Life in WoW

I have spent nearly 3 years playing World of Warcraft. It took me, what seemed like forever to get my first toon to lvl 70 (i started in the BC days). It took me so long, partly because, i think, I have ADD. I kept creating new characters and leveling them as well. When I finally decided to hit lvl 70, I focused on my hunter, Ido, who I truly enjoyed playing. I had a real life friend, who got me into the game, who was in one of the top raiding guilds on our server. As soon as I hit lvl 70 he got me a /ginvite and I quickly logged off to play my other lower level characters. I was scared to death of raiding. I was scared to death to try a Heroic version of an instance. I had absolutely no idea what to do or how to do it, but I was certain I was not ready to be raiding. I would ask my friend Kril question after question about stat caps and rotations, about what to do in a raid. He was of the opinion, just do it, but I was not nearly confident enough to jump into a raid with 9 other people just to be yelled at for being a noob. I leveled my Paladin instead of gearing my Hunter, and got him to 70 as well, I made him a tank and spent a lot of time doing regular instances, always scared to try a new instance that I had no knowledge of. I did not want to waste other peoples time, I wanted to know what to do before being tested with other people present. This was a huge barrier for me, because I really wanted to enjoy end game content but did not feel secure enough to do it. I finally got enough confidence to try tanking a heroic instance with another Real Life friend of mine, who was in the same boat as me. That first Heroic ended in utter fail, which cinched my belief that I was not ready. I decided to go back to my hunter, since, if I failed at DPS, the entire group may not fail just because of me. Being a tank was too much pressure. I studied hunter webpages and studied other geared hunter's armory pages. Compared stats with other successful hunters and still felt underpar. I finally got the hang of tanking after being bored with DPS and one of the DPS'ers in my group, after clearing the lvl 80 Regular Shadow Labyrinth, invited me to his guild, saying the guild needed good tanks. I quickly accepted and brought some of my other friends who had never been raiding either. I immediately got a bit stressed just thinking about being asked to raid and logged out to play another low level character that was in neither guild. Long story short, some of my friends ended up being dragged into a raid or two and they really enjoyed it, they were like me and had spent all their time getting the best gear they could running regular instances and eventually Heroics. The time came . . . the new guild needed a dps to fill their last spot for Kara, my friends who had already been once, suggested me, to my embarassment. I agreed to go if they needed me, but explained, I had no idea what I was doing. My friend stood by me, and told the raid/guild leader that I was a good DPS and she would not regret taking me along, then he quickly whispered me, "you better not let me down". No pressure right! The raid leader finally sent the invite, despite her reservations and my first raid began. On ventrilo, the leader was talking about how much dps their warrior was going to do and how he would need to watch his threat or we would risk him dying and losing his much needed dps. When we got to the first boss, I had already died once, from pulling aggro, so I was pretty nervous. The rest of the night was blur, all I remember is watching the dps meter and seeing me always on top, by a lot. I laughed at my own insecurities. Ironically enough, the raid leader had no dps meter so had no idea how much damage I was dealing. She continued to talk about the warriors dps and the dps of the other raiders, always ignoring me. After this first raid, I would get invited to tag along to Heroic runs and even some raids, but only as an after thought, usually from my friend who insisted that I get to go. But I, and my friends knew that I had been ready for raiding, for a very long time. It was neat and a little embarassing to think back on that time I wasted being scared of raiding, but the truth is, that fear made me a better hunter and dps. I was over prepared for my first raid, my fear of bringing the rest of the raid down pushed me to be the best I could given the gear opportunities that I had. Our "raiding guild" never made it much passed Kara, we did clear ZA right at the end of the BC but we ended up being a stepping stone for raiders to get geared then move to better more advanced guilds.
Now WotLK is out and we are at end game content, 5 of us, from the earlier guild have since created a new guild, disbanded it, transferrred servers, joined another guild, left it and created our very own 10 man Raiding Guild named "What the Frick". I have discovered, in WotLK that most people are not like my friends and I. They don't make sure they are ready for raids, they hit 80 and right away start spamming trade for the hardest raid content, wearing greens and some quest blues. Then there are those that have all the best gear but have no idea how to play their class. These people do not care about the other people they are raiding with, they are simply looking out for themselves. It makes me sad, I've wasted many hours raiding with under experienced tanks, dps, and healers in END GAME CONTENT. It also makes me appreciate all that time I spent trying to understand my class and my gear choices. I've worked hard and it has paid off.