Quick background.. I had transferred to a low-pop PVP server with the intention of forming a guild and, by extension, a raid team with a RL friend of mine. It was a terrible idea and failed miserably. This was back in early 2013. I was really close to giving up on WoW. I wasn't finding the connections I wanted and forming a guild/raid team seemed damn near impossible. I didn't want to join someone else's team; I had been on several raid teams before and, while some were quite good and fun to be a part of, I really wanted to make it my own.

 

Fast forward to October 2013. I'm at my wits end, but decide to take one more shot at forming my own raid team, even if it wasn't under my own guild banner. I server transferred my main to Aerie Peak and joined the Convert to Raid guild. When I accepted the guild invite, the Officer said "welcome home!" I don't know why, but that really stuck with me. On literally the second day, I'm invited to a pug group full of damn good raiders working on Siege of Orgrimmar and had a blast. Everyone was super friendly and welcoming, and I knew I'd finally found my home after about 6 years of playing.

 

Anyway, I hopped on the guild forums the very next day. They already had about 70-80 raid teams, but I went ahead and posted in there and started advertising on our server for more recruits. I had the team formed in less than 2 weeks, and we headed into SOO. Of the original 10, we still have 8 people with us. We have grown in size with the launch of WoD and now carry a roster of around 22 people.

 

More importantly (and finally to answer your questions), I have done more socially in the past year and a half with people I've met in game then I ever have. Some examples include:

 

1) Drove 6 hours to a guild meetup in Minnesota. Met the guild leader, a bunch of officers, and one of the guys from my team. We drank, played games, talked about WoW and Game of Thrones, etc. Had a blast!

 

2) Went to Blizzcon and met 4 more people from the team. Again, had a blast!

 

3) I took a vacation down to Mississippi last year, and while I was down there I met up with 2 more guys in New Orleans. Drank a bunch, ate a ton of good food, had some good laughs. Again, had a blast!

 

4) I am regularly in contact with the entire team outside of WoW through Twitter, groupme, raid team forums, etc.

 

Now the really sappy part... I fucking love my raid team. Sure, I get pissed off sometimes when we're sucking and I know we could do better, but honestly this is one of the best groups of friends I've ever known. I know most of them pretty well outside of game now and even stay in touch with people we've lost due to RL. I'm personally invested in a lot of them, which is a connection I've never made before through relationships I've created in-game.

 

I've pretty much been in the same guild for almost the entire time I've played WoW, and they've become my friends more than some of my quote on quote "IRL" friends. It helps to have something you can do together all the time, and being able to meet some of them IRL is nice too. Our guild very much feels like a family, and even for those who don't necessarily get along the best there's still a respect for them that means we'll stand up for/be there for each other if we needed it. It's a pretty cool thing to be a part of.