Naxx 25 - It's Time

[7F]LarryBoy;334300 said:
If we were a raiding guild, the population of the guild would be strongly encouraged to show up for officially scheduled raids. The guild leaders would set policy dictating attendance requirements, rules, loot rules, etc. If you had an issue with the raid policies, you would take it up with the leaders.

By stating that we're "not a raiding guild" I think we mean that the guild leadership is not sponsoring and overseeing the raid; it is purely the undertaking of the leaders of the raid (even if those leaders happen to be officers), and the authority and responsibility of the run rests on their shoulders.

I think what Bob and others are getting at is because we are "not a raiding guild" the guild is not going to "force" members to join these raids, and the guild is not going to make sure things are fair for all members of the guild or raid - invites, loot rules, etc. Really, the guild and guild's leadership has nothing to do with it.
YES! And well put - thanks Alan. I have received support many times from the TF officers in establishing my run, offering ideas/suggestions, and participation. :) For the "Team Omega" run, there are loot policies (friendly basically) and things like consistent attendance, showing up with food/flasks/repaired are strongly encouraged. And many of us in TF would like to progress and experience content. But that is not the reason/focus of the guild as a whole. Does that make raiding/progressing wrong? Certainly not. However, if (and I'm not directing this at anyone in any way) progressing/raiding is the primary reason you play WoW, TF would probably not be the best choice.

I know many (officers included) are looking forward to giving Naxx 25 a run as a guild. I'm not worried that it will change the face or overall purpose of The Forgiven. And this way, Eric gets to sing for 24 of us instead of only 9 tragic toons... :eek:
 
I think Alan, Danny and Bob said it best. I will add for the stake of Rob's comment, there have been attempts in the past to use TF and/or TF members (active recruiting) to form other raiding guilds. The Forgiven will never be a raiding guild by the definition given which states:

- defined raiding schedules whereby your game play is determined by someone else.
- your class play style is dictated by someone else.
- what you wear, how you play, how available your game time determines your acceptance.
- success is only derived from the doing and not from whom you are doing it with (I added this one in for me as I need to be reminded of this often)

I had joined The Forgiven to the SGA to satisfy the need by my Christian brothers and sisters to enjoy end game content with progression only in mind and yet provide them with a place to hang their hat when they needed some down time.

/draws a line in the sand

I do not mean to be brash or come across rude but the day I see any raid sponsored by members or officers of this guild who crosses these lines will result in swift action on my part (and I would hope our officers). Please do not feel offended by this, but understand it comes from seeing attempts that were well intended at the time but caused such division as a fallout. I will not tolerate the breaking of fellowship over a split in the vision of the guild.

The Forgiven is a haven and has been a source of great healing by many. If classic raiding is truly in your blood, I will bless you and send you off with an open invitation to come back (it would not be the first time this has happened).

Back on topic, Anita and I would love to join this run but Mondays to Thursdays are out of the question as we are not able to commit and it would be unfair to leave the run hanging each week. We both can commit to something Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
 
Sorry Rob, I'll try and catch you online as I would like to understand what you meant. No one should apologize or feel on edge to talk about raiding or progression. Most of our 80s spend the majority of our time in one run or another.

Progression is not bad either so I hope I have not overshot my goal of clarifying what I think you meant. What we are hoping to do in Naxx 25 man should not be seen any different than our attempts on ZA prior to WOTLK expansion or ZG before the TBC expansion - its all good but lets just be intentional about what we don't want to be cause that line can sometimes be very blurry.
 
In my opinion a raiding guild exists to raid. The enforced focus of play time is either in preparing for the raid or in actual raiding. Although I don't consider raiding to be "evil" or even an issue for those who want to spend their play time focusing that way, it would go against the very nature of the guild for us to begin to tell others when they have to play, how they have to play or spec, how they have to gear, etc. etc.

Quoting the Forgiven State of the Union - Who we are is best answered by saying we are a fellowship of believers. Emphasis is on fellowship and believers. We exist as a haven from the strife, greed and drama that can and does come as part of this game.

The reason why the subject of raiding can be a sensitive issue is that we never want to communicate that we have an expectation that our 80's need to be online and in any or all raids that we are gathering. The reason that I feel the need to state that "we are not a raiding guild" is to clarify to anyone that The Forgiven as a whole is not going to start placing requirements on people's game time, style, focus etc. We have enough members who have come to us burnt out because of the expectations placed upon them that I always want to be clear that we are not forcing (or expecting) anyone to do anything. I also make sure to state this up front while interviewing people because I don't want them to come in with the opposite expectation that everyone who is online is going to be focused on raiding or preparing for raiding.

I believe we have existed as a strongly as a guild for 4+ years because we have a vision, kept clear by making statements such as "we are not a raiding guild". Please understand my heart in this...I love raids, in fact I think that the majority of my time in Wow atm is in 25 mans...I seem to log on just in time to catch either Vaults, OS or Naxx...I just want to keep the vision for the guild clear :D
 
** Edited ** Anita said it sooo much better then I did.

I would like to clarify the following quote ...

"/draws a line in the sand

I do not mean to be brash or come across rude but the day I see any raid sponsored by members or officers of this guild who crosses these lines will result in swift action on my part (and I would hope our officers). Please do not feel offended by this, but understand it comes from seeing attempts that were well intended at the time but caused such division as a fallout. I will not tolerate the breaking of fellowship over a split in the vision of the guild."

This statement is borne out of having to deal with a small situation which broke fellowship with two people I cared a lot for a couple of years ago. The majority of you would not have been around so I would like to apologize for this comment as it is completely out of context for the content/question at hand.

Rob, I certainly hope you will forgive me if what I said you felt anything less then friendship from. I have appreciated your balanced perspective on things and I should have asked more questions before storming ahead on an assumption.
 
