WARNING I MAY COME OFF AS A HARDCORE DOUCHE FROM THIS.


Ok your probably questioning what the title of this forum is about. Well here it is. Arkham has been having trouble lately. The problem with Arkham is breaks and raiding.

We have had people taking so called "breaks" that are either quitting or not coming back as planned or just plain joining other guilds. There are some people that really are just taking a break and ok thats fine idc.

The raiding problem is this.....As part of being a raider if you read the FAQ and another forum post we have which I cannot recall the name of there a certain things you must do. One is research your spec and dps rotations which I believe everyone is doing and if you are not please start to. Another problem is that people are not researching bosses ahead of time so they have a decent clue about what is going on. An example of this was Flame Leviathan everyone was like OOO shiny and didnt necessarily read anything to come prepared. People are also not coming flasked/elixered to progression raids which is a simple fix; just ask me and I can get you what you need. Notifying if you cant make it on time is another problem we occassionaly have not such a big one though.

THIS is probably the biggest problem we have though right now which is a I don't care attitude. This needs to be fixed if we ever hope to clear anything. People are signing up for raids going into a raid such as Maly and not giving it their 110%. This is quite evident after we wipe a few times when the fights just seem to get worse and worse. Stop getting discouraged after a few wipes. All guilds wipe even these hardcore ones you always hear about so stop getting stressed about it and just keep giving it your 110% or do not bother signing up for raids.

Another issue that irks me is that there are people out there who did not sign up for Naxx to continue helping the gearing process and they just come back when Ulduar comes out and bam there are way more people signing up now and then they wonder why nobody got more gear. An example of this is how a few weeks back we only had about 5-7 people a night and now we have 10-13.

Note: in order to continue raiding you must read this and post your opinion of this even if it is a hateful one you will not be wtf gkicked over anything including bashing me for something Post your true feelings about everything

Note#2: About me need a weekend raid guild over the summer also post your feelings about maybe switching the schedule to weekends unless you would prefer that I leave this is optional to continue raiding although would be helpful in my decision

Note#3 If things do not change around here I will be in a new guild very soon.

I hereby acknowledge reading the OP.

I cannot raid on weekends. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That's it. I usually pug raids late at night on Fridays and Saturdays, but if you're talking about starting at 7:00 pm on weekends, I'm simply not available.

There is no one in this guild whom I do not like. Every one of you are cool people and a pleasure to be around. Even Svlad.

But there are some key people who are missing right now, as I pointed out in the other thread. These people are key because they are students of the game, more so than the rest of us, and especially more so than I, and they have the knowledge necessary to lead raids effectively and the charisma to bring the best out of the rest of us.

The future of this guild rests on (1) the availability of those students of the game to lead us, or (2) someone else stepping up (as Sarith has done lately), or (3) bringing in leaders from elsewhere.

That won't be me. I was the perfect fleet commander in EVE Online because, harsh game that it is, I could bark orders over Vent and mother fuck people and insult their mothers and generally demand that everyone "Stop Sucking!" when things went badly, and everyone took my abuse in the spirit in which it was intended. WoW requires a much more subtle and civil approach, to which I am not suited. I am 46 years old with a very stressful day job and I am no longer interested in leading people in a video game in the evenings. I do not speak much on Vent during raids for a reason.

So Sarith I disagree with you that it is a "don't care" attitude. It's more of a "we need someone to lead us" attitude. You have done an excellent job holding things together raid-wise lately, and I am greatly appreciative for that. But you need some help.

I see Flauris saying he's coming back in a week or so. Svlad is of playing WAR and I don't know what his intentions are. Kisara's personality is the glue that holds a lot of the parts together and we miss her. I'm not demanding anyone come back. I'm not blaming anyone for being gone, because it is, after all, just pixels on an LCD screen. I'm just saying where we are and what we need to keep it together.

Me and Sarith were discussing most of what he posted for the better part of the evening, Galder offered some words as well, but I feel the forums are a great place to discuss them. It almost might get a few of us who don't visit here nearly as much as they should up and chatting.

And now, my opinion on the whole thing:

On Getting Discouraged...
I'm all for not getting discouraged because a few attempts went bad, but it has happened before, especially with Malygos. A handful of wipes on the dance has resulted in plenty of people voicing their opinion on how awful it is. But no matter how sucky it is to learn, eventually you get it and it's (sorta) fun (mostly because it's something interesting compared to most of the easier fights in there)...but you won't get to that point by getting down on yourself about it. Lucynda is living proof. 15 straight weeks of kissing the floor resulted, FINALLY, in a very shocked Paladin alive at the end of the fight.

