Friday nights are actually best for myself and Fyedaddy, and I tried several weeks in a row to get some dungeon runs (my old weekly thread back then ) going back in the July/August timeframe, but only once did anything work out. I think I was bumping up unwittingly against the SGA Friday night raid time.

Thursdays could maybe work. I just can't really go past 10:30ish Central on worknights. If needed I can occasionally push that to 11 or at the absolute worst 11:30, but that really taps me out for a day or two for workdays. Being a Thursday evening that would be mitigated somewhat.

Friday nights or Saturday nights I can push it to 1am if absolutely needed (much preferably midnight), so obviously that's more flexible on timing.

I've never felt comfortable enough to run dungeons or events in an mmo before, so it says a lot about how great the GWJ community is that I've organized one event (and tried a few more) in the short time I've been here. I've seen great efforts from several people like Fedaykin, and Littlerr has been trying hard to get stuff rolling since he joined in too.

On the giving advice front, I'll be the first to admit I'm still learning how to play my character within a group, but one thing I hope we avoid is outright telling people exactly how they "ought to play" their character. Stuff like exactly what talent build you need to pick, and what order to use abilities without deviating, that kind of thing. General advice is great, especially if I'm doing something completely ass-backwards and it's not working. But I know that Monorr and I especially love figuring out our own way to play characters while also integrating advice from people with a better understanding of game mechanics. I know that I've been in a few pick-up groups back on Feathermoon with Monorr where people thought we were looney until they saw how well we worked together, but I also know that especially with raids, there will be other tactics and concerns we'll need to keep in mind to work as a team.

So basically what I'm saying there is I'd rather hear stuff like "here's how these three abilities work and how I've had success using them" rather than "okay, you need to use this seal, then this judgement, followed by this specific rank of heal on the MT, then this seal" or "flash Ability A repeatedly X times and follow up with Ability B". That's not advice on playing a character, that's giving marching orders. I'd hope for more flexibility and experimentation in guild-only small group instance runs, but I acknowledge that in a full 20 or 40 person raid it's important to do what the raid leader is saying.

I only bring this up because I've had problems with this in the past in various games (including WoW) from well-meaning people, and it can really kill the fun of the game.

Wow... that was a heck of a side-topic, but I've been trying to figure out how to bring it up.

Farscry - your point is well received.

It is not my intention, nor should it be anyone elses, to give marching orders or make anyone feel like they can only have fun within strict confines. What I mean by "advice" is more of a clarification of different roles within groups and how to best assist the team in a group scenario.

For example...I want to start some of the lower endgame instances (BRD, LBRS, DM) and see some of the other warriors in tanking roles. I have a number of things I'll be watching for but I want to evaluate their abilities in this capacity and try to see if I can give them some pointers as to how to do it more effectivley. I also want to try to get a feel for the types of warriors we have (i.e. Tanks or DPS). I've played both roles and I think I can help either with some pointers or some advice.

We have veterans of most classes within the guild that can provide feedback. I never want it to cross the line of "learn2play" or something equally derogatory. But I do want to offer an opportunity
to get help where help is needed.

I also want to focus on game mechanics in instances. Aggro radius, Pulls, Crowd Control, Focus Fire - these are all things that we need to practice with the people in group scenarios.

Actually Deep, for the most part I've found that the advice/help given within the GWJ guild is exactly the kind I'd hope for. Our group on Sunday was a good example of that; I've done the healing role (and off-tanking) as a paladin in a group, but not main tanking. You gave excellent advice and feedback, and I never once felt that you were telling me directly how to play. I apologize if I gave the wrong impression, as that wasn't intended!

Your description of how you want to approach "training" us newer players on group and raid tactics sounds like exactly the kind of approach I appreciate and will learn a lot from, and I'm definitely looking forward to it from you and the other experienced guys!

And Fed and I continue somehow to forward the "twins-separated-at-birth" theory...

I can say that, as long as I'm in a group with someone, I will never be penalizing anyone for making mistakes. I make plenty enough of my own, I'm sure. This is about having fun and ganging up together first and foremost. Would I get irritated if you kept killing the group by doing the same thing over and over and not listening to us when we explained why that action was too dangerous? Sure, that'd different. But making simple mistakes, or experimenting with different stuff (like the infamous Mind Control incident we've chuckled about here recently) and finding out it doesn't work; well, that's all part of the fun of playing the game and figuring out tactics!

As for the level difference, I don't know if you guys have noticed, but I've gone from 46 to 52 in the time it's taken most of you to go from around 25 to 40+. So, no fear, you're catching up just fine as it is for me at least.

