The End. Sounds strange doesn't it? The ship went down faster than the Titanic, but the rats were bailing out before the iceberg was ever even in sight. I'd love to be able to sit here and tell you this was a result of the casualization of the game, of feeding us easy encounters for mediocre rewards, while at the same time undercutting these meager accomplishments and upgrades with welfare epics obtainable by anyone who has a large quantity of time, regardless of their skill or lack thereof. Let's be honest the theme of TBC is sacrificing everything that was good about raiding on the altar of accessibility. Sunwell is an unmitigated success, but let's be honest here, it's taken us 18months to get back to a Naxx level of difficulty and encounter design and we got a meager 6 bosses, that's pretty pathetic.
In any case that's not why you're reading this, is it. So if it wasn't lousy encounter design, shitty loot, cockblocks, etc, than what was it? The most fundamental currency there is in WoW. People. Somewhere along the line people got the idea that they were bigger than the guild. That what they wanted was more important than what was good for the guild. That somehow they deserved respect just for being around. And other people just stopped caring. Not only did they stop caring, but they didn't have the common decency to quit, they hung around for whatever reasons promising us they were going to be there, and we foolishly believed them out of loyalty for what we'd been through together. We had officers who couldn't take a stand any more and made decisions based on what was 'easy'. We had OFFICERS who disappeared with no notice, and would come and go as they pleased, yet still felt entitled to make decisions about where we were going. There is no 1 person's shoulder to place this on, it was a group effort.
Let's talk about a few important words here.
According to dictionary.com
Quote:Progress - gradual improvement or growth or development
That's right GRADUAL. Progress doesn't happen all in 1 night, but apparently some people that we had here didn't understand that. They thought bosses just fell over the first night because of the tag over their head, and the most important thing was how much damage they could do at all times. Newsflash - it doesn't work like that. It's pretty ironic that the first people to jump ship when progress wasn't going fast enough, were the same ones jerking off in the 5man, and holding up the raid on the first day. Progress takes time, and world firsts don't fall from the sky, they're the result of a lot of hard work, and effort. The reputation of this guild was built on the backs of a lot of hard work and dedication from EVERYONE. The guild was bigger than any of us, and we knew it. Which leads into the second word.
Pride. Once upon a time we had pride. Pride in our guild, pride in ourselves, pride in what we'd done. Pride is showing up and giving your best effort, ESPECIALLY when you don't want to be there, because your guildmates deserve that. We didn't always get world firsts, it's impossible to always be first, that's just not how the game works, but we showed up every day, EARLY and busted our asses, and we were proud of what we accomplished, be it world first or world 1000th. We didn't whine or complain about our ******* groups, or worry about loot. We killed bosses. Period. We gave our best effort because those around us deserved it, because the guild deserved it. We had pride about what we had done, not what those before us had done. But we also didn't have false pride. Once upon a time when people couldn't or didn't want to keep up the raiding schedule, they had the guts and decency to let the rest of us know. Now they slink off into the night without even a word.
Some people will say, they have no ill will towards those who neglected us during progress. Who stopped showing up once things got hard. Who left at the first opportunity. I'm not one of them. To anyone who jumped ship, I'm going to be honest. I have no respect for you. You all claimed you wanted to be members of this guild, you came here, we geared you, and that set an expectation down for you. That you were one of us, just like those who paved the way for you. You turned your back on that, and the last person is just as guilty as the first.
A lot of you might think Death and Taxes died this week, but for those of us who have been here for a long time we know that isn't true. Death and Taxes died a long time ago. We still killed bosses every week, but the spirit was long gone. The swagger you all came to know and love from us had evaporated. Some of us still carried it, and the guild, but the new people never quite got it. In the end Death and Taxes turned into any other guild, a job for the mercenaries who came here. They logged in at 7, picked up their epics, and logged off until the next raid, and that was never what we were about. We were about having fun, and being irreverent, and being honest with ourselves and each other.
What happens now? Well, that's not up to us, it's up to you. Those of us that have been here will always be members of DnT, our characters will disappear, but our memories will not. We didn't create our legend, we were just a group of friends who loved killing raid bosses. All the people who came to our website, and followed our progress, and cheered for our accomplishments, you created the legend, and ultimately you will have the last chapter in this story.
