Sydera

Virtual Race Relations Part 1: Elves

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So, why is it that World of Warcraft players love elves so much? What is the mysterious attraction of these slender, blank-eyed character models? Whether we’re playing the characters ourselves, or just watching level one Night Elf chicks dance naked on the mailbox, World of Warcraft players seem extraordinarily little resistance to the charms of pointy-eared humanoids.

This post is the first in a series of features on the different playable races of World of Warcraft. In each post, I speculate about why we make the choices we make, and what social meanings our preferences might have. After all, I’m not the first to suggest that our actions in the virtual world reflect our real-life identities.

The Elves of Warcraft

Elven-folk in the World of Warcraft divide into two playable categories, Night Elves and Blood Elves. Even though their artistic style and character models differ somewhat, I find it most convenient to talk about them together. In the end of the article, I will speculate about the reasoning behind the difference in look, but first I’d like to talk about elves–and their magical appeal–more generally.

Elves in folklore

The elves, like many other stock personae of folklore, vary greatly from culture to culture. Generally of northern and western European extraction, the elves of folklore can be very small or human-sized, good or evil, ugly or beautiful. Elves are, at times, indistinguishable from fairies or other strange, supernatural creatures. All tales of elves have a common thread–their difference from humans. While they to some degree look and act human, and can even interbreed with them, elves have a different psychological makeup, different capabilities, and different values. To the ordinary human being, elves are all but unfathomable.

The debt to Tolkien

Most players of World of Warcraft could probably tell you that elves in-game descend more or less directly from J.R.R Tolkien’s elves. The elves of Middle-Earth are beautiful, powerful, benevolent beings, who despite their wisdom and good intentions, never seem to fully engage in the actions of the plot. The elves of Middle Earth–as both the book and the film poignantly depict–progressively abandon the continent in the midst of the conflict over the ring. As a first-time Tolkien reader, at age 16 or so, I was fascinated by Elrond, Galadriel, and Arwen. The sense of melancholy, of loss that haunts the elves is rather poignant, especially to the overly emotional teenage mind. However, ten years later, re-reading the novels makes me want to shake the elves for being so passive.

I think Peter Jackson must have agreed with me. In his film, the elves are much more involved in the conflict. My favorite moment in the films departs entirely from the books–Galadriel sends a company of elves to help defend Helm’s Deep. Tolkien’s Galadriel never would have done so, because Tolkien’s elves are always constrained by tradition and practice. An elf-queen would never have done anything out of the ordinary. With a few exceptions, Tolkien’s elves simply lack the passions that would drive them to action. These exceptions almost certainly include tragic princesses Luthien and Arwen. However, I will say that I’ve never found Arwen a compelling character–in fact, as a longtime reader (and Eowyn fan), I find her love for Aragorn to be rather shallow. She and Aragorn allow themselves to be caught up in the imitation of legendary figures–Luthien and Beren–and in my mind, their love affair is more about copying their ancestor’s actions than following their own desires. In short, Tolkien’s elves experience emotion differently than human beings. Nostalgia and melancholy permeate their personalities, but their passivity constantly frustrates the (human) readers.

Elves in contemporary fantasy

Of course, the developers of World of Warcraft weren’t necessarily reading Tolkien directly–or at least, not just Tolkien. I am a fairly avid consumer of fantasy novels, and elves, while infrequent, do appear from time to time. Most authors consciously imitate or parody Tolkien–such is the appeal of the master. On my elf reading list are Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Terry Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies, and relatively unknown Australian author Cecilia Dart-Thorton’s The Ill-Made Mute. The common thread of all of these works? To quote Pratchett: “Elves are bad.” I love the contrast with Tolkien, achieved in all of these cases through a return to folklore.

Back to Warcraft–Night Elves

What can literature teach us about video game elves, you ask? Plenty. Elves in WoW, most particularly the Night Elves, borrow liberally from Tolkien. Most of the Night Elf art was probably created before Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings was released, and it represents an independent rendering of some of Tolkien’s motifs. Darnassus might be one design team’s version of Lothlorien–the Night Elf city has a ruined, decadent feel, and it denizens live and work in buildings carved from enormous trees. Moreover, their spiritual leader is Tyrande, a distant, odd priestess. However, some of the Night Elf mannerisms indicate that the elves of WoW take themselves a little less seriously than Elrond and Galadriel do. Have you seen Night Elf women bouncing, and Night Elf men shrugging their overly-developed shoulders? Don’t even get me started on the dances–but seriously, do you think Arwen would have the moves to work in a strip club? Moreover, WoW has done a skillful job of blending the European elf with elements of Asian culture. The Lunar festival and the vaguely Japanese style of some of the buildings in Darnassus are my favorite aspects of Night Elf life. They bring something unique to the otherwise stylized image of the elf.

