Project Lore

Speaking of douchebaggery on the Khaz Modan server, apparently Alliance aren't the only ones acting up. While on the same Ventrilo server where an enemy player listened in to my raid group's precious Wintergrasp tactics, another interesting topic came up: the stealing of raid IDs. It's been a while since I've heard anyone mention stealing raid IDs. I assumed the practice had at least waned a bit ever since a blue post announced last year that the practice is now considered a reportable offense. For anyone unfamiliar, the stealing of a raid ID is basically when another player (and whoever else he invites along) is able to gain access to the hard work that someone else already has put into a raid. Let's use Naxxramas as an example. Say Guild A already has run through the Arachnid, Plague and Military quarters of the instance, leaving only the Construct quarter to finish later in the week before they can unlock the Frostwyrm Lair. (The new Patch 3.3 PTR patch notes state that players will no longer have to unlock the other quarters to get to the lair, but as an example let's keep this rolling.) Then, there's Guild B, who also wants to run Naxx -- as quickly as possible. Somehow, through trade chat, whispers or possibly even a planted mole, they find out that Guild A is already 3/4 of the way through the raid. They form a group for a 5-man instance and invite along a member of Guild A. But actually, the other four members are waiting outside of Naxx. The actual "steal" happens very quickly. Guild A member accepts the group invite, then immediately Guild B changes the group to a Raid and promotes the Guild A member to leader. The other four Guild B members run into Naxx and are asked whether they want to be saved to the group leader's instance. They all click "yes." The group is disbanded, and Guild B invites their friends to partake in the last quarter of Naxx. Guild A, on the other hand, loses its progression in the instance and has to start from scratch after the raid lockout period ends. I explain the practice not so that you can go and use it (please don't be a douchebag - I'd put this behavior several notches worse than spying on the other side for your own advantage.) Instead, use the information to be smart about who you group with or, in this case, don't group with, especially when you're saved to a partially-completed instance. And also don't go announcing that you're half-way through an instance when someone may try to take advantage of that. And if, for some reason, you find yourself leader of a raid group that you thought was a 5-man PUG, GTFO. Fast. Unfortunately, it looks like the practice is alive and kicking, at least on my server. The good news is that everyone who was in on that vent discussion now knows which guild is guilty of the practice. You can't be a douchebag for long before people spread the word and exclude you from groups. But all this got me a little worried about the new cross-realm LFG system getting ready to roll out in Patch 3.3. So far, it looks like the cross-realm LFG will only be for 5-man dungeons, and not 10- or 25-man raids. Things could get really sticky if the cross-realm system also is available for raids, introducing a whole host of potential challenges, not in the least being the systematic stealing of raid IDs. Beware! Has anyone else come across this trickery as of late? Who else things the Raid ID system needs some kind of overhaul to prevent the systematic stealing of others' progression? With the changes already coming to LFG, perhaps now is the perfect time for Blizz to tackle the issue.