Foton truthsays again, talking about the ever-increasing gap between the high-end raiders and the rest of us schlubs.

That creaking sound you hear? That’s the ever widening gap between those who have been raiding for-fucking-ever and those that haven’t. We still have the wherewithall to suit up a green raider and have him join us the next night, but guilds a few steps down the food chain do not.

It pains me to think we’ll miss out on quality raiders because some day that gap will be too wide. That’s how it is and that’s how it’s always been.

I am very precisely in the situation he now describes. Not overly enamoured with the first character I have leveled to 60, I’m now moving my Mage alt (who has been about 40 for almost 8 months) into the end-game area. It’s not unlike the experience I had moving from Illinois to Wisconsin when I was 10.

Read on for reflections on the past and thoughts on jumping the gap.

One of the saddest social realizations I had as a developing youth was the whole ‘clique’ thing. I’d had a few odd friends in Illinois, but never really felt all that lonely. Even though I was the short, bookish kid in the class I still belonged; I was still a part of the class. That was not true post-move. I was an outsider, and the natural reaction of even the primative cliques of 6th grade was ostracism. I didn’t get the references, had no context for the jokes, and wasn’t understood enough to begin to bridge the gap.

A character reaching level 60 with no guild over a year after WoW launch is in just as dire straits as confused 6th grade me. My Mage alt has no support structure. Runs through Uldaman, Mauradon, and Zul’Farrak … even Scarlet Monastary is a big deal to this character. I have reason to believe that, on my server, a Mage will have an easyish time of getting a group at level 60. A pick-up group. The Surgeon General of the United States has determined, categorically, that PUGs cause cancer in white mice. Even white mice playing Shaman. This is not a prospect I look forward to.

The RL friends I have on the server are a healing balm, but like me they have lives. I need the outreaching arms of a never-sleeping guild. I need the soulless bond between organization and individual that will ensure my success as a character at level 60. Even if I were to find an organization as kind as Foton’s, willing to take in a Green and Quest-gotten-Blue wearing Mage, it’s going to be a long walk uphill. At 60 I won’t even have the 0.000005 set gear you can find stuck to the bottom of Lucifron’s shoe. After the fifth time I’m rezzed in an hour, this fictional organization is going to be rethinking their kindness.

As the man said, this state is only going to get worse. When the level cap jumps to 70, Molten Core is going to become a quaint little fruit stand on the side of the road, where picnicking couples travel to from Stormwind on winter afternoons. Gear from Ragnaros is going to be disenchanted without a thought, and a character going for 60 is going to have a tough time even finding a group that remembers Scarlet Monastary.

So what’s the solution? For a gear-based game like WoW, what’s the magic bullet?

The answer is that, just as in Dallas, there are no magic bullets. The only way to span this gap is to ensure that there are always people in the lower part of the end-game (60-65), and right now there are no ways to ensure that this happens. My hope is that the folks at Blizzard are aware of this and are taking steps to address this issue. Right now the jump is looking awful far, and the far side just moves further and further away.