The Light at The End of The Tunnel

went 5/7H, clearing three new bosses as a guild

We made good progression last night. We had barely raided at all the last few weeks due to the holidays, and the tension has been rife in the air the entire time.

As I've mentioned, my guild's been struggling a bit. It's never a comfortable feeling, and having gone through many similar situations before - two of which caused the ends of my previous guilds - a familiar sense of dread creeps into the picture. We have stabilized since the catalyst implosion and things are looking on the bright side for now. Unfortunately, I've experienced this situation before, too, and it didn't end well last time.

The GM passed leadership onto another officer, and steps are being taken to transfer control of the mumble server and website. I was given additional responsibilities as the recruitment officer. We're short people for a mythic team, but we're still progressing through heroic, so we have some time. The people who have stayed seem reliable, but if I've learned anything in the last nine years of raiding, you really cannot know until the time comes.

A lot of people I've talked to consider being with your friends to be the most important part about a raiding guild. I understand where you're coming from, but this is the third time I've had to make new friends in the game, and it's only been about a year and a half since then. In that time, a lot of the friends I did make left - either long ago or just recently. Maybe it's the very nature of a progressive raiding guild in itself that disallows such a simple and agreeable philosophy from existing.

I had the time of my life during Vanilla with my first guild real raiding guild, Elysian. We raided three nights a week and we were consistently 3rd horde side on our server, Durotan.

us celebrating our first Nefarian kill in Org, and why yes that is a crimson felt hat

When Karazhan required smaller raid groups, we made group assignments so that we would progress with the same people each raid night. It caused tension and disconnection to the point where one of the groups split off to form their own guild, dissatisfied with the performance of the other half of the guild. We tried hard to stay together, but the deathblow had been struck and we couldn't stay afloat. The guild disbanded entirely and I had to find a new home.

The majority of big horde guilds had taken free transfers off of Durotan and my home was then Arygos. I joined the next best possible guild on the server, The Grubs. They were more than happy to accept me after learning that I was an orphan from the recent Elysian disbandment - this was back when guilds were all up in each others' gossip. I only had to submit an application as a formality, I was practically invited on the spot. From Tier 5 content until Tier 12, I was with them - my second progression raiding guild.

my horrible UI and one of The Grubs' trips through Black Temple

We had cleared all content while it was current up to and including Sunwell during TBC, but our progression and success continued to dwindle as time went on - three guild leaders later and we had lost our steam, finally declaring a retraction from raiding as a guild entirely.

I've seen so many raiders come and go, seen so many of my friends leave to join better guilds, worse guilds - or to quit the game entirely - that it has become the norm. Raiding just to have fun with your friends has never been an actuality for me to this very day, and within the next few weeks I'm sure I'll see that trend continue. Whether my guild can survive and stay together or not, I do not know. We lost half of our raiders in the blink of an eye. Stability in a progression focused raiding guild is only ever an illusion - I've been a bystander to the implosion of many a better guild than mine. When the end comes, there is no alternative than to move on and try to make new friends.