Blood Elves

Blood Elves to me do not seem to be a distinct culture of their own, but rather a version of the Night Elves adapted to Peter Jackson’s vision. Their models are the most beautiful in the game, but I miss the strangeness of the green-and-purple Night Elves. In addition, Blood Elves are really, really white. It’s hard to find any non-European references in their culture. Rather, most people compare Silvermoon City to Disney World. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the art–I envy the beauty of all of the blood elf mobs even as I destroy them.

Why Play an Elf?

Elves are extraordinarily popular player races, particularly among female gamers. To me, their appeal goes beyond their beauty. Elves are everything that gamers are not. Their appeal is the pull of the strange, the unknown, and the unfathomable. Who knows what emotions lie hidden behind their blank, glowing eyes? Elves are friends of wild things, at home with nature. Gamers, on the other hand, have what Tolkien would call minds of metal–we are civilized folk, city-dwellers who are dependent on technology for our fun. In addition, elves are placid, even passive, and they measure time in centuries. For gamers, passions run high (hence all the drama!), and the constantly-shifting game environment seems to compress time itself. Elves are solitary–they can wander the woods and wilds, the forgotten places of the earth, for centuries at a time. Gamers, on the other hand, are forced into alliances of either friendship or convenience–in the competitive world of the MMO, it’s almost impossible to achieve much on your own. Elves are scholarly–they have the span of many human lifetimes in which to read, write poetry, play music, and learn impossibly sad ballads by heart. Gamers, on the other hand, rarely have time between work or school and their online hobby to read a magazine every week.

The basic principle here is that we all want what we cannot have, and we all want to be what we are not. Maybe what we desire, truly, is not to be a supernatural being, but to imitate them–to be closer to nature, to read more, or to simply be more calm. So, the next time you /pant at a player named Leafspindle, Moondancer, or even HotBludElfChik, take a moment to think about all the things you might be missing in your own life.

Build Your Own Guild Part 10: Making Changes

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New guilds tend to start out in an idealistic mode. Guild masters and officers alike make ambitious plans–possibly including world and server domination–and they put in the kind of policies that they believe will get them to their goal.

However, sometimes plans go awry. In my experience, guild rules fail for two primary reasons.

1. Rules Have Unforeseen Consequences.

Despite the officers’ and guild master’s good intentions, new policies sometimes have unintended effects. A clause that was meant to help and support potential members may end up alienating them. Collateral Damage has make several mistakes in policy over the past few months, and it was always with the best intentions. To offer one very recent example, at the outset of our planning sessions for Wrath, CD’s officers talked about putting in a Raider Status. At the current moment, we don’t have a guild rank that corresponds to raid eligibility. While we thought it might be a good thing for organizing purposes, as it would let both infrequent and regular players know clearly how often they might expect to raid, our members did not. Most players were vehemently against having any kind of rank associated with raiding, and so this policy never made it to live, if you will. The reason? The mere suggestion of a special designation for raiders felt divisive to our members. Ironically, the very players who would exceed the standard we put forth were the ones who argued most passionately against it. The label “raider” was unwelcome, and as such, we’ve jettisoned it entirely.

2. The Guild Identity Evolves.

Guilds are organic entities, and they do not remain static for long. Part of the reason for this has to do with personnel. In the virtual environment, turnover is high, and the identity of a virtual organization depends heavily on the personality of its members. In addition, the guild’s successes or failures can determine its direction. In Collateral Damage’s case, we progressed farther and more quickly than we thought we would, and as a result, we became a more hardcore guild than our original design envisioned. Gradual change can also alter power structures. Guilds that start with lofty goals and a strict hierarchy may find that, over time, they can loosen up. What starts out as a totalitarian state led by a benevolent philosopher-king may end as an association of friends and equals. It is my belief that healthy guilds shift towards this model over time as they develop trust among members. In the case of gradual institutional change, you may find that the initial policies you wrote may have very little correspondence to guild reality.

How Can I Change Things?

