My guild however – while not immune to that – has very little of that crap. We call ourselves a casual raiding guild. We don’t raid most nights, only 2 or 3 times a week, and we take our raiding seriously while doing it, but we also understand that RL takes precedence. And we have some really good people in our ghuild that we talk with. Part of it is the social experience, in fact I have only recently started to realize how much socialization I am doing online. Part of it is the ‘grind’ to get better gear. Part of it is to see new content (but if I don’t see it all, I’m not broken up about it), and downing a new boss after a tough fight is a very rewarding experience for a lot of us.

But for me – and everyone is different – the biggest reason I play is that I get to hang out with friends, some of whom I have only ‘met’ in game. We get on a VoIP of some nature, and we talk while we game, and its fun. It allows my two married friends with a child to game while still staying at home and being able to keep an eye on their kid. It allows my friend with his new and pregnant wife to game without abandoning her alone while he goes out. It allows the four of us to game with a friend of ours who lives 600 km away in another city. And so forth.

Yeah, playing my 70 level mage solo is pretty dull these days. Most the time if I’m playing solo, I play one of my alts. But I do enjoy raiding on my mage with my guild, or getting on any one of my toons and questing or running an instance in a group with my friends.

The social aspect may not be the only reason to play these games, but I think for most people who stick with a game for a long time, that is why they stuck around. They have friends in the game, and they like to spend time with them. Doesn’t preclude other stuff out of game, its just another type of siocialization.

Not only that, but the end-game has brought our guild closer together. We organise ourselves, we bring all our potions and whatnot, people that play the same class are conferring with each other to share strategies, tips & tricks, and have friendly competitions with each other over parsing numbers. During the downtime between encounters or during the all-too-necessary five minute AFK to stretch the legs and grab a smoke or a snack we’re telling jokes and laughing about the warlock that went linkdead as he was running toward the mob and died a fiery nasty death.

The loot is cool, too.

Bottom line is that for some people, like myself, the end-game isn’t the end of a journey. It is the start of a new one, and for me it’s load of fun.

If you stopped logging in one day, here is what would happen. Nothing. Then, two months later, someone would say, “Hey, what happened to Laygolas?” and someone else would say, “Dunno, dude. Whatever.” And you would never be thought of again.

It sounds like the fella just hasn’t gotten into a decent guild that was about the people rather than the kill shots, server firsts and what not. That’s not to say that you can’t do that and have good people, you just have to find the right guild – and they aren’t as common as people think (at least ones that raid, have fun and enjoy playing with each other – there are plenty that simply play together and have fun).

The other possibility is that he’s a passenger in the guild. He doesn’t put anything into it and makes no effort to get to know people.

Who knows?