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

[Sussex]

I raided throughout all of vanilla, tbc and wotlk

The last time I legit enjoyed raiding was probably around the time we first killed illidan. Farming illidan for around 6 months and then Sunwell...and then all of WOTLK hundreds of raid nights....all those nights I was raiding out of pure habit...I didnt enjoy it...I was bored of raiding the moment illidan fell in half way through 2007, year i still felt the need to keep raiding the rest of 2007, all of 2008, all of 2009 and a bit of 2010 ......and yet I maintained 100% raid attendance the entire time...not enjoying any of it...hating the progression raiding, hating the farming...hated sitting at my PC all those hours.

It was only when my guild finally decided it was time to disband our raid team after we got LK heroic...many were burned out, many of them the same guys I first went into MC with.

Then I found myself in a inactive guild with no raid team....and suddenly I had like 15-20+ extra hours free time on my hands.......now its been nearly 5 years since then and when I think back I cannot imagine how on earth I had the ability to sit there and raid all those hours....nonstop....for years on end...always locked down into a time slot that I had to be there for.....it blows my mind that I was even capable of doing that. The only explanation I can give to myself is that it must have just become a huge habit....a very bad habit.

[Vaelorian]

I raided throughout all of vanilla, tbc and wotlk

The last time I legit enjoyed raiding was probably around the time we first killed illidan. Farming illidan for around 6 months and then Sunwell...and then all of WOTLK hundreds of raid nights....all those nights I was raiding out of pure habit...I didnt enjoy it...I was bored of raiding the moment illidan fell in half way through 2007, year i still felt the need to keep raiding the rest of 2007, all of 2008, all of 2009 and a bit of 2010 ......and yet I maintained 100% raid attendance the entire time...not enjoying any of it...hating the progression raiding, hating the farming...hated sitting at my PC all those hours.

It was only when my guild finally decided it was time to disband our raid team after we got LK heroic...many were burned out, many of them the same guys I first went into MC with.

Then I found myself in a inactive guild with no raid team....and suddenly I had like 15-20+ extra hours free time on my hands.......now its been nearly 5 years since then and when I think back I cannot imagine how on earth I had the ability to sit there and raid all those hours....nonstop....for years on end...always locked down into a time slot that I had to be there for.....it blows my mind that I was even capable of doing that. The only explanation I can give to myself is that it must have just become a huge habit....a very bad habit.

I was in the same situation as you I guess. Only I did not quit my guild at heroic LK 25 man. I just took a break - a break until Cata came. My guild sorta did the same. Many of the players we had quit at that time too. So we had like 1/3 left and we needed to recruit like mad. Some players ultimately came back.

But to come back to your question. I did not enjoy raiding that much. I think I disliked raiding most of the time, probably 90% of the time, perhaps even more.

Why? Why would I undergo torturte for the majority of my wow time? This is a pretty easy question to answer for me:
I loved being a special snowflake. I loved that people looked up to me from other raiding guilds or people who would love to raid and get the same amount of progress I did or get the gear I did. The prestige is all I loved. That AND the downing of the bosses itself. (edit: since the end of WOTLK or perhaps even earlier, this prestige became more and more non-existent because everyone could see the content)

So I hated to progress to ultimately kill the boss. But to kill that boss after so many aggravating hours of gameplayer, was an amazing feeling.

That said I also had 100% attendance. So I did not hide whenever we started on a new boss.

Fun thing is that we also regularly oneshotted bosses. I did not enjoy that at all. Sure I laughed and was sorta happy we did not have to grind ourselves to that 1% moment of bosshealth. But it did not feel great.

My raidleader said in TBC that he did not enjoy raiding at all. Raiding is not fun, it was more like a job and I guess he was right. But again, killing that boss after so many hours/wipes is a very good feeling.

-----
You can go further with this. Vanilla and TBC atleast used to be about meaningful stuff. Especially in Vanilla where if you wanted that "dragon armor" epic chest-quest from that little blue dragon in UBRS - you had to grind yourself some stuff. But when you got it, oh man... the feels...

Stuff like that doesn't exist anymore. You could say the Legendary cloak was like that but come on... everyone has one.

[Sussex]

I was in the same situation as you I guess. Only I did not quit my guild at heroic LK 25 man. I just took a break - a break until Cata came. My guild sorta did the same. Many of the players we had quit at that time too. So we had like 1/3 left and we needed to recruit like mad. Some players ultimately came back.

But to come back to your question. I did not enjoy raiding that much. I think I disliked raiding most of the time, probably 90% of the time, perhaps even more.

Why? Why would I undergo torturte for the majority of my wow time? This is a pretty easy question to answer for me:
I loved being a special snowflake. I loved that people looked up to me from other raiding guilds or people who would love to raid and get the same amount of progress I did or get the gear I did. The prestige is all I loved. That AND the downing of the bosses itself. (edit: since the end of WOTLK or perhaps even earlier, this prestige became more and more non-existent because everyone could see the content)

So I hated to progress to ultimately kill the boss. But to kill that boss after so many aggravating hours of gameplayer, was an amazing feeling.