Last edited:
Communication is a wonderful thing! I love this guild and the folks in it!

Break Break

For those grabbing the end of the thread. We are trying to gauge interest in a 25 man Naxx run 6 April, invites to start around 630 server, start at 700 with first pull if all goes well. We'll go a couple/few hours depending on how folks are feeling. You should be able to sign up in Guild Calendar. If you aren't running that mod no big deal. Just in game message me on either of the toons in my signature below and I'll add you in.
 
Ok, well, onto the subject of trying to get a 25-man Naxx run together ... As much as I would like to bring Dren to this run I have made a commitment to Dan's run. While I may not always like the conversations going on in TS (and have learned to tune much of it out) I would not feel good about dropping them to join another run, not that anyone is asking me too.

Now, if only I wasn't so slow in lvling my other toons I might be able to bring them on this run. Unfortunately, I don't have the same passion for lvling my 4 other toons to 80 like I did when TBC came out. Now it is a simple matter of, what do I want to play today? One day though, they will each hit 80, of course by then, the lvl cap will prob be 90 or 100.

Anyway, if something changes and I can join you guys and you need me, I'm there, but if not, good luck and have fun.
 
[The Forgiven will never be a raiding guild by the definition given which states:

-- what you wear, how you play, how available your game time determines your acceptance.

to be honest this happens always, especially how u play and gear that is y you have to be geared u cna tcome to a riad and want in right away wearing greens when somoene else is wanting in has hte gear, I am sorry I will choice hte one who will have the gear. and how u play can come in cause if u not the spec that is needed like u a tank and looking for a dps or healer that wont get you or if u really wan tto have fun and and cant play the your class right or you are causing others to die cause of non stop noobness( reason I raid lead sometimes) lol it is hard to bring someone. Time is usally not a factor but if u can only make it for 1 boss and someone else can come longer yeah I be going with longer.

So by this I guess my idea of raiding execptations is not what the guild wants. yet as a raider I except everyone to do 2 things, have fun but also know what u doing we wipe we wipe, but I dont like wiping cause of the same thing everytime. yeah I am bold I mess up but I except certtain standards at the same time
 
As a raid leader you do have to make that call and I would support it because it is not the only run available to that person. What has to be clear is - is a given run a progression run or not so serious but lets drop a few bosses kinda run. Rhys, you know better than most people here how much latitude there is given for people to spec the way they want ... to a certain point. We are far more tolerant for people to play the way they want. I believe we have good checks and balances in place to ensure for those folks who wish to partake in a progression run, the bar is set to a given standard.

It would help to use examples to explain but I have not received permission by one who I would love to use (/hint Tom) but I believe our raid leaders have been fair to say that for a given fight, this is the expectation. If the expectation isn't reached, they are not excluded automatically. I know for a fact that our raid leaders work hard with those individuals to get them up to the standard needed.
 
Yup I think the point is, that yes, you can spec & play mechanicaly however you want in this guild, but there are consequences that will limit "where" you can play. I'll use myself as an example: If I'm sitting at 539 defense I have no justifiable right to content that requires 540. I'm excluded simply by the fact I'm not geared for it. And it would be quite sad for me to try and demand a spot.
And if a dps is geared heavily pvp or some utility spec, but a certain amount of dps is needed that they can't pump out do to spec/gear, then they are also excluded by their own gear/spec.

Consequences: someone is going to bare them. The individual or the entire team. We all know if we tried putting together a 10 man group where everyone believes they have a right to spec/play/gear however they want it would be fail.

And really, we don't have issues in this area. I don't know any leaders here who set unreasonable standards. And we do try to help ppl who are intrested in various level's of progression understand this. I think our guild is very generous.. In fact typically when we get content down we losen up our standards even more, because the margin for failure has greatly diminished.
 
Last edited:
I think we have determined what we now mean we are not a raiding guild but we do raid and personally I think that s what people are confussed about nd when people want to raid great. I think we dont need to remind people we arent a raidntg guild we know it, we till tem when they join and I think we do great there. Overall Ihope that it is clear now on the where the guild stands :D Raid but we dont force people to raid and make sure it is fun.
 
Again...I'm not talking about acceptance to any given raid..I'm talking about acceptance into the guild as a whole. I'm not going to kick Wend out of the guild because she is unable (or unwilling) to commit to showing up on Monday's at 6:30 st and when she does show up she isn't prepared with pots or mats because she hasn't been farming them. However, I may decide to prefer a different healer over Wend because she isn't particularly dependable to show up on a given day or have food, flasks, pots etc. ready. I also won't bemoan Wend's unpreparedness for raids in TS, forums, and guild chat and cause others to think that Wend is an awful player who they don't want to group up with either.

The perspective is different. A raid leader can (and probably should) limit classes, specs, gear in their own runs. I would hope that the rl is mature enough to show "brotherly love" to anyone geared, classed or specc'd appropriately for their run, but lets be honest..sometimes two people just rub each other the wrong way and don't enjoy raiding together. However, my concern isn't with the individual runs, but rather the overall impact it has on the guild. Some of us have been around for a long while and know that our place in the guild has nothing to do with how often we run with others, however, some of our newer members may not have that perspective and may feel like they need to participate in raiding in order to keep their spot in the guild (we also have some recovering raid-a-holics, and I'd like them to have a safe place to be as well)...these are the people I am thinking of when I say "The Forgiven is not a raiding guild".

As for April 6th, I'm interested in seeing how our first run goes. I'll try to make it if I can get my oldests to watch the little people.
 
Last edited:
I am more worried about Wend's stress levels now that she is talking in the 3rd person and even considered kicking herself out of the guild and raids because her 3rd person didn't farm mats, pots etc. :)
 
Back
Top