Sunday, July 12, 2009

Yogg. Down. Finally.

After far too long, we did it. Everything went as planned.





We had a full 25 people in there that could play at the required level. No scrounging around for someone to fill this or that roll, and no under-performers.

Wrath is not an easy expansion from a guild management point of view, and the length of time we took on Yogg is a testament to that. I've seen more people lose interest in raiding faster then ever before, and replacements (generally) only slowly live up to the shoes of the departed. I don't know if players new to WoW as of T7 will ever be able to develop the finely aged skills of those whom were punished by challenging content repeatedly in the previous six tiers - T7 was like trying to sharpen a blade on a sponge. I see some people that show great promise, but it's taken a long time to get our hands on them.

That, and content isn't exclusive. Once upon a time, we could have 10+ people on standby, knowing that we were one of few guilds on our server that could show them past 4/5 Hyjal 3/9 Black Temple. Now talent is spread out over twice the number of twenty-five man guilds, and countless ten man's (which can let people "see" content in an even less demanding fashion). There is little reason for a person to join a guild that can't give them a large majority of bosses each week, forcing guilds to run on skeleton crews, and causing flexibility issues.



I don't know what the future of the twenty-five man guild is, but it's been a rocky road in Northrend. We'll certainly stick to it, but I wonder how rough Blizzard will let things get.

7 comments:

Shawn Holmes said...

Guild management is a complex issue, however, in the all-encompassing game that is WoW, WotLK is by far the *easiest* to manage.

If you think trying to organize 25 people (including fillers) to be online and ready to go each week was tough...try doubling that number.

Seph said...

Gratz on downing him on 25 man! This may be your best post ever. You NAILED it on the head when it comes to this expansion. We have a 3 night raid week as well but have only been able to do 25 mans one night a week lately. The fire is just not there for these young raiders...... The 10 man's are at least letting the dedicated few kill Yogg every week and do hardmodes for Algalon but that can only tide you over so much until it loses its flair as well.... If you add all of this to dreadful recruiting, what is a guild to do....

Anonymous said...

Congrats!!

I do know that as a casual raid guild, we're no longer bleeding our best raiders out to more progressed raid guilds because they know it's the only way they'll see the content. That's what Wrath has done for us, to be honest. (We may have other attendance issues, but that's one less stress.)

Larísa said...

Big grats!
Sadly enough we couldn't make it before vacation time critted us badly. Hopefully we'll get him before 3.2 though, as soon as people are back from holidays.

Franklin said...

The fact that elitism is dead is a good thing.

The fact that the content is unremarkable is a bad thing.

Anonymous said...

Grats! I am so happy for you guys!

I would certainly agree with a lot of what you said as well. I loathe recruiting, everytime someone takes their leave from wow, I die a little inside because I have to recruit someone new...who may not offer what the person leaving had to offer. It's definately a bit like russian roulette!

P.S. Please pass my grats on to Aerti as well!

Anonymous said...

P.P.S. Don't forget to update your "about me"! That sucker should proudly read 13/14 now! ;-)