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I suppose I should weigh in to this discussion, as I am in a very unique position as being the only level 80 druid who has been raiding for the last month or so.

As Cenon brings up, there are two aspects to this discussion: How do we handle this now, and how do we handle this once we move forward into Ulduar and beyond. Right now, muddling through the 25mans with the ability to drag a few undergeared people along works. But it may not work in the future, with perhaps one or two once we get some fights down. One thing we may have to consider is that we will most likely be running Naxx at the same time as Ulduar, in order to continue gearing some people up who aren't ready for Ulduar. Then we have to start worrying about things like "I got an upgrade from Naxx on Tuesday, does that count against me for Ulduar on Thursday?" Also, most of us are working under the assumption that dual specs will come out at the same time. This throws yet another monkey wrench into the works, as someone getting offspec gear doesn't necessarily condemn it to bank space purgatory, it may actually directly benefit the guild.

But anyway, my unique situation is another corner case in the system. Aside from about six or seven total items in the game (three of which are T7.5 tokens) there isn't anything left for me in 25 man runs, most of which come from KT or Malygos. This is because of a combination of being the only leather spellcaster and high attendance (with a small amount of luck on some rolls). At this point, I'm really coming along to help the guild and to take any melee leather that the rogues don't want. From the system we've got, this means that since I won't be rolling on anything during the duration of the runs, by the time we get to the end and a T7.5 token or a healing weapon from KT drops, there's a higher than average chance that I'm the only one who hasn't gotten anything so far and therefore am the only one who can roll.

There are two ways of looking at this: "Well, Andy should get gear because everyone should get a chance to upgrade their gear -- it's no fun to spend six hours in a week and not get anything to show for it." and "Andy's already geared enough, the slight upgrade of a non-tier 213 epic to a tier 213 epic isn't as significant as letting that token go to someone in a dungeon blue or a 200 epic." But then, looking at this from another point of view, all the rogues, mages and death knights out there (which is usually half the raid, it seems) shouldn't be penalized and not be able to roll on the best in slot item in the game just because some druid happens to have all the gear he wants already just because he was the only druid for the last month.

It's not an easy distinction to make. It's even harder to quantify.

fhatee wrote:Gotta agree with Byron and Kevin here. Keep it more simple. I personally agree more with Byron in the 1 drop per run rule, let the dice decide instead, but our current 1 drop per week until everyone else gets something is not the end of the world.

Wait, WTF? It's 1 drop per week until everyone gets something? When did that happen? That's so incredibly broken I don't even know where to begin... I withdraw my comment above: I can't live with this.

sphie brings up another issue: I see the word "progression" being used, but this term is really being used as a euphemism. It doesn't take much reading between the lines to realize what is actually meant here is an "elitist clique", an "A-Team" that gets special treatment so they'll have the ability to "progress" through higher content and thus making lower raids "farm status" for everyone else to feed from. -Don't say it isn't true...the clique made itself well known as soon as Wrath opened...causing much unhappiness (I've no idea why, but I seem to be the one people /tell their gripes to).

Sphie is right, we need as a guild to decide if we want an A-Team/Everyone else direction, or if we really are a "casual guild". Because if "progression" is what we're after then the loot rules get worse: All "A-Team" players get priority, always, if it helps "guild progression". Really, that's what you're after isn't it? That's why you bitched about Sherrman getting anything a "real" tank could have used much less two items. How did you put it Sphie, "It's basically as if that loot was wasted or sharded.". Nice. Lets just put the cards on the table.

Reality check: Tunaka currently fights with Were for top healing spot in the guild with everyone else being a distant 3rd at best (this is despite Tunaka until recently having far lower gear then most of the guild healers...after Tuesday I'm probably top). I tell you now, if we are going to be a "progression" guild rather then casual...I'm not sure there's much reason for me to keep Tunaka here. If I was after simple progression I'd advance far faster, see far more content in <Poor Play> or the like.

We're looking to add all the drama of "progression" without having the actual commitment or skill level of players to go that far with it. That sounds like a plan to end the guild, not advance it. We're either a casual guild or a progression guild; Being a half-assed progression guild isn't a good option for anyone.

I don't see this as a constructive path of discussion. Let's put it in simple terms:

We're a friends and family guild. We quest together, we run instances together, we raid together, pvp together. We do this to have fun, to play the game with friends. I think that should sum up what's #1 importance to everyone in this guild. For everyone that's been recently brought in, whom are friends of friends and part of former guilds on other servers, we asked 1 thing: a guarantee of drama-free existence.