As for Ulduar, the awful server lag and disconnects on Wednesday combined with a general lack of knowledge about the Flame Leviathan fight would be enough to bring anyone morale down. It's frustrating to get stuck on the loading screen after only having a 10 minute experience with it. What I'm trying to say here is that Yes, it's frustrating, but it's worth learning, especially when spirits are kept high due to some ridiculous vent chat.


On Giving 110%...

It's not easy learning 14+ boss fights, especially when Ulduar has just come out and very few sites actually give decent explanations of the encounters (I can't find a video of the gauntlet anywhere), but it's probably not a good idea to rely just on the raid leader's/assistant's run-down, however detailed it may be. While we ARE a casual raiding guild, being a cultist requires that you come prepared. This is probably why we offer a separate rank for raiders. While I just skimmed the huge FAQ as I wrote this section, I didn't catch a mention of a loose knowledge of encounters, but if it isn't there, perhaps we should add it. Jumping in blind, especially in Ulduar, is as bad as coming without flasks, food, water, bullets, etc.

In short, make it easier on yourself and know what's going on in that crazy place up north. Even if you only have a rough understanding of the fight, for example if you only knew what the vehicle you opted to pick did, I'd say you're at least making it a LOT easier when we actually get back in there.


On other assorted junk....

--Breaks put a strain on all of us, and the large amount of them at the same time only made it worse. I'm not at the liberty to pass judgment on who actually needed one, but I know firsthand what it feels like to be totally burnt out on WoW. It's rough, and some time away from it makes the return more enjoyable. However, most of our "break crew" is starting to come back, and I welcome them home again with open arms.

--I was equally frustrated with only 5-7 people signing up for Naxx and now we're filling out the ranks. There are still a handful of things in Naxx that we have not perfected. Regardless of how much we've heard "Naxx is boring, it's so easy." there are still pieces of gear to be had for the less fortunate of us, and fights to fine tune. Show me an evening where we get "The Safety Dance" and then I'll be absolutely satisfied with Naxx ...However, with Ulduar out and our raid calender having at LEAST 10 on it, there's no reason to complain anymore. If people are showing up and eager to raid Ulduar, I could care less about Naxx.

--While I understand where Sarith is coming from, I disagree with jumping ship. At the moment, the only two "active" officers are him and I. Galder showed up earlier tonight, but he expressed that he wasn't particularly interested in raiding for the moment being. We DO need more officers to come back, but exiting now isn't the best idea. It's the absolute LAST thing I want to do right now, and by last I mean I'd watch Kisara disband the whole thing before I started peeking elsewhere.

--There's probably a decent amount of build-up to this posting, but one crashtacular night in Ulduar probably isn't a great place to use as a jump off point. If 2 months from now we're still stuck at Flame Leviathan, THEN there's an issue.


I hope you enjoyed this mess of a post.

{deleted post} Marayla wrote:

we recently had a member kicked for this type of talk.

Please don't stir shit in a thread someone posted to try to be constructive.

This member to which you refer had already left the guild because Arkham was not hardcore enough for them, and was still hanging around the forums to complain about the guild and complain about not having been made an officer. That is not being 'kicked' from the guild.

Sarith, I apologize for having bitten into the bait and derailing your topic.

Back on topic.. I deleted a long post about my opinion when I realized that my opinion doesn't matter here, seeing as how I'm not a raid leader anymore

Best of luck Sarith and other leaders - you have a task ahead of you but I have complete faith that you will pull through with the typical AA style and kick ass, take names, and do something with bubblegum. Probably something perverse, but hey, that is the AA style.

First off, Sarith, fwiw I don't think you came off like a hardcore douche at all, but as a Guild Officer expressing his concerns. I respect that.

Some thoughts:

- People taking breaks, quitting, joining other guilds, etc is unavoidable in any guild. What is important is how we respond to it. It only becomes a problem if we allow it to be so. True, we have lost some key raiders, but we have also managed to regroup, get raids going again, and make notable progress (Sarth with only 8 and our best attempts yet on Maly). Yeah, it really pissed me off too when I saw Borukai last night at Ulduar with another guild tag, but we cant focus on what has past - people are gonna come and go. We need to wish them well (or not, w/e) and focus on adapting our raid team and moving forward.

- On the not researching of bosses: I was guilty of this last night myself and I am very sorry. I must admit being so caught up in the excitement and 'newness' of Ulduar that I didn't handle my pre-raid strat prep as thoroughly as I usually do, but only briefly scanning it. This will never happen again.

- The "I don't care" attitude: I completely agree that when you walk through the instance portal, you had better be bringing your A-game. I think everyone knows this, but perhaps the loss of some key players, the recent low number of raid sign-ups, and a perceived uncertaintly about our raiding future in general may have "broken our spirits" a little to the point where we're getting frustrated sooner than we normally would (if at all). Just a theory on my part. I must say though, that I have never personally observed this bad attitude from anyone in any of our raids I have been in. Maybe I've missed something?

- People helping the gearing process: Imo, we should not even be stepping foot in Ulduar until every raider who needs gear from Naxx has it. Or at least, treat Naxx as a raid priority, doing Ulduar only if/when we've cleared Naxx for the week. We need to gear the raid team as a whole, not as individuals. A cliche, but we are only as strong as our weakest link. It should be every raiders' responsibility to make sure that every other raider is geared-out as best as possible, otherwise people will be missing out on harder content. Leaving people behind is not what AA is about.

- Note 2: I am open to the idea of a weekend raiding schedule, or perhaps a spilt weeknight/weekend schedule such that Sarith would lead the weekend raids and Gil could lead the weeknights (sign-ups permitting). And no, Sarith, I would absolutely NOT prefer that you leave. Imo, you are a tremendous asset to AA and have done an excellent job of stepping up when the other Officers went on hiatus. And who else would we make fun of??

- Note 3: Everyone who carries the "Cultist" rank needs to resolve to make a 110% committment to turn this situation around. Sarith has brought up some very valid concerns, and it's our duty as raiders to respond accordingly. We have proven time and again that we are a strong, cohesive group of raiders that can succeed. And we will continue to succeed, provided that we show the same dedication and perseverance that got us to where we are.

I love AA and my guildmates. You're the most fun, likeable, mature (and a bit zany) bunch of people I've met in WoW. I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep this going!

And now for something completely different (who caught that reference?) -

Time for Sarith bashing: Sarith, FFS PLEASE use a comma once in a while!! I don't mind a wall-o-text, but your post was like one f-ing long sentance, lol

Oh, and my wall-o-text is bigger than yours (must be genetics)

Peace, Friends.

L

{deleted post} Lucynda wrote:

Yeah, it really pissed me off too when I saw Borukai last night at Ulduar with another guild tag

I forgot all about this. Kinda douchey to say "Yeah, I'm burned out too." Only to sneak out the back door a few weeks later.

Flasks
We definately need to bring flasks when doing ulduar since every edge helps. With naxx, i don't think we need flasks since we pretty much roll through that place.

Research
Everyone needs to do their own research. Listening to raid leaders explain it isn't good enough. I agree with Sarith on this. Perhaps it would be helpful for people (me too) to post links to wowhead or someplace that has a good boss explanation.

Attitude
I think you are seeing this type of attitude because people are bored with naxx. We know the fights and we've done them 100 times. However, it is still important that we gear up new members and alts.

I admit i don't like to wipe on maly and i do get discouraged after the 3rd or 4th time. I don't think it affects my gameplay though.

On a personal note, i apologize for missing the raid last night. I signed up the day before and meant to remove myself but work became busy and i forgot. It won't happen again.

Signups
I still try to sign up for naxx. I've been traveling for my job so that's prevented me from raiding this week (and next week).

Once my pally gets to 80 and has some better gear he will be signing up a lot to tank or heal.

While my personal opinion is that this thread kinda came out of nowhere (even if a large number of the topics were pertinent), it's nice to see sane, thoughtful discussion of said topics.

Quick aside - Sarith can't use commas, but he used a semicolon right. I'm confused, yet strangely excited by this.

Breaks - Seriously, Borukai, wtf. I thought better of you than that. I'm glad to hear that the new content has revitalized people, and I think everyone needs to give it a week to three to see how the new rhythm really shakes out. Further, sure, it's cheating, but once you get a little Uldy work done, Maly's off the pending list, guaranteed. That'll be nice. As for my return, I'm still sussing it out. As I say, there's a number of real world things I've got that are affecting my plans. Among them, I'm not on the computer very much right now, even in EVE, as real life has gotten far too interesting in multiple ways. For another, Sof's description of his life in EVE is somewhat resonant - I love this guild, I love that I had a hand in creating it, but oh wow, the amount of free time and stress that drops off when you put the reins down is slightly fabulous.

But it's also nice to feel needed. *lopsided grin*

I have more thoughts, but my coffee is low and these drugs are giving me ADD. Which is not to mock ADD, it's more to clarify, that I understand the shit out of real ADD right now.

As for Graedus saying we have cleared Naxx a million times we know the fights etc Then why do we not have Safety Dance, The undying, and all the other achievements from there?

Yes we all hate Naxx, but it's not fair to have to tell other people that want to do Uld that they cant because other raiders wont help them to get the Naxx gear they need. The core raiders we have are all kinda of pissed that we cant down maly simply because we are not paying attention. We got him to 20% we can get him to 0.

