We’ve had a lot of fun and some success with the raid alliance.  We hope everyone is having fun and has something fabled to show for it.  However, it is unfortunate that we are still not getting a group of 24 regulars, as the 60-90 minutes of picking up people to fill the raids are getting hard on everyone.  We did not think that whether we won or lost was going to be a big deal for us when we originally wanted to get this alliance going, but we admittedly are unhappy that we can’t do everything we have set out to do. 

Therefore, we are going to start a new guild with a “softcore” focus on raiding.  What this means is that we want to raid a little bit while keeping a family style atmosphere.  The purpose of the alliance was intentionally not intended to uproot people from their own guilds, but we have come to the conclusion that uniting under a common guild tag will offer greater success with raiding.  We do not want to deviate far from the ideals we have used for the alliance, but we also realize that in order to avoid hitting the same walls we will have to make some changes. 

Schedule

We will still keep the 7:30 pst Friday/Saturday timeslot.  We will be much more organized as a single guild and will be able to start on time, which is a big deal for a lot of people.  The new RoK raid zones are supposed to be persistent, like Unrest, SoF, and Emerald Halls are now.  That means that we can tackle these zones over the course of a weekend without causing people to stay up until 2 and 3 am.  We definitely see adding another day to the schedule in the future after things get going.

Attitude

We want to keep the same casual and friendly attitude on our raids.  That means there will be no tolerance for drama.  We have had our share of drama, especially in the beginning, and we think we handled it fairly, more or less.  Expect similar philosophy for the new guild.  For the most part though, attitudes have been outstanding and everyone is getting along.  We do not want to lose that.

Here is what we want to do differently:

Some of these will come off sounding a bit more on the hardcore side, but we really want to set ourselves up with this mentality and then operate like we are a family guild.  Our ultimate goal is that we will get to see and do parts of the game that we normally would not get to do, for example, the new epic quest line (e.g. Claymore, SoD).

Guild Organization

We anticipate 4-6 officers with some very specific roles.  For example, we would like 1 officer for each archetype (i.e. mage, priest, scout, and fighter) who will put in some effort in researching the classes in their archetype to determine how best to use each classes buffs.  Additionally, these officers will be extremely helpful in choosing how to assign loot.

Under the officers will be the full-membership raider class.  There will likely only be about 30 people with this title, that is, a full raid force plus a few dedicated extras. 

Alts are more than welcome in the guild, and there will be a special category for them.

Casual members will also be permitted.  This is so we can include our friends that do not necessarily want to raid in the guild.

Hopefully we will make a great bond and will not see a lot of turnover.  If in the future we find ourselves in a large recruitment phase, we will use some sort of recruit level.

Raid Make-Up

If we want to do this right, we need to have a decent make up for the raid force.  Unfortunately, our “standard” alliance/pick up raid is generally far from a typical raiding setup.  Here is our target raid set-up:

Warrior, Swashbuckler, Dirge, Defiler, Templar, Warden

Shadowknight, Assassin, Dirge, Coercer, Templar, Mystic

Brawler, Illusionist, Dirge, Brigand, Ranger, Inquisitor

Troubador, Wizard, Warlock, Necromancer, Conjuror (or Illusionist), Fury

Extras: Fighter, Illusionist, Troubador, 2x scout DPS, 2x mage DPS, 2x healer

In order for us to have these classes available, we will need some people to start an alt or to betray.  Actually, it may turn out very beneficial to us as a group if we all work on this together, and in fact we have already started!

We want it to be very clear that although we are setting ourselves up with raiding in mind, we have enjoyed everyone’s company on our alliance raids and maintaining a good group bond is the most important facet to this guild.  If that means we all pitch in and level up a bunch of folks, we’ll do it happily so that everyone can be included. 

Asking you all to possibly start a new character and leave your old guild is probably the most difficult part of forming this new guild.  We hope that the idea of what we want to create is enough enticement for you to start or play a less favorite alt. 

Raid Performance

We will be taking raid performance a little more seriously with this guild.  We don’t mean that we will only take X class if they can put out X dps, or that we will remove members from the raid force if they do not do as much dps as the guy next to them, but we will certainly be trying to improve for the benefit of each other.  Having a strong raid make up is the most important part in setting us up for individual success, and learning how to maximize your raid potential will far in easily after that raid make-up is solid.  We strongly encourage everyone to read everything they can about their class (or future class) at www.eq2flames.com.  We will set some goals after we get started, but we are only EVER going to be “softcore” so don’t think that there will be tremendous pressures. 

We do expect, however, that we will ask some to run specific AA specs suited towards your role in the raid, and to pursue gear suited to that spec/playstyle.   Reading up on your class on eq2flames is a fantastic start, for one, but remember that we will all be learning together.  We don’t expect overnight results, just a willingness to play the game from this perspective.  We want to keep this casual, and we are confident that we can improve our raiding while still having fun. 

Loot

Loot will be assigned by the leaders and officers of the guild.  There will not be any lotto or DKP.  The leader/officer assigned loot works very well with the no drama rule.  It may cause some heart burn at times, but we hope that everyone gets a fair share of loot over the long term.  At least it will be our goal to have a fair allocation of loot.  That being said, we foresee loot distribution to proceed in general accordance of main tank group > off tank group > dps groups > extras.  Unneeded loot will be given to alts or transmuted on the spot so that we can make adornments for the raid.

In conclusion, we will be a raid guild on Friday and Saturday, but a regular old fun time guild for the rest of the week.  If this is something that you would be willing to work toward, please drop us a line on the general forum on this website with your preference (or better yet, preferences!) for what class you would like to play.  We hope you want to pursue this with us.

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