Comments on: Schooling for the Raid-Challenged

By: Balerion

Balerion — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 03:40:27 +0000

That thread should have ended at “we gave him one more chance” when it was a known fact that the hunter in question was a known bad egg on the server.

As for raidleaders, they shouldn’t have to hold any individual hands. Imagine having to recruit the right class balance for a fight, come up with a strat, explain the strat to the masses, tolerate the endless questions in vent or whispers, etc etc. only to have to explain to Druid001 about how to heal? No thanks. By the time someone is past Karazhan, they should know how to spec and play their class. Respect raidleaders, it’s only a matter of time before they’re dousing themselves in gasoline and lighting themselves up in frustration.

By: Foton

Foton — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 03:09:59 +0000

Good commentary about raiding, Dominik

By: Dominik Gabler

Dominik Gabler — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:42:50 +0000

It’S funny but by far the most successfull guilds i’ve been in always had at least 1 outstanding raidleader.
For a loot raid the raidleader can be shit and it might still work, but if you want to progress you need a raidleader who kicks ass.
I used to be a pretty good raidleader in vanilla wow (up to AQ when i quit because i had enough after 18 months of raidleading). The problem is though, that if your raidleader has to hold peoples hand during the raid he will burn out mighty fast, because the raiding itself stops being fun for him.
In the end the “system” we used to keep our raidleaders “interested” was that we had 4 guys doing raids, and even switching during raids so the others could hang back for a spell and smoke a zigg (or rant if necessary). Then when we reached whatever encounter required the “big guns” our guildmaster would take over “leader” (meaning he arranged groups before and during the fight if necessary) and i took over briefing and Vent command.
To be honest i admire people who can do an entire 6h raid alone, because personally i couldn’t. We generally divided into at least 2 sometimes 3 parts (e.g. person A does group setup, person B does Loot in general, person C says what to do and who to kill). That only works though if person A and C are a team.

Now after this rant off topic, back to topic:
During Mc -> AQ i have tought at least 60 players how to raid (our server had almost 0 old EQ players). I’ve explained what to use, what to enchant, who to target first, who to talk to improve your spec. I’ve tried to teach people how to walk a circle (hello c’thun), i’ve explained how to keybind assist buttons, etc. etc. etc.
Frankly at some point even the worst player has either learned the necessary skills or his trial is over. We had a complete newbie walk into AQ40 and do C’thun as a priest on first try without error, because he ACTUALLY LISTENED to what we said. If the recruit hasn’t reached that stage within a maximum of 3 weeks than i am sorry but out you get.

I do not know that hunter you quoted (frankly i don’t read classboards anymore) but his idea of what a raidleader should do is rather insane. How excactly is he supposed to do all that while actually leading a raid? it’s hard enough at times to play your own character decently if the encounter is hectic (an old joke inside my guild was that on every single first kill i die at some point because i am too busy to scream at player X to dodge whatever AOE the boss is doing)

@Mena: some guilds think they require a public image to recruit successfully. Other guilds have figured out that the only thing you need to recruit is success. Our standard response to drama on the board (never nearly as big as AFK gamers drama) was either: “kicked from guild” or “it’s all the elves fault” (guess what race my char was)

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:56:59 +0000

Mena: Yeah, I unfortunately ended up as a guild officer for a while and then got guild leader dumped on me unexpectedly (ancient history). Not a raiding guild though, although those few people who came through wanting to turn it into one sure tended to make life difficult on everything else. Looking back if we’d been smart we’d have just said “nope, go elsewhere to get your purple pixels,” but hey, we wanted to make people happy, and thought it would be fun to work our way up to end content. Of course we could never do it fast enough for those folks’ taste, and they didn’t want to put any effort in themselves, so naturally things broke down.

Much more relaxed about my play now, which I like better! 🙂 It’s fun to read about others’ drama here though, naturally. *grin*

By: Mena

Mena — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:31:00 +0000

@Heather – “Good” and “real”, two seperate things though. Totally respect your opinion – it’s great when people see things differently and it doesn’t end up with “Oh yeah, well you suck” and so forth. I like you! 🙂

Tbh, I was involved in guild management for quite a while and have recently “stepped down”. Is likely the difference for me here – still close enough to it that these types of things as posted in WoW forums, still boggle me. Why go thru that? But yeah, it is entertaining…well, at least as long as my guild’s not involved in it! :p

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:57:19 +0000

But if they didn’t post long winded replies we wouldn’t have laughter fodder.

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:50:51 +0000

Mena: Sure, leaders emerge, and it's great when they do. But to expect that someone who's organizing a raid in a video game must be a leader, and must fit one's own definition of a good leader, is over-the-top and, frankly, just plain silly.

By: Krones

Krones — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:00:58 +0000

Whomever uses sugarplun is a charlatan. And I’m sure all the true “real leaders” in WoW will become a Messiah around level 99, and in true zealous leadership they will save their flock from the damnation that will be Everquest II: Lost Tribes in Space or World of Warcraft II: Ark Peons, whichever comes first. Doesn’t get more real than that.

By: Acid

Acid — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:58:15 +0000

lol @ Cyndre

By: Cyndre

Cyndre — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:24:02 +0000

@Mena: The long winded rant is a requirement for the WoW class forums. It actually won’t let you submit a reply that is less than 27 paragraphs long and has at least 15 claims of superiority over another of that class.