When something isn’t working, it tends to be pretty clear. You will hear little grumbles here and there. This is normal for a guild, as QQ is eternal, but pay attention when you start to hear the same thing from many different parties. When that happens, make a new item on your officer meeting agenda and do something about it. If a policy is bad, get rid of it as soon as you can. Sure, you’ll look inconsistent to your members, but in the end, no one wins a prize for persisting with a bad strategy. However, in order to set your organization up to be able to change with the times, or with your better judgment, certain structures have to be in place.

1. Give yourself an out.
Sometimes a guild’s charter seems graven in stone, when in fact it’s a functional document that should always be changing. Let your members observe a tradition of keeping the charter up to date. That way, if a big change needs to be made, they won’t say: “You can’t do that because it’s not in the charter.” Believe me, CD made the mistake of having a static charter and rule set. Members will read the charter like a Blue Post, and we all know what happens whenever Ghostcrawler appears to change his mind.

2. Have a Decision-Making Structure
Make sure that your guild rules set up a procedure for proposing and ratifying changes to policies. For some guilds, it may work best for the GM to have final decision-making power in all cases, but in others, a vote among the officers will guarantee better support for the decision. The worst thing you can do is poll your members and let them vote on guild policies. People tend to vote their fears. You’ve selected your officers (hopefully) because they’re capable of thinking through problems logically. Polls are useful for information-gathering, but leave the decision-making power in the hands of a few well-informed individuals.

3. Have a System for Reporting to the Members
Transparency is a good thing. I believe that the GMs and officers should be making the decisions, but I also believe that they should explain any major policy change to the members. Document the reasons for the change carefully. It’s very common for disgruntled guild members to accuse the GM of making arbitrary decisions. Don’t give them ammunition.

Sweeping Changes

The advice in this article should enable a new guild to make the small adjustments that are necessary to keep an active organization healthy. These kinds of changes are usually acceptable to all members with a little explanation. However, what happens if you want to radically change your guild’s identity? Is it possible, for example, to mold a casual guild into a hardcore raiding team?

Yes and no. In order to explain how a gradual shift might work, I am going to borrow the rather disgusting metaphor that my fellow CD officer, Bruug, used in our last officer meeting. Imagine that your guild is a cute little froggy, and you’d like to boil him up for dinner so you can snack on some delicious frog legs. If you drop Mr. Croaky into a pot full of boiling water, he’ll jump right back out. However, if you stick him in room-temperature water and turn up the heat a few degrees per minute, he’ll be perfectly happy to sit in his nice warm bath and cook.

Gross, huh? I’m not suggesting that you eat your guildmates. However, if you think that your guild has the potential to grow in a certain direction, take gradual steps to get there. Members tend to resist change. They like what’s comfortable and what works. Many people would say that you can’t take a casual guild and turn it into a hardcore one, and they’d be right in principle. Yet, CD has done that in practice, and without consciously trying (apparently we figured out how to poach a frog all on our own). If the will to be more competitive is already out there among your membership, you can help that along. Change will occur organically, but it will do so more surely and effectively if the hand of leadership gives it a nudge or two. Like a careful gardener, you can influence your guild to grow in certain directions. However subtle the changes, I do urge Guild Masters to be as transparent as possible about their vision for the guild. This is only fair to your members who, after all, did not sign their guild contracts in blood. Well, all except the warlocks anyway, and that was because their other pen ran out of ink.

Will You Be Dual Spec-tacular?

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Duality by vladstudio
Duality by vladstudio

Less than two weeks out from the Wrath of the Lich King release, I find that one of the upcoming changes I am most excited about will hit not with the expansion itself, but with an upcoming content patch. At some future point, many of us–particularly hybrid classes–will have the flexibility we’ve always dreamed of. The promise is that each character will be able to maintain two stored specs and switch between them easily. You won’t be switching during combat (imagine the exploits) but in a complicated dungeon, for one fight you could be the healer, and the very next you could be the tank or even (gasp!) dps.


There is every chance that this change will revolutionize gameplay, particularly for healers. Most of us would jump at the chance to heal for a 25-person raid and then tear through our daily quests as a long-feathered, wide-hipped, booty-shaking, snuffle-hooting Owlbeast. I know I would. However, I’m even more interested in the long-term effects of dual spec capability on the raid environment.

