What raiding means to me.

[jackslammer]

We had ONE person roll on the HM IC cape last night, and they only rolled after it seemed like no one else was going to. There are probably ~7 casters that could have used the other cloak, me among them. But do we get it? No. Everyone knows about the staff fiasco by now. Mean while Aragon (no offense to him in any respect) gets 4 pieces of gear in literally 20 minutes after being MIA for over 2 months.

Unfortunately I can't make the staff drop. However I am open to any suggestions or thoughts about adjusting our DKP or allowing some sort of reservation. In the end it really is just lewts.

This is further exemplified by all the casual fags running around in 3.2 with all their epic badge gear that they did little to nothing to obtain. Same gear appearance, negligible stat differences... Why even bother raiding?

The same thing happened to Amped when he rejoined us in Black Temple, blame it on RNG, luck of the draw, our current class make up, etc. but in the end it is just lewts and try to always remember the journey is greater than the reward.

WLPH has had a player base problem, in my eyes, since Lich King came out. I have subtly expressed that concern to a number of people over the months since release, but I really don't think anyone can do anything to fix it. If you think back to Sunwell, our player base was so fucking solid, a nuclear blast couldn't have shaken it. A national epidemic could be spreading outside but God Dammit at 7pm we had 32 players online, fully gemmed, enchanted, geared, and experienced on every single facet of every single fight in the game. People sat out if we needed, people came in for a single boss and did their job, each boss dropped like 2 pieces of loot so you always KNEW that if you killed that boss you would be justly rewarded with the gear you wanted. Now we have friends' friends and alts' alts, casuals and honestly lousy players that, as Abe even said, he didn't even know who they were.

WotlK really fucked raiding, not only did it deter hardcore raiders it desensitized them with the lack lusting raid instance of Naxxramas. Not to mention the item level fiasco.

We were solid as hell in Sunwell, and as people have said, those were the "WLPH glory days," but what was so different? Was it the nature of the content? Was it the scope of the guild? Was it the leadership? What did we have then that we don't have now?

I think what attracted many of us to the game during Sunwel is now lacking and is turning many of our core members away and/or boring them. This is unavoidable and the most frustrating aspect of your entire post.

1: I'm not getting gear and it's pissing me off.

You'd just put uncommon gems in it anyways.

2: This guild used to have dedicated and skilled players and now it doesn't.

Extremely frustrating and I blame the nature of the game more than the players on this point.

3: The people we are replacing our good players with are awful.

Feel free to recruit and replace them.

4: WoW isn't fun to play anymore.

That is relative.

So what does all this mean? I have no idea but I've been stewing on these issues for a while now and I felt it was about time to vent. What I can tell you is this- I have no intentions of quitting the game and leaving the people I've played with for a year and a half high and dry. I'm not going to ninja all the loot I can and gquit, I'm not going to quietly just list off into casualness and not tell anyone. All I'm trying to do is express my concerns and hope that someone can relate and even help fix them. Because honestly I'm at a crossroads and putting forth the effort to fix them myself just doesn't seem to be worth it.

I don't know what to recommend, since you've probably tried it all from alts to arenas. Your frustrations are shared with many active (and cancelled) players and I for one am trying to find anything to keep my interest in WoW, especially with the people in WLPH that I love playing with. I hope your staff drops soon and that WLPH and WoW get a second wind!