Just what is a hardcore guild anyway? And how do you define a hardcore player? This has been a pretty big question for me and the guild I’m in. Ask around and you’ll probably get a different answer from every person. It’s one of those hard-to-define attribute that means different things to different people.
In my own mind, hardcore is raiding six nights a week, farming for flasks and food when you’re not raiding, sitting standby outside instances in-case someone’s internet goes down and letting the GM have you on speed-dial in case he needs to pull you in for the night. It’s about progress and performance, where being server first is everything and where players live or die by their World of Logs parses.
Casual is where I see myself at currently, in a guild where fun is more important than progress and attendance is a mere two nights out of three. It’s something I’ve grown comfortable in, like the grizzled veteran who still likes to show what he can do occasionally (read: pull aggro, make sarcastic comments). It’s this comfort that got disrupted a little when the Guild Master decides to convene a Guild Meeting to discuss The Rules.
I’ll be honest with you, I’m not a huge fan of blogging about my guild, especially when it’s about the more rocky moments. I don’t want to antagonise or make things worse. After all, if you’ve raided with a bunch of people for a while it’s better to work things out than throw it all in, right?
Fear not though, for this tale is not without a happy ending!