Of course, even with Matticus’ fascinating insights into raiding Naxx on the Beta, we still don’t have quite enough information to make fully-fledged (get it, a feather joke) healing strategies. However, that doesn’t mean that my evil little tree-brain isn’t working. As the healing lead for my guild, the following is my diabolical plan to take the fullest possible advantage of dual specs.

1. All healers will maintain a raid-viable dps spec and a raid-viable healing spec.
2. All healers will take appropriate dps gear at the off-spec dkp price and appropriate healing gear at the on-spec price.
3. All healers will practice both play styles in a raid environment.

Why is this plan such a winner? Read on to find out how the dual spec system will save your raid–and the world!–from much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

1. I can adjust the number of healers for each fight.

Based on what I’ve read on Matticus and elsewhere, it seems that Wrath of the Lich King raid encounters require, on the whole, less healers than Black Temple or Sunwell. My guild–and probably many others–recruited its healing corps with the latter two instances in mind. At the moment, we have at least 12 healers who raid on a semi-regular basis. Our healer retention has been excellent, and many of these players have switched part or full-time to alts for raiding in order to keep their spots. However, even with this partial solution, we sometimes have 10 great healers sign up to raid. My solution for Wrath? I’m not about to force people to respec dps or to reroll warlocks and enhancement shammies. Instead, we’ll share the dps and healing roles, and everyone will get to play what they want at least some of the time. In addition, I don’t fully trust the developers not to put in some fights that require 5 healers and others that require 8 in the same instance. With dual specs in place, it will just be too tempting.

2. My healers will become better players.

Yes, this belongs to the category of what I like to refer to as “L2P Raiding Solutions.” It’s going to be hard to switch from doing what Ghostcrawler referred to as “playing the UI, not the game,” to actually targeting a boss or, even more incredibly, assisting off a designated player. I look forward to this process. I need to go through the learning as much or more than anybody. An expansion, as I see it, is a great opportunity to get better at the game, and I know there’s going to be a learning curve. By, let’s say, next February, I want to be that player that people trust to do whichever task, dps or healing, is most necessary. Those players already exist, but I’ve had too much tunnel-vision to be one myself.

3. No one will feel stuck.

Sometimes all of us need a little change, a little breath of fresh air. I think that dual specs are going to help ward off healer burnout, and to demonstrate that, I’m going to resort to a very mundane metaphor. Let’s compare two real life humans–Level 30 Scholars, let’s say, and for the sake of argument, we’ll call them Sydera and Briolante. Now, Syd owns about 10 pairs of shoes she can wear to work, and she never wears the same pair twice in a row. Brio wears the same pair of admittedly very nice dress shoes every day. At the end of six months, whose footwear is in better shape? Variety is the spice of many things, my friends. If I know that I can cast gigantic Starfires on one of the bosses on a given evening, all the while hooting to myself in owlish glee, I’m likely to heal for the rest of them with good grace. Many healers feel victimized and put upon–our job is rather stressful, and blame sticks to us like cat hair on cashmere. What a nice relief it will be to sometimes focus on the boss instead of the little boxes on my Grid!

Dual Specs are Wonderful! But Why Do We Have Them?

I’d like to spend a few moments speculating about the underlying reasoning behind the dual spec change. It goes against many of the trends laid in place during Classic WoW and BC. First, WoW has always made players pay for flexibility. As we all know, the Vanilla WoW design for hybrids could be summed up by the hackneyed refrain “jack of all trades and master of none.” Moreover, gold costs for respecs–used more by hybrids than other classes–used to climb to obscene levels in Classic.

In BC, the fate of hybrids improved somewhat. Aside from a few broken specs (notably Moonkin and Retribution Paladin), hybrids became raid viable, but also just as limited to one role as any “pure” class. Respecs were of course possible, and in BC they top out at 50 gold, which still cannot be considered a reasonable price for mid-raid respecs.

Maybe it’s my own selfish featherbrain, but I think that the changes we’re seeing to how respeccing works–which is basically the removal of the penalty for changing your mind–have a lot to do with the perceived fun of playing hybrids–bringing us closer to the jack of all trades model again. I think this change might even have more to do with healers than other classes. We know that, my own freakishly healer-heavy guild aside, healers are often in short supply. For Wrath, Ghostcrawler has laid out the possibility that raid healing might be overhauled entirely, just as was done with tanking. The idea, in general terms, is to make raiding “more fun.”

