Magic WotLK Plans: 10-man raid casuals
Magic — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 11:49
Since some folks seem to be doing this sort of broadcasting of
Wrath-full intentions, than I shall do the same.
According to me: Being in a top 10 raiding guild is sweet.
Hanging with friends is sweet, however, WoW itself is in direct
conflict with many RL things due to one specific goal - progress. The
problem, however is that progress is a crucial part of the game
itself. If there were no progress, it would only be farming, however
when the game is all progress, it becomes a time/energy commitment
that some people cannot handle. I am one of these people.
To solve this dilemma, WotLK provides a nice venue to keep its
casual player-base happy. The 10-man versions of all raid instances
will be an excellent way to continue to enjoy the game without the
pressure of the 25-man content.
To this end, I will be working on an independent 10-man raid
group within Downfall. After a month or two of leveling and getting
some decent Blues and 80's together, we will begin to raid 1-2 nights per week. The
people who do this with me will not be a part of 25 man content - as
we will intentionally raid on nights that the 25 man raid(s) run. The
reason for this is so that we will not take any over-geared raiders
to make things too easy for our paced progress, and they will not be
able to take any of our raiders and give them a taste of the 25-man
nectar.
Raids will last in each instance until it is mastered and most people in the raid have upgraded most of the items needed, then we will move onto another raid instance, perhaps returning to the previous to farm badges or something if time permits in the 1-2 day per week raiding schedule.
This whole thing isn't worked out perfectly in my mind, but I
wanted to lay down some framework of ideas. The goal is to create an
independent 10-man raid that ONLY raids 10-man instance options. An
excellent outcome would be for this kind of thing to be a more casual
branch of DF raiding. As of now it is difficult to progress and have
time for life due to the necessity of strong commitments.
I have no idea which toon I will gear up and lead these raids
with.
If you are interested in 10-mans and ONLY 10-man raiding come
Wrath, stay tuned and let me know. Maybe we can refine the idea more
as Wrath develops.
Re: the casuals vs hardcores
Magic — Thu, 07/24/2008 - 10:28Re: the casuals vs hardcores discussion -
It appears even the heads of software companies are finding these terms difficult to define. A recent article from Gamasutra:
"Rather than simply separating gamers into casual and hardcore, Big Fish
created 14 casual gaming segments and four core gaming segments - when
it comes to demographics, business models, and platforms, the gaming
market is diverging, not converging, the company claims."
It is getting difficult to saywhat a hardcore or what a casual is, so in essence Fjork, you're correct! Instead of labeling the raid as hardcore or casual we will call it something 10-manish. Cool article if you are interested in gaming industry.
Link: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19554
Magic I love this idea.
wothar — Tue, 07/22/2008 - 15:28Magic I love this idea. Prue and myself would be down for some regular but not so time intesive 10 man raiding in WotLK. Be happy to help however we can.
Sounds like a great idea
Jayel — Tue, 07/22/2008 - 12:14Sounds like a great idea Magic. Depending on on schedual I would definately be interested.
Schedule permitting, count
Allikat — Tue, 07/22/2008 - 11:51Schedule permitting, count me in :D
We'll have to see how the
Magic — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 19:12We'll have to see how the raiding schedules play out come expac.
It's ultimately your call,
Shihli — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 18:16It's ultimately your call, but flat out exclusion of 25-man raiders (of which the guild currently has 60-70 unique accounts involved with that - which is essentiall 1/3 to 1/2 of the guild) might not be wise.
Magic, I think this is an
Olorien — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 17:06Magic,
I think this is an excellent idea, I know I am not alone in getting smacked in the face by RL. Granted mine is a good smac, being my first child, but a smack all the same. This, unfortuantely, will leave me with little time for raiding.
A nice 2 night a wk look at the instance with people who have some raiding experience but not as much time would be a lot of fun, and not frustrating like pugging Kara or ZA.
In short I would like to echo Shihli sentiment of if there is anything I can do to help let me know, even if it isn't filling a spot with Zifter.
I know. That's why I
Fjork — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 14:01I know. That's why I had.... issues with how I phrased my last comment. However, from what I've seen as the definition of 'casual' doesn't necessarily involve laziness but conflicting schedules. My concern was derived less from the naming convention, but more from the actual availability of consistent, knowledgable players from week to week. I was thinking more in the ideal of ....drama prevention to not name it casual from people assuming a sense of entitlement that they 'should' get a position whenever they are 'able' to make it because as a 'casual' gamer in their definition, they are making a majority of the Raids. (Not that those people would actually stay in the guild long, but.....)
