Because so many players have taken time out it can sometimes make filling raids more challenging for those who didnt eat their whole bag of lollies in the first few hours.
Within More than Raids it hasnt yet had a huge impact because we arent one of those guilds who charged in and spent EVERY raid night doing nothing but ICC. We still run BC content for giggles and rep, we still level toons and we still go off and kite random dragons into Gadgetzan just to show them the AH.
As a guild we try to keep it in house and try to keep the fun in the game. Yes it means we progress slower, I know that the hardcore raiding guilds have killed the LK and cleared heroic modes and we are still facing off against the LK but I think overall our style suits us well and no one walks away with indigestion sick and tired of doing nothing but ICC.
Think about Christmas day -Do you want to be the kid who rips into all his presents within 20 minutes of being awake, getting lots of toys and fun things but knowing within a very short time that there is no puppy and then spending the rest of the day thinking "Is that it? what an anticlimax"
Or on the flip side the kid who has to sit and eat his breakfast looking with gleeful eyes at the pile of pressies on the other side of the room, he then finally gets to open a few presents and plays with them for awhile, always checking the pile for movement or trying to work out which one will be the puppy - maybe a voucher for a puppy or a puppy bowl to show youre going to get it tomorrow, then the family lunch more pressies and then later on dinner and a few more pressies... all day the potential for the puppy arriving is there.
Yes at the end of the day they still dont have the puppy but they have an awesome day with lots of neat things and wow that was fun and maybe the puppy will come next year.
Unwrapping ICC for us as a guild has been a bit like looking for the puppy.
The positive side for us is that it means that there is fewer competition from active raiding guilds so we continue our recruitment but these days we can be a little more selective. Sometimes I will think - oh god can I /gkick that person they are a pain, but given a bit of time and guidence most of them settle in well and then there are some exceptional people who blend in so well you would think they have been here forever.
We get short tempered at times, we get frazzled and sometimes burn out sneaks in but then we go off and do something random and stupid. We find other things to amuse us and all the while we can have a laugh at the daft things we do along the way. .
...Oh Hell... aka the defile or the ledge
... Hello Dragon
..... Hello Dragon 2
...Gnome darts anyone?
.... Bugs I see Bugs
These days we have 80 members with 207 toons but due to RL commitments, raid times (those in America find 7.30pm ST a bit of a stretch) and other such things we still have difficulty forming a 25 man ICC raid purely within Guild. As previously mentioned we have this week completed 9 Bosses in ICC 25 with a co-guild run with Ascended. Alas they now have only 3 active members due to the aforementioned hibernation and migration to other guilds so we find ourselves back at square one.
So again I went off to census to see if perhaps there was a better time to consider raiding to maximise the attendance within guild and all it shows me is that our raid time is smack bam in the middle of the peak time. Yes I could do a poll inguild to get the same result but to be honest my guys SUCK at such things. There is always the same group who answer these things but the ones who dont show up for raids are inevitably the ones who also dont visit the forums regulary or answer polls!
The result of all my Ponderings...I know now what I already knew.
Sadly the solution to the ICC25 raiding isnt jumping out at me yet so in the meantime we have decided to fill as many spaces in guild and pug the rest with friends, associates and the totally random (hope they arent an arse) trade pugs.
SIDELINE:
Cataclysm is said to be being released in 2010, but there has been no public release date issued so it may well be in the new year before we see it on our shelves for purchase
However I found this summary of past releases
The Burning Crusade was officially announced on October 28th, 2005
The Burning Crusade was released on January 16th, 2007
=1 year 2 months 14days
(source: http://www.wowwiki.com/The_burning_crusade ) ALPHA TBC August 2006 (2months of testing)
BETA TBC October 2006 (3months of testing)
GOLD TBC January 2007 (5months after alpha)
Wrath of the Lich King was officially announced on August 3rd, 2007
Wrath of the Lich King was released on November 13th, 2008
=1 year 3 months 10days
(source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Wrath_of_the_lich_king )
ALPHA WOTLK April 2008 (3months of testing)
BETA WOTLK July 2008 (4months of testing)
GOLD WOTLK November 2008 (7months after alpha)
Cataclysm was officially announced on August 21th, 2009
Cataclysm release date yet to be announced.
ALPHA CATACLYSM January 2010 (possibly 3-4 months of testing)
BETA CATACLYSM May 2010 (possibly 4-5months of testing)
GOLD CATACLYSM Ocktober 2010 (9months after alpha)
As a result some are theorising that Cataclysm will likely be released sometime in November (If history repeats)
Footnote: Previous release dates have both been announced in September. So, wait till September and we may welll know the exact date.
You can preorder on gamestop but no release date is yet available
No comments:
Post a Comment