Motivation

You know how some people are very casual about playing World of Warcraft? They play alts and enjoy the game and aren't pushing hard to really raid hard core or anything. They take the game as it is and smell the roses and all that. I'm kinda one of those people mostly. But, I'm not talking about them at all. Today I'm talking about the people who are seriously looking to get face to face with Illiden.

Those people, whether they are in a serious twenty hours per week guild or a more casual raiding guild, require one major attribute to be successful. Motivation. WoW is not the kind of game that you just go from point A to point B in. The game is pretty flawed in that it does not draw you a map on your class, your role, or your next step in getting to the high end raiding content. There are no signs at the end of Karazhan that say "Now that you have this and that gear, go to Gruul's Lair!" There's no sign outside any of the instances that say "You must have this much healing to ride this ride!" And there is nothing in the game that tells you how to play your class the most optimum way. So, how do people go from the basic quest completion and killing mobs to participating in twenty five man raids and being a productive group player?

The people who switch to that raiding level of performance are very motivated to squeeze more performance out of their class. They are going to use lots of tools to grade their abilities and help them compare themselves to other people who are performing better. They look at a WWS report, for example, and instead of saying "this other rogue is better because they are sword specced", they say "maybe I should find a way to switch to sword spec so I can do more damage". One type of person makes excuses, the other sees a way to perform better. In my experience, this is the fundamental shift in attitude someone needs to make in order to be better at raiding. It means using WWS, reading forums, doing research, and grinding faction and gold. Those things are work, but when you are motivated, they are steps towards your goal.

So, how do you convey this concept to people who want to raid seriously, but still have no motivation to do the work, and don't have a correct attitude about self evaluation? For myself, I look at the work involved and I look at my free time and I can honestly decide if I feel I can raid seriously based on that. But if you have lots of free time, but no motivation, it's easy to delude yourself into thinking that something else is holding you back. While I think there are a few times when you need other people to help you, usually I feel the only thing holding someone back is themselves.

As for answering my own question, I have no idea how to get people to make the jump in how they think. I'm not sure anyone can change how someone else sees things.