The possibility of Weekend Raids?

[Yuen]

First off - Wow! Congratulations on the Onyxia kill - very impressive! And with only 33 players. That is saying something :)

There is only one thing a little sad about it though - myself and a number of others (mostly Aussies) currently can never be there on raids with you guys :(.

At the moment the only days that have been set for raiding MC and Onyxia are Monday and Thursday at 8pm. This corresponds to Tuesday and Friday 10am for us Australians. (Yuen, Mishy, Mishian, Strats, Gooze, Soulstealer). All of us work and can almost never make these times. (I was the exception over the past 3 months as I was working night shifts, and used to play after I got home in the morning).

I was always expecting to run into these time zone problems - being an Australian playing on an American time based server with a guild that has a majority of its members in that time zone. However I would ask that can we at least make *some* raids to be planned for the weekends? ie Friday 8pm and Saturday 8pm (which would correspond to Sat and Sun 10am for us).

I desperately want to see that stupid cow Onyxia bite the dust, and to set foot in molten core side by side with the Lurkers, CA and all the gang.

I respect the organisational nightmare that the raid leaders go through to make a raid acutally work. And I know I am creating more work for you guys by asking to deviate from the Mon/Thur schedule. But I'm not asking for a permanent deviation from the current working arrangement, just the occasional scheduling of a raid on the weekend.

Please guys. Consider it? :)

[Tal]

We can do that Yuen. I'll get with Darian. :)

[Yuen]

Wow - that was a seriously quick response... I only just pressed post :)

Thank you Tal :)

*hugs* (Mishy gives you a *hug* too)

[Darian]

So, here's the thangdiddle...

As time goes on, especially when we cycle into opening Molten Core on a Thursday, we're going to need to run on the weekends to make progress. If Thursday goes well, we could very well be making an attempt to push further into MC over this coming weekend, in fact.

I'll keep you posted. :)

[Tal]

So, here's the thangdiddle...

As time goes on, especially when we cycle into opening Molten Core on a Thursday, we're going to need to run on the weekends to make progress.  If Thursday goes well, we could very well be making an attempt to push further into MC over this coming weekend, in fact.

I'll keep you posted. :)
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I'm right out this weekend on any daytime raids as it is one of my one in five weekends to work. I will be around in the evening. :)

[TheDragoon]

I'll get with Darian. :)
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:blink:

[Tal]

:blink:
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Speak with him dirty-mind. Chat. Talk. :P

[Pesmerga]

My availability when it comes to weekends is suspect. Sometimes the fiancee is being nice (or being asleep) and I can come on, other times, I spend the entire weekend running around. However, I think it's a great idea.

[bonemage]

I hope I'm not too off base by mentioning this, but the horde lurkers on Terenas play every Friday evening (US Mountain timezone, two hours behind the eastern Stormrage realm), which corresponds to Saturday late mornings to early afternoons for you. We are not raiding Onyxia yet (not close, most of us are in mid 30s, but endgame content is the goal), so it wouldn't fill that need. Obviously it means rolling and leveling horde alts, but if you're looking for consistent lurker grouping, that's another option that might fit your schedule better. We'd love to have more lurkers joining us, if your schedule allows for you to play horde alts in addition to your Stormrage main characters.

[Ruvanal]

So, here's the thangdiddle...

As time goes on, especially when we cycle into opening Molten Core on a Thursday, we're going to need to run on the weekends to make progress.  If Thursday goes well, we could very well be making an attempt to push further into MC over this coming weekend, in fact.

I'll keep you posted. :)
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While I am on US eastern standard time, my work schedule tends to preclude even bothering to come to the Monday and Thursday raids due to having to be in at work by 6:00am the next day (frequently the raids are not even entering the instance for 30-60 min after the intended start). As such I quit bothering to worry about even qualifying to participate in many of these late evening raid starts. It has also blocked doing a variety of instance runs also.

The only problem with the continuation on the alternating weekends that you are talking about is that those of us that cannot attend the first part of the run are going to consistently be missing the start of the instance. As progress is made on being able to penetrate into the Molten Core, there will be progressively more and more of the start that a segment of us would never get to see and experience.

[Darian]

While I am on US eastern standard time, my work schedule tends to preclude even bothering to come to the Monday and Thursday raids due to having to be in at work by 6:00am the next day (frequently the raids are not even entering the instance for 30-60 min after the intended start).  As such I quit bothering to worry about even qualifying to participate in many of these late evening raid starts.  It has also blocked doing a variety of instance runs also.

The only problem with the continuation on the alternating weekends that you are talking about is that those of us that cannot attend the first part of the run are going to consistently be missing the start of the instance.  As progress is made on being able to penetrate into the Molten Core, there will be progressively more and more of the start that a segment of us would never get to see and experience.
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I feel your pain, Ruv, and really wish you'd been able to join us. The problem, in a nutshell, is that the endgame in WoW (and pretty much every other MMO) is a total pain in the backside for folks who have real lives. Just to illustrate, when CA started the Thursday thing, it went kinda like this:

Nobody's ever on Friday night, and people often have plans Saturday night.
Tuesday night's a bad plan because the servers are never stable after maintenance.
Wednesday's bad because many of CA's folks work overlapping shifts, and the overlap day is. . . Wednesday.
Key people also worked Sunday and Monday night, so. . .

