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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No, it isn't the name of the latest Legendary item to appear in Azeroth, although it certainly possess that kind of power.  Summer, with all of its sunshine, growth, and activities, may not be in Azeroth directly, but the season is a force to be reckoned with nonetheless.  With school over for most kids, nearly every human being is going to want to enjoy their few months of sunshine.  Me?  Well I turn in to a freckled lobster when those rays lick my skin, so I do my best to avoid the giant ball of fusion. Here's the rub, my guild isn't full of pale Irish people who's only natural UV defense is to catch a tan through a screen.  Due to this pesky little "evolutionary" trait I have found summer to be an incredibly boring period inside World of Warcraft, at best.  At worst, it's nearly caused my (two times former) guild to collapse, twice, and my former guild to all but disappear from the WoW.  Now I am fearing if my current guild will have a similar fate. Looking back, it seems like previous summers were set up to be a disappointment.  By the time kids left school the most recent content was incredibly stale.  To boot there was nothing on the immediate horizon, a dangerous pairing of inactivity and zero hype.  I would never think that Blizzard would plan such a thing on purpose, after all, letting people escape the game for too long is dangerous, but the early days of WoW were marred with inconsistent content development that caused these unfortunate coincidences. Fast forward to June 2009 and it looks like we might be safe.  First and foremost, Ulduar is still fresh to nearly the entire playerbase - especially Chinese players, a group that hasn't even received Wrath yet!  Backing up, or filling out if you prefer, the new raid content is the excitement around Patch 3.2.  We already know some basics, and major changes, have an inkling of the upcoming Battleground and have been teased with massive additions to the Argent Tournament grounds.  As guilds begin to put Ulduar on farm (I don't see this happening for at least another month) players will increasingly turn to waiting for the next big thing.  But the hype can only hold onto us for so long.  I think Blizzard timed Ulduar correctly, whether by coincidence, or on purpose, who knows, but here's to hoping Ulduar stays fresh for the summer.  If not, then let's hope that Patch v3.2 comes out in a timely fashion. Has your guild been destroyed or nearly so by a past summer?  Do any of the GMs, officers or raid leaders have any tips to keeping things running during these lax months?  The second time All That Remains almost failed we rolled the bored players into PvP groups and tore apart Magtheridon's horde for a solid month.  The mass genocide of five races held us over till the end of the summer.  Twas an interesting way to save a hardcore PvE guild to say the least. We'll see how things play out, but I am looking forward to spending a portion of my lazy summer days in Azeroth.  I just hope there will be others to play with.

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