If playing with friends isn't the most important thing when you log in to WoW, then Schadenfreude is not the right guild to be in. I'm going to be a little harsh on that point. We've only, to date, removed 1 person from this guild, and it was 50% that they were a loot-whore, and 50% unacceptable levels of drama. Percentages will vary depending on who you ask.

Now, the fact that we do raid together has lead us to set goals (e.g. winning), and that might happen through some mechanism we call 'progression', which is helped by the notion of 'gearing up'. But let's not get too far from #1: We're playing with friends. That's supposed to make it fun, low-stress, drama-free. Because frankly more than enough of us have put up with high-stress, high-drama, progression-focused guilds with far more complex, less-fair loot rules for YEARS, and we left that behind.

I like the current system, I think it enables the more casual players to keep up with the hardcores; sure it means we clear things more slowly, but it prevents us from getting to a point where some people just will never be able to contribute in a meaningful way. Getting everyone decently geared means that everyone can have fun and feel like they are helping out when they are able to raid, even if they are only there half of the time. A lot of us are busy, and have families or other time commitments. I really like that I'm able to keep up, and be useful, but I can't and probably will never be able to raid on Tuesdays. I'm sure other people have similar types of time constraints; if all of those people are allowed to fall behind the folks who don't have the same time constraints, it will sure be more fair to the hardcores, but a lot of people will start feeling unsatisfied and frustrated, and since a lot of you are friends, I'd rather that not happen

fhatee wrote:Gotta agree with Byron and Kevin here. Keep it more simple. I personally agree more with Byron in the 1 drop per run rule, let the dice decide instead, but our current 1 drop per week until everyone else gets something is not the end of the world.

To help clarify a little, it's not "one per person per week", it's more of a priority system for people who haven't gotten anything yet. In other words, if A, B, and C are all casters in a raid, and A has gotten 2 items, B has gotten 1 item, and C has gotten 0 items, on the next item that drops, C gets first priority to roll or pass. If they pass, the B gets to decide if they want to roll or pass, and finally, if both B and C pass, then A can roll or pass.

Under this system, there is a chance a person will get nothing due to bad rolls/luck on drops, or a lot. But the point is to try to make sure everyone gets AT LEAST one thing. This is what the "until everyone else gets something" that Joe mentioned is about.

Enough people pass to others so that many people often get two or three items a week.

Out of curiosity... has anyone actually read the rules? I thought I made them fairly clear, but... ^_^;;

Byron wrote:sphie brings up another issue: I see the word "progression" being used, but this term is really being used as a euphemism. It doesn't take much reading between the lines to realize what is actually meant here is an "elitist clique", an "A-Team" that gets special treatment so they'll have the ability to "progress" through higher content and thus making lower raids "farm status" for everyone else to feed from. -Don't say it isn't true...the clique made itself well known as soon as Wrath opened...causing much unhappiness (I've no idea why, but I seem to be the one people /tell their gripes to).

As someone who is likely being put into your 'elitist clique' category, I take offense to your insinuation that the top geared people in the guild are getting some sort of preferential treatment. I worked my ass off when to get to 80 then to gear myself from heroics and finally from raids. When guild groups would form, I'd offer my services as healer at first and later as DPS. I'd certainly like to think that the fact that I've missed -no- scheduled raids to this day is the primary reason that I've gotten a solid set of equipment. If you look at the other well equipped people in the guild, you'll see much the same. These elitists are people that are willing to help guild mates with instances and have high participation in guild raids.

If people want to be members of the 'elitist clique', perhaps they should offer to do more heroics, show up to guild events more often, and help other people out instead of declaring themselves 'unavailable' and then doing battlegrounds for the rest of the night.

Let me make one quick observation here then I'll get on to the subject matter. There seems to be only one person in this thread that has gone way beyond the point of being civil and having a decent conversation about a matter important to the guild. This is a guild formed of family and friends; if you can't keep it that way then I'd suggest that this isn't the place for you. There are many ways to have a conversation and disagreeing with someone while still keeping it civil.

My experience with loot goes waaaay back to the good ol' EQ days that when something dropped, all the officers would started sending a bazillion tells back and forth to each other (there were no channels!) until a consensus was reached on who got the drop. More recently in WoW we had a guild DKP system that involved bidding for items and letting the guild members determine how much something was worth by bidding. This worked great for the most part, however a few unsavory souls decided exploit a loophole that turned the system sour.