I understand if you took a break because your life got busy but to take a break come back and think we are going to come into Uld and start downing boss's is unrealistic. Uld is complex and we are use to button mashing things in esay mode Naxx.

Yes I hate Naxx, we all do but some of our members need it still so that when have 13 people on the raid list and only 8 of us show up we can rotate some people out. If we need to start doing Heroic run's or Naxx runs again then lets get it done, we are all in a guild to get help with this stuff are we not?

There have been a few post's that say we need to change things within the guild as far as I have seen it's just been text on the forums, we should get a guild meeting together and see how people feel and see who need's what from Naxx and Heroics and do what we can to help these folks out.

I love this guild, Kis is a bad ass chick and Svlad was a killer tank we need to refocus some people around and get back to owning this game again.

For me 7h it's to early for me .... with 2 kids and a 6 months old baby ...
I know i sign for raid and could make it in time .... so hopefolly i'll be able to make it in your raid later on

{deleted post} Sarith wrote:

As for Graedus saying we have cleared Naxx a million times we know the fights etc Then why do we not have Safety Dance, The undying, and all the other achievements from there?

Maybe what we need here to address this is to have definitive raid goals stated for any given raid night on the schedule. Looking at the raid calendar now, I see "Raid Night", and nothing else. I sign up not knowing what we'll end up doing. Then on raid night when invites go out, the "ok, what are we doing" discussion starts.

Not to pat myself on the back (which I never do, lol), but 7 of you have the "Less is More" achievement, because I spoke up and suggested we do it - and admit it, you all had a blast doing it (as did I). We need more of this.

I think it would be productive if we could take a poll here on the forums to get a feel for what achievements people are interested in getting and what raids they'd like to do most, maly, sarth+1, w/e, and then to set up a firm schedule on when we'll be tackling these goals.

L

{deleted post} Liqwid wrote:

Yes we all hate Naxx....

OK, call me crazy, but I really like Naxx alot. More than Kara actually (but not more than ZA:)).

I only hate the dance in NAXX

From what I have herd from other 25 man guild's is that 10 man Uld is = to 25 man Naxx.

{deleted post} Liqwid wrote:

From what I have herd from other 25 man guild's is that 10 man Uld is = to 25 man Naxx.

They screwed up when doing Naxx in terms of setting difficulty. 10-man Naxx was harder than 25-man Naxx, which is not supposed to be the case. They are meant to be equals in terms of raider competence. They say they have fixed this for Uld 10/25 (although it does suck that the tokens that drop in Uld10 are pretty much useless since they can only get you Naxx25 stuff, which is a lower level gear set...

Anyways, the progressions is supposed to go Naxx --> Uld, with OS supposedly being an equal to Naxx, and Maly being a step up. But nowhere does it state that you need to have Maly on farm to be able to go into Uld and be able to take out bosses. I know for myself, there are no upgrades for me from Malygos, at least not for tanking...

And I mentioned this in another thread, but if everything goes accordingly, the stuff that has been keeping me away from WoW should be done and over with by the end of next week, which means I should be back and available to raid on the 28th.

Saving my place because I have read it, I just dont have the time to respond right now. I will when I get time tomorrow afternoon.

{deleted post} Sarith wrote:

As for Graedus saying we have cleared Naxx a million times we know the fights etc Then why do we not have Safety Dance, The undying, and all the other achievements from there?

To me, just b/c we can't clear naxx without dying doesn't mean people are not bored with it. There was nothing like the Heigan fight in kara where sometimes lag will kill you.

I like Lucynda's idea of having achievement goals to make this type of content more interesting. I've cleared the spider wing about 20 times and, especially now, it's always more fun when tyring to get the achievement.

A lot of people haven't taken a break or refuse to raid b/c they are sick of naxx. I think they know what obligation they have to this guild and i'm glad we are continuing to raid in svlad and kisara 's absence. They did a lot to keep this guild together and i think sarith and others are doing the same thing now.

There are some very good points brought up so far. I do think we need to give it a few more weeks before we can make any concrete comments on how raiding is going. I personally would not mind going back to Naxx to help others get better gear if needed. I found quite a few of the fights fun but the area as a whole could just drag on.

Looking forward to the next raid and will see you all tomorrow.

Another reason to like Naxx....well besides the dance which brings up several peoples repair bills thanks to lag. The rest usually has people not dying ever. Plenty of gold from the many bosses in there. If you are geared up, go for the gold . If you think you don't need badges anymore, think again, every ten is a frozen orb which sell rather well in the AH.