Raid Day
Yes, today is Raid day. Lovely, awesome, gut-wrenching, panic-attack inducing raid day. Figuring out who gets to come and who has to alt out is so stressful sometimes, but being a casual raid guild with lots of DeePeeEss, it’s what happens.
We use a really good system for sign ups in AC. The addon in our phpBB forums is called Event Registration by a guy named Netizen Kane, who if I met IRL I would give a big ol’ snog on the lips. Seriously this addon is awesome for raid set ups. Back in the day when AC was still trying to figure out this whole raiding thing, we used an in game addon called GroupCalender. Boy was that a disaster. GroupCalendar was a great addon for 5 mans, but it didn’t update unless people were logged on and whoever was logged in had the updated list. So suffice to say we got people who would sign up for Kara, but come raid day, the list of sign ups was all overbooked or crazy and things were just a mess.
Having people comment on a thread in the forums wasn’t always perfect either because, admin wise, it’s a lot to weed through. With everyone’s name at the top of the thread, things are cake.
At least, technically. Then there’s figuring out group synergies for the fights you’re about to experience, and that’s always rough. Some fights are AoE friendly/necessary, others are melee god sends (though so far, melee gets the shaft a lot in SSC/TK).
Then there’s Murphy. He’s such a bitch sometimes (pardon my french.) The sign up looks beautiful, people are logging on 15 mins before invites, everything seems like it’s going spectacular… then someone cancels, or a key person is missing and no where to be found. In most cases you can adapt, bring in the alts at the 15 min time before pulls, and now that warlocks can summon into instances, bringing in an emergency alt is no longer the epic time sink it used to be.
But sometimes you can’t adapt, too many people miss out, and then there’s no raid for the night. Epic bummer. If that happens, devolving into a Zul’Aman group or two is always a bonus. But people will be bummed, and for me, having people bummed sucks. So you tackle the problem right away. Round up the officers, figure out what went wrong, and from there try and correct it.
You know, for a second post, this is pretty random in structure. I’m making some kill videos, so all I can do is sit here and hum musical interludes. ^.^ I’ll try for something a bit more thought out Friday. As soon as YouNoob is done digesting the vids though, I’m posting them!
But for now, I’m curious: What does your raid leader/s do when raid has to be canceled for the night? I’d like to think that life happens all over and I wonder if other successful 25 man raiding casual guilds have off nights like we do.
3 Responses to “Raid Day”
Well my guild is only casually doing Kara with eventual hopes of 25 mans. We only took down Prince about two weeks ago and this last week his infernals screwed us everytime.
There are two problems we have repeatedly though. We don’t have enough dpsers on and have to pug a person. Or we have 3 out of the four tanks on and I always feel bad that at least one of the of tanks has to sit out because its another week they aren’t getting potential gear. I always hate it when someone who is on can’t come along because we’re full.
As far as when we had to cancel our one guild leader has recommended either trying to get attuned for preBC raids or running Heroics.
Our guild is just moving into Hyjal/BT, and more and more often it seems that we have nights off. We’ve transitioned from using GroupCalendar to using a post-on-the-forums deal, but I’d really like to find something similar to your system.
Anyways, those nights off do happen, and sometimes we run ZA, sometimes we run Kara for badges, and some nights nothing at all happens. Being a casual guild, it happens, and people get a bit frustrated about it, so we’re trying to improve ourselves and make sure it doesn’t happen very often, if at all.
It reflects well on your raid leaders and officers when they react positively to a night like that. If they say ‘oh were giving up, this sucks,’ and that’s that, everyone walks away frustrated, but if they say ‘okay we dont have the right group for SSC tonight…were putting together a ZA group and a Kara group, whisper me for invites,” everyone will be much happier, even if you go into ZA and only kill 2 bosses.
Sonvar – I remember way back when AC had problems fielding a Kara group. Those times were always a pain in tush. Once you start growing though, things should even out.
Just wait till you get big enough to field two groups… that’s always an epic mess XD
Pledioch – Gratz on the move to Tier 6 content! We’re almost there XD Just an A’lar kill away, then we’ll be working on Vashj and Kael. Our RL of Awesome feels we could probably handle Rage in MH, but we shouldn’t be in there yet until we’re seriously working on Kael and Vashj.
But yea, as for nights off, they happen. We had a week or two of regression back in Feb, cause lots of life was happening for Jas and I, but when your guild is full of friends, it’s a lot easier to deal with. As long as you show you’re proactive with any issues, things will turn out for the best.
At least, that’s the theory ^.^
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