Vyndree, Guilds, and Content

[mackenziemi]

First of all I would like to welcome back Vyndree. To paraphrase Agent Smith welcome back we've missed you. So after reading your blog entry about your enhancement experience and then wiping the blood from screen that was shooting from my eyes, I am of the opinion that you got screwed. This opens my own can of worms. I wish I could say that I was in disbelief about what had happened. I wish I could say that I have never seen anyone treated that badly by a guild. However I have, and have seen even worse.
This after a lot of thought has brought me to the conclusion that guilds are broken. People, many of whom have good intentions, join guilds with the idea that this will be good for them and they can make some friends and it will make the game more fun. In the end game though it seems to me that the majority of the time, people end up getting taken advantage of. Cliques form, insults and negative comments are made people get their feelings hurt and then the cycle begins anew. What’s worse problem is people feel that they make "friends" in this game and then are betrayed. Currently I classify "WoW Friends" somewhere between acquaintances and 2-3 cousins.
Part of the reason why I think guilds are broken is the fact to raid you need so many people in the guild. Invariably that many people will not have the same purpose and there are going to be people, maybe lots of people, that you don’t really know. The falsehood of this is that somehow the guild is supposed to be something akin to one big happy family. I have rarely seen that to be the case, an in those cases rarely does that hold true for more than about 1 month. Usually by that time people’s interests start to deviate and the guild "family" begins to splinter.
Which brings me to content. I think 25-40 man content is stupid. Really it’s an internet bubble concept imho. "Wow I am playing with 25 people from all over the place isn't that cool." Sure as a novelty it's cool but it quickly loses its luster. From my experience I have had way more fun doing 5-10 man content with people I know than I ever had doing 25 man. Also with the current percent of people that are able to participate in "raid" content I feel the developers spend 90% of their time catering to 2% of the overall game population, which is a joke imho. So for me the answer is simple stop putting the emphasis on 25 man content. Start developing more 5 and 10 man content.
Currently I am in a smaller guild. It’s all people that I work with and am friends with in RL. This is the only guild that I have seen that has worked consistently. I think a big part of the reason for our success is that fact that we all see each other in RL. Those problems can be addressed with people in RL. When they happen we talk about it at work the next day or one phone and we get it resolved with no name calling or hurt feelings. This again imho shows why I think there should be more emphasis on 5-10 man content. To allow and encourage smaller tighter groups.
Lastly I would point to Tabula Rasa. I don't know if any of you have played that game or are familiar with Richard Garriott and its beginnings. But Richard Garriott could be called one of the "founding fathers" of game development. He played WoW and other MMORPG's for over 2 years; he then came up with a list of things that were/are broken with them. Basically he set out to set those things right, the name Tabula Rasa is a Latin phrase which literally means clean slate. One of the things he identified that was wrong was large player content outside of PVP. So in TR the maximum number of players allowed in any instance is 6. To me this speaks volumes.
So anyway I've made my case, thanks if you've read this far and have put up with my little rant here. But my point in doing this isn’t just to rant. I am curious if anyone feels the same way I do. So please reply and let me know what you think.

Thanks

[Gurblash]

Wall of text just crit me :(

/me goes back and tries to read.

[Gallo]

Wall of text just crit me :(

/me goes back and tries to read.

Wall of text critted me so bad that it logged me off. I did finish though. True to form, there are many problems with raiding, but game developers will have a hard time giving it up because of the lure of "epic battles" with many people involved. Yes it is pointed at 2% of the population, but even in a game, you need some sort of hope. You can't have everyone on the same level with no possibility of beating out the person next to you, everyone will get bored.

It's a tough balance. I think blizzard has done a fine job balancing the game as it grows. Much better than SOE did for SWG.

[Eteocles]

Seriously..I've seen some WAlls of Text in my time but that's quite frankly the longest yet, that's the Great Wall of Text. Find some places, hit Enter twice to make paragraphs, I may be bored enough to read most things but I'm not THAT bored lol

[Skuggomann]

Wall O' Text!

[mackenziemi]

lol sorry guys, didnt mean to Wall-O-Text crit ya, im a Software Developer not a writter. though reading your comments I did get a skill up. My writting skill is now 3, woot

[Khazrael]

Wall of text has been said enough, but more to the point of your comments.

I can't possibly agree with you more. I'm so sick of guilds, and 5 boxing really saved WoW for me. I surely would have quit without it. Anytime a guild tries to tell me how I should spec, how I should gear, what I should do when, I know that it's time for me to move on.

The point about cliques forming is another thing that causes problems for me as well. Unless you form at the start of a guild, it just seems too difficult to become anything more then just another player in it. I can't stand that "big guild" feeling, where you're just one other person swimming in a lake of other players, completely meaningless and just another filler for a group/raid. The only guild I ever enjoyed was my very first guild I was in back on my home server, and it's because we were all the ones that formed it. I guess this goes back to the clique thing, except this time around I was part of it, instead of one of the other members that were just there.

