Stormrage Raiding

[Tal]

Hey gang - its recently come to my attention that a lot of our late 50's and our 60s are getting a little frustrated that the Lurkers on Stormrage aren't raiding regularly to get ready for the end-game content. Many of these folks have been waiting (in vain) for me to pick up those reins and start organizing a regular raiding night for places like Onyxia and Molten Core. Unfortunately this is one of those occassions where I will not be able to step up and organize things.

I simply do not have a regular enough schedule to allow me to set up a set raid night. My wife works two nights a week and I usually work one of the others (usually Thursday but not always - sometimes I work Tuesdays). My wife works two saturdays a month, I work one weekend in 5 so the weekends can be somewhat out of the question for raiding as well. Does this mean that I will never raid? No, of course not. Just that I can't make a commitment to organizing and running things.

Also having a designated raid master, at least in my opinion, seems entirely too guildish and not enough "playing with friends" for my taste. So what I would like to let everyone know is that if someone from Stormrage would like to step up and start organizing a regular raiding night that is just fine with me. I should also point out that you don't really need my blessing on this event either. I'm guildmaster to help keep us on the principles that Mongo posted oh so many moons ago, not as a power play kind of thing. ;)

I'm hoping that the person(s) who set up the raiding night will keep some of the following in mind:

Loot
I've been on some recent raids with the Lurkers, Carpe Arum, and the Basin where there have been the usual pubbie loot rules in place. Things like "Only one set item per person, don't roll outside your set, one blue per person roll on all BoE." This is a great starting point for raiding. I would like to inject some common sense into this. If there is only one warrior in the raid and a second piece from the Valor set drops (not likely but you never know) it is stupid to not let him have it. The better equipped the raid (and guilds) is/are the better everyone's chances are for a successful outcome in places like Onyxia's lair. Same with the blue rule. If someone can make good use of it (ie its an upgrade that is going to be used by the character in the raid) then distribute it appropriately. I'm hoping that what I've just said will not be necessary for those who are involved in raiding. We haven't let it get in the way before now, there is absolutely no reason to allow it to start in the raids. If we do have outsiders in the raid then it is imperative that the loot be distributed in a fair fashion. The last thing I need to see when I log in is a complaint from a person outside the guild that a Lurker ninja'd something from them. ;)

Friends
The Stormrage guild is a group of friends playing WoW together. While we may not always get along it is important to keep this in mind and try to talk things out in a rational manner. I'm always happy to mediate misunderstandings and personality conflicts but I have little patience with folks that are expecting me to punish whoever wronged them. I have enough occassion to discipline in my personal life because of my high spirited daughter - please don't expect me to do it in game. :P

Fun
We're all here to have fun together - keep that paramount and all will be well. :)

I've had a tremendous amount of fun playing with all of you and am honored to wear the Lurkers tag in game.

[Ynir]

If you need a defense warrior and a Lurker is not available, please whisper Spangles. She would love to join you if she can.

She has all the keys, including UBRS, if that helps.

[Quark]

Loot
I've been on some recent raids with the Lurkers, Carpe Arum, and the Basin where there have been the usual pubbie loot rules in place. Things like "Only one set item per person, don't roll outside your set, one blue per person roll on all BoE." This is a great starting point for raiding. I would like to inject some common sense into this. If there is only one warrior in the raid and a second piece from the Valor set drops (not likely but you never know) it is stupid to not let him have it.
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While we state the usual rules, it's really only there as a guidline and because we usually have a few slots filled in by non-guildies/friends. It may be fair to us as a guild that someone gets 3 blues in a run, but poor pickups can get shafted because of that.

Whenever a 2nd item drops that's appropriate for one person in particular, we make sure everyone is cool with it before he gets it. Sometimes it's treated as a greed, with the winning greed guy getting compensation (say, a shard) from the person that wants the item.

The last two nights, a warrior not in the inner circle ended up getting two blues for themselves. The first, in LBRS, a nice blue armor dropped after already getting Valor. On Teamspeak we mentioned it'd be nice to give it to the warrior, though he graciously said he'd give it up for greed. We greeded, Rothgar won, and said "the item is yours" :)

We just really have to be careful of people outside the circle. I got 3 blues in one Scholo run, but I made sure everyone was cool with it before I grabbed anything.

[mjdoom]

Hello all,

This particular issue (of potential raid nights being scheduled and the like) has been discussed a bit in the background by some of us over the past week or so. Some ideas have been kicked around but nothing of any consequence has been decided thus far. I personally love getting as many Lurkers as possible involved in events and so it is with that in mind that I invite anyone with any ideas on how things could be run to talk to Skan or myself. We have begun to formulate some ideas but input from any and all sources would be greatly appreciated.

As Tal mentioned, I also do not want to be some authority over anyone or try to impose anything, but I think it would be highly beneficial to many of our members if we tried to form some sort of schedule for people to work from for raids and the like. This is very hard to do without someone to organize and disseminate information in a concise manner.

I would like to set up a "meeting" on my Teamspeak server (chatting by voice is far superior to typing IMO) at some point in the near future with an open invite to anyone who is interested in what direction we want to take this. If anyone cannot join Teamspeak for some reason we can still all party up in a raid so that ideas can still be tossed around, but I'd love to get as many people on TS as possible. Look out for some sort of announcement in the near future (and please feel free to send any thoughts you may have my way).

I'm willing to throw what time I have in to facilitate a smoother experience for our capped and near capped Lurkers. This is by no means an expectancy that everyone can be involved in these activities, nor is it a discouragement to others to set up activities outside of this. It is simply an opportunity to create a more regular outlet for Lurkers to get together and have some fun.

And now on another note:

Loot
I would like to inject some common sense into this. If there is only one warrior in the raid and a second piece from the Valor set drops (not likely but you never know) it is stupid to not let him have it. The better equipped the raid (and guilds) is/are the better everyone's chances are for a successful outcome in places like Onyxia's lair.

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There was a situation very similar to this on one raid a few weeks back. The incident itself is of no consequence at this point but suffice it to say that as we are able to do more runs as just Lurkers (or with close guilds like CA) I know we can all handle this just fine. We are a bunch of friends here and we all like to help each other out so loot shouldn't be an issue. Let's strive to do our best to distribute loot to the maximum benefit of the people involved. That is all I have to say about that.

- mjdoom

[Raelynn]

I'm coming up on the time when I'll be joining in on raids. While I'd love to have a consistant raiding night, I doubt I'd have a schedule consistant enough to say "I can reaid every week this day".

As for the loot stuff, I haven't done much in those higher level instances, but I'd have to agree with everything that's been said so far. If it'll benefit someone who will group with us consistantly, it's worth giving the item to them so as to make the group better for subsequent runs.

[Quark]

Many people have talked about establishing a set "Raid Night" where we definately do just that, leaving other nights open still, but having a specific day to know we're gathering. That's great, but just know that I have no say in this right now ... being in limbo makes me unable to give any time specifically until I figure out just what I'm doing after Saturday :blink: