Somewhere in the middle between casual and hardcore, do these guilds still exist?

[Bearshield]

This expansion has found me in the unfortunate position of bouncing between guilds looking for something that I'm starting to wonder if it even exists anymore. Over the years I've met a lot of good people, and sadly most of them no longer play the game or at least no longer have interest in raiding. The guilds that I've enjoyed the most and have the most memories of fall somewhere in the middle between casual and hardcore. What I mean by this is, guilds that can balance fun, friendly, sociable atmosphere with decent raid progression. These were never cutting edge guilds, these were the guilds that before HM's, often never saw certain content and nowadays would never do more than a handful of HM's but the content they did clear, they had fun while doing it.

This expansion all I've seem to run across is guilds that are so progression-focused that they lose sight of the players behind the toons and socialization during raids is frowned upon or the exact opposite, guilds where nobody cares enough to move out of crap or enchant their gear and they wipe repeatedly to the same simple mechanics with little to no improvement until they just give up and retreat to old content. I primarily tank and I am capable of talking AND doing my job effectively in a raid so I know it is possible. (obviously I'm not talking about people just jibber-jabbering away during a boss fight when people are trying to make important calls)

I realize everyone has their own idea of fun. For some, the super casual guilds that offer no chance of progression but cater to multiple play styles are fun while for others, the hardcore guilds that are more focused on progression than chit-chat are more rewarding. But I know there used to be a middle ground, where chit-chat AND progression could go together in one neat little package. Call me selfish, but I don't want to trade one for the other. So while I debate whether it's worth it to keep searching or not, I ask the community if what I seek still exists or if the middle ground guild is dead and gone.

Edit: Yeah I realize I made a typo in my title, sorry

Moderator Note: Fixed that [ML]

[leviathonlx]

I'm kinda in the same boat but it's just so difficult to find guilds like that now days. So many guilds are so concerned with rushing through the content like it's going away in a month trying to rush into hard modes they're not prepared for regardless of what they want to believe or guilds that just will not progress at all. I'm just done with the days of hardcore raiding. I'd honestly be content with a guild that just did normal modes and was happy with that and maybe would try a hard mode here and there but not make it their focus but it's a bit difficult to find guilds like that even by browsing through wowprogress.

[Ogawdspider]

Bear I agree with you 100% the "guild who can progress to see all content in a patch but doesn't care about doing it on HM" is a dying breed of guild it seems.n The only guilds i have ever spent time in are those kinds of guilds.. seeing them fall apart for real life reasons is always a shame but cannot be stopped or blamed on any single person because like i said... its real life.

Currently i am deployed on a US naval ship floating around in an undisclosed place. My wow account is suspended yet i make a point to browse MMO champ once a day to keep up with events. I have met a lot of people in my years of playing wow and many of them share your/my opinion about what type of guild they prefer. My goal when i get back (hopefully aug/sep) is to plainly make my own guild and have it be the way i want it. I have never ever TRULY quit playing wow and i just don't think i will, there is always something i find enjoyable about it. Maybe by then you will have found a guild that you are happy in if not i'll be around!

[Deleted]

Almost all the 25man guilds are hardcore now, but you should find plenty of 10man guilds that are kind of semi-hardcore, 4 nights a week raiders. Usually the guilds that are like 4th best on an average server are like that.

10man is less social though due to fewer players. The annoying guys become harder to ignore. Unless you really like everybody in the raid it gets very claustrophobic. You're less likely to have that funny guy break the tension after a disappointing wipe.

[shise]

I'm no longer a "hard core" raider, but I still raid in a 10 men 3 nights a week and we are doing HC fights. So yes, we do exist, just keep tracking

[Herecius]

3 days a week, 25 man, currently 8/13, will be 10/13 heroic very shortly. Yeah, such middle-ground guilds exist. Keep looking, we're out there.

Don't ask me why we did Durumu and Primordius before Qon and Twins. We did it because reasons.

EDIT: Re-reading your post, we're probably more progressed than the kind you're thinking of (we really do try to focus on clearing all content before the next tier), but we're definitely still quite laid back compared to most 'hardcore' guilds.

[owbu]

Since the definition of both terms overlap quite heavily, depending on who you ask, no. Those never existed.

But my 2 days/week raiding guild, which most casuals would call hardcore and most hardcores would call casual, is very much alive!
Except if that one player gets the frostbeam on Meagara hm again. Then we corpse run!

[DeadnightWarrior]

Currently in a guild with 4/13 HC, raiding 10 hours a week across 3 days. Would say that we fit ur description, we have a good social guild and we do talk, have fun and do other stuff outside raiding. Have you checked out WoWprogress for guilds? Gives u an indication by looking at progress and raiding times.

[Voolawl]

Since the definition of both terms overlap quite heavily, depending on who you ask, no. Those never existed.

But my 2 days/week raiding guild, which most casuals would call hardcore and most hardcores would call casual, is very much alive!
Except if that one player gets the frostbeam on Meagara hm again. Then we corpse run!

The guild I was in before I quit playing was like this. Two nights a week, 8 hours total. If we wiped, we corpse ran, came back, and tried harder. No one was berated, no one was yelled at, it was peaceful. During fights we talked when possible, cracked a joke or two, and did what we needed to do.

These guilds exist, you just need to look.

[isadorr]

Really another thread about this, just a different title. When will people stop?

---------- Post added 2013-05-27 at 09:23 PM ----------

This expansion has found me in the unfortunate position of bouncing between guilds looking for something that I'm starting to wonder if it even exists anymore. Over the years I've met a lot of good people, and sadly most of them no longer play the game or at least no longer have interest in raiding. The guilds that I've enjoyed the most and have the most memories of fall somewhere in the middle between casual and hardcore. What I mean by this is, guilds that can balance fun, friendly, sociable atmosphere with decent raid progression. These were never cutting edge guilds, these were the guilds that before HM's, often never saw certain content and nowadays would never do more than a handful of HM's but the content they did clear, they had fun while doing it.

This expansion all I've seem to run across is guilds that are so progression-focused that they lose sight of the players behind the toons and socialization during raids is frowned upon or the exact opposite, guilds where nobody cares enough to move out of crap or enchant their gear and they wipe repeatedly to the same simple mechanics with little to no improvement until they just give up and retreat to old content. I primarily tank and I am capable of talking AND doing my job effectively in a raid so I know it is possible. (obviously I'm not talking about people just jibber-jabbering away during a boss fight when people are trying to make important calls)

I realize everyone has their own idea of fun. For some, the super casual guilds that offer no chance of progression but cater to multiple play styles are fun while for others, the hardcore guilds that are more focused on progression than chit-chat are more rewarding. But I know there used to be a middle ground, where chit-chat AND progression could go together in one neat little package. Call me selfish, but I don't want to trade one for the other. So while I debate whether it's worth it to keep searching or not, I ask the community if what I seek still exists or if the middle ground guild is dead and gone.

Edit: Yeah I realize I made a typo in my title, sorry

Casual social raiding guilds. That in itself doesnt work together if progression has value of any sorts. The problem lies in the fact that you want to down bosses but wont kick bad players. You try to help the bad player and he wont take it or is incapable of becoming a better player. Now what? You can either try to carry him and tell blizzard their content is too hard or let him stay in the guild and get a better player and progress. But if you do that eventually you will clear normal and start heroic content which in your defintion be a hardcore guild.

Raiding is incredibly simple in design yet people make it harder than it is. If progression is your priority, you run your raid as a raiding guild. If social and pets, pet battles, mounts ,etc. are really important then more than likely progression isnt going to be so great unless you are lucky and have some good players that dont want to push content any longer and can carry some bad players.