At any rate, I'm done with guilds aside from having one for my own little group. I have very little interest in anything that requires more then 5 man, and that has been the case since long before I started multi-boxing. Multi-boxing just enhances that further.

[elo]

Props on the subject matter but I've got to add to the 'ZOMG FORMAT IT!' chant.

That said I totally agree and have said the same of guilds many times. The whole guild concept just ends up further segregating an already segregated player base. In some cases this helps but in others it's very limiting (I can't do XYZ with you because of my guild, yada yada) and ALL guilds of any size end up with significant dramatic events that break them up. It's almost a joke now on my server as to who's with which guild and almost everyone is cross guilded either openly or secretly.

25 mans... better than 40, but still too much. To me 10 is the upper limit of what I can tolerate. I think Blizz picked 25 though as sort of a minimum that would them to be able to tie every class into the encounters, etc. Still wish they'd focus more on the 5-10 as I believe there are good solutions out there. I LOVE a challenge but the only thing challenging about a 25 man really is patience and persistence. Ok, which one of you 24 other people messed up THIS time. Trying to get 24 other people to come on time, knowledgeable, with reagents, pots, etc. on a regular basis is VERY tough. On top of that, IMO, the fights are even FUN just a pure beat down. Your reward most nights after a 4 hour session of not even being able to get up and take a piss is usually a repair bill and I found by the time I actually got gear I just didn't care about. 'Oh yay... 24 more +healing and 10 more intellect... go me..'

In contrast the 5 mans are a blast, heroics were a good idea (now that they actually have loot worth getting) and the only thing really holding them back from doing more is that the loot level would start treading on the holy raider territory (you know, 2% of the population, who has had their uber gear for months anyhow). The really sad part is how much time and money most of us put into a game and never get to see 'the really cool stuff'. I wonder if sales would have been different if on the TBC trailer when Illidan comes out they put up a subtitle that says, "Note: 98% of you will never actually see this guy in game"

So why play? Because, what else WILL we play? EQ2 is even worse (32 man raids), LOTRO was just sad, SWG died years ago just not everyone noticed and it had no real point anyhow, Warhammer Online (were they just joking with this or what?), Horizons was stillborn, Lineage2 was just a gold farming enterprise, etc. etc. DDO doesn't seem to have much momentum, from what I read it was really akward, so on and so forth. There's stupid stuff like Pirates of the Burning Sea, The MATRIX online (HOW could this be good?), etc. I just like the traditional dungeons & dragons inspired fantasy and Blizzard's playstyle is unmatched from what I've seen. From level 1 to pre-raid geared WoW is just awesome and I love playing it, but then it just dies for 98% of us.

[elo]

lol sorry guys, didnt mean to Wall-O-Text crit ya, im a Software Developer not a writter. though reading your comments I did get a skill up. My writting skill is now 3, woot

Ummm if you coded like that at my company you'd be out on the street in a week.

[crzywolve]

I just like the traditional dungeons & dragons inspired fantasy and Blizzard's playstyle is unmatched from what I've seen. From level 1 to pre-raid geared WoW is just awesome and I love playing it, but then it just dies for 98% of us.

I completely agree with this. I have a 70 hunter in T5 in a bigger raid guild. We are on Hyj/BT and quite honestly, I'm getting bored with it. 4 hours or wipes, bitching, pointing finger, etc. and for what? 6g repair every time I die? I would almost prefer to roll a toon to 70, get some decent gear and then re-roll something else just for the hell of it. I also have a 70 dwarf war in decent 70 blues :D

Then I found you guys! :) I have about 4 or 5 different 2 man teams. I'm trying to figure out what works best for the way I play. So far I like my dual hunters or dual mages for pvp, and my mage/shaman for pve. None of them are past 30 so I REALLY can't say yet, but meh.

I wish I could afford the 5 man teams, but 2 accounts is about it for me for now.

[Vyndree]

Ya, I hear you.

I've had good luck with guilds on a personal level -- in fact I'm probably going back to the remnants of my old guild, <Anarchy>, which Suvega used to lead before we just didn't have enough people to do the content and merged into other guilds. The hardest part is finding a guild that aligns with your goals and is going to stick to those goals, whether it be pve, raiding, pvp, leveling, or whatnot.

The guild all this drama happened in, <Negative Bro>, had very clear cut goals and was first in server progression many times. I understand the need for min/maxing and knew what I was getting into when they asked me to spec enhancement. The problem is, if you min/maxed my gear and professions with the other guy's gear and professions, we're near equal if not weighted a bit more on my side due to LW drum buffs. Furthermore, I had been in the guild for 4-5 months with no problems, whereas this other guy /gquit his guild at the promise of epics. If they were having a problem with their old enh shammy quitting, you'd think they'd want proof that the new one wouldn't just quit on a whim, which I had shown.

