Why do I play World of Warcraft?

[Amminidabtree]

This is a question that I've been asking myself frequently since I've joined AoR and have raided on a consistent schedule.

When I first started out 6 years ago, and up until WotLK, I played solely for a social and casual purpose. I had no intentions to raid and see end-game content. That's how it was.

When Wrath hit, though, and I attempted Naxx25, I was instantly hooked to raiding. I would say that I still played WoW for a social aspect since I wasn't a great player by any means (has that even changed?), but I started to play to see end-game content.

The more I raided and the more time I put into my druid, I had more desire to better my raiding, whether that be damage output, dealing with boss mechanics, or changing my playstyle (i.e. mashing buttons instead of clicking on spells).

As of now, the biggest reason why I play WoW is to have a good social experience. Raiding just is not as fun going with a group of people that I hardly know. Sure, it's great to see everything on heroic mode drop, but it's not as exciting completing raid with a group of people you don't like or don't know. One aspect of the game that I wish I was passionate about was to play to the best of my ability and to get every bit of dps out of my character as possible. I know that I need to work on this.

What I'd like to receive from this thread is a general consensus as to why people play this game. I'm not saying that everyone has to play the game for the same reasons, I'd just like to see why YOU play WoW.

If we want to be a top progression guild on Suramar, we'll need to have everyone focusing on what he or she can do to improve their gameplay and work as a team.

So... why do you play World of Warcraft?

[GM Fright]

Why I played WoW:

When I started in January of 2006, it was just different and fun, and I loved leveling and getting new gear because I'd always been a fan of RPGs, though I'd never played an MMO before. I got into 40 man raiding pretty quick, and got hooked. The hard work, competition, dedication and reward of raiding was a fucking blast. And the social aspect was always important. The couple guilds I tried raiding with that I didn't mesh with on a personal level I didn't enjoy at all.

Eventually, as I got into leading the original AoR, and then again when I took over the group that would become this guild, the reasons I played got reduced down to one: for the guild. Top end raiding is just not worth it if you're not fully invested in and dedicated to the group that you're raiding with. There's too much difficulty and too many set backs in a semi-casual, progression focused raiding guild to be in it just for yourself. The guild is a team, it's not a tool for you to use to further your own character. The guild is a team, it's not a group of self-oriented individuals with no accountability to each other. The guild is a team, it's not a bunch of imaginary people over the magical internets that disappear when you're not online. The guild is a fucking team.

So that's why I played. It was a fantastically fun and fulfilling hobby that took my mind off other things, gave me the opportunity to interact and become friends with interesting and funny people from all sorts of places, and served as an outlet for several personally trait needs, like competition, leadership, goals to work towards, numbers to crunch, etc. But without the Guild, I'd have moved on from it in 6 months, instead of playing it for almost 6 years; that was definitely the defining aspect of the game for me.

[Acramor]

In every RPG I've played, I wanted my character to be more powerful than anything else so throughout the time I played vanilla, I focused on pvp. My entire goal then was to be able to beat anyone in a duel (why I ultimately chose a shadow priest).

When TBC hit, I had the opportunity to raid Karazhan with my guild but as a healer. I realized then that I hated healing and would burn out quickly so I started to work on dps gear, rotation, etc. to make myself more desirable as dps. I pretty quickly got a dps spot and continued to focus on improving my play to maintain it. During that period, I came to find that raiding offered a chance to compete against others in a different way than pvp but still satisfying. Being a competitive person, it motivated me to continue improving and to try to outplay everyone else to get that boss down faster. That's pretty much the mentality I still have.

So I guess the main reason I still play is to experience new, hopefully challenging raid content and at least try to play through and adjust to it better than anyone else until we kill the boss. That said, I do think like mini and fright said that the social aspect is important as well. It's always more fun fighting and killing new monsters with people I've gotten to know. Plus it's easier to talk trash!