That said I also had 100% attendance. So I did not hide whenever we started on a new boss.

Fun thing is that we also regularly oneshotted bosses. I did not enjoy that at all. Sure I laughed and was sorta happy we did not have to grind ourselves to that 1% moment of bosshealth. But it did not feel great.

My raidleader said in TBC that he did not enjoy raiding at all. Raiding is not fun, it was more like a job and I guess he was right. But again, killing that boss after so many hours/wipes is a very good feeling.

-----
You can go further with this. Vanilla and TBC atleast used to be about meaningful stuff. Especially in Vanilla where if you wanted that "dragon armor" epic chest-quest from that little blue dragon in UBRS - you had to grind yourself some stuff. But when you got it, oh man... the feels...

Stuff like that doesn't exist anymore. You could say the Legendary cloak was like that but come on... everyone has one.

feels...too many feels, its rare to come across people with very similar experiences in the game.

[rda]

I raided hardcore in WotLK. All of the people who raided with me - every single one of them - are no longer raiding, and most are no longer playing WoW at all. Burnout / "been here, done that, time to move on", etc.

I think the number of people who raided seriously all the way through is miniscule.

[Deleted]

i played from vanilla to wotlk non stop raiding and liked it, it was challenging and rewarding. Cataclysm i would've loved to raid but due to issues i couldn't. Mop just plain simple isn't any fun raiding. mop kind of killed the raiding scene for me. there is no incentive because i cannot commit to full time no life schedule for heroic 25. doing flex makes me feel stupid and lowskilled.

this is no longer about raiding by the way it's pure about ilvl and finding 9 others to assist you in getting upgrades.
dead game is dead

[Hyve]

Always raided and always loved it.

Sure, there have been a day or two where I'm bored, but I've never felt that raiding was no longer for me.

[Vargur]

I fondly remember any raid night, and I did do it for like 3 years, 12-20 hours/week.

Weird people.

[NecroVane]

i played from vanilla to wotlk non stop raiding and liked it, it was challenging and rewarding. Cataclysm i would've loved to raid but due to issues i couldn't. Mop just plain simple isn't any fun raiding. mop kind of killed the raiding scene for me. there is no incentive because i cannot commit to full time no life schedule for heroic 25. doing flex makes me feel stupid and lowskilled.

this is no longer about raiding by the way it's pure about ilvl and finding 9 others to assist you in getting upgrades.
dead game is dead

i raid 3 days a week, 4 hours a night, and i've cleared all mop content on heroic 25 in the top 100 US. Whenever i see someone complain about how they cant raid because they don't have the time i just laugh, because the number of guilds that raid 5-6 days a week anymore is tiny, and if you can't set aside a night or two a week to raid normal at least you just have no ability to budget your time.

That said, i've raided since this game came out and have never not enjoyed it. There have been specific raid tiers where i've really hated the content, like TOGC or dragon soul, but the act of raiding itself was still fun even during crappy content. The satisfaction of playing your class to its utmost, learning the mechanics, hanging out with 24 other cool people laughing it up over vent/mumble while you work on seriously difficult encounters, and then the rush of finally killing a cock-block boss or clearing the instance just never gets old, at least not for me.

The loss of prestige i think is what hurts raiding for a lot of people, and makes people settle into just running LFR instead of actually trying for a real guild and doing normal/heroic, there's just not enough to separate some random scrub who does lfr once a week and someone who pushes hard into heroic content besides a few measly ilvls. It'll be nice once WOD comes around and "heroic" raiding has some prestige again, really looking forward to mythic raid sets looking distinct, and LFR sets looking like the dungeon-quality crap they should look like; want to look like a real raider? better do real raids.

[Deleted]

Didn't raid at all in TBC, didn't even do heroics. Raided all through wotlk. Given up on raiding in Cata, just didn't feel like it. Raided all through MOP until February when I quit wow. Will probably raid again in wod.

I really don't know what I would do in WoW if I didn't raid. I mean I play wow A LOT and I don't see myself doing pvp all that time, considering I have 0 interest in getting ratings in arena, and no guild takes someone without 2k rating to rbgs, so those are doomed to be just an oqueue thing for points for me. I don't do achievs, I don't farm anything and I rarely play alts. In fact when I quit wow one of the main reasons was that my guild was raiding like 3 hours every 2 days, and that was way too much time to fill between raids with nothing.

[Shamanberry]

I've been raiding from Molten Core until today. Have never missed a tier, and have never failed to clear one except for Naxx40. I was pretty "hardcore" for TBC and WotLK, raiding Sunday-Thursday. After WotLK, I stepped it down and now raid 3 days/10.5 hours per week.

If raiding wasn't fun, I wouldn't do it.