In any case, I posted on WTB Vyndree ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=58382#post58382') as well about the circumstances of my being benched for raids. :P

[mackenziemi]

Ok I broke down the wall :)

[mackenziemi]

Another thing I have noticed in guild cliques, especially when they are the leaders of the guild is they want the Recipies for their toons, since that "be better for the guild." So they can "better meet the needs of the guild." Really I have found this to be, imho, the worst kind of loot whoring. Invariably when the guild breaks up funniest thing how they don't want to make you that item anymore, or they want money to do it, or best of all they just ignore you all together. That is one thing that I will never just allow again. Sorry I dont care if you are the guild leader you roll on that stuff same as anyone.

[Nifter]

I agree that raids are a very stressful part of the game, which cause the majority of the drama in guilds.
However once I hit 70 on my main I pretty much stopped playing the game for anything else other than raiding. I just didn't have enough time for 5 mans, BGs, or quests anymore. 3 times a week for 3-4h a day is really a waste of time considering I don't get a ton of drops anyway.

Kara was a great idea by blizzard, though. It was a tough instance that let a ton of casual guilds get their feet wet and get into raiding, and I'm hoping that there will be similar content available for WotLK.
In terms of 25 mans, I would have to agree that it is generally not as fun as the 10 mans. In the casual tier 5 content guilds I have been in, nothing past void reaver was ever killer, even though we attempted the new content numerous times. Since 25 players are not the same ones day in day out, people aren't learning at the same pace, and everything takes much longer as every week 5 newbies show up who have no idea what's going on and end up dieing to the void reaver balls or lurker's spout.

Seems like the only way to actually progress in the raid game is to get into a hardcore guild that wont take the <800 dps mage and the sort to their raid. Seems nice on paper but in reality you have elitist idiots + profanity and immaturity in the guild chat. I'd rather hang out with those incompetent raiders who enjoy having a conversation about their vacation to Chicago or talk about funny incidents at work.

Answer? Multi-boxing. Bringing the fun back into wow. Limitless amounts of class combinations and tactics. Micro management through the roof, and you can only blame yourself when it all goes pear shaped. Although I wouldn't totally rule out raiding. You can still take a member of two of your team to a raid once in a while. Kara is a perfect multibox friendly instance, just have to find a guild with way too many tanks and healers, hehe.

[Khazrael]

Yeah, that and when the designated "main tank" gets all of the loot upgrades, regardless of how small it is. I understand the need to have someone geared out for tanking, but if the damn thing is a minor upgrade for you, but a huge upgrade for another tank, for gods sake upgrade the other guy so that you don't have to have the raid rely on ONE FREAKING PERSON because hes the only one geared out. I think a lot of people end up using that as an excuse to get their tank buddy some extra goodies.

[Frosty]

The only guild I've ever really enjoyed being in, was back on EQ - Povar Tarew Alliance.
We always made due with whatever class we had, and came up with some pretty inventive solutions along the way.

In WoW, I belong to a guild of a very small group of friends, and we do very little raiding. We play what we want and how we want though.

I like being in guilds just for the chatter.. but my real life demands too much of my time. I hate explaining over and over..sorry I have to go afk..my 2 year old wants a "bah bah"..
Our small guild has an understanding..and is flexible.

That being said, I can't wait to get a new machine to 5-box on and kill some instances. :D

[Gallo]

I understand the need to have someone geared out for tanking, but if the damn thing is a minor upgrade for you, but a huge upgrade for another tank, for gods sake upgrade the other guy so that you don't have to have the raid rely on ONE FREAKING PERSON because hes the only one geared out.

Unfortunately, A LOT of guilds don't think this way. They simply follow some sort of DKP system, and if you're ahead, you're ahead. It would help progression alot if people were smart about upgrades.

[Eteocles]

Kara was a great idea by blizzard, though. It was a tough instance that let a ton of casual guilds get their feet wet and get into raiding, and I'm hoping that there will be similar content available for WotLK.

As I read this particular line, "MC Raiders" came on my mp3player(I swear it's psychic sometimes; not the first time it's played songs at oddly opportune times lol)..."Alright who was the living bomb?!" "It's my first time! *sob*" "You're not 1337 enough for Molten Core."...similar sort of sentiment of people being shunned for not being l33t enough lolz

[wougoose]

All of this leads to how sexy multiboxing is. All you need is a few boxers and you have yourself a nice big guild. Drama is most likely kept to a minimum with only 5-10 people in the guild. However, those 5-10 people can bring 25-50 characters to the table to have some fun with. And it seems that this community is much more friendly than the general WoW population :)

Sometimes I wish I would have stayed in the Zerg back when Xzin started it :)

[Bigfish]

I don't mind that there is 25 man content that is intended to be farmed every week. A lot of people like to do that. What I don't like is that there is almost nothing outside of raid instances that require a raid to accomplish. I wish they would add a few spawnable bosses for quests that the primary objective is to just throw a bunch of people at something big. I'm not really interested in farming. I'm more of a "See it once, done with it after that" type of guy, the exception being PvP for various reasons.