What is more fun, in the developers’ minds? Based on the druid class changes for 3.0, I can take a guess. Despite what some healers find entertaining, Blizzard doesn’t want us to be tied too closely to timers or set-in-stone rotations. Pre-3.0, I used to cast something–usually an instant, and many times Lifebloom–every time the GCD was up. This means that I can spare about half an eyeball for the raid environment, and I haven’t even seen many raid bosses. I spend too much time looking at Grid with one eye and the ground–for nasty AoE effects–with the other. To a certain extent, this is necessary for proper focus–I’m not sure that Briolante spends much time gazing longingly on, say, Archimonde’s face either, even though he’s up there tanking. Here’s a quote: “Demon crotches get old after a while.” The developers want play to be variable, engaging, movement heavy, and reactive rather than proactive. As a druid healer at the moment, I feel that I’m supposed to entirely change my playstyle, and old habits–like maintaining Lifebloom rotations–die hard.

At least dual specs are actually fun! Many times, the developers seem to design away from fun by putting arbitrary limitations on things–the recently removed movement speed reduction for trees comes to mind, as does the prohibition on flying in Northrend until level 77. It is my hope that, whatever they do to healing, the dual spec possibility keeps me from entirely losing my mind, or, should I say, my feathers.

Why I Love and Hate Achievements

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As I predicted in an earlier post, the newly-fledged Achievement System turned out to be more than just a cosmetic change to World of Warcraft. In fact, I was far too conservative in my predictions. Instead of adding another layer of accountability to progression mechanisms already existing in the game, the Achievement System has in fact created its own unique avenue for progression–casual style. Achievements are so appealing because anyone can work on them, alone or in a group, and there’s a reward for every little thing you do. Even, famously, picking your teeth.

The Benefits

There’s a certain appeal to accomplishments that are tracked, defined, detailed, and instantly accessible. I find myself reading through the achievement tooltip when I’m in flight or waiting at an instance for a raid to start. I am by no means immune to the siren call of Achievements. In fact, I’ve been spending all the casual time I have in pursuit of non-combat pets. I have 49 of 50 to date, and I’m sorry to report that no matter how many times I log in when I’m supposed to be working, Syd somehow just cannot get a Sinister Squashling, either through the boss event or through trick or treating. My failure of an alt, Marfisa, has gotten two of them in treat bags so far. Never fear, dear reader, the cute little skunk pet will be mine–as soon as the Darkmoon Faire rolls into town and I buy an ugly old frog.

Moreover, I think the Achievement System is a brilliant move on Blizzard’s part. Many casual players are coming back to the game right now to refresh their knowledge of their characters ahead of the expansion, and the tracking system–and the cleverly written little tasks–breathe a little life into old content.

However, Achievements are not all sunshine and rainbows. Briolante–who’s smarter than me most of the time–tried to tell me a few weeks ago that Achievements were going to be a real drag. In fact, I think his comment had a lot of expletives in it, but his major fear was that Achievements would become the new badge gear–the measure of success that our guild members would pursue, doggedly, until they got every single possible thing. It turns out that he was right, and, like badge gear, many of those achievements require a tank’s help. Hence, the expletives.

Now, it’s not as if Briolante doesn’t like to help people out. In fact, he does, but in moderation, and for things that make sense. I’m starting to feel a little resentful of Achievements myself, even though I haven’t done a single thing I wouldn’t otherwise do in pursuit of them. What, then, is the source of my angst? Read on, dear reader. . .

The Drawbacks

1. I feel like I’m spying on my guildmates. If someone is crazy enough to go explore all the corners of Winterspring, even the really inaccessible one over by the cave full of crazed Moonkin, I don’t want to know about it. Without wanting to, those achievement reports influence how I think about each of my guildmates. It’s almost like opening a bathroom stall door while someone else is in there–very, very uncomfortable. I know I could turn the alerts off–but I can’t make myself. What if I’m missing important information that could be used for the good of the guild?

2. There’s a little voice in my head telling me I’m lazy. I have a ridiculously low number of achievement points for someone who has raided as much as I have. Perhaps it’s my competitive personality, but whatever the metric, my instinct is to catch up. However, it would be hard to do that without running all those heroics and Zul’Aman again, and to be quite honest, I’d rather not. That goes for most achievements–world exploration, holidays, and reputation grinding included. The non-combat pet is my only exception, as I’m all about achievement if the reward is cute enough. However, I’m not interested in the proto-drakes or other flying mount rewards. Syd never uses anything but flight form–nothing compares to the grace and freedom of actually being a bird.

