World of Warcraft

[ED]

Right first off. You cant compare rogues to priest, regarding the epic quest. Every bloody boss in the game drops a nice rogue blade. No boss drops a priest staff. Its just as easy to get warblade of hakkar or any of the mc daggers, then the eye of divinety.

Second. The only reason MALICE is at nefarian is because they have done loads of bwl. Precious is not precious anymore. If Nayson hadnt left he would have been kicked, simply because the gear standard and requirement of Malice players are top notch. So praising precious for their fast progress is just stupid.

Yup I agree, but it must be noted that when I was in Malice, they were only at Vael, as were Precious (I think). Since they merged, they've become an unstoppable machine, and deserve a lot of credit.

I'm not sure what the Benediction quest involves, but getting the Hakkar blade, or MC blades, means you have to get into a decent guild. A ROGUE, get into a DECENT GUILD (you have no idea how hard that is). Quests are open to everyone, you don't need to sell yourself like a whore to GMs to get your epic staff do you?

[Risso]

Well I suppose meleers NEED the gear more than casters maybe, as they can't do anything else without it. The shit bastards!

I wouldn't swap my Trindlehaven for anything other than a nice epic now. Despite the "Staff of the Ninja" ribbing, I've had it for months now, and rarely use anything else. With the +22 int and AI and moo buffs, I now pack a not inconsiderable 6500 mana. Not bad for a dirty hybrid gypo!

[ED]

^^You did ninja it though. Tarj hearthstoned in anger.....remember?

[TRL]

I'm not sure what the Benediction quest involves, but getting the Hakkar blade, or MC blades, means you have to get into a decent guild. A ROGUE, get into a DECENT GUILD (you have no idea how hard that is). Quests are open to everyone, you don't need to sell yourself like a whore to GMs to get your epic staff do you?

So you dont think defeating Majordomo who drops the essential part of the quest req. a good guild?

[Risso]

^^You did ninja it though. Tarj hearthstoned in anger.....remember?

How could I forget?!

"Need Riss? Need?! Neeeeeeeeed you muthafuckingnijalootinghybridbastarddirtyshammypalyloving cock sucker!"

Wasn't it something like that?! He's only have vendored it to pay for his bat fare back to Orgri anyway though!

[ED]

I'm not sure what the Benediction quest involves, but getting the Hakkar blade, or MC blades, means you have to get into a decent guild. A ROGUE, get into a DECENT GUILD (you have no idea how hard that is). Quests are open to everyone, you don't need to sell yourself like a whore to GMs to get your epic staff do you?

So you dont think defeating Majordomo who drops the essential part of the quest req. a good guild?

I'm not sure what the Benediction quest involves

[TRL]

There you go

[The_Rev]

You need one of these (eye of shadow) which drops from Kazzak, or from the level 60 elite demons in Winterspring.

You need one of these (eye of divinity) which is in the chest of Majordomo in Molten Core.

Then you need to do some mad shit in the Eastern Plaguelands.

It isnt at all easy, but you do get a staff which is probably better than anything that drops in Blackwing Lair.

[Risso]

Benny Dickshone

That it is one (actually two, I suppose) awesome staff(s)

Edit: Voodooface has got his, the jammy bast.

[The_Rev]

Anna Thema

Which is just scary. No wonder Shadow Priests with this melt faces.

[The_Rev]

My dear Dashers,

what you are about to read right now, is prolly one, if not THE, hardest decisions I ever had to take so far in view of our guild, and evenmore, our future goings in view of casuality and upper-class raiding (omg, 3rd time "Lonely Day" by SOAD now, but no need to get theatralic I suppose...).

The next lines are the outcome, of around 3 weeks constant thinking, reflecting, monitoring, arguing, and whatever else you can imagine.

What some of you heard me announcing in a lil speech yesterday on vent already shall be official now:

Dashers will get a core-raiding team.

In the following, Im trying to explain to you what led me to taking that drastical decision and how our raid future, combined with our strong casual roots will look like.

You know, m8s, back in the days, when we started MC things were a pain. I think many of you still cna remembe the endless wiping on Lucifron, still we stood strong, and went in that goddamn core EVERY week over and over again (yes, it took us months downing Lucifron in the start, months). We were crap geared, we wore greens combined with some tier 0 parts, we didnt have the members base being picky, we always were sweating blood and water that enough are signing for our Lucifron attemps, simply because there werent any to invite spontaneously if everything went wrong, and still m8s, as a clan, a team, we made it, and that was prolly one of my biggest moments with the Dashers I ever had.