That was one thing I really liked about FFXI, back in the day. You hit the level cap or something near it, and there were bosses you went out and killed for different quests, and while you could accomplish them with a few well geared players, you could throw a bunch of scrubs at it if that was all you had, and by the end of the fight, half of them were dead, everyone else was almost dead, but by God you finished the fight. Now THAT was epic.

Edit: Oh, and FFXI had a system in place where taking more people actually put you at a disadvantage on some fights. Bosses had lots of AOE, and if you pulled aggro, you tended to get a Falcon Punch type move that would hit for twice your max HP. Man, those were the days.

[Eteocles]

They did that once, Bigfish...remember the anubis boss just outside Cen Hold in Silithus, that everyone killed for the Nature Resist pants quest reward?(I think you had to do it to enter aq20 anyways, not sure); a good raid could kill him with a handful but most of the time it was a bunch of pugs.

However, the downside to that content is something I see quite often...once people do/kill something like that they never want to help do it again. I was among the first when DA killed him to get us the pants + attuned but when the 2nd round came very few were willing to go back(I loved healing back then so I volunteered to help out); we ended up puggin it lol and I saw similar situations on my hunter's server when I needed to do it too

[Khazrael]

That was one thing I really liked about FFXI, back in the day. You hit the level cap or something near it, and there were bosses you went out and killed for different quests, and while you could accomplish them with a few well geared players, you could throw a bunch of scrubs at it if that was all you had, and by the end of the fight, half of them were dead, everyone else was almost dead, but by God you finished the fight. Now THAT was epic.

Edit: Oh, and FFXI had a system in place where taking more people actually put you at a disadvantage on some fights. Bosses had lots of AOE, and if you pulled aggro, you tended to get a Falcon Punch type move that would hit for twice your max HP. Man, those were the days.

I loved FFXI so much. It was such a terrible grind, but the combat system was great. I never could get that far in it though, as I got sick of spending all my time LFG and then finding terribad groups that caused me to actually LOSE experience instead of gain it, boo.

If I had a multiple machine set up, I would so totally multibox ffxi.

[Crucial]

Leading a raid and just about to pull the boss and two people go afk suddenly. They come back much later to report their 2 year old had just shit on the carpet (this actually happened). Needless to say I've preferred less 'casual' guilds after that. (Maybe this was the catalyst for multiboxing??)

[Eteocles]

That's what you get for using cheap cloth diapers.

Sounds kinda like a "BRB CAT'S ON FIRE/POWER WENT OUT" kind of excuse to me though ;p

[Crucial]

That's what you get for using cheap cloth diapers.

Sounds kinda like a "BRB CAT'S ON FIRE/POWER WENT OUT" kind of excuse to me though ;p

Unfortunately it wasn't - they also posted pictures of their kid crawled up under their computer desk sleeping with a blanket and head propped up against the computer tower.

[Gallo]

When I was guild leader (before I rerolled on another server with my shamans), we had this older guy that was an officer in the guild since its inception. He was in his late 50's, and was a hilarious person to have in vent. He was also out MT healer usually. Well, when we were running BWL and were fighting Vael you hear over vent " *ding dong* Oh dammit" " *ding dong* Shit guys, my doorbell is ringing and I'm the only one home" everyone yells "ignore it!" " *ding dong* Dammit guys, who could be at my door??" He waited the whole fight before jumping up and checking. The person was gone and he never found out who it was.

Hilarity.

[Ifalna]

We had a turkish guy in a raid back in the old BWL days, who while on vent started screaming expletives while massive booming sounds came onto the channel, then went quiet. We were all terrified, and stopped raiding while trying to get in contact with him as he slowly afk'd out and dissapeared.

3 hours of worry later he arrives back, there had been a massive earthquake, and he had run out to check the girls run out of their homes from the bathroom in the nip. Now that was real drama.

[Canasou]

I wonder if sales would have been different if on the TBC trailer when Illidan comes out they put up a subtitle that says, "Note: 98% of you will never actually see this guy in game"An outstanding point!

[Ðeceased]

Sounds like excelent parents....

this


We had a turkish guy in a raid back in the old BWL days, who while on vent started screaming expletives while massive booming sounds came onto the channel, then went quiet. We were all terrified, and stopped raiding while trying to get in contact with him as he slowly afk'd out and dissapeared.

3 hours of worry later he arrives back, there had been a massive earthquake, and he had run out to check the girls run out of their homes from the bathroom in the nip. Now that was real drama.

and holy fudge!

think the worst I've come across was on my old server, when this guy was complaining about stomach ache. He began describing what was wrong and it became pretty obvious he was in the midst of a hernia and had no idea what it was.. needless to say we ordered him to go to the hospital immediately.

