The highest evolution of druid

Thursday 9 April 2009

Ulduar-lull

Ulduar-lull seems to be killing everything, raid-wise. We will vent here a bit, as we are less likely to offend guildies. Decent raid composition is getting to be like rocking horse shit. People are not signing up, or are just waiting in under geared sidelines waiting to be lapped up and appreciated. Hanging around on alts, pouting and it is starting to drive me bonkers.

I DO like being in a social/rading/casual/whatthefuckareweguild. I do , honestly. But it has it's frustrations. Listening to the Epic Dolls last podcast had me nodding and shaking my head in tandem. Go listen, its good stuff. Casual, intermediate or hardcore...that is the question..and there are no slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Our guild manifesto clearly states that we will never be a hardcore raiding guild but our rules say that everyone must be fully gemmed, enchanted, buffed, food-ed up, flasked etc if they wish to raid. We do ask people to watch videos and learn fights.Too fucking right, I might add.

Are we social, are we dedicated? Laissez-faire or progressive? Caught in the gap, I think it will be called.

The problems are many and not easily solved.

Firstly, you have the old skool, the founding fathers. They were a bunch of good friends that started playing WoW and formed a guild of close mates, which then grew. Some are casual and social, some are pioneers and raid-addicts, some are lazy arsed bastards that cannot be bothered, as their role is set in stone.

Secondly we have many social members, as we are a "social" guild. Many are great and due to life's rich tapestry, can only play as social members. That is coolio in the Boomdady's book. They add allot on a social basis, that's we are about, right.

Thirdly -the Slackers. They have had their loot and now watch, like purvey raincoat wearing deviants. "Good luck tonight" they say before making some excuse as to why they cannot raid...then turn up on an alt and spend the night leveling.Or have "serious connection issues"....same old same old, ball sacks. I have never known as many connection issues, graphic card failures or other wibbly pc shit in all my life.

Fourthly- the lurkers. The ones that can not be arsed to enchant or gem their gear, or sign up for raids. They lurk in dark corners waiting to ninja a raid invite. They get asked to come as the raid is short, inevitably picking up gear that they don't deserve , after being given flasks and food because "they did not expect to to be asked to raid". Fuck off and die, please you gravy sucking pigs.

Lastly- plain old slags. Got the loot and have disappeared till Ulduar. Or the Cal-syndrome as I will call it. Because we are "social" you will all come running back when Ulduar drops. We will be understanding because you had serious pc issues, while you were actually off leveling your alts.

deep breath.

Is there any real way to maintain a "social/casual/wtf" raiding guild, long term? Or will the best raiders disappear to progress guilds every summer and chancers use us to get gear in the meantime?As they seem to do every year.

Can there be a good middle ground? or do intermediate guilds need to say "Fuck em all and share the kids out for Christmas". We maybe "casual" but it does not mean we have to be casual, or complacent or naive.

You tell me, rant over.

4 comments:

  1. Great post! I can truly feel your pain. I was a GM of a social/casual/raiding guild back at the beginning of BC, and let me tell you what you are experiencing is pretty common from my experience. With so many different types of people around it's hard to please even half of them, let alone all of them. Can it be done? I'm sure, I just couldn't. I think in the end I just wanted more then a majority of my guild. There are a ton of intermediate guilds out there though that make it, so there defentily has to be a middle ground, maybe making people own their actions more. Hmmm you have me thinking now. =)

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  2. To be honest I understand some of your points - regarding lying about lag etc then playing an alt, but the comment regarding "Lurkers" I feel is kinda unfair as you are advertised as a Social/Casual guild and your description of the "Lurker" is basically a Social/Casual person.

    You seem to have a rather Hardcore Raiding attitude.

    This comment: "They get asked to come as the raid is short, inevitably picking up gear that they don't deserve , after being given flasks and food because "they did not expect to to be asked to raid"."

    How do they not deserve gear from a Raid they ran? I'm unsure how you organise the loot distribution in your guild but generally if someone doesn't raid often they will have less of a roll on gear. If they can afford to roll on the gear then they do indeed deserve the gear.

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  3. I agree a little with Catastrophe! The Boomdaddy is quite a hard taskmaster as well as a hard raider :)

    And I very much disagree with the Boomdaddy's final category of Plain Old Slags. I feel proud of my plainness, and even though I may be over the hill, I still manage a bit of slagging about. And I'm still here, raiding away - COMING TOP OF THE DAMAGE CHARTS sometimes as well (whoops - did I shout that?!). Oh... on second reading... erm.. perhaps he didn't mean me at all. Forget what I just said....

    On the positive side, our guild is *still* progressing, even though we're in a lull, and we've had lots of new boss-killing guild records, etc, more people are learning the fights. I'm happy :)

    Every guild is always going to have these issues - relax and take them in your stride!

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  4. This is a tough time for "gap stradling" guilds. Many of the raids now are PuGable, making the guild raiding structure shaky. You'll always have your slackers and what not, but because your regular raiders have gotten their T7.5 and can disappear until Ulduar, suddenly you have to offer spots to half-assing loot whores.

    Stradling the gap has always been a hard role for a guild. The guild I leveled from 35-70 in pre-LK never made it past Karazhan--why? Because they didn't have an identity.

    For Chi Cerca Trova, this has meant leaning more heavily on our hardcore side. We'll never kick out members who don't raid if they've been loyal guildies forever, but we've had to make public the prioritizing of raid invites in order to make it clear where everyone stands. This has not sat well with a lot of our more casuals, and some have left for more casual guilds, or guilds more on par with their schedule, dedication, or level of gear. As always, though; the core raiders (myself and Ultra included--go team) will continue to raid amidst the drama and turnover, and in the end, Ulduar will crumble before us. RAWR.

    Keys to making it work: Strong leadership, identity, and a core group of dedicated raiders. Good luck, you guys. <3

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