While there are thousands of whiners who think WoW is getting easy, one intrepid player decided that he would challenge himself, even if Blizzard didn't.

If you've ever spoken to an old-school World of Warcraft fan who boasts about his or her days in the WoW beta, or if you ever hear them fondly reminiscing about world PvPing (an almost dead commodity thanks to flying mounts and summoning stones!) at Blackrock Mountain, then chances are, they'll also have the opinion that WoW has gotten somewhat "easier" since its vanilla days. Perhaps it was when Blizzard noticed that only the top few percent of their player base had ever seen the inner walls of Naxxramas, or maybe it was when they saw just how many happy raiders there were in Sunwell when they nerfed the armor of all the raid bosses in half.

Unfortunately, as endgame content becomes more accessible for the masses, it's inevitable that the original PVE pioneers, the super-intelligent players who love to calculate their optimal DPS rotations and "best in slot" equipment, would ultimately find themselves getting bored with clearing toned down instances. So how do some of these guys entertain themselves?

Well, for some, the obvious conclusion is to whine a lot and make some extra-long posts on the forums with a list of your complaints - all with the hope that Blizzard will listen to everything and fix it all up by the next day. For others, however, when they can't find challenge in World of Warcraft by normal means, they seek it out in some very unique ways.

Enter Gevlon, a hyper-intelligent WoW player and auction house monopolist who earns thousands of gold a week for a mere hour or two of work. At one point, Gevlon even funded a top-end PvE guild with enchants, gems and consumables (in the range of 5000 gold a week) because he wanted to experience 'hardcore' endgame raiding without the hardcore schedule. Now, having enjoyed his raiding experience (and already replacing some of his epic raiding gear with gloves from the new Heroic Forge of Souls instance, how depressing!), Gevlon has started an odd underground movement to get some more challenge out of WoW.

Called the "undergeared" project, the concept is to roll a brand new character on the EU-Arathor server (with zero screening!), where Gevlon will give players 100g at level 1, 500g at level 40 and, if they prove themselves to be intelligent, free enchants, free consumables and 2000g at level 80.

But what's the catch?

The "undergeared" guild plans to raid all of the 25-person WotLK content in only blue gear, without Ventrilo or other voice chat applications, and only raiding three hours a week.

Since the guild was declared almost a month ago, Gevlon has attracted almost 100 recruits to his banner, and his squad of undergeared players has already managed to down all of the Icecrown Citadel 5-person instances. The project has also gained some popularity in North America, as another guild has formed on the US-Forgotten Coast server with the same raiding intentions, although the guild leader couldn't promise as much funding for the guild.

While people around the world may be expressing their doubts as to the capabilities of a very undergeared guild that raids without the benefit of voice chat, it's definitely interesting to see how players are spicing up their World of Warcraft life on their own, without developer encouragement. Now, while there are some who would suggest that, when a player is forced to artificially create his or own challenge in a game, it's an indication of a badly developed game. But for many, these wacky challenges are simply just another way of playing.

In a way, MMORPGs are designed to let a player have fun, and if a player is able to enjoy him or herself, it would seem the game is doing its job. For other players, like the undergeared guild, or pacifistic Gnomes who want to hit 80, creating these oddball scenarios can be exactly what they need, and want, from their MMORPG, and it's a testament to the WoW development team that so many of these challenges can be made from creative thought.

So the next time you find yourself mindlessly grinding through another instance, lamenting the lack of "challenge" in the game, maybe you should sign up for the undergeared guild or create some challenges on your own; you may just enjoy the game more than you enjoy whining!