3. The structured Achievements have altered my understanding of the game world. What I love most about the world of the MMO is its open, anarchic nature. I actually like remote locations like Winterspring–where I spent a lot of time grinding rep with the Wintersaber Trainers–because they feel wild and unused, just like the remote corners of the real world. If the game is telling me to go to a certain place to get points, it just doesn’t feel like a hideaway any more. For the most part, when I was grinding rep in Winterspring, I was the only player there. I love the sense of a hostile world with only me in it. I suppose, in general, that I would rather that my “casual time” be as unstructured and solitary as possible. However, that’s me. I’m a raider, and I have plenty of structured things to do in the bulk of my play time.

4. I haven’t felt it too strongly yet, as healers are a dime a dozen in my guild, but there’s a good chance that, as the game moves on, guild members will start to post events–dungeons and raids–for achievement purposes only, and that they’ll need a healer. I tend to run instances following a very practical model. If there’s something that someone needs–that I recognize as valuable–I’m happy to help someone do it. If there were a mount, a pet, or a piece of gear involved, I’m glad to come along. However, I feel the same way about Achievement Points as I came to feel about Badges of Justice–it’s a bit of a stretch to do something unpleasant just for points. Now, if I or my groupmates could buy pink bunnies with those achievement points, I’d understand. But without that, I’m just not going to feel motivated to revisit old content. I like new things, and once I move on from an instance, I really move on. There’s a very good reason my alts haven’t been through Karazhan. I follow the same rule for things like holiday events. If they are fun or profitable, I participate. If not? I let it go.

So what can I do? As a player, I am going to strive to use the Achievement system as a tracking-only mechanism. Where possible, and pet skunk aside, I am not going to let the tooltip tell me how to play. That way, when I pore over my achievements panel, it will really let me track Syd’s journey as a character.

Build Your Own Guild Part 9: Ambition

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Once you have your own little Raid Machine up and running, it’s very easy to get a particular kind of tunnel vision. In the context of Burning Crusade, many new raiding guilds or casual raiding guilds worked and struggled to become the kind of organization that could reliably clear Karazhan. However, once Prince started going down every week, these guilds stalled out or stagnated. Believe me, I’ve seen it–I used to be in one of those guilds! One week, the end boss of the entry-level raid is dead and every one is happy. The very next week, the best players are leaving the guild for more progressed organizations on other servers.

So, What Happened?

Many Karazhan-capable guilds encountered problems after they cleared the place for one simple reason. The guild’s wildest dream had come true, and it’s hard for a guild to outlive its founding vision. When you are at the helm of the raiding guild, it is your responsibility to adapt your goals and plans to a changing environment. Always plan weeks or months ahead, and make sure your guild is aware that you have a vision for their future.

Making Plans

Your thoughts and planning should extend to at least one instance beyond where you are. Collateral Damage practiced an extreme version of this. Because we started late, hitting Serpentshrine Cavern only in January, we had a very small window of time to clear two full tiers of content. We are less casual now than we were when we started, and we spent a full five months in T5. However, we started thinking about the next step about the time Leotheras went down. At the time, attunements were still in place for T6, and the officers started planning and strategizing about how we were going to kill Vashj and Kael. We shared part of our plans with the guild, in the first of what became a series of goal-setting posts from our raid leader.

In T6, we knew time was running short. Attunements were lifted just as we were ready to start, and we knew that Sunwell was on the horizon. Our goal, however, was to get through Illidan and Archimonde–we didn’t think about anything beyond that. We made posts promising a dead Illidan by the end of the summer, and all of my recruitment ads promised full clears of T6 by that time. And you know what? We did it. I think that the planning, goal-setting, and above all, the stubborn refusal to accept the possibility of failure allowed us to do it. Mind you, we’re not a hardcore guild, and we were even less so the first time we took a peep at Naj’entus.

On Progress

In order to survive, a raiding guild must always have progression in mind. Some weeks no new bosses will die–that is only right and good, as it is the sign of challenging content. We don’t want it to be easy, right? However, a guild must never be content to rest on its laurels and only raid farm bosses. As your group masters more and more bosses, the farm list will grow longer, potentially leaving less and less time every week to work on new content. There are two ways to manage the dichotomy of progression and farming: the fast method and the slow method. Each way has its own benefits and drawbacks.

