Bummer Weekend
I acknowledge the 9/11 anniversary, but I think people put too much emphasis on marks of X years after something anyway, so I can't say it occupied much of my mental space over the weekend. Nah, I settled in for routine for the most part... though let me say that sleeping in and getting over eight hours Friday night/Saturday morning was glorious. And also probably the high point of the weekend.
WoW didn't go so well. The guild recently lost one semi-regular member, and one of about four raid healers. As of today, it appears we're also down our other primary tank (probably until the player finds employment). Of our other three first-tier healers, one wasn't interesting enough to show up Saturday night, and it wouldn't surprise me if that's a sign of things to come. While a tank slot can be filled by someone else, having two healers isn't really enough for "progression" content and we're falling short on sheer numbers. We managed nine people on Saturday night, and we'll probably cap out at around eight starting next week... that's not so good. There's a recently-recruit priest... it would be good if he can raid heal, but I don't know if he can or has interest - I've only seen him in PVP gear.
This could have been an opportunity to hit up some tier 11 raids for a few things that might still have been good for some people. They are feeling overdone to some people, admittedly. It could have been an opportunity to go stomp some older raids for achievements and grins, as some people wanted to do, though there's no mechanical benefit from it. And we did do a quick Sartharion+3 run. Instead, our already-frustrated guild leader (who's back in raid lead position by default) pretty much bailed and let the night's gathering fall apart. It's a choice I understand, but I think it was the worst available option assuming any desire to keep raiding in the future at all. Better, I think, to do something - anything - to maintain group unity. But... as much as we've been friends for years and I've tried to counsel him, he makes some (in my opinion) very bad decisions when emotional.
So where does that leave the guild raid? I don't know. I sort of feel we need a more dedicated raid leader to hold things together, but we lack a combination of qualification and desire in anyone that I've seen. I also don't see a good way to fix the problem of being short on players without pushing too much in a way several of our current members don't want to go. With our level of "casualness," we require a lot of things to fall in place and go well to make forward progress.
Then again, as I've said and thought recently - I like raiding for seeing the story therein, but I'm not so driven that I feel the need to go outside the guild I consider family to see more. If the guild fails as far as raiding, I'll be a little disappointed, but I wouldn't consider it wasted time to do other things in-game on Saturday nights with guildies. Old raids aren't very challenging, and dungeons aren't as new or rewarding, but any of that can be enjoyable in the right company. It's better than doing nothing, especially when you've scheduled the night for something.
And Guild Wars was sort of a bust, too. I was already feeling pretty down Sunday due to the above plus discussion of how the Winds of Change quests embody most of what I like least in GW (slogging through afflicted). We're on a quest that's relatively hard - defend an NPC for 2.5 minutes or so against waves of enemies. After an hour we had one player bow out due to time and another due to headache. After several more attempts, we were no better off. We weren't able to get the "cheat" of luring the NPC to a safe area with a wounded player to work, but should that really be required? Eh, that wasn't emotionally crushing or anything, but it did feel like a waste of a couple hours - not much fun and not endearing me to the game any more.
And tonight I get my oh-so-favoritest of tasks: malware removal. Whee.
Edit2: And whee! Now waiting on a call back from remote support regarding our second issue of the night. After the first took over an hour and a half for them to say "uh, we can't fix it tonight, try this workaround until tomorrow."
Raaaage...
WoW didn't go so well. The guild recently lost one semi-regular member, and one of about four raid healers. As of today, it appears we're also down our other primary tank (probably until the player finds employment). Of our other three first-tier healers, one wasn't interesting enough to show up Saturday night, and it wouldn't surprise me if that's a sign of things to come. While a tank slot can be filled by someone else, having two healers isn't really enough for "progression" content and we're falling short on sheer numbers. We managed nine people on Saturday night, and we'll probably cap out at around eight starting next week... that's not so good. There's a recently-recruit priest... it would be good if he can raid heal, but I don't know if he can or has interest - I've only seen him in PVP gear.
This could have been an opportunity to hit up some tier 11 raids for a few things that might still have been good for some people. They are feeling overdone to some people, admittedly. It could have been an opportunity to go stomp some older raids for achievements and grins, as some people wanted to do, though there's no mechanical benefit from it. And we did do a quick Sartharion+3 run. Instead, our already-frustrated guild leader (who's back in raid lead position by default) pretty much bailed and let the night's gathering fall apart. It's a choice I understand, but I think it was the worst available option assuming any desire to keep raiding in the future at all. Better, I think, to do something - anything - to maintain group unity. But... as much as we've been friends for years and I've tried to counsel him, he makes some (in my opinion) very bad decisions when emotional.
So where does that leave the guild raid? I don't know. I sort of feel we need a more dedicated raid leader to hold things together, but we lack a combination of qualification and desire in anyone that I've seen. I also don't see a good way to fix the problem of being short on players without pushing too much in a way several of our current members don't want to go. With our level of "casualness," we require a lot of things to fall in place and go well to make forward progress.
Then again, as I've said and thought recently - I like raiding for seeing the story therein, but I'm not so driven that I feel the need to go outside the guild I consider family to see more. If the guild fails as far as raiding, I'll be a little disappointed, but I wouldn't consider it wasted time to do other things in-game on Saturday nights with guildies. Old raids aren't very challenging, and dungeons aren't as new or rewarding, but any of that can be enjoyable in the right company. It's better than doing nothing, especially when you've scheduled the night for something.
And Guild Wars was sort of a bust, too. I was already feeling pretty down Sunday due to the above plus discussion of how the Winds of Change quests embody most of what I like least in GW (slogging through afflicted). We're on a quest that's relatively hard - defend an NPC for 2.5 minutes or so against waves of enemies. After an hour we had one player bow out due to time and another due to headache. After several more attempts, we were no better off. We weren't able to get the "cheat" of luring the NPC to a safe area with a wounded player to work, but should that really be required? Eh, that wasn't emotionally crushing or anything, but it did feel like a waste of a couple hours - not much fun and not endearing me to the game any more.
And tonight I get my oh-so-favoritest of tasks: malware removal. Whee.
Edit2: And whee! Now waiting on a call back from remote support regarding our second issue of the night. After the first took over an hour and a half for them to say "uh, we can't fix it tonight, try this workaround until tomorrow."
Raaaage...
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