[Tonuss]

I have never had the hardcore raider mindset, so I always went with more casual guilds. It has always worked out for me, there is very little drama and what little there is I can usually avoid and ignore. When I started playing WoW some friends and I formed our own guild and we just invite RL friends/family and any friends we make in-game who play as casually as we do. The guild has gotten pretty large and we have a pretty good time. We've only ever removed two or three people for trying to cause drama, and those removals were early and quick.

If you are going to raid, you will wind up dealing with some of the headaches that come with it, it's hard to avoid them. Considering that you are taking ~30 competitive people to do something that is pretty frustrating for a shot at a reward that you'll replace in a couple of months, it's pretty impressive that any guilds manage to progress at all. But I can afford to see the glass as half full, since I am nice and happy in my casual guild. :)

[kllrwlf]

I wonder if sales would have been different if on the TBC trailer when Illidan comes out they put up a subtitle that says, "Note: 98% of you will never actually see this guy in game"An outstanding point!

Quite sad really... for the old-world content, the only raid I've been in was UBRS, and maybe 2 bosses of ZG. No MC, BWL, and whatever else I missed.

For the level 70 content, haven't seen any of the raid content. When I go on mmo-champion and read about all the new content that's coming out that most won't see, it's pretty lame. (Yeah, QQ.)

My current goals are just a little bit more Arena (just for the Mage's staffs), a little more BGs (for a couple of armor pieces), a couple of the remaining 5-mans (just to finally see it), and I'm shelfing this until the next expansion.

Multiboxing definitely gave life back to WoW for me, otherwise, I would've shelfed it 2-3 months ago.

[Mak]

Wall of text has been said enough, but more to the point of your comments.

I can't possibly agree with you more. I'm so sick of guilds, and 5 boxing really saved WoW for me. I surely would have quit without it. Anytime a guild tries to tell me how I should spec, how I should gear, what I should do when, I know that it's time for me to move on.

The point about cliques forming is another thing that causes problems for me as well. Unless you form at the start of a guild, it just seems too difficult to become anything more then just another player in it. I can't stand that "big guild" feeling, where you're just one other person swimming in a lake of other players, completely meaningless and just another filler for a group/raid. The only guild I ever enjoyed was my very first guild I was in back on my home server, and it's because we were all the ones that formed it. I guess this goes back to the clique thing, except this time around I was part of it, instead of one of the other members that were just there.

At any rate, I'm done with guilds aside from having one for my own little group. I have very little interest in anything that requires more then 5 man, and that has been the case since long before I started multi-boxing. Multi-boxing just enhances that further.Wow, I couldn't agree with you more. 5-boxing definitely saved WoW for me because I most definitely wasn't ready to quit. After experiencing some WoW drama that went into RL, I had to get away. I still wanted to experience five man content and when I found this place and found out that people were "soloing" heroics, I was sold. Gearing my toons up myself on my own time without ever having to PUG it with rejects who complain and whine is one of the best things about multiboxing imo. I've never run a 25 man but I've run a 20. I've been to Kara multiple times on my old, now-retired mains. I've seen it. Now I want to do things my way. I can't wait to hit 70 =P









I just like the traditional dungeons & dragons inspired fantasy and Blizzard's playstyle is unmatched from what I've seen. From level 1 to pre-raid geared WoW is just awesome and I love playing it, but then it just dies for 98% of us.

I completely agree with this. I have a 70 hunter in T5 in a bigger raid guild. We are on Hyj/BT and quite honestly, I'm getting bored with it. 4 hours or wipes, bitching, pointing finger, etc. and for what? 6g repair every time I die? I would almost prefer to roll a toon to 70, get some decent gear and then re-roll something else just for the hell of it. I also have a 70 dwarf war in decent 70 blues :D

Then I found you guys! :) I have about 4 or 5 different 2 man teams. I'm trying to figure out what works best for the way I play. So far I like my dual hunters or dual mages for pvp, and my mage/shaman for pve. None of them are past 30 so I REALLY can't say yet, but meh.

I wish I could afford the 5 man teams, but 2 accounts is about it for me for now.Yup, I roll another toon just for the heck of it. I love the old school dungeons and doing them again is always exciting to me for some reason. I love getting loot that didn't drop the other times I went through.

One day, when you can afford it, you'll five box =P I'm still not sure I can really afford it either but I figured, my sister spends probably close to $75 a month on clothes, makeup and other girlie stuff. I'm not such a girlie girl so spending $75 on this is my entertainment. She enjoys that, I enjoy my geekiness.

