raiding has always been the nr 1 way of fun in this game for me. I was the one that got annoyed when other people stopped being as active. In cata, I had to quit, not because I didn't like raiding anymore, but because my job took too much time.

After 4 months of no WoW, I came back and finished the year of Cata as a filthy casual. Now for MoP I've been playing with a really nice group, 9h raids a week. A lot less time, and yet we still killed Garrosh HC.

For me, finding my place in this game really became a matter of balance, and not trying to squeeze as much fun out of it as possible but playing endlessly.

[Vaxall]

I ve started in Vanilla, did almost no raiding (only mc, zg, bwl). Then when BC came out i move to the US from Switzerland, but wanted to stay on an EU Server, so i found a decent Night Raid Guild, we raided from 23 pm to 3-4 am UTC +1. For me it was around 6 till 10 i guess. I loved it and had fun doin the same raid several times with twinks.
Then i moved to a way bette guild when i came back, during progression 6 Raiddays and the spare time was used for clearing the same Ini with 2 other Twinks 10 and 25 Mode... I dont know how but i still had fun doin that. Then when LK was downed (World 30) we farmed him and the guild lost a few mainraiders, in Cata and MoP i was only casual and i tried raiding once, but i cant keep my contentration up for so long anymore. I was in the progress during Sinestra but it wasnt the same feeling i had during BC and WotLK

[Monoxyde]

i've raided 2 or 3 hours a night a couple nights a week avg for many years and still enjoy it. the idea of hardcore raiding sounds pretty horrible to me. the game is a log more fun when you treat it like a game rather than a job or race.

[Thunderball]

Raided non-stop ever since the release on BWL to the release of Halion. Had ~100% attendance in a 5h6d guild for around 3 years during TBC and WotLK. Enjoyed every moment of it, still in touch with a lot of people I've raided with, though majority doesnt play for a long time (most quit at the start of Cataclysm, same as me). Have to agree that it's kinda hard to enjoy the actual raids themselves for such a long time, I personally enjoyed teamwork, competition, feeling of accomplishment when downing tough stuff. It's kinda gone ever since T11, the raid itself was ok, but the game had to become harder which was impossible due to people being used to WotLK faceroll. Add in the 10 month ICC in there and I had to raid with a bunch of idiots, which I couldnt stand.

All in all I kinda understood at that point that I cant enjoy the game in that state (exploration gone with the revamped old world, totally unbalanced PvP, hordes of people who couldnt handle even the nerfed heroics, god forbid raids), so I quit right away when my game time expired after they nerfed heroics. Havent really had the intention to return after, but went on to try MoP 3 months after release when my brother gifted it to me. Lasted two weeks. Never regretted any of it (both the amount I raided, time and the reason I quit).

[ThePants999]

Raided since Naxx-10, enjoyed it all.

[Deleted]

Never raided hardcore...raiding guilds cause/have too much drama.

Played from End of Vanilla to Current Content, raiding (with pugs) every patch since TBC. Didn’t start PVE (seriously) till Sunwell though. Enjoyed all of WOTLK raids and CATA (minus DS), and TOT (i like trolls/lightning/isle was enjoyable). I’ve taken breaks off and on, doing real-life activities and the other content (pvp, pet battles, farming rare/items, professions, dueling, world pvp, exploring...) in WoW. Also tried GW2, Star Wars, ESO, Diablo 3 and prob Wildstar soon.

Most burned-out raiders from Vanilla/TBC put too much effort into raiding, ignore all other non-pve end content (like pvp, yes it exists ), and use all their free time to raid, raid, and raid! I don’t/never did do anything I did not enjoy. Sure, sometimes it got a bit stale or boring (1 year of ICC patch and soon-to-be 5.4), but I just tried other games with my friends (who also play/played WoW).

[Tastyfish]

I think my first legit raid (happy with my guild) was hyjal then up to SOO and took a break a week before SOO dropped. My actual favorite was Heroic 25 DS .. sadly. lol the rest was overly tedious over care annoyance and pseudo competing.
I was over raiding in Cata, but held out till SOO to really just drop out of wow for a while.

[Orbrim]

While I get your dissapointment killing the first boss in a new dungeon can be a slap in the face on your first try. (I had many experiences like that) You do realise that everytime you kill the end boss of the last tier, that boss is much MUCH more difficult then the new boss of the next tier right? It's been like that since 4ever. And while Yogg0 was imo a little harder then Anub heroic 25 man, you should have taken the time to get there imo. I was such a fun fight.

I get what you're saying, but if they gave us the heroic version of the boss from the start I bet we'd at least have wiped once or twice. I guess I'd have preferred it if you could have skipped the normal versions altogether, since I also hated farming 10 and 25man in the same week, with ToC that went up to 4 same raids.

[Vaelorian]

I get what you're saying, but if they gave us the heroic version of the boss from the start I bet we'd at least have wiped once or twice. I guess I'd have preferred it if you could have skipped the normal versions altogether, since I also hated farming 10 and 25man in the same week, with ToC that went up to 4 same raids.

Yeah especially since you (I guess) and I had BiS from Ulduar. You can faceroll the normal modes. Usually we cleared the normal modes in 1 or 2 weeks after launch though.

At first I loved that I could do 10 man normal/25 man normal/10 man heroic/25 man heroic all in the same week. Mostly because it was so short of a raidinstance. No trash ftw imo. Well.. I rather have NO trash then Halls of Endless Trash. I prefer that there is some trash though.

But when you raid that much you get burned out so fast.

[DeleteThisUser]

It was enjoyable back then, but it got old over the last couple years.

[cFortyfive]

Seems incredibly dumb to play a game for that long you don't enjoy. That said I did enjoy my time with this title.