Thoughts, ideas, bitching and bragging about World of Warcraft, raid and guild leading, and whatever else comes to mind...filled with the things Lark wants to say to her guild but probably shouldn't.
At least not to all of them. Not yet anyways....

Sunday, March 21, 2010

It's Either Evil or Brilliant


Mwhahahaha….

When the raiders - loyal and reset alike - arrive on Tuesday they may find themselves in for a surprise. There may be no Frost Emblems, farm bosses and shiny 264 purples. What there may be is progression of a different sort complete with WWS reports, notes of how well they take the news (and ninja logs), and very familiar content with a twist.

The guild was very young, mostly under-geared, and somewhat inexperienced when we formed last June so we were still running Naxx 25 for gear for some folks to make it past the first several bosses in Ulduar 25. This means that we started behind in the race for progression there and were still playing catch-up when TOC 25 was released. We did a pretty good job of catching up on TOC to some of the other guilds but it wasn’t until ICC that we started content on an almost equal footing. Sadly we still have not gone back and downed Yogg, completed some of the hard modes, or really made an honest attempt at Trial of the Grand Crusader 25. We’ve been too wrapped up in the newest content to make time for it.

Well, guess what raiders….TOGC is calling.

I am frustrated with the slow pace of our ICC 25 progression and concerned about the complicated, raid awareness challenging content to come (Oh, was that poison I was standing in? Oops. I didn’t bite the right person and now I’m mind controlled? Oops.), and certain attention spans and learning curves. My train of thought right now is this:

• If people can’t listen to directions and assignments on very familiar (for the most part) content how will we ever get down unfamiliar, complex content?

• If a raider is lazy, spaced out, doesn’t care, insert excuse here ________ , and dies to things they’ve known to avoid for months then what does that say about them for progression content in ICC?

• If a raider is unwilling to do content that may not result in shiny purple 264’s but is still progression points for the guild then do they really belong here?

So, Tuesday, unless I am persuaded (and it better be a damn good reason) otherwise, we will be going to TOGC. I will be recording the raid and those that are successful, attentive, and positive will be given a great deal of priority for the ICC 25 content they desire. Those that are negative, wearing the Stupid Debuff, or unwilling to do the content will be less of a priority and, in extreme cases, relegated to post-progression content or removed from the guild.

What am I expecting? Honestly, I expect most of them to do their best and actually like aspects of the idea. I think the very small minority will be the ones complaining (or worse) that I will have to deal with later, and I think there may be 2 or 3 that will be having serious conversations about their status in the guild with their class leader and me.

Wish me luck!

3 comments:

  1. Are we in the same guild?!

    Our guild is exactly like yours. It seems most of our raiders have a case of the Stupids (that's the buff they're afflicted with in my guild) and when something new comes out all attention focuses on that to the exclusion of everything else. When Uld came out, Naxx fell off the face of the planet. When Ony/TOC was released, Uld-what? Now with ICC... what's TOC stand for again?

    A good chunk of our raiders also struck me as being OOOSHINIES! people; they went where the biggest upgrades were. Achievements and hardmodes are a waste of time for them and our second raid nights have been barren because folks knew the hard stuff in ICC was on the menu and if it didn't happen, it was TOGC25.

    My co-GM and RL hubby has done when you have. Everybody logs on Tuesday thinking they're heading for ICC or VOA, and he simply announces: "Okay, TOC hardmode, go!" They're not happy but it really does help to show who is interested in doing the hard slog in getting achievements, progressing and sticking around... and who isn't.


    "If people can’t listen to directions and assignments on very familiar (for the most part) content how will we ever get down unfamiliar, complex content?"

    I completely agree here. If they can't avoid standing in the fire on an encounter they should be able to do blindfolded... what are the prospects for ICC? If they skin out within an hour each night because things are boring or get too hard, how can the guild progress?

    Sadly, we've found one of the better solutions for the Stupid Debuff is to weed them out and recruit. It's tough and steps on toes, but our progression has improved quite a bit because of fresh raiders who do know how to move out of fires and they enjoy the challenges we throw at them.

    Hehe. And hubby Luad is standing behind me and musing, "Hey, we should do that for Tuesday too." I think you've started something!

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  2. Thanks, Caste, good to know we aren't the only ones! And, my oh my, am I constantly recruiting. Now I just want an addon that shows in advance who has the Stupid Debuff on any given night so I can just sit them immediately.

    Let me know how your Tuesday goes!

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