I do consider myself a casual gamer (at this point due to RL constrictions), but if I were to sign up for a function, I WOULD be there. Even if I ended up signing up on a weekly basis. However, RL seriously crits me at least once, sometimes twice a month. How many other 'casual' gamers end up in the same bucket? The reason (of late) I haven't tried to really commit to anything beforehand is the serious level of wifey-aggro and birthday parties for like ..... 3 dozen kids. Seriously. My weekends have seriously taken a hit, and Tues-Thurs are pretty much gone between Cub Scouts, Tae-Kwon-Do, and giving the wifey some attention. (Weird, italics turned on for the whole paragraph, and I can't turn it off......)
I was just kinda worried that excluding the core members (mAlt & Hamfist) might cause failed Raids just because of a lack of available, reliable players. I wasn't trying to be offensive, or critical in any way. It's just these are our best and most able players. Perhaps if only their Main's were excluded?
I see your point, but the
Magic — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 18:12I see your point, but the idea of this is to schedule to plan around crazy life schedules. 1-2 nights per week is far more manageable than 4-5, so the deal I make with my wifey is that some nights I get to just blow off steam and raid, other nights I level a little, fart around, and help around the house while I happen to be on WoW.
The idea is that a lite schedule will give the more casual raiders (not players) the entitlement to invites that they (we) deserve, but just can't commit to many nights per week.
I think excluding 25-man raiders is my prefered method, but we'll see how it plays out come practice.
Fjork - You can be both
Shihli — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 13:33Fjork -
You can be both casual AND a raid group. Just because you schedule an event for 1-2 nights a week doesn't instantly make you "not casual". Casual does not have to imply "on the fly" or "too lazy to get a group together ahead of time."
Magic, you know I'll likely be involved in the 25man raid plans and all that so I likely wouldn't be able to help you with these outside of strats or trash plans, but I'll help any way you'd have me.
I love the Idea a ton! I
Finndo — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 13:25I love the Idea a ton! I have been the instigator of the 5 man runs, though I have been out for the past few weeks. I know it is damn hard to get people to commit to even 5-mans if they do not want to be considered "hardcore". My experience tells me that the people elligible for 5-mans (those not raiding) typically want to do their own thing and don't look to the options available to them to get things going unless they feel they need to get some goal completed on their toon. This is not bad, just a little frustrating.
As for the 10-man raid, I would love to be able to do something like that. With my new addition to family, it may not be possible though. Keep the idea going, and I will support you in full along the way.
In that case I would just
Fjork — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 13:10In that case I would just refrain from calling it 'casual'. Just call it what it is, a 10-man Raid Group. (This isn't meant in any sort of offensive or derogatory manner. It just looks like it.)
:D
I agree with the current problem on 10-mans right now having nothing after ZA, but what if you started working pre-made's as well every (other)week? That would give some deviation and slow progession on Kara/ZA/Heroics, while also getting the group well geared to be ready to face leveling in Northrend.
Let's be honest, the first 1-6 levels in Northrend are going to be spent in the corpse pile unless you spend your time instancing or have lots of resilence gear.
Seriously though, no offense is intented on the first statement. It DOES look like it though, doesn't it?.......
This has essentially started
Magic — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 12:53This has essentially started in the form of the heroic/5-man events calendar. Not sure how much this was used. The tricky part is that the heroic gear and badge gear isn't that great. It's ok, but ZA is far better, and where do you go from ZA? Have to go to 25-man content.... that's a problem.
I guess the definition of casuals is confusing. I don't want inexperienced, unprepared people to come raid 10-man. I want dedicated people who will come ready and prepared, come consistently, but who only want to raid 1-2 nights per week instead of 6-5-4 nights. I want a steady, consistent group of people.
I like the idea as of RL
Fjork — Mon, 07/21/2008 - 12:44I like the idea as of RL purposes more and more I'm seeing my role becoming a 'casual' gamer. (/cry)
I have been thinking that a different raid-set for Friday nights, Saturday mornings, and Sunday mornings would benefit/fit my current schedule as many RL events/activities have taken away my ability to participate Tues-Thurs.
My only concern on creating a 10-man 'casual' raid 1-2 nights a week is the lack of ability to 'casual' players to actually participate on a regular basis. Perhaps if the 10-mans were open to those guild-members/applicants that were unable to receive invites to the main-raids would solve this?
Perhaps to see what participation we can gather for WotLK (provided Officers don't mind), we could actually start this group up now doing regular/Heroic 5mans for the purpose of collecting materials for BOE equipment?
In short: /approve