I hope your guild figures it out and successfully navigates the end-of-expansion waters; they can be treacherous to the health of a raiding guild. Good luck!
Fannon´s last [type] ..6x6x6: The Challenge of Sixes

That link for NoStockUI is invaluable!! I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent building a UI only to trash it because I ran out of time!

Thank you so much for writing that article up!
Somnar´s last [type] ..20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge – Day 6 – My Workstation

Having been a guest on the Nether myself, its a fun time. Hydra and Fimlys always make their guests feel welcome. Thinking perhaps a few audience supplied questions may prove to be interesting fodder

“yes, quori would like to know…bacon bra. Are you wearing one right now?!?”
quori´s last [type] ..Blizzcon 2012, Here I come….errr waitaminute!!!

Two expansions where i never saw end game content. I have to wonder if im the only one this happened to. The result – i left WoW for over a year – just got tired of being left out. Now I’m actually studying the bosses a lot more then i used to – because i know i’ll be able to get there – and when i do i want to know what i’m doing.

That is ATROCIOUS. The analogy I always use is this: If you were a car maker, and you developed a car wherein the fuel it used was only accessible to 25% of the marketplace, you would have a product that would FAIL…regardless of how awesome that car is…it would fail.

I am not saying that the game content should be so easy that its cleared and completed by everyone in 1 week…but LFR is definitely something that allows the larger majority of the player base who would not have seen the content otherwise access to it!

The normal 10/25 is still there. The Heroic modes are still there. Those that aim for that level of progression still have it available to them and should be satisfied with that.

Again, it goes to my main point which is and always will be: adjust YOUR expectations. Because in the end, its all you really can control.

For my part…I agree on not wanting it to be too easy. But admittedly, like most people, I do not want it to be impossible either. I want a happy medium…entertaining content that challenges me and provides some feeling of “time well spent”.
quori´s last [type] ..Bags are packed, but what skin shall I put on?

Its dangerous to assume the community actually knows what they want. Especially considering how bad or casual a majority of the community is at MMOs. If WoW keeps going in the direction it is of extreme accessibility and increased small group content they will only hasten their demise.

To put it simply: Easy content is consumed quicker so people leave quicker. Easy content also means people don’t need to develop strong social bonds (guilds) to succeed. The very same social bonds that will keep a person playing MMOs for years. Its a recipe for disaster… but at least Joe Terrible who pays his $15 a month can lag through Deathwing now on his 2003 Compaq computer from BestBuy and get epic loot better then what Ragnaros drops. (Seriously, shooting for THAT as your target market is video game suicide.)

Honestly, I was feeling kinda isolated in PoN until last night. It’s hard to get to know people in 25 m raids – there’s so much going on that chatter (which is okay in 10s) has to be kept to a minimum. I knew that part of the problem was that Krakle and I just hadn’t been logging on much (with the house stuff), but when we had logged on folks were doing the new 5 mans. Timing and group composition didn’t line up for us to group up with folks for this smaller content.

Then, last night, we suggested LFR. We had to wait a bit for the timing to line up (we waited about 45 minutes), but took a group of 5 guildies into the first half and 7 guildies into the second half. We all rolled on gear for each other and traded to give our guildies the best chance at getting gear. We chatted on mumble for hours and had a really good time.

In fact, it was the most fun I’ve had in WoW in a LONG LONG time (at least in all of Cata). The content was relatively easy (even when we wiped, the mistakes were easy to identify and fix) so we could chat rather than strategize in mumble. Because the structure of LFR is different from LFG, we could take everyone who wanted to go (not capping on 5 people or someone having to get on an alt to fill a certain role).

I feel that our ability to run through that raid in a relaxed manner with whoever was online helped to strengthen ties among guildies who participated.

In more general terms, and specifically for recruiting – yes, there is churn right now as the community aligns to the new feature. The flakes and the baddies are (hopefully) no longer applying to guilds to temporarly take up spots. It looks like a bad thing as guilds are folding, but once the initial churn is over and the guilds are stable, I think we’ll have a better long term situation.
Zaralynda´s last [type] ..Day 1 of WoW Blogging Challenge