Well, as mention some time back, I decided that the only way I was going to progress any further in WoW with my Tankadin, was to find a decent raiding guild. My first attempt at this endeavor failed terribly, so I went back to my old friends only guild to hang out and figure out what my next plan of advancement would be.
As stated in a previous post, I got invited, by someone I had met in game, to come raiding with his guild. Sure, I was a PuG, but I'd always had fun doing dungeons and such with this fellow, so I figured, I'd give raiding a try. It was a great success. Everyone liked my gear and was impressed that I had managed to get a good bit of it from badges and heroic dungeon crawls. They invited me full time into their guild. I accept after chatting with my friends and making sure that the new guild didn't raid on the night my friends and I would be hanging out together. One thing I learned from the previous experience, don't turn you back on friends, or burn any bridges. Because when you run away from home, you might end up coming back to stay when things get rough.
The new guild had not issues with me taking Wednesday night to hang with friends, as long as I didn't run any 25 man content, which, as I think I stated before, we are very very far from doing. So, I said yes and became a member of Tsunami on the Darkspear server.
Now, so far things have been, well, fantastic. I did some research, by watching videos on tankspot.com, for the raids we had planned, mostly 25 man Trial of the crusader and 25 man Onyxia. I made sure everyone of importance understood that it would be a learning curve for me, only because I hadn't seen the fights in person. Videos and strategies are fine, but if you've never been in a fight, you really don't know how you will react till your there. I just wanted them to know that I would probably screw up or be slow doing things required of me, but that if they were patient, I'd get it learned and we should excel from that point forward.
They did explain as much as they could, and with the assistance of the guild's main tank, a very nice Death Knight, I managed to get pretty far. We got most of the 25 man ToC done in one night and the next raid night we did 25 man Onyxia with out so much as a wipe. We then traveled into 10 man Ulduuar so we could get badges and gear for some who had just leveled up their alts. I've also son, 10 man Onyxia and 10 man Trial of Crusader and finished them as well. The loot system for the guild is via council. Now some would argue that a loot council is a bad thing, and normally, I would agree. Basically, a number of officer see what the loot items are, then they ask those who can use the item to link their current item to see if the gear is worth replacing. If so, they will either award it directly to the person needing the upgrade the most or make them roll for the item if its a upgrade for both.
The problem arises when people, who have played together for a very long time, tend to reward items to friends over strangers in the guild. Or in some odd cases if a friend of someone they dislike needs the item they'll reward it to someone else just to spite them. This does happen. Emotions can run high when it comes to the all mighty purple item that everyone must covet.
But in the case of this particular guild, they reward the item to the person who needs the item the most, because they understand that if they as a group want to advance, their members must have the right gear to do so. Since most of the tanks in the guild currently have fantastic gear, because they've been raiding end game content much longer than I have, they graciously pass on the gear so that I can upgrade and become a better guild tank. What this means is I've been getting really wonderful loot. I've gotten probably 4 or 5 pieces since I stated raiding with them 2 weeks ago. They aren't stingy with the gear at all.
Another great thing is they don't chastise people too harshly for making a mistake. The guild leader has been known to call out people who do start passing the blame around when a boss fight fails or things just don't go well and the raid wipes. The atmosphere is very casual, but yet business like. You have to be on your game, but if you make a mistake, no one remembers that, they only applaud you when things are done right. I've made mistakes I'm sure, but they are quicker to point out when I do something right as opposed to most other guilds I've raiding with who won't explain the fights and start yelling at you if you do something wrong. How can people expect others to stay in a guild very long when they have an off day and people are yelling at them? Its a game, not work or life threatening. There is no need to beat people up for making a mistake that they are pretty well aware of in the first place, because they made it. I'm sure they aren't jumping up and down, proud of themselves for wiping an entire raid of 25 people. Instead they probably feel bad and don't need any further pressure from a bunch of know it all's who just want someone to point the finger at and yell. It doesn't bolster any extra self confidence to do it right the second time, I can tell you.
Anyway, I'm having a blast. They are a super bunch of people who are more interested in finishing a dungeon for the bragging rights as opposed to getting tons of loot and badges for themselves. They just want to have fun and be competitive, which I greatly appreciate.
The problem is all this raiding and fun is making me miss a lot of sleep, especially since Borderlands has come out and I'm spending a lot of much needed sleep time playing it late into the morning hours.
Well, I'll speak more on this other great game in another post.
