For the past months I’ve not been in a good place on World of Warcraft. My current guild, which I’ve been in for about 4.5 years now, has become a place where I no longer really wish to hang out.
I came into this guild when it was in it’s dying breath (although I did not know that back then) and have always stuck by it, through good and mostly bad times.

Early on when I entered one of the last active officers left after a big fight that actually involved me. I won’t go into details but let’s just say couples in guilds are often toxic when one of them is in power and the other is abusing this power. After this, this was during Cataclysm, I stepped up in recruitment, raidleading and generally smoothing out the raidteam and making raids happen. After the raidleader also quit I was responsible for everyting fulltime and it was very draining on me… In the end I managed to get us to clear a lot of heroic Dragon Soul before Diablo 3, the Summer and patch fatigue shut down the guild untill Mists of Pandaria.

In Mists I managed to get a raidteam together for a few weeks after launch and then everything basically fell apart, at which point I decided to throw in the towel. I had to focus on my education and could not handle a fulltime involvement with a guild where I was the only one in charge left. The GM who promised me to be there decided he didn’t want to play Mists afterall, leaving me to fend for myself. I suffered major burnout then and didn’t really come back to the game untill Siege of Orgrimmar came out.

Around that time a lot of “old garde” people came back and I was interested in atleast killing Garrosh Hellscream before Warlords of Draenor would launch so I hopped into a few raids with them, got my kill and didn’t really care too much. As WoD was approaching I was helping out the “leader” then who, in all honesty, isn’t that good with the administration side of things. I helped him put together the raidroster, set up a poll for the raiddays and offered to fulfill the healer role I picked up at the end of Mists. This was not necessary and I decided to play Shadow Priest for the upcoming expansion.

Fast forward a few months and I end up levelling and gearing Shadow… Only to be asked to roll Holy. Less healers were showing up than they hoped and I was the only one who had the right class and experience as healer. Even though I was not feeling well mentally, and I didn’t really want to switch speccs, I said yes and we continued raiding in Highmaul. A few months later I broke. There was too much going on in my life to handle stress from raiding and dealing with our raidteam, which was filled with bad players. I snapped and stopped raiding for a while to focus on myself, instead of giving so much to others. In hindsight I heard my officer “friends” were trying to get rid of me then for not feeling well, something that hurt me beyond belief. I came back to raiding and just figured I’d focus on myself and getting enjoyment out of the game my own way. I asked to be demoted to Raider down from Officer because I did not feel comfortable in Officer chat anymore. I was in there with three guys who would just ignore anything I said or bitch at me. I didn’t and couldn’t deal with that well so I got the demote I wanted.

And now we are in the present. Raiding through Hellfire Citadel, which has not been a very smooth ride, and my frustrations with raiding and the group have been at an all time high. It’s become more and more apparent to me that it matters what position you hold in this guild. If you are buddies with our raidleader you can get away with everything without punishment, while the rest of us get scolded. Add to the fact that some “friends” who I have always treated well suddenly feel the need to treat me like shit and I just more or less snapped.

So today, with a lot of heartache, I have decided to stop raiding whatsoever. I need and want to focus on my own happiness right now and I don’t want to deal with such a big frustrating factor in my life. I feel betrayed, used and generally drained. After 4.5 years I’m more than done with this guild and the people in it. I hope for them that they get Archimonde Heroic down before the new expansion hits, but for me this is the end of my raiding career for now. I might log in casually just so I can get enough gold to buy a WoW token to keep my sub active. But I might just let it all run out and see.