Answer? Multi-boxing. Bringing the fun back into wow. Limitless amounts of class combinations and tactics. Micro management through the roof, and you can only blame yourself when it all goes pear shaped. Although I wouldn't totally rule out raiding. You can still take a member of two of your team to a raid once in a while. Kara is a perfect multibox friendly instance, just have to find a guild with way too many tanks and healers, hehe. Yup, having no one to blame you is awesome and another very appealing thing to multiboxing for me. And yeah, I do the same thing. I'm planning on subbing in my friend's priest for my healer when he's on. He's slowed his playtime to a crawl so I'm left to play by myself. At least with 5 acc'ts I can progress on my own and with him when he's around. And our dream of "duoing" 5-mans can officially come true.

[Dor]

I personally enjoy the 25 man content along with the rest. I just raid 2 or 3 days a week mainly and mess around multiboxing the rest of the time. I agree that. without multiboxing, I'd have quit WoW by now, but I'd def miss large scale raiding if it was gone. There is a diff feel learning the higher end content (yeh I know it ggts boring after youve learned it and do it ad nauseum). I think the main thing is to find a mid range guild -- not hardcore racing thru content or dedicated 5 man artists. Just raiding 2 days a week allows me plenty of time to do whatever else I want in game ( and out for that matter). Maybe I just got lucky that I landed with a huge guild that has all lvls of play in it. Surely there are other guilds out there like it?

I guess the main thing is figure out what you want from the game and find a guild to fit that.

[Jaws5]

I started to pvp because of raid and quild issues. If not for pvp and 5 boxing I would have ended wow play long ago. PVP (rank14) used to be on par with best raid gear about 2 years ago. I grinded for 5 months got it and show the dumb quild leader what I thought of the DKP system and most of stuff going to his alts.

[aetherg]

I spent quite a while as the main officer/raid leader of the top raiding guild on our server. Raiding can be a lot of fun. It's not a better or worse experience than soloing; there are different frustrations, but also different rewards. The problem is that, with a raiding guild, you are managing a large team of volunteers with no physical connection. It's an incredibly complicated situation. In order to raid, you need 25 people. Honestly it wouldn't matter if it was 20, or 15, or even 10. Anything with about 10 or more people will run into issues of logistics.

This is because most people take offense to having to sit out (not a reference to Vyndree by the way; that was a specific situation). Personally I think it's immature to refuse to sit out one night a week, but I can sort of see the point that, as a person paying to play a game, you deserve to get what you want out of it. Whether I like it or not, I can say from a lot of experience that at least 99% of skilled WoW players will refuse to sit out more than once a month or so.

Unfortunately, virtually nobody has a schedule so stable that they can raid 5 nights per week, every week, all year long, with no vacations. That sets up a huge conflict. If you have precisely 25 raiders, you will never raid, because someone will always be missing. But if you recruit more than 25, on some nights they will have to sit out, and as a result they will become angry and quit.

Attempts to deal with this are mostly futile. Attempts to recruit 'backup raiders' never work. Nobody likes being a second-class citizen, even if they agreed to it upfront. Getting friends or recruits to fill the extra spots is unreliable, and usually results in a couple of spots filled by subpar people who don't come prepared and need all the strats explained to them for every fight.

A raiding guild is like a sports team, except none of the players are bound by contracts, and there are tons of other teams that they can switch to in seconds. Imagine the chaos if basketball or baseball players could switch teams in seconds, on a whim.

So this is not really about WoW; this is something that comes up everywhere. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the problem, and I don't think there is a solution. You just have to pray that you get lucky and find 30 people who are skilled, mature, always volunteering to be the first to sit out, always wanting loot to go to someone else, and have fairly stable schedules. The chances of that happening are next to none.

[Bollwerk]

Didn't read all the replies, but I just wanted to say that I've been raiding in WoW and EQ since they were each released. I enjoy it quite a bit and I've been fortunate to usually be in guilds that treat people well (for the most part). Some guilds are bad, some are good. It may just take some trial and error (or research) to find one that isn't filled with jerks. (ironically, I'm in a guild called Tabula Rasa on Dragonblight-US)

[Kyudo]

Whilst I agree with many of the points made by the OP and other posters, I feel I also need to play devil's advocate to a certain extent.

I love boxing, although my current frustrations are around my hardware... 8800 GFX incoming, hope it sorts the issues.

However, nothing can really compare to those server first, guild first, greater than the sum of their parts feeling of 40 man raiding back in the day. I've never been a loot whore, but 1 shotting Onyxia 2 days after hitting 60 and downing Nefariran 3 weeks after we started BWL was SUCH a buzz to me. I screamed how much Ioved my guild on vent.

Things have changed since then and I'm more of a Wow cynic... I never really did it for the loot, but I did love that feeling of a group of people gelling and excelling at their classes

I quit raiding due to 1) burnout and 2) personal circumstances and there are days that I miss it.

