Vani - The Non-Raider Raider.

So I'm the temporary raid leader for our guild. I've been doing it for close to two months now though, so I'm not sure that counts as "temporary" anymore. >_>

At any rate, we are a self-proclaimed "casual raiding guild" (you'll hear more about THAT thorn later). We only raid 2 nights a week for 3 hours a night for our "main" raids (those being the 25 mans). We have 10 man raids that run during the week, but I no longer participate in them mostly due to timing issues. But, I used to attend and sometimes lead our later 10 mans during the week. "Completely optional" is what we call those, but they are there for those that want them. End result is most nights something is on the calendar, even if it doesn't always happens because of numbers (another future topic!).

I am not a raider. Seriously. I did some "smaller" raiding in EQ and avoided it like the plague until close to the end of BC. Then, it was only 10 man raids (Kara, ZA). Rarely I would pug a 25 man SSC with some friends (who just happened to lead the guild I am now a member / co-leader of). I do like having a goal in mind while playing. (Rep grinds? Emblems for gear? Achievements? They all work for me.)

But - Vani, the raider? Not really. I do not spend hours farming mats for consumables (well, maybe frost lotus but only cause I'm cheap). I may play all day sometimes, but I definitely couldn't "raid" all day. I only called in sick once because of a raid, and that was the night I got my skittle stick in EQ. I guess part of me still thinks of a raider in the mold of an EQ Raider, which is why I do not consider myself a raider despite my raiding activities every weekend. XD

People who have known me for a long time know my feelings about being a raider. People in my guild might question my insistence that I'm not, given that I'm not only one of their GM's, but I'm also their raid leader. And I can be a hardass about it. Hell on Monday I demoted one person and sent warning emails to four others, so I'm sure to them I probably seem borderline-hardcore.

But I'm not that hardcore. I'd rather not do those things, but SOMEBODY has to take the initiative or we'd never get anywhere and the guild would collapse. I may not have started this guild, but I don't want to see it die.

And hey - I could be much, MUCH worse about certain things. It's just I have this thing about commitments and keeping them, even in a game. (Another future topic!) So apparently I'm the ideal person in our situation to "handle" people not showing up, not signing up, etc.

Over the last couple of years I have grown to "like" raiding. This is probably more to do with how easy raiding is in WoW; no farming spawns, no fighting for camps, no booking a guild-wide calendar for Planes (Berthall scarred me for life, I think). Everything is instanced for your group (with a few rare exceptions, at least in BC and Vanilla). It doesn't take hours for the boss to show up - he (or she or it) is always there unless you've already killed him that week. You CAN accomplish something in short time periods, if you're focused enough. And if not, you can extend your raid ID for next week! Heck you can manage to raid while having some semblance of a normal life, if you'd like.

At this point, raiding in WoW is just like a long heroic (mind you, I'm excluding hard modes here on purpose). Heck, I've been in some heroics that lasted longer than a normal ToC run even. Does that mean I'm finally crossing that line to being a "raider" in my own mind? I don't know. To be honest, I just like to kill shit and have fun. Preferably with a fun group of people at my side.

In the end, I still can't think of myself as a raider. At least, not the raider of my mind.