Hopefully when I re-spec (either the free one with BC or, if I get a little gold up, ahead of time - I'm tapped out from buying enchanting mats for skilling up...I think as of yesterday my level 18 druid had more cash than my 40 main) that won't be as much of a problem, Pur. I also need to learn to use some of my abilities to take care of those situations. So far I've been stunning anyone who attacks a cloth wearer, but that doesn't always do the trick. I have the bubble that I can cast on another party member that's supposed to be good for those situations, but it has a long cooldown (5 minutes I believe).

In BC, Pallys are getting some new abilities to help grab back aggro as well.

Unfortunately, it's fairly tough to keep aggro as a paladin, at least on more than one mob at a time (and sometimes even then). It's possible, just tough, at least in my experience so far. One thing that works well, and in my group Sunday with Merdee, Deepsee, Kyrator, and Amrily (for the life of me I can't remember how to spell her name!) they did it, is that I would run in first to anger all the mobs except one, and Kyrator and the others would totally tear that one apart, then move to the next, and so on, so that I was able to decently keep aggro on the ones they weren't actively engaging yet. I'd occasionally lose aggro to the priest(s), but it was manageable.

I still felt a little under-useful at times, but they assured me I was doing well, so I must have been doing better than I felt I was.

Yes, this is a good thread. Many points raised that are right on. A couple of further thoughts:

1. Level 50s can run Sunken Temple with one or two 60s and practice many skills (tanking, marking, off-tanking, crowd control, focus fire, etc.). That is a really fine 5 toon raid for that purpose. I confess that I've never run BRD, but my guess is that experience would be similar, and perhaps a bit better because of the fire resist/fire damage issues (pre-Molten Core, which I also have not run). A level 60 compadre makes the run a bit more manageable, and can help avoid mistakes that might result in a frustrating night of corpse running.

2. On feeling under-useful: in raids, each toon class has a role to play, and it ain't always glamorous. Read WoW forums to see the gripes of many ('locks are famous for this; so are priests) who are not "topping the dps charts." The fact is, it takes more than dps to be successful in a raid. There are many components: each has to work well or "WipeCity." See, e.g., the GWJ/ToF run against the Blood Lord in ZG last night. First two attempts--ugh. Third, magic. Healers worked in conjunction with tanks; positioning was right; everyone paid attention to "being watched" warnings. Boom--down goes the boss. Couldn't happen without priests/palys healing. I've learned to adjust my sights a bit. It's a cooperative thing. (20 toon raids are "controlled chaos"--makes 5 toon raiding pedestrian by comparison).

3. Start times: Don't know what to say about it. The Killer Bs run Pacific Time and that knocks us out of some fun stuff. We also all have pretty strict RL constraints that prevent us from more than 1 or 2 logins per week. Raids are infrequent and a treat when they happen. So, for us, 5 to 10 man content is king. Burning Crusade will be welcome with smaller raid groups, provided that we can gear up for them. But I will keep playing as long as I'm having fun (hell, I play some times when I don't), and this guild keeps things fun.

Keep on swingin'

We had a blast last night in UBRS (freaking bug I guess stopped us) and we didn't really have the typical UBRS group. We had a tank (Deep) an offtanking druid (Snizzles), 3 hunters (Troll, Nightz, Sorry Can't recall Number 3), a priest (Phaer I think), A healign Druid (Khush), Only 1 Mage (Lyserg), a rogue (Me) and I think a pally?. We did very well (even with my sheep breaking!) until we got bugged on the mobs on the event with the dragon. A few people this was their first run and it was a blast all around I think. Some of use were playign alts and probably haven't done UBRS yet with them and were learning to be "good" at the roles our alts need to play and we all did well i think!

We need more of these thursday night runs! I would have liked to have started a wee bit earlier but with the SGA Ony run before it wasn't possible.

I'd also like to do some PVP runs.

That's my biggest thing; I don't often have the immediate flexibility to make spur-of-the-moment stuff happen (though when it does, it's usually a blast like ZF was this past Sunday afternoon). But with some warning, I can often make a time work into my schedule.

Thanks, man. And I've always liked your avatar.

Deepsea - Regarding Tanking... I know it's a ways off... but once I'm on a non-sh*t connection again, you can count on Reap for MT or OT. I don't have much experience beyond Scholo but I like to think I've got a pretty solid grasp of what's required. My preference is OT DPS but if you need an MT I can always pull my toon off my PvP server and bring him up as my MS DPS toon.

And looking at what is scheduled... holy crap, that looks awesome! I'm really keen on the PvP idea for Sundays.

In short, I look forward to being back to reserve status with the military and back to active status with WoW.