Look, if your unhappy with your current guild and think that all raiding guilds are the same, well don't. They aren't all the same and I'm sure you'll find a great fit eventually as well. Course, it took me 2 years of looking to finally find one that I'm hoping will last longer than the 2 years it took to find them.
That's awesome man. I hope you have found a long-term home for your raider. It's SO hard to find that balance between achiever and casual.
ReplyDeleteSome of us more "mature" gamers in particular find it difficult to match temperament with some of the raiding guilds in particular, while still wanting to raid a few nights a week.
Good on ya!
Wow, the description of your guild almost makes me want to transfer a character to the alliance and try to join up. Almost... I just can't do the alliance thing.
ReplyDeleteI am very glad to hear, though, that you've got such a great home for doing raids at what sounds to be a casual and laid back atmosphere.
Eventually my wife and her friend will be up in levels and we can start contemplating what to do from there. Hopefully I'll find as good a fit as you have, but with less gnomes.
@Genda - The funny part is that all of the guild members I've spoken with on Vent all seem to be younger than me, which if funny since they are pretty laid back. Not like some of the older people in most of the guilds I've come across.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying they are perfect. On occassions, they've lashed out at others who aren't performing up to standards, but it doesn't get out of control and its not something that brings about drama, which I like. A lot of the members are friends in RL, so they have their own little jokes and poke fun at each other, which is fine, but no one has left or started calling people names and such because they didn't get a boss down or get too fustrated. If they start to rise up, officers and the guild leader will step in and quite people down, because that kind of behavior isn't tolerated, there is no need for it.
I also think I got invited because I took the time to get decent gear or gear that can be had just short of doing full time raiding and I'm not a complete tard at most times. But they don't judge. They want people to stay with the guild and do things long term. They aren't competeing with each other, but with other guilds on the server, especially the ones who left high end raiding guilds to form this one. Its been a blast and I keep getting asked to off tank or main tank stuff all the time, and I'm the new guy, and thats because they trust me. I've gotten lots of phat loot and I'm planning to stay as long as they are want me around. I'm not going to cut once I get the gear and leave, which is what happens in most guilds. They just like to raid, have fun and not be stressful. I mean, we did 3 bosses in Heroic 10 man ToC, which I didn't even know was a hard thing to do until after we did it and everyone was so excited about our process. I just want to see it, live it, and have fun, that is my main goal.
I mean with a guild leader whos main is called BigRichard, how can they take themselves too seriously.
Sounds like you found a great guild!
ReplyDeleteI hit 70 right when all my friends quit. And then I hung around until Lich King, and they all reached 80 in two days and I took 4 months to get to 77 and finally realized I didn't have enough money to pay for subscriptions any more.
Feeling slightly jealous, except I've found a home on a Neverwinter Nights server!
Neverwinter Nights was such a great game. I'm surprised to hear that there are still active servers. What a testament to the game that is.
ReplyDeleteHalfling rogue archer ftw!
@Anton - I had a similar issue. I wasn't into raiding at all. The first taste I got in WoW was a little bit of karazhan and some of the smaller 25 man BC stuff. But I grew bored. Work interfered and people moved on and I didn't know any of the new people in the guild, so I decided to try Age of Conan, which went bust.
ReplyDeleteThen I joined all the wonderful Casualties of War people in Warhammer online and after a month or two I grew bored because the PvE aspect of the game wasn't there and although I love PvP stuff, I wanted more depth to my MMO outside of that. By then Lich king had launched.
I bought it, but never really leveled any toons up, so I decided to just let WoW sit while I played some other stuff, mostly console games, picked up a PS3 and enjoyed the Wii with my Wife and friends.
Eventually, a few friends talked me into coming back, but only as a weekly thing were we would all get together once a week. I decided to level up my Paladin, which I had let sit somewhere in the 50s. Eventually, I got re-addicted to leveling so it didn't take much time to get him up to 70 and then finally 80.
Now that I'm back and fully addicted to WoW, I want this time to be the one where I finally do end game raiding, even though I hate leveling my friends behind, many of them don't like raiding, I don't want to miss this opportunity to do something I've not done before, Raid successfully.
I still hang with them on Wednesday nights and anytime I'm not raiding with Tsunami. I've even started work on getting my Gnome Mage to 80, so I can do more stuff with him and my friends, instead of being limited to what I can and can not do with my Paladin in a full raiding guild. There are rules in most guilds that prevent you from doing content outside of the collective, which is why it's safer to level up an alt at this point, no need rocking the hand that feeds the two birds in the bush and what not.