The Fast Method

Following this method, a raid leaves farm content behind as soon as it is feasible. The raid may set some essential gear goals, like a certain amount of tank health or survivability, but no attention is paid to the completion of gear sets or the acquisition of best-in-slot items. End bosses in particular, because of their relative inaccessibility and high level of time investment, are more or less neglected. The raid may kill the end boss of an instance three or four times at maximum, and all fights in the dungeon will not be on farm status before the raid moves on to the next boss. Inevitably, gear gaps arise, as people do not have the opportunity to collect all the gear from the instance. In Burning Crusade, players looked to badge gear, craftables, and Zul’Aman gear to fill the gap. Similar opportunities for gear outside of raids may also be available in Wrath. This method allowed Collateral Damage to get through T6 in short order, but if you ask some of our members, the progress was too fast at times. The pressure was consistently high, especially for a casual raiding guild, and members spent a great deal of time outside of raiding optimizing their gear.

However, the great benefit of this method is that players never get bored. The challenge is consistent, and the raid doesn’t stagnate. Even if they farm on Tuesday, they know they get to wipe to fun new content all night on Sunday. If you are a guild behind the curve of progression, which many guilds that start up at the dawn of Wrath might be, this is probably the best progress model to adopt. Before you do, however, make sure your players are up to the pace.

The Slow Method

According to this tactic, the raid farms instances until the majority of its players complete their gear sets. These guilds do spend time on new content, but they happily farm the old until they reach a comfortable overall gear level. If the guild follows this method, the members have little need to acquire gear outside of raid instances. They can spend their non-raid time in less stressful ways. The risk, however, is that members will get bored. Over time, a good raid can master so much content that it is impossible to go through it all in a week. There will always be people who want one last thing out of an old dungeon. Take, for example, all those raiders, casual and hardcore alike, who farmed Karazhan into the ground.

The slow method, however, can backfire as easily as the fast method. Raiders may become complacent and sloppy if they’re not motivated to reach new content. It feels terrible to wipe repeatedly to farm content–this is what happens when players do not pay attention or, worse, stop attending farm days.

The Happy Medium

Is there a way to combine the approaches? I would tend to say yes, but from my experience, certain types of guild structures manage the struggle between farming and progression better than others. Naturally, hardcore guilds are the best at farming–they have structures that ensure their members’ attendance, and those members tend to be really interested in raiding anyway. Smaller guilds will always have an easier time leaving instances behind than guilds with deep benches because they have less members to outfit. However, small guilds run the risk of not filling farm raids if members lose interest. However any raiding guild, regardless of size or structure, can both farm and progress, as long as its leadership is actively managing the relationship between the two. The key idea here is responsibility: farm responsibly, and progress responsibly. Here are some tips on maintaining the equilibrium between these two opposing terms.

1. Farm it like you mean it.
When you do farm old content, or clear the front half of an instance in order to get to new bosses on the back, play as if every fight were a progression fight. Many raid leaders will be tempted to be more inclusive on farm rosters, letting more casual members of the guild see the content. Do this with caution. Make sure that whoever you bring along will not slow the group down. Your highest commitment should be to your regular raiders–make them happy, and you will have a stable guild. I also advise against allowing raiders to bring alts in farm content. In the long run, they will be sorry they spread their DKP over more than one character, and their play may even suffer because they have not concentrated adequately on one class and role.

2. Always have progression time.
In a 12-hour raid week, which seems to be a typical raid schedule, try to dedicate at least 4 hours to new content. That is enough time to take down a new boss if it’s fairly easy or to make significant progress on a difficult one. I have seen bad weeks and good weeks of raid progress, but the only thing that guarantees a stagnant week is dedicating insufficient time to the fun new stuff. Make sure your people have a reason to farm quickly–they should know that, at the end of their raid week, they get to challenge themselves with something new.

The key idea here is reasonable progress. Don’t force your raid through content at lightning speed, but don’t let your group stagnate either. Remember that a guild that makes steady progress will be happier and more stable than the server-first guild that rushes through thanks to sleep deprivation and a Raid Leader who knows how to crack the bullwhip.

After all, what are you going to do when you run out of content? At that point, it’s all farming until the next patch comes out. Make sure that when your guild gets to that happy point, the members all like each other enough to stick around through some slow farming weeks. That’s the kind of organization with real staying power.