As for the 8pm Eastern start, I wouldn't object to starting earlier, but if anyone gets stuck at the office late (like me two Thursdays ago, or Anadrol last Thursday), they might not even get home until the raid's well under way. . . much less have time to get home, grab something to eat, etc.

I definitely want to try and accomodate everyone, though. One possibility: Next Thursday is an Onyxia night, the first of the two in that cycle. If we take her down then (and on any successive Thursday Onyxia run), perhaps breaking into MC on Sunday would be the thing to do.

And you make another good point (which will hopefully be alleviated as people get used to this) -- even with an 8pm start, 8pm is not 8:40. We've got to get better about getting things started on time. I'd recommend people plan to be logged in a half hour before the scheduled start, so that they can whatever they need to get done in town done and either get to the instance or get summoned and be ready to roll at the start time. Running close to the line on bodies, this is more problematic, but if we get to the point where we've got more than 40 people who want to go, being late is going to equal missing out.

What would really help is if we had a master list of when everyone can normally be expected to be available. . .

[LochnarITB]

What would really help is if we had a master list of when everyone can normally be expected to be available. . .
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Don't know if you really wanted to start such a list here, but I'll post my info just in case.

Lochnar - 7pm to 7am every day :blink: (possibility of 5pm server with sufficient notice to plan the day ahead of time)


As a side note, MC attendance is, at this point, up in the air. I have attempted to make as many optimizations as possible on my comp, but have not yet tried them in MC. The last two Onyxia encounters have been smooth as silk, so maybe MC will be better. If they don't allow me some input during the worst fights (such as everyone in a cubbyhole fighting a crowd of imps currently lagging me to a standstill), I will have to pass on the MC raids. I certainly wouldn't want to, but I would just be a liability. The only other hope I would have is to get access to one other machine on raid nights. I don't hold a lot of hope for that either. It has a better graphics card (but not great - geforce fx5200 128MB), but has less memory. Oh well, I will do my best to get it worked out but just want to give a heads up.

[Darian]

If they don't allow me some input during the worst fights (such as everyone in a cubbyhole fighting a crowd of imps currently lagging me to a standstill), I will have to pass on the MC raids.  I certainly wouldn't want to, but I would just be a liability.
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Loch, buddy, I can guarantee you that during the sort of fight you mention, you're less of a liability than I am, and I have a beast of a computer. I have to try and select a target to beat on in the midst of a mass of pixel chaos, whereas if you're mostly stuck, you can at least spam AI. ;)

[LochnarITB]

whereas if you're mostly stuck, you can at least spam AI.  ;)
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Yeah - we wouldn't want people suddenly getting stupid in the middle of a fight! :P :lol:

[Mirajj]

Weekend raids would work for me...every other weekend, much like my current availability. Working rotating swing shifts makes for some interesting attendable raids.

For instance...The only way I will ever (if we stuck like glue to the Thurs/Mon Onyxia/MC rotation) see Onyxia again is if I take time off work. The Thurs/Mon we are scheduled to fight her...I'm working, either days or nights, so I miss it, either way. But I'd make every single MC run we had.

Tossing a weekend in there now and again would be a benefit to me, to be sure. I'd make it, every other weekend. ;)

[Onan]

Not getting much of a response from my fellow CA Peeps.

I personally would be more than willing to do a few Saturday raids, but my attendance would be erratic at best.

edit: my spelling is "eradic" as well...

[Sabra]

Friday night is date night, but we are generally home by 8 or 9 pm.

Saturday night is usually excellent for me, as Gabe dives on either Saturday or Sunday, so he's either not home or trying to get to bed at a very reasonable hour. If we go out, we go out early.

Tuesday nights are the only nights when I simply cannot make any commitments.

Due to a change in my work schedule, I can start earlier on weeknights now, but that just won't work for most people.

[Quark]

Weekend nights work for me, but currently weekend days do not - my "weekends" are in single day allotments splattered throughout the week :P

[Pesmerga]

Weekend nights work for me, but currently weekend days do not - my "weekends" are in single day allotments splattered throughout the week :P
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Speaking of which, you need to take off on August 21st. I don't want to suffer through the Bridal Shower my fiancee's family is throwing. I'd rather drive 15 minutes and hang out at your house. ::nods::

[Yuen]

I definitely want to try and accomodate everyone, though. One possibility: Next Thursday is an Onyxia night, the first of the two in that cycle. If we take her down then (and on any successive Thursday Onyxia run), perhaps breaking into MC on Sunday would be the thing to do.

Sunday is bad for the aussies because that equates to our Monday mornings.

Other than Friday and Saturday nights, what about the possibilities of Saturday mornings? That would be our saturday night and would also work.