Not because finally we officially announced our very own Molten Core presence on Deathwing by slaying Lucifron, not because finally the phat lewt came over us, it was because we were achieving a so damn hard goal together, we never gave up, we wiped, it was pure frustration, week after week, and all of a sudden, we kicked ourselves into a new era, and that dead Lucifron corpse was the proove, that there is more to the game and to our community, then speed raiding and pve success to all cost, as long as the items getting contributed fairly.

That spirit soon should have been cursed to be changed, and so it did.

We became skilled, we took down one boss after another in MC, we simply were "on fire" and we also attracted alot of interested applicants, who wanted to be part of our family. So we grew, made many new friends, got alot of nice lads into our rows, who have proven more than once they got the Dashers spirit, and so we venture further, only thing which could finally stop us was the manifested lava Michelin Man himself, Ragnaros, in his cooking lair.

At that time, which was around X-Mas last year, we felt strong, unstoppable, maybe even temporarly, and for the sake of our guild, we decidided to force the death of the Broodmother Onyxia as number one goal upon your hordish heads, which soon should have been showing as the first real "Test of Strenght" for our guild as a whole.

I didnt expect to experience what we all have been experiencing in those times around X-Mas myself before, that wasnt planned or anything, it just happened: right after the first few Onyxia wipes Dashers started questioning our strenght, and hit the escape button out of our guild like Lemmings, in masses.

That was a tough time, and I was shocked, to me that same old Lucifron spirit still has been present at that time, but finally, when I saw some of my most loyal chiefs and our tanks leaving, I had to face the reality, which virtually came crushing down on me ->

Times HAD changed, our spirit was vanishing.

What once has been an "Unstoppable Force" turned out having become a interspersped bunch of various egocentric motives, having the finger on the patience trigger far to fast, rdy to blame everyone and everything if just the tiniest thing went wrong and the boss-frenzies didnt happen as they were scheduled.

We did our best to confront that trend with whatever we had to offer, Im still so grateful to all of our really "ancient" members and all of my chiefs, without whome I would have been lost in that phase and I surely would have been thrwoing the towel in, if those m8s wouldnt have been proving daily to me,that there still IS more in the Dashers than greed, lack of endurance, lack of commitment, endless complaining etc., that we ARE still a team, and that we still play together after sucha long time.

We slowly raised our level of recruitment, aiming to provide stable raids and Onyxia attemps esp. to those who always stood strong, who were there, who never feared a wipe, who signed, who pushed their own gear for the sake of the guilds pve progress, who followed announcements, the list is endless, you get my point.

Finally, with our very last enourmous aching breath we got the bitch down, this was grand, and Ragnaros soon should follow.

However m8s, we made it into Blackwing Lair, and yet again the same trend occurs, visible over X-Mas, Dashers start to leave, no need to discuss the reasons here, for me it only counts if a member is a member, or if he leaves, the rest is unimportant to focus on here.

However, I tried to learn out of those multiple heart attacks I got myself back in the days, and I think I did. Instead of instantly changing something on our (raid/guild) structures when the first Dashers stated their "goodbye"s I was waiting.

I slept with one eye open, and I tried to have patience, I even still have it now. Im sitting here for the last 3 weeks, monitoring what you guys say, write, how you act, and most important, who is leaving us and it is not giving me any heart attacks anymore, it feels good for me, finally I can say that.

It is not amusing or something when someone leaves, I got a heavy heart reading postings like these, but if I learned one thing, than that I will sooner or l8er know my m8s, who they RLY are, and that goes for every single loyal Dasher out there aswell, wether you are a young or an ancient member, as long as you have the Dashers spirit, you are one of the kind and understand my words.

However, I cannot sit here for ages, respect to my guildm8s demands it, and that is the reason for this posting.

Many said it often on our boards, in raids, or in guild chat, and I will clearly say it again: measured in PvE progress BWL just is NOT the same anymore than Molten Core, it is different, requiring different qualities from every single raider, it aint an instance to farm by zerging it, like MC could be handled basically, it requires understanding, endurance, absolute discipline, a ton of morale, and presence, and it also requires gear, good gear.

