last night, Dorkonus recommended that we begin scheduling our ‘raid times’ and use them – for now – to level our 60+ crowd (we have 20+ of them) and to get ready for Kara. it was discussed in general chat and well received. in the terms of a good Guiness ad, “Brilliant!”. standing up ‘raid times’ does a number of things for us that are important to our ability to actually do raids. for one, it helps us all set aside time in our normal rl and game time that we know is going to be on a fixed, predictable schedule – and it allows everyone to have input into adjusting it so that we can cover the best periods of time (e.g. Saturday morning may be a terrible time if none of the healers are available!). it flips the mind-switch from a ‘casual online whenever’ mindset to a ‘my guild needs and expects me online at these times’ mindset. it should also shake out pretty fast if we have two shifts rather than one (i.e. some can only play at night and some only on weekend daytimes). we’ll see. for now, scheduled times will be ‘adjustable’ to fit the greater needs of the guild.
from the perspective of benefit to the individual toons, there is a defined time(s) each week when you know you will be able to get all-guildie groups to either quest or do instances/raids. you get a chance to work closely with the same people that you are going to be raiding with and learn how to work with each other and the specific particulars of each toon (e.g. just how big a heal does that healer land on average?). and of course, to the toons not yet Kara-ready, it is a huge boon because you get loads of help to quickly become Kara-ready — which in turn moves the date closer for when we can all start raiding Kara as a guild.
all 60+ should make a very serious effort to take advantage of this and all 70s should make a serious effort to support it. in other words, if you are 60 or higher, show up! granted, the initial scheduling may not suit your rl schedule and so you may need to wait until the scheduling both expands and adjusts. if that is the case, send Ironhelm an in game mail to that effect so that I don’t lump you into the “disinterested and unengaged” group! (Note, to date we do not have any of those.)
Dorkonus has recommended we start with one day a week: Sunday afternoon. This Sunday, 2 p.m.- 5 p.m. (server time), we will be working on Kara preparations. depending on how many people show up, i’ll break us out into groups as the circumstances need. later tonight, i will add the event to the GroupCalendar.
if Sunday 2-5 pm does not work for you, *let me know*. tell me when does work for you. we are not trying to edge people out, we are beginning what is one of the most complicated and difficult things to do in WoW – find time periods where we can reliably and consistently field 10-man – and subsequently 25-man – raids despite everyone having real life demands and living in different time zones!
at this point we do not really have a basis for a good feel on how often we will raid per week per raid group. (i.e. will we have two 10-man raid groups raiding twice a week each but on different days or one 10-man raid group raiding 3 times a week?) however, starting now to shake out and get sorted out will help firm up ‘how much raiding can this guild raid if this guild were a raiding guild’ (say that fast 3 times!). so send me or tell me that you are planning on raiding, which toon(s) you plan to raid on, which role(s) you plan to perform, and when you can – or cannot – raid.
see you Sunday afternoon.