This guild is probably the most laid back guild I've ever been in, mostly because the majority of members have formed closer relationships, either in RL or by knowing each other online for so long. This is great and I love the atmosphere and I love how laid back we've been about loot and such. My fear is that as we have grown (and appear to continue growing) and the guild is starting to want to be more "uber" and do more "uber" things, we are going to suffer growing pains. Unfortunately this game dictates that in order to progress in the harder zones (Ulduar will definitely be harder) you need a certain amount of skill and gear to progress. This is not cliqueish, it is not about creating an "A-team", it's how the game is. As much as I'd love to keep just random rolling for gear, I do believe there needs to be some sense to it in the future. I'd really rather avoid going full DKP or such because that has it's own whole set of issues associated with it, but we will need *some* kind of control. Granted, I don't have the answer right now though some good ideas have come up and I think we'll have more good ideas surface. Let's just keep it calm and civil as we work through it.

well, for what it's worth, here goes my 2copper:
KISS (keep it simple, stupid) has always been one of my favorite acronyms. i like the system we have been employing so far. i know that it is a hassle for raid leader(s)/spreadsheet monitors and it tends to take quite a bit of time to distribute loot. but i don't think i would prefer the alternative of an elaborate system of accounting w/ all sorts of bells/whistles because we all know that will lead to disagreements, flaws and inherent biases. yes, i agree that this system will create a disadvantage for us when clearing new content. but i think most of us would rather play (this is a game after all) with friends at our own pace than race the other guilds. i started playing this game because i was friends IRL w/ everyone that was in the guild at the time i joined. and i believe that most of us have felt that this is a "friends/family" guild for several years now. i for one do not want to see that change. and if anyone has joined under the assumption that this guild is something different than that, well, let me be the first to apologize for the misunderstanding. we have never been a "progression" guild. i, for one, vote we remain casual.

I've been in a casual guild, and I've been in the hardest of the hardcore guilds (7 days a week 5 hours a night in Everquest).

Important things to keep in mind are that you can be casual without sacrificing progress. We raid 3 nights a week which no one complains about, that's a decent number. I've personally never liked DKP or Randoming, but I understand the use of both. This is a pretty fantastic guild in terms of the camaraderie amongst nearly all the members. It's all about finding a few little adjustments to "Don't be a dick" to ensure that the majority of members are enjoying themselves and WANTING to raid and log in.

Pocky wrote:Out of curiosity... has anyone actually read the rules? I thought I made them fairly clear, but... ^_^;;

I did. You were clear and I was not confused a single bit.

Daewen wrote:If playing with friends isn't the most important thing when you log in to WoW, then Schadenfreude is not the right guild to be in.

I agree. That's why Svedberg left, I think. Because he wanted progression, and Schadenfreude isn't progressing the way he'd like it to, and so he left to join another guild, I think. Also, I can count my real life friends in Schadenfreude with 2 hands, and I am not always playing with them either. I never came home to log on and say "Oh I have to play with Dom because he's my friend" (although lately I've been in the mode of "Oh I have to help Katy gear up because she just turned 80") But I wouldn't call it the most important thing when I log in to WoW either.

Yryche wrote:Let's just keep it calm and civil as we work through it.

Yryche, you're pointing out what's obvious to most of us

Byron wrote:Because if "progression" is what we're after then the loot rules get worse: All "A-Team" players get priority, always, if it helps "guild progression". Really, that's what you're after isn't it?

I've only recently started playing MMO but I think you're not making sense here. "A-Team" or not, it's the "Mains" right now that are getting priority as the rules currently are put in place. We're also currently not counting attendance. You don't have to be an "A-Team" member but can still be a Main. A Main should be your best character, someone you take to a raid, so that you can help the best you can in a raid. Of course if an alt is rolling over a main, that's similar to "wasting" that gear because that gear won't be put to use in a raid to progress the guild. I don't see how "spreading the wealth" to Alts can help us defeat more bosses if we're raiding with Mains.

Byron wrote:We're either a casual guild or a progression guild; Being a half-assed progression guild isn't a good option for anyone.

I'd rather have a half-assed progression guild than a non-progression guild, because that means we can be half-ass casual and friendly and still half-assedly progress at the same time. Having progress is better than having none and get stuck in clearing Naxx25 and getting all the gear, but not being able to clear Malygos10 because people don't play their class the way they should be played, in my opinion. I'm looking forward to going into Ulduar the first time and getting smacked around so hard, and then realize that our guild needs more commitment to progress. I don't see how progressing means forgoing the casual/friendly side of the guild at the same time. We should be able to have both.

On Tony's theme of "spread the wealth and don't be a dick". If we start spreading the wealth to Alts before Mains, that's becoming dickish. We're still letting the dice decide everything, and we have to continue letting Mains have priority over Alts. But maybe we don't have to stick to trying to be so fair and let everyone have something at the end of the week. Maybe all mains should be allowed to roll on their drops whether they have gotten something already or not, which sorta gets back to how it was before loot rules were put in place... except that it gives Mains priority over Alts.