Meanwhile I am sure we would be able to "zerg" halfway through BWL, IF, yes, if we only had enough signups for it. It would just take ages, raiders would cycle weekly, and once every months a new boss would prolly fall, because then the circle closed even the most casual signer got enough practice on for others well known encounters.

However, we dont have the signers.

Also, to me it seems impossible we can get through complete BWL by doing the same thing like we have been doing in Molten Core, just pushing Dashers through it.

Well, I say BWL is "hardcore" then in terms of difficulty, do we need it then?

Yes, we as a guild need BWL. Many of you are playing World of Warcraft for more than one year now, new encounters getting implemented monthly, an even harder instance is w8ing already, the Expansion also isnt that far away anymore, and also we need a voice: for the time we exisit on Deathwing, we shall not dwell in silence, we have a strong voice, the server knows we ARE there, and we wont stop, every guildmember is proud of being a Dasher, hence the ranks, proud of what we are community-wise, and proud of what we achieved in server-wide competition, which, in retrospective, is alot.

Well, yesterday, Sunday afternoon, it was time to bring my thinking to an end, watching the poor raid attendance in an obviously scheduled Razorgore first time kill, on a holy Sunday, usually MC raids are overbooked on.

The battle going on in my head basically can be narrowed down to ->

CASUALITY vs. DEMORALIZATION

because that is what it often felt to me over the last weeks, even at various Ragnaros farm attemps.

I set out the complete Molten Core, to force a single Razorgore kill, but I know(!) that the same situation will occur at Vaelestraz once again, because hes even more harder and even more frustrating.

By doing so, I am fully aware of punishing those who always have been there, rdy for a good wipe and a nice raid nite, no matter what the poutcome is and if the targets are achieved, and obviously, the effect I have been wishing from doing so, is not going to happen, its even less signups, though some of the none-signers will be the first ones to leave after having read this Im afraid.

Yesterday, we went till Garr with less than 30 Dashers, to me, a suicide mission, but hell, there it was, that good ole Lucifron vibe. We rocked through the core, focus was awesome, 0(!) afks, no downtimes, no w8ing, we just did what we are supposed to do, play an attractive high level instance with some effort, balls and success, and that underlined alot what I announced earlier on vent to me, which is that our raid structures will change.

They say Blackwing Lair kills guilds, and it does, Im watching it on all fronts, still conquering it has to be, we got so many good players within our rows, full of passion, and loyalty, they deserve it, and they also deserve the items.

So, before Im sitting here watching all the time, that BWL WILL kills our guild in either one way or another, I decided to take an active role steering us into a new direction, I think thats what a GMs job mostly is about. At least, if the ship should ever sink, I can say I tried then, you see, I couldnt live with the thought everything falls apart because some are to lazy to hit a signup button.

###################

Well, in order to finally get our pve progress going, I hereby announce the following changes to our pve raid structure, Sulfuron knows if they help us getting full and regular raids, but Im hoping, now its on you:

By Wednesday nite, 26.04.2006, 00:00 Deathwing time, Dashers shall have a fixed Core Raiding Team, hencefully known as the Alpha Squad.

Assuming an ideal raid balance of 8x5, that team shall consist of:

4 fixed players per class, 1 spot open and cycling for around 1 week.

That team is assumed to be online on Thursday nite: 6:45-12 for Onyxia and Blackwing Lair, and on Sunday 4:45-22:00 for Molten Core (might change).

The 32 fixed players will get announced soon in this announcement, the 1 pending spot will get filled from online presence of the class x, choice is classleaders suggestion and chiefs/leaders picking.

There will be no signups for that team, Im assuming, that the players of the Alpha Squad are online at those 2 dates and time, there will only be a comments thread if something unforeseen happens or anyone gets delayed.

Since it is impossible to see in how far that team is working in reality, there will be hidden queues for players, until that team is 100% stable, the rules for players selection wont be named here, but I think they should be pretty much clear anyway to everyone of you.

There also will be a lil "bench", which will not get announced and consist of those being "ready to work" to the max as often as possible, even without raiding, but being there, and rdy to jump in for the sake of our god damn pve progress.

ZG and AQ will stay like they are right now.

We have ~120 active accounts, stuffed with lvl 60s, and we STAY a CASUAL GUILD in our definition, no matter if that team is there or not, so apart from the Alpha Squad there will be a desired Omega Squad, which is there to give more "casual" non bwl gamers a chance having some raid fun aswell.