I can say that when I was raiding "hardcore", the schedule was tough sometimes, and you for sure had to adjust your overall schedule for it. I basically had 2 "days off" per week, but I was in college at the time and didn't really have much else to do. These days, keeping a 3 day/week schedule is pretty trivial. It's like taking 1 class or having a regular appointment. I simply don't plan other things during raid time, and if there's ever a conflict that can't be avoided, I can always take a day off. I don't know of any guild that requires 100% attendance.

You don't have to be a "no-lifer" to do heroic raiding, you just have to be able to plan ahead. Some people can't do that due to variable work schedules or other commitments (e.g., young children), which is understandable. Others simply don't want to raid, which is fine - if you don't enjoy it, don't do it. However, most people that say they want to raid but "can't" really just mean that they aren't willing to play as a part of a team - and WoW raiding is ultimately a team game.

[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.

[Deleted]

I have raided 4-5 nights a week since TBC, occasionally stopping for a month or two for my dissertation writing.

Loved every minute of it - down to the mantra that if you don' enjoy raiding, you shouldn't raid. I've also enjoyed the age old saying of 'You only get better by playing with better people', and it's led me to enjoy it greatly.

In regards to no lifer with heroic raiding, I raided in Not so Serious for SoO release. SoO was meant to be out end of august, but it was shifted to September 12. I started my full time MA 27th of October, commuting 150 minutes each way to university, while working 20 hours a week. Due to prior planning with the guild and what not, I only ever missed the start of a farm raid for two weeks. It was brutal, probably the most brutal opening to a tier for me, but if you plan ahead it's really easy to do - and if you are in a guild that is hardcore, the time invested is offset by the fact that when it's done, your time has been cut down again allowing you to do other things. After we cleared in NSS, I've been working hard on my MA (aided alot by the long time that SoO is out for). shrot term vs long ter

[Nelle]

I've cleared every tier since Molten Core within a reasonable time-frame and still enjoy the raids first 3-4 months. After that it gets boring and after half a year it is almost torture to get through

But You can't just say "fuck it" and bail on your guildmates, so gotta endure it if you wanna keep some respect and a secure spot for the next tier. Right now SoO makes me puke, we cleared HC Garrosh back in December ....... 8 months ago now, fucking YAWN!!! Atleast we only raid once every 14th day.

[Sussex]

I've cleared every tier since Molten Core within a reasonable time-frame and still enjoy the raids first 3-4 months. After that it gets boring and after half a year it is almost torture to get through

But You can't just say "fuck it" and bail on your guildmates, so gotta endure it if you wanna keep some respect and a secure spot for the next tier. Right now SoO makes me puke, we cleared HC Garrosh back in December ....... 8 months ago now, fucking YAWN!!! Atleast we only raid once every 14th day.

That is 1 reason why I kept raiding....I didnt wanna risk losing my spot that i had cemented into the guild throughout the years. Because I had seen other people who quit raiding....come back 6 months later...and they couldn't really get back into the core group....I never wanted to be that guy.......that was a big reason I just kept at it.

[Krieghoff]

My guild has always been a small guild, and I was the person who went raiding coz they needed the 10th player.
I hated it - way too stressful. I'm also not a good player: I never developed a good rotation, I could cast OR move, and I was never in the optimal ranged dps position. As such, every wipe felt to me like it was my fault only.
Then they merged with a bigger guild and started progressing and I never needed to raid again. It was glorious.

[AeneasBK]

Raided from Karazhan to SoO loved nearly all of it. But I was also a GM and raid leader so there was a lot more than just "killing bosses" to keep it entertaining.

It wasn't all roses by any means; but yeah, still enjoyed it Would be doing it now; but due to bereavement during SoO timing in with the guild burning out on Norushen 25 HC; we decided to give everyone a break until WoD. Of course back then we thought it would be out sometime this year....

[Deleted]

I have played WoW from start TBC to End of MoP ... best time raiding was with my old guild when we killed Illidan realmfirst (like 90% of the rest of TBC on a really small server).
I always liked raiding, I enjoyed it to play with other people and when a boss finally fell it was such a nice feeling (best part of raidung btw.).

I think there are always times where someone doesn't like raiding, like at the end of a expansion, when you have your own RL-Problems that you can't escape by diving into WoW.
But to think that someone would raid just to be there, and maybe to get admired by other players just because you have been there ... I think that is the false perspective to play A GAME ... it is always supposed to be fun, and when its not, go play something else or do what ever you want. I respect that you raided for this long time, but I actually can't really understand.

[Orbrim]

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.

[Einsz]

Playing since TBC always cleared content on time, there were 2 tiers I didnt enjoy so far, dragon soul and siege of orgrimmar, throne of thunder was a bit boring aswell but other than that I am happy (didnt enjoy SoO and DS because they simply suck not because they are out for 10 months)

[Vaelorian]

But to think that someone would raid just to be there, and maybe to get admired by other players just because you have been there ... I think that is the false perspective to play A GAME ... it is always supposed to be fun, and when its not, go play something else or do what ever you want. I respect that you raided for this long time, but I actually can't really understand.

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