I believe overall that Blizzard do a good job of balancing the amount of "hardcore" content with other 5 and 10 man stuff. And have improved drastically in this area with Heroics, and general TBC content. I also believe this is set to continue, so despite some minor frustrations, I'd give Blizzard props for that. The game needs "Bleeding Edge" content to attract a certain type of player, and for lower geared players to aspire to, but there is also plenty out there to do for more "casual" players.

On the theme of guilds, yes it's a pretty hard balance to strike, but tbh I make my selections carefully, and have yet to get what I didn't expect out of a guild. My hardcore raid guild pre TBC was exactly that, and set it's rules accordingly, but Vent chat was super funny, and people helped eachother out, my PvP guild did loads of Pvp and wiped continuously in the few raids we attempted (par for the course). My casual/semi-casual guilds have also been that, and pretty much what I expected them to be. Wow's player base is virtually as diverse as the people you might walk past every day in a major city, fit 25 or 40 of them in the same room and there is bound to be some conflict and personality clash/divergence of goals, that's people, that's life.

Just my 2c

[Silly Gooooose]

Is the big V back? Y@Y!

[Nitro]

Ya, I hear you.

I've had good luck with guilds on a personal level -- in fact I'm probably going back to the remnants of my old guild, <Anarchy>, which Suvega used to lead before we just didn't have enough people to do the content and merged into other guilds. The hardest part is finding a guild that aligns with your goals and is going to stick to those goals, whether it be pve, raiding, pvp, leveling, or whatnot.

The guild all this drama happened in, <Negative Bro>, had very clear cut goals and was first in server progression many times. I understand the need for min/maxing and knew what I was getting into when they asked me to spec enhancement. The problem is, if you min/maxed my gear and professions with the other guy's gear and professions, we're near equal if not weighted a bit more on my side due to LW drum buffs. Furthermore, I had been in the guild for 4-5 months with no problems, whereas this other guy /gquit his guild at the promise of epics. If they were having a problem with their old enh shammy quitting, you'd think they'd want proof that the new one wouldn't just quit on a whim, which I had shown.

In any case, I posted on WTB Vyndree ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=58382#post58382') as well about the circumstances of my being benched for raids. :P

I'm curious, did your guild leader/raid leader ask you to respec enchancement or was that something you decided on yourself? (didnt seem clear in your blog)

[Achor84]

The hardest part is finding a guild that aligns with your goals and is going to stick to those goals, whether it be pve, raiding, pvp, leveling, or whatnot.
Thats now my current problem.....
I'm in a very nice guild but my goals are little different than the guilds one.
I love PvE and the Guild also love it, but they love it too much.

PvE is for me Leveling, Crafting, Dungeons (and Raiding).
For the guild it seems Raiding and Item-hunting is numero uno - Ok, I won't say Progressing in Content is bad but Item-hunting is it.
(I also know in the Game Equip is very important - but I think it couldn't be >all)

At the Beginning (when we were ~10 member) we said that we want to see Content (for the BC-Starters also PreBC content - which I'm really in love with) but now all Members now only know heroic und Kara...
And so I farm solo Scholo, Strath with my Mage after wipeing/raiding in the Raid and I have more fun .......
Because of the size (and the equip and expirience in raids) we could only do Kara and there is no alternation.
No Zul gurub - No Ony - No Mc - No Bwl, Naxx- No old 5er
"Because there is no Item, which is needed on 70."

I think the problem with raiding and guild is that people who played PreBc know that Equip and Progress is drifting away everyday a little more because of the new addon and so
""99% of skilled WoW players will refuse to sit out"" and so they will become Itemhunters and Egoists.

I know that only Chars, Gold and Craftingskill is not fading.......
But no one, who I have spoken, think about it.
So, I don't know what do to..


So for me the answer is simple stop putting the emphasis on 25 man content. Start developing more 5 and 10 man content. No, I dont think this could be an answer.
The Problem is the Size itself.
two 10er Raids = 20 People but you need 25 to raid "Highcontent".
--> 5 people, which are pissed...

If you have a lot of 10er, you would create a lot of little-sized Guilds (which would have only 10-15 Members) and so for me it wouldn't be a MMO (more a game with a hugh Coop-Mode :S ).





I understand the need to have someone geared out for tanking, but if the damn thing is a minor upgrade for you, but a huge upgrade for another tank, for gods sake upgrade the other guy so that you don't have to have the raid rely on ONE FREAKING PERSON because hes the only one geared out.

Unfortunately, A LOT of guilds don't think this way. They simply follow some sort of DKP system, and if you're ahead, you're ahead. It would help progression alot if people were smart about upgrades./signed.
Its really sad.