Deep - I didn't mean to sound like I wanted to break away from the SGA or leave them behind in anyway. I have the utmost respect for Dusty and gang for they do. I only meant that speaking for myself..and maybe others, that the current SGA raid schedule is confined to weekends, which for some people (due to commitments..wife..kids..family...friends..out of towners) is almost impossible to make. The current GWJ-ToF raids on Tues,Wed, and Thursdays are much easier to make and that it would be nice to maybe run a 40 man on one of those days if we got to that point.

Speaking of the schedule..should we go ahead and decide as a guild what we wanna do for this Thursday (9-28) to give people a heads up? I know several people still need the blood from Drakk in UBRS.

My only question on this is the same point I made back in the thread you first posted regarding GWJ and the handoff from Leaping to you (which, again, has been a very nicely handled transition!):

If we have enough GWJ people up to go on a raid together, but there wouldn't be room for many (if any) SGA/ToF people, but an SGA/ToF raid would leave out a fair number of GWJ people who then wouldn't have enough to do a separate raid simultaneously, here's the main concern:

Who are we more willing to leave out in the cold: GWJ Alliance members or SGA/ToF members?

[edit]and to be clear, this isn't meant to be some sort of aggressive statement, it's just a concern that I'm voicing plainly. I'm not good at mincing words, I just lay my thoughts out there.

But let's say we've got twenty-five guildies all ready to go do one of the Burning Crusade 25-man runs. Are we going to say that we can't do that, that we have to do an SGA/ToF group-up instead, leaving out 10-15 guildies from being able to go because there aren't enough others interested as well?

I'm just mildly concerned and curious.

[edit]To further clarify, this isn't about asking us to withdraw from either of our associations, or about supplanting the current plans. I'm more curious if this is something that'll be possible on occassions whenever we happen to be able to get a big enough all-GWJ crew who want to go.

Exactly Cope.

And Bounce is correct - the agreement with ToF is a 10/10 format (it's normally GWJ that isn't capable of filling 10 people - something to consider there)

The main thing I want to highlight is that we have a lot of friends and allies in both the SGA and the ToF and it would be dumb for us to not continue these alliances in the future. Many of the questions you're asking have been raised a number of times in the past Fars. The bottom line is this: We'll have to wait and see.

In my experience GWJ Alliance goes through phases where we begin to reach a sort of "critical mass". The talk of GWJ only raids gets brought up and frustrations begin to set in. I don't want to have that happen here.

If we get to a period when we have 20+ level 60 regulars on we will evaluate where we are and we'll open discussion to possibly making attempts at GWJ only large scale raids. But I again want to emphasize that we should not ostracize the friends that we've made along the way.

With that said I beleive there are going to be a lot of things that change when the expansion comes for a number of reasons. We're going to see huge increases in server populations. We're probably going to see a lot of people returning to the guild. There also appears to be a focus on smaller scale instance groups in the expansion. So read between the lines here. More people in the guild + Less people required to run new content = Alot of new opportunities. Again, the bottom line here is: We'll have to wait and see what happens.

As pointed out above we'll cross this bridge when we get to it. If we have situations where we are routinely leaving GWJ members out in the cold we'll address it I assure you. Our problem is usually the opposite, we don't get enough people participating.

This type of scenario is a long way off. I haven't even seen a GWJ-only UBRS raid in a long time. We just don't have the required participation at this time. Every one of the 10-man UBRS raids I've been on in the last three months or so have needed reinforcement from our allies. That's why we have them and why they have us. We complement each other.

I also want to point out that we can't just count up all of the 60's in the guild and say "see there's 20 of them - let's go to ZG now!" That type of thinking will ultimately lead to frustration - ask Bear. The last time we approached a point where GWJ-only 20 man raids seemed within our grasp it ultimately led to a split in the guild because we couldn't all commit to the same schedules.

Remember that we host a number of different playstyles. And we have people from all over the place. Different schedules, different commitments. I would estimate that in order to effectively schedule a recurring raid plan of 20 people you need a pool of at least 30 eligible participants to draw from.

It's taken a long time to get to the point we are now. We have TWO successful raid groups that we are associated with. That's a huge opportunity that we have that the majority of people simply do not have in this game. There are certain time commitments that are very difficult for some people to make in a raiding schedule. They aren't easy. Unfortunately they are necessary to promote the success that everyone wants to acheive in the game and in the raid.

I also want to address this: "but an SGA/ToF raid would leave out a fair number of GWJ people". I don't think this has happened to any large degree with either organization and I don't think it will for the forseeable future. If you're interested in raiding - get involved with our allies. Both of our raid groups offer excellent opportunities for people that have the desire and the commitment necessary to join in. They won't leave you out if you put forth the effort - but remember it does take time.

Be Patient