Social raiding

Social versus hardcore.

What is it. What makes someone a social raider or even a "social" player and what makes someone hardcore. I observed some people chatting and paraphrasing it came out a little like:

"cataclysm raid lockouts will ruin social raiders chances of sponging kills/loot/achievements from real raiders as at the moment the hardcore raiders would fill up the numbers in 10 mans prop up the raids and boost the socials through the content."

Now I don't like carrying bad players. After hitting 80 on a brand new toon and finding that after reading about gear and dps priorities for 30 mins I could put out 1.8k dps in quest blues/greens from the mid level zones (hadn't even seen Ice Crown or Storm Peaks) I'm more than miffed when I see someone doing less dps than 1k and they aren't the healer for the instance. These people are probably the target of the arrogance seeping out of that quote. Though by some standards people might consider myself a social in the guild I'm in. I don't do 25 mans with the raid team, I cant due to real life commitments so I do 10's as there are more runs organised at more convenient times and now and again I sneak into a 25 man with them when I'm not busy. Am I social? I sign up for "silly" runs to AQ 40 for mounts and go galavanting off into old instances for achievements and again more mounts. I help out if they are short on stuff like that mostly because of my personality type. I like to be busy. I pug TotC sometimes not because I need any drops just often because I'm on fairly late and it gives me something to do that can indeed still be challenging even if sometimes its down to the ability of the group rather than the difficulty of the content. These I undertake as "social" events an opportunity to interact in the game space with people in an enjoyable way. So social I am. Yet as all the people who have just identified with my personality type issues and don't see themselves as the target of the quote can identify with. I do not need the charity of the hardcore raiders to get me through the current content. A fellow guild member with a similar situation as myself to raid attendance also took offence to the statement and took them to task. After a bit off defensive fumbling and lame attempts at justification of the position the offending guild members then fell silent with a little unease hanging in the air the guild master suggested that we weren't socials more "non raiders" meaning that social in his mind is something different (derogatory?) to how I perceive it. Now to give a bit of perspective I and the other offended guild member regularly out dps some of our 25 man geared raiders (same class and spec) when we step into the 25's we don't stand in the fire and we can do the safety dance. Both of us have been asked on a few occasions to step up to the 25 man team and have turned it down because of our commitments. So where does that leave us. Are we forever stuck as social with the baggage that comes with it until we sneak into a 25 man LK kill or until the social tag is amended after someone can truly see our worth?

Well personally Cataclysm raid lockouts wont make any difference to people sponging loot off anyone else that's still going to happen. It just means the difference between Hardcore and social in gear (and epeen) is smaller.

Anyway does the perceptions and stereotypes of social/hardcore carry with it expectations of ability and experience? How many of us bridge that divide?

First !!

I have an idea in my head on how this blog is going to turn out and I'm going to share it with you. It's going to be about WoW. Not a forum to bitch or moan about it just a place to air observations and put up ideas for discussion, discussion being the most interesting part of the proposed vision. Comments on posts that are really idiotic greatly off topic or crass trolling will just be scrubbed a la the Greedy Goblin approach to commentary. Given all that falls into place then its going to be a read filled with enthusiastic amateur observations and theorising on a cyber society that the vocal minority of it spout praise and vitriol in excessive amounts.

Will this blog be any different to the others? Yes of course and no obviously not. We are all human after all.

New posts will happen when I stop playing WoW long enough with a coherent thought train in my head to drop something (subjectively) worth reading, or like the rest of us when I have nothing better to do at work.