Are you a team player or not?

The title question is something every person has to answer at some point in their WoW raiding lives.

Are you a team player or not?

I am sure the answer would be different for every person, and their perception of the question and how to answer it would be based on their own life experiences.

**Warning – Strong violence, frequent bad language and adult themes**

My understanding of being a team player or member is that you put the goals/needs/wants/desires in front of your own. You collectively work together for the improvement of that group. You make that team an extension of yourself and you make the best of that team.

If you want to raid in an MMO you need to play with other people. You need to develop your social skills by being in a team, you need to learn to work together with whatever team you choose to be a part of. 40 man raiding taught me how to be team player and my experience as a GL/RL  taught me two other things:

1 – People are NOT team players until they prove themselves to be.

2 – Some people should not play MMO’s. End of story! Go play Solitaire or something.

I have read a few posts recently around the traps and my own posts are not much better at the moment, about the calibre of people and the constant arguments about raiding, which has sparked me to write this one.

This post will likely offend, and more than likely cause friction for some, but I have been silent too long and after last night – I don’t care about hurting people’s feelings. Yes this is my rant, whinge, vengeance, flaming…whatever you want to call it – I am upset myself.

We have two people in my raiding guild that are just pains in my arse – they need to just learn to be a little more concerned with the team and less with themselves.  Every single raid night – and I kid you not – three nights a week – one of them argues about something and starts off my night in a bad mood.  If it isn’t alts vs mains, it is current content vs old content.

One wants to stop playing his main as he is bored at this stage, the other doesn’t want to run old content because it is of no benefit – this one also refuses to run if he is not appeased.

Last night, we didn’t have a full raid team and the first guy didn’t want to do DS on his main, but I don’t want to do alt runs when we can’t even manage a full main run.  So we decided to do BoT heroic modes for something different – it would still be a challenge for us.  Second guy decides to not change to his main, and when directly asked by me in guild chat says “sorry was afk” (after having been whispering the GL that he won’t raid if we do old content), so I type “heroic BoT with the aim of heading to sinestra, would like you to come on your tank please”. His response was “what are we doing?”.  I chose to ignore that since I had just typed it 1 minute prior – he then says “oh, what the hell for?” or something similar.

I then say “So i assume that is a no?”.  He said something along the lines of  “I don’t want a wipe night”.  I then say “Don’t bother zoning in guys, we aren’t going anywhere with only one tank”. Again no response.

30 minutes of standing around in SW organising this by the way – we haven’t started a raid before 8pm in the last 2-3 months because every night someone argues about something. We finish at 9.15pm roughly – why do we even bother raiding??!?!?

I jumped offline before telling him he could shove himself up his own butt as far as I am concerned.  I jumped onto my horde toon and apologised to my guild leader (via real ID) for leaving abruptly, but after ANOTHER night of having one of them argue with me and the GL about what we were doing I had absolutely no self control left.

Most of the people in the raid team were keen to do some heroic modes, and to get to a boss that most people haven’t taken the time to do seemed appealing to them. There are a fair few who are sick of DS on their mains, so it was an easy solution to a difficult problem. Hubby and I are trying to find a cross-realm raid now so we can get Sinestra.

I will be the first to admit I have a temper, and I know in my logical brain when I am being rash, but after putting up with them since I came back a year ago – I can honestly tell you, I am sick of people like that.

I don’t have a problem doing DS on my mage still, there are a few pieces I still want – because I stupidly keep passing gear to other tards who promise to always be online and then never show up again (that’s an entirely different story though).  I don’t have a problem doing old content in heroic modes for bosses that are extra special. I don’t have a problem doing things for the team to get whatever they need done.

I do have a problem with people who “can’t get any loot out of runs”, who don’t enjoy just running with their guild mates, and who want to argue with everything and cause people to be hurt and angry because they want to be treated as gods. Wearing dodge and mastery doesn’t make you a god – but with all the hits to the head it isn’t surprising you are retarded now!

If you want to raid – learn that you have to shut your mouth and do things WITH THE TEAM that you don’t want to do.  If you are after loot, you are in the wrong fucking guild, if you want to run alts, you are also in the wrong fucking guild.  We can’t clear content with mains – MAINS!!!  Who do you think you are for saying you are bored…sorry, what about the rest of us who have raid ready alts?  We don’t get the chance? We aren’t allowed to be bored either?

This game is not designed for solo content – yes there is some – but I don’t believe Blizzard wants you to play by yourself – unless you are a wanker of course and then you are probably quite good at it by now anyway.

If you want to argue with your GL and RL – who are trying to keep as many people as possible happy – every single fucking raid night  – perhaps you should find a new guild because we are clearly not giving you what you want.

Protip: If you are looking for a raiding guild to call home – make sure you are there for the people as they are the ones you need to be willing to work with through the stress and laughter.  Building a team is about putting a group together that are willing to put in the hours and effort of communication, listening and becoming friends.

TL;DR version:

If you are an arse, find a guild with other arses and don’t make my life hell because you don’t want to be a team player.

Sorry long arse rant, but last night pissed me off something chronic – I will not be logging into my toons to raid again with this guild. Last night was the last straw, when I log on to raid it will be in another guild somewhere – including LFR – I will not be in that guild anymore with people who don’t care about the group as a whole and only see themselves.  One year is more than enough chances – no more.