Project Lore

I've Already Sent In My Application Since Wrath of the Lich King launched in November I have been in more guilds than I have ever been in my lengthy World of Warcraft career.  Now moving on to my fourth (and fifth) guild, I've discovered a trend.  A trend that I believe caused my former two guilds to collapse on themselves, leaving me holding the non-raiding bag for a few weeks.  That trend is focusing on 10man content.  But what's causing us to fail? Bad Tuning:  10-man content is considered to be the easiest way to raid, but I simply don't believe that.  If one person dies in a 10-man encounter it's far more difficult to deal with than in a 25-man match-up.  It comes down to simple math, you're losing 10% of your force to a paltry 4% if a single member dies.  Here's a bit of anecdotal evidence to back that up.  In the early going of Wrath 10man Sarth+3D was considered the most difficult encounter in the game. The developers obviously comprehend that simple math, and design around it.  Or at least we'll assume that.  But it's unlikely that Blizzard expects many guilds to stick to one degree of raiding.  Most people that I know mix in 25-man, PUGs or guild runs, with their 10-man plate.  This allows players to acquire gear that will make the 10man encounters more trivial.  A smart idea.  My previous two guilds didn't have much success in this, leading us to stick to 10-man progression by and large.  This path proved unsuccessful after a few months. Too Many Guilds:  One issue that I've mentioned before is the amount of guilds there are these days.  Guilds come and go as often as celebrity relationships, allowing players to see greener pastures with an alarming frequency.  Sure, new guild X may be doing great right now, while your guild is stuck in Ulduar, but who knows how long they will be around?  For most players, it doesn't matter.  They subscribe to water's mantra, the path of least resistance (to gear). In theory the amount of guilds shouldn't really matter.  Having options is nice, and guild competition tends to drive players to perform at their peak.  A win-win, right?  In practice, the setup leads to guild hopping, and spreads the herd of good players over a wider range of guilds.  Thus, lowering their collective effectiveness. Too Many Bad Players:  I honestly don't believe that WoW has a larger percentage of bad players nowadays.  They've always been around in large numbers.  They just appear more obvious simply because the entry to raiding is far lower than ever.  On top of that my guilds have chosen the level that nearly everyone starts at, 10man raiding.  Because of this Smooth Criminals and Warriors of Faith had a high percentage of mediocre players, poorly geared players or flat out bad players in their ranks.  Ranks that have a small portion of good players that aren't casual.  Mix too much bad with good and the results are always the same. Players that are new to raiding are also highly likely to either quit raiding, possibly the game, or even progress past their guilds after they learn the ropes.  Causing the guilds to fill up with another round of unskilled or under-skilled players that need their hands help.  Repeating the viscous cycle. Me:  Sure, I have been one of the only absolute constant factors in these failing guilds.  That isn't a matter of opinion, but cold hard fact.  I hope to god I'm not such an awful player that I can cause a group to collapse when I am only there once a week!  I guess it's possible though.  I do play a gnome.  If it turned out to be true I think it would just increase my ego further, in a very unusual way. Before you go tearing me a new one let me reiterate that I know that 10man raiding is easy to PUG.  I know that many guilds succeed week in and week out.  This is just a discussion as to why my last two guilds failed to stay together during their 10-man push.  Ultimately, we failed to dominate content, hitting a wall at some point.  Then the leaders got fed up and moved on.  Do any casual raid leaders/GMs have any tips? My ideal guild would be a rather close knit group of friends and acquaintances, around 20 players, that could raid on the same schedule.  Two nights a week would be dedicated to tackling various raids, and one day would be spent on progression and just having fun (to ease the tension of failing).  We'd obviously be casual, but when raiding it'd be taken seriously.  Pots, food buffs, full enchants, gemmed to the gills, we'd expect every character to be at the top of their game from trash to boss for three hours a night.  Most of all, people would show up on time! What's your ideal guild?

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PUGing can be a brutal experience.  The lack of coordination, responsibility and inability to read a player's worth is a soul-draining experience.  A few bad Heroics or 10-man Naxx's can force even the most patient and understanding player to swear them off for good.

What happens when even your guild fails?  What do you do then?  QQ, abandon the "newbs" and find another guild?  Hold out for the next raid and see if the situation is repeated?  Go on a tirade in Ventrilo about how the tanks can't generate enough threat-per-second and that the healers don't know how to heal out of group?  Sit there and cry?  Or, do as I do, blog about it. This past week, SolidSamm's new guild failed to down even one boss in 10-man Naxxramas one night.  Yes, the same dungeon that is done by PUGs on a daily basis and that we fully cleared the week before, held us up.  In all fairness, we did not have the normal group together.  The raid was initially delayed an hour due to scheduling conflicts.  At 8:30 PM we decided to go with the 10 we had online.  The ragtag bunch included only two healers, one of which was our main tank on his fresh level 80 alt.  Thus, the off tank became the main tank, and a feral druid had to take over the off tanking duties.  We knew the night would be a tough one, but we all figured it was worth a shot. Our first boss of the night was to be the poison spewing mob known as Grobbulus.  Attempt one was a mess.  I'll be honest and admit that I did not notice how poorly we were doing until only the tank and myself remained alive.  From what I was told after I asked wtf happened, someone dropped a poison on the casters.  The wipe was caused by an easily correctable mistake, so we ressed and went at the abomination a second time.  While the second attempt got us to 8%, we still failed to drop the fat ass, causing the raid to be canceled for the night. Eight percent.  Grobbulus had less than a quarter million HP at that point and the raid was called.  I hate repair bills as much as the next guy, but I hate leaving a boss up when he is killable even more.  I voiced my opinion politely, but it was decided that due to the raid's composition, the undergeared healer, and the replacement off tank, things just weren't going to go our way.  Yea, we may have been able to kill Grobb, but could we have gone any farther?  Doubt it. Two hours, 20 something gold, a collection of consumables, some additional gray hairs and I have nothing to show for half a nights work.  I did get to play the sweet boyfriend and pretend I left the raid to hang out with the girlfriend.  Brownie points for sure.  How does your guild decide to call it a night, and under what circumstances?

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