The Omega Squad is basically a signup based Squad like you are used to right now, also be aware, that chiefs are halted to loosen our recruitment borders a lil atm, so that enough players are available for both squads in the long run, evenmore enough players with spirit, we still dont invite idiots to our guild, but we want that everyone has his/her fun and keeps what he signed up to when he joined us, a casual guild with great spirit, able to kick some serious asses in instances and pvp.

In order to avoid a 2 class structure within our guild, there will be NO direct way from the loose Omega Squad to the more tighter Alpha Squad. Sometimes someone might get asked if he/she wants to join up the rank of the more "serious" team, but there will be no details given out which structure a player picking for that team is followed, also, if the Alpha Squad once is stable, this should only very rarely be the case.

Both teams can raid the same days, it doesnt matter, a mixed saving to instances would be not good though, also the players from the Alpha Squad are not allowed to save to Omega instances .

DKP, DKP pennalities, and the DKP sheet stays the same as it is now, we might think about new leaders and DKP managers once this ever gets seriously rolling with 2 teams parallely, but I will introduce those in time, when I see some serious raiding effort from those of you who came to the Dashers willing to raid, but still not able to sign properly

###################

Ok, thats it in short for the details, a list with names will follow.

I know that this will leave a bad taste to many of you, but you had your chances, several weeks, if not months now added alltogether, and I wont punish someone willing to put effort into a guilds thing any longer, by leaving him hanging in Kargath, because our guildm8s lately even sign and dont show up at all, that step has to be done imho, else its just a big fat frustration for everyone, without any achievement at all.

Again, we are still casual, so if someone doesnt want to raid or whatever, its totally fine, you can play WoW in the Dashers like you always have been doing it, this is just about the PvE raiding sector.

And @raiders: remember, 120 accounts, not a single overbooked raid...think about it, and think about the 30 booking constantly over weeks again and again now...

Ok, lets get this going, m8s, together.

shack

_________________

Does it make sense, or will it kill the guild?

Commit to raiding everything (And given the situation with Warlocks, Nix and Rubberducker seem to be the most active, myself, Bravoman and Vasha being in the the next tier, Rubberheed still new to the guild its even more up in the air with this Alpha Squad stuff) or find that there are no raids because the people who generally do raid are all in the Alpha team and there arent enough numbers to make up the rest.

Will a mass recruitment push people out further?

Hmm indeed.

[Risso]

The Evildan Phenomenon in full effect!

I give the Dashers 3 weeks before it imlpodes completely.

[TRL]

I find it quite amusing. Alpha and Omega lol. **** its a game and they make it sound like something my old sergeant would have said.

Im all for better sign up etc. But i cant see making teams etc. will improve anything. IMO the best thing you could do is award those who attend bwl with double or triple dkp.

[Risso]

So basically, no more MC, BWL or Onyxia then, for anybody not an "Alpha" if my understanding is right. They'll put "Omega" raids up, but since the most active 32 people will be in "Alpha" they won't be allowed on the Omega raids, so the chances of getting 40 other people for an Omega group are next to none I'd say.

Face it, the Dashers are on the rocky road to oblivion. The only way they'll get enough people for two teams is to have a mass recruitment drive, meaning that a load of nubs and chancers will be permitted to join,a dn then it'll be the Malice all over again.

Well done Shack, you just **** your own guild!

[ED]

Sorry guys!

[Juju]

edited.

[Risso]

Time to find a new guild methinks.

edit: Or start one maybe.

[ED]

Why? As far as I'm aware ZG/AQ are staying the same, and you never did MC/BWL anyway....

[Risso]

Why? As far as I'm aware ZG/AQ are staying the same, and you never did MC/BWL anyway....

I've done four Onyxia runs, killed Ragnaros, and had my first BWL attempt last week. Even if was single with no family, I couldn't make a 5.45pm start on a week night, ever. 90+ people are now going to ONLY have ZG and AQ. I think they might end up a bit over subscribed.

[The_Rev]

Worldwide first C'Thun kill.

And it wasnt the Americans.

And it wasnt the Alliance with their Paladins, and Divine intervention for easy OOC ressing.

It was a Horde Guild called nihilum, from the UK.

teh phat loot!