[Floxt]

the only time that i have ever really enjoyed being in a guild, was when game progression/goals weren't decided by being in them. i played asheron's call for years, and the guild system was totally different. it was actually more like being in a gang, to be honest. your guild tag decided who you would attack and wouldn't attack, and breaking the rules had repurcussions. this is in fact game drama, but it was "intentional." you could progress though the entire game on your own, or with all of your friends. didn't really matter either way.

the only guild that i have really enjoyed in wow was with real life friends. we didn't progress that far, but it was more fun and you didn't have to worry about being betrayed by your friendly guildmates. there are just too many opportunities for faceless morons to screw you over for purple pixels in raid guilds.

[Quix]

I was a member of a pretty hardcore PVP guild from other games (U.O., SHadowbane). I firmly believe that this guild was killed by WOW raiding Setup & loot mechanics.

After 3 years of WoW Most of the guys are still playing,ostensibly because they are waiting for the next big PVP game, but hardly talk to each other anymore.

It was sad to watch online friendships that had lasted for 5+ years across 3 different games fall apart in the 1st 3 months of wow.

[Vyndree]

I'm curious, did your guild leader/raid leader ask you to respec enchancement or was that something you decided on yourself? (didnt seem clear in your blog)

I was specifically asked to gear myself up as much as possible for enhancement for Tuesday's raid on the previous Thursday.

I have never been remotely interested in enhancement prior to being asked to gear for it. Which is why the only items I had were kara boots that someone looted to me instead of d/e'ing on accident, the offhand from ZA since it dropped and our fury warrior had been farming it for weeks (fun to put in the "do not trade" window), and the decapitator... because it's always fun to throw an axe at something.

[aetherg]

Ideally you gear out the undergeared tank, sure. But, 99% of the time, the geared tank is going to get pissed off that a new scrub who's only come to two raids just got the one item that he's been waiting 2 months for. And he isn't entirely unreasonable in doing so. Who knows whether the new guy will even stay with the guild? Maybe he's just showing up for the first couple of weeks, then he's going to go casual? You never know; all you know is that one tank has been to every raid, and really supported the guild (hence having a ton of DKP), and one hasn't.

DKP isn't used because it's the best way to gear out a raid; everyone recognizes that it isn't. It's used to promote the idea of participation = loot. It makes life much easier (drama-wise) for the officers who are volunteering a lot of time and effort, and get absolutely nothing in exchange.

[Gadzooks]

Hello, first time post, long time lurker, battle scarred WOW Forums MB defender...

Honestly, guild drama is one of the main reasons I'm multiboxing. I'm only dual boxing right now, but later in the year I want to expand, with 5 being my goal. I was in a guild on Dragonblight from the first couple of months of the game being released (I forget when, but I met them in an Uldaman pug), up until last January, when it finally gasped it's last. I felt like I'd lost a family, when that happened. We were a VERY casual guild, and if you wanted to raid, you could leave, and come back when you wanted. We had a guild alliance that got us to MC, too.

After that, I tried a few guilds with a couple of friends from that guild, and I just have to say, most guilds are either real life friends, and as a newbie you feel like a total fifth wheel, or it's constant drama and the MT leaving and fighting and bickering and endless politics. I play this game to relax, not mimic work!

So I pvped for a while, really got into it, got pretty good too, but then felt that same bad attitudes creeping into BGs - the same constant complaining, whining, politics, being insulted when we lost, being insulted for trying to win...I just snapped, and did'nt play for 2 weeks.

I thought it over, and gave it one more try. I had a couple of alts I wanted to level, so I decided to MB.


I'm hooked. I don't have to pug, I have my OWN guild, thankyewverymuch* (best 20 gold I ever spent), and I'm enjoying the game like i did when it first came out. Forget guilds, they're just either glorified pugs that fall apart when the epics stop flowing, or they're cliques that most of time you don't want anything to do with anyway. Now I log on, close the chat window, and play, stress free...well, except when my druid and mage get pwned by those fricking oozes in The Hinterlands. I mean, WTF, they're made of JELLO, but they hit like a truck!


*This is for Vyndree - the guild is called "Cake Or Death" - that might give you a BIG hint who I am. :)

[Kel]

Just read Vyndree's blog and that is despicable treatment from a guild (and guild leader).

As to the guild/raiding situation as a whole in wow I have hope that it's not all bad. I do think that the large numbers of players needed cause issues, at the same time I think the feel of 25 man content is more intense than 10 man content (I don't pine for the 40 man days though as at my level of raiding that was probably at least 10-15 slackers each raid, now it's more like 3-5).

I'm an officer in a fairly casual raiding guild (SSC and TK 3 nights a week) and it's hard sometimes to balance the dedication needed in raids to actually make progress whilst keeping it 'fun' for people. That being said I like to think that we're a lot more understanding with people's feelings and the effort they put into raids (I'd never treat anyone how Vyndree was treated there).

I enjoy all aspects of the PVE part of the game, but I don't think I'd ever be a 'hardcore' raider. I like 25 mans for the challenge and sense of achievement, but for just plain having fun and relaxing I much prefer 5 man instances.