Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The Second Shoe has dropped.

To put it in WoW terms WA now has very low HP. (that was geeky I know) The worst part about it was that I had started to have some hope. We had 30 or so people on last night and actually raided Gruul's. We had a guild meeting and basically said if your going to leave then go ahead and do it, but a lot of people stuck around. I had hoped that a lot of them would give us a couple of weeks to see how things pan out, but it was not to be. We had the meeting and it basically came down that quite a few people where waiting to see what the GM and his two AGMs where going to do. One of the AGMs already had an alt at the new guild the other two claimed to be 50/50, but I could tell from their conversations over the weekend and last night that they were leaning towards leaving. The did eventually leave, taking a 3/5th's of the gold in the Guild bank with them. After they left a flood of our other core raiders left with them.

I am not exactly sure what we have left. The Armory being down doesn't help. There are 3 officers left that I know of, one of which has been out of town lately. We also have a little chunk of core raiders along with and quite a few casual members. We are probably ok for Kara and possible ZA, but we are out of 25 mans for a while. Our biggest problem though is that we don't have a definite leader. A couple of people have said that they can take it for a little while but that doesn't inspire any confidence. If FoC and WA have taught me anything it is that a good GM is essential for good progression and I just don't see it right now.

Just to get it out there I'm not really all that upset with a majority of the people that left. If given the same opportunity I probably would have taken it. As I said in my last post I didn't agree with the way the guild was formed. I also think that if the guild leadership could have gone to a different guild. I am sure that they would have had plenty of opportunities to go to any guild on the server since they were a Tank, and healer, and a mage all with Superior gear. Going to the new guild just a bit of a slap in the face. Anyway, I wish them all the best of luck. I am not convinced that they will have the type of success they are hoping for. I look at their roster and see a hole lot of WA and therefore they are probably taking a whole lot of WA's problems with them. I guess time will tell.

So, the $64,000 question is: What do I do now?

I have a few options but none of them are specific or all that good. Here is what I see:

1. Stick with WA and reevaluate later. There are some people in the guild that are very gun-ho about rebuilding the guild. I also think that quite a few of the people that went to the new guild will not be happy there and might come back if WA still exists. On the other hand, I am not sure everything has played out. This is all still very fresh and I am sure that their are several people that are considering leaving just like I am. With the leadership issue still up in the air I must admit that I have my doubts that WA will survive in any form.

2. Look for a new guild of a similar level. Their are several guilds at a similar level to WA on Eitrigg. Joining one of them would probably be my first choice, but there are several road block to me doing this. First, all of them that I have checked out raid earlier and I know that my wife would not be happy about me raiding earlier. Second, I have only seen one of them recruiting a Moonkin anytime recently. Third, I am sure that a lot of them come with there own baggage. Several of them got to Vashj before WA did and still haven't downed her. So basically none of them fit my current availability, most of them have expressed no interest in a moonkin, and I might just be jumping into the same situation all over again with less seniority.

3. Look for a new guild that isn't as progressed as WA. I am sure that their are several guilds that would be willing to take me due to my experience and quality gear. If I jump this way I may not be downing 4 bosses in one night like in WA but I would be downing similar bosses, and may be able to pick up some of the loot I have missed out on. However, I have to ask myself why haven't they progressed more. I am sure many of them have their own leadership issues and may be a little more casual than I would like.

4. Respec to resto or feral. Respecing would probably open a lot more doors, and I could possibly get in the new guild if I asked. However, my off sets are not the best and I have very little experience with either resto or feral. It is quite possible that I would have to drop down to less progressed guild just to learn the new spec and get gear.

5. Transfer servers and take my shot their. I don't know of any options for a Moonkin on a different server, but if I could find them it might be the perfect opportunity. On the other hand I would be risking a lot. I would be going in almost blind without any of my friends. It could work out perfectly but it could also be a disaster.

6. Level Graypal to 70 and make him my main. There seems to be a lot of demand for shadow priests so I might be able to get into some good guilds. Since I haven't instanced much with him I am sure that their would still be some what of a learning curve but going from Moonkin to Shadow Priest should be easier then going from caster DPS to healer. On the other hand, he would require a lot of gearing up and this also doesn't solve the problem of raid times.

7. Go to a different server and re-roll. To be completely honest this is kind of tempting. I have wondered several times what PvP server would be like. I am also interested in checking out the Horde. It would also give me the opportunity pick the server and I could pick one with a lot of raiders so that I might have more opportunities down the road. Then again I am not a big fan of leveling and If I went to a different server I would do it without the help of my current characters. I don't really want to go out and level without 16 slot bags or enough gold to help me with training and mounts.

8. Take a break from WoW all together. I love this game, but I am not sure I can go grind it out without raiding. I don't know if I would still like the game. I know that my wife would not be unhappy if I quit the game and I might get a little more sleep at night without it, but I'm not quite ready to take this step yet.

So those are my options as I see it. For now I am going to stick with WA at least until I see something better. I may try and talk to my wife about raid times, but I don't have any real clue as to where I should go now.

As far as this blog goes I will keep it up as long as I play WoW. It may not be as moonkin focused depending on what I decide to do, but I won't forget about my moonkin. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask them.

I don't have another Toon update but I thought I might leave you with some of my plans for this blog. None of them technical unfortunately. The first is a couple of Vs. posts inspired by the posts from Resto4Life. I have already done some work on a Spell Damage vs. Spell Crit article. Second, I hope to do a Moonkin gear guide. This would most likely be a multi part series listing what I think are the best options when you are just starting Kara. I may also expand it to being a raiding Moonkin gear guide. Third, I want to do a post in Idol Swapping macros. Their is a lot of confusion on this topic but I have completely figured out my macros yet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

... BigRedKitty's guild is recruiting.
http://www.bigredkitty.net/recruiting/

I've got nothing for you really. As a moonkin your options are limited because it's not the "normal" raiding spec. If you go to another guild you run the risk of finding one that will force you to respec. It's your $15, should you really have to spend it their way? If you rebuild you'll be rebuilding without the bones of the guild. If the guild rerolls (new name, new management, same people) then be sure the goal of the guild is clearly articulated up front.

Of the people who are left, what do they want from a guild? What do you want? Is it satifying what you want? Is your participation level in the guild enough?

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear about your guild. I recently stepped down as an officer in my guild as I got tired of dealing with the raiding drama we have.

One of the biggest problems we have with our guild is communication from the guild rank & file. There are a half dozen non-officers (out of maybe 200+ accounts) that rarely have anything good to say about the officer core, complain when things don't go their way and started a boycott when the officers tried to move raids to TK/SSC when we weren't getting enough locks for Mag.

We have our little cliques within the guild and I can see it as constant source of friction, especially with the newest members from another guild that more of less dissolved.

I have been playing WoW since the day it came out in Nov 2004. I have a 70 Mage, 65 Rogue, 50 SPriest and, right now, I have the most fun with my SPriest since it seems I can solo just about anything with the lastest patch. WoW/raiding is certainly not nearly as fun to play any more (give me a drunken MC raid any day) and I am slowly cutting back on my play time. Especially since some of the dissenters got the main raiding night moved to a different day and I can't make those raids now.

I have gone through your thought process and still do each time I log onto WoW. I don't have any RL friends in game, so I would only be leaving cartoon characters behind. You can't beat entertainment like this for $15 a month, but if it becomes more of a chore than fun, it wouldn't matter if it was free.