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It seems like we've been having trouble finishing Naxx these past few weeks. Part of it is random schedules, part of it is random mistakes that lead to wipes that take too long, and part of it is doing Sartharian +X.

I'm just throwing this poll out there to see level of interest. Personally I'd like to continue our Sarth progression, but not at the expense of Naxx clears, so if I had to choose I would choose to do Naxx first and use left-over time on Sarth. Once we have either Sarth+X or Naxx down pat, this poll won't make any difference - we'll do them both every week. But until then, what would you prefer?

As much as I'd like to whoop up on Sarth and progress there, I'd rather finish Naxx first, then work on Sarth. I think the gear gained by doing a full Naxx clear will benefit the guild more overall than killing more time on Sarth. I'd also like to get back to Maly as well (10 and/or 25) but also after we've clear Naxx.

i've been offline (and will continue to be distracted for the coming weeks : DOW2), so i'm not voting. However, the EPS (epics per seconds) is higher in Naxx. I know there are some guildies that hardly need anything from naxx anymore, but that's hardly the case for the guild as a whole.

Since we seem to have better attendance on Tuesdays it might be best to do military and construct wings first thing on that day. If we have extra time after those wings we can get in some Sarth+2 time or clear out spider/plague. Sapph 25 seems to have more leeway for less people/people screwing up than Thaddius does, so it would be good to get Thaddius down when we know we are at full strength.

Happiness and Satisfaction
That's what we're going for, as a guild. Our poll options may as well be:

• Work on Progression (sarth +X, Malygos25)
• Work on Achievements (8-man Sarth, Naxx, etc.)
• Work on Full Clears of Naxx 25

Progression is a lot of work- it's a couple hours of wipes until we get the exultation of accomplishment. Don't get me wrong, we should do this.. but, maybe not regularly. It's a lot of stress, and take 25 people- not everyone has that stress limit, the patience, or even the inclination.

Achievements are kinda the same. As Blizz has stated, the achievements are merely taking an existing fight, and making it harder on ourselves. And last check, not a majority of the 25 raiders are achievement whores like me & Andy. I mean really, probably less than half care about that than they do about getting through the fight in the first place. Again, we should do them sometime, but you know, we can hold off on these and do them later.

Full Clears of Naxxramas: I think I've blatantly lead up to this because judging by the poll, the sentiment in guildchat, and the number of private tells I get from people ranting about this that and the other thing, this is what makes people happy. This gives a sense of satisfaction, when we're done, and leave no boss un-killed. It is, as Hung points out, much more reward for the time invested, than anything else we do.

Tangent: We have discussed before, the intention of our loot system is to be fair to everyone. And it is often pointed out: in the long run, dice willing, everyone will get everything anyway. Let us not worry that we are hampered on progression by gear- in time, we will get it- and we know for a fact we're already highly skilled. More bosses killed is more loot, and in the end it will all even out. Let's also not dwell on the loot rules here- put it in the other thread.

Merging the tangent back to the main point I'm trying to make: The loot will "just happen" as we do more full clears of naxx, and I think people will be more satisfied by the full clear, rather than any individual award. My reasoning is that there would be a chance at the loot- if K'T is alive, we never had a chance at the loot, and that's no fun. But if we kill him every week, eventually all will be made happy.

Though we may have thought that Sunday was the 'best' weekend day for finishing a run, I think we need to finish during the week, when we have more consistent attendance. And then we can turn our saturdays and sundays from waffling about raid or no raid, and use it for things like those other dragons, 8-man clears, achievement runs in raids and heroics. Or even, you know, not even logging in at all, because you're not losing sleep over an unfinished Naxxramas instance.

I agree that focus should be Naxx25 each week, but I really don't care if we start each week with Naxx25 or with some form of Sarth and Vault. But maybe one of the things we really should pay attention is the start time of our raids. If it's supposed to be 8pm Pacific time, then at 8pm people who want to and are able to raid should be logged in. Not at 8:22. If we want to get things finished on time, we should get things started on time. And that means, not run dungeons knowing it'll go past 8pm, not log in at 8:10 and waiting to be summoned. I have to say, at 8pm everyone who can raid should be at least logged in. I understand that real life things happen, like you have work and you don't get home until 9pm. That's OK. But those who are ready at 8pm, should be ready at 8pm, and not slowly stroll in at 8:12pm. And maybe some who are really eager to help get things started can get to the stone at 7:50 and start getting ready.

Daewen wrote:Let us not worry that we are hampered on progression by gear- in time, we will get it- and we know for a fact we're already highly skilled.

All I'm gonna say is if we all are already highly skilled, we should have no problem clearing Naxx25 on a weekly basis - not counting the fact that some people thought we spent too much time failing to do Sarth25+2 last Tuesday.

Having gear is not the same as being highly skilled. You might not have been in our Naxx25 last week, Tony, but the Naxx25 run from last week are already starting to have gear being awarded to off-specs and even being sharded. Mains seem to be already geared and not need them anymore. And yet we failed to finish Naxx25 3 weeks in a row.

What really hurt us is people not understanding the fight and not paying attention to the gimmicks of the fight. I'm not saying that I remember everything in every fight, or know how to and can avoid every hazard in the fights (heck, I couldn't finish the Heigan dance last week for the first time in a few weeks). But how many of us have never survived a Heigan fight? How many of us are still unable to make the jump to Thaddius or dying to opposing charges? Or how many of us are not realizing we're the bomb or walking into pools of green stuff left behind Grobbulus?

Given that we have been doing it for weeks, people who've been here should really not have confusion about the fights in Naxx anymore. I understand that every week we would seem to have 1 or 2 new 80s and therefore we always repeat the rules of each fight. But for those who have been here week after week, we should have no questions and should all understand our roles in each fight. If we died still not understanding our roles and received lots of dont-be-a-dick loot, I'm sorry but the upgraded gear is not going to make your skill necessarily any higher.

Maybe I'm bitter because I've been looking forward to the last 2 bosses for 3 weeks, as I haven't been able to loot anything the past few weeks, becauase I've been here every week since I turned 80 and have received the 4-set bonus already, and therefore have been forced to pass on every single piece of loot that has dropped since (and /rolled once on a belt that I needed but lost), or pass on weapons to fellow rogues and shamans because they happen to be not my weapons of choice (or they happen to be their weapons of choice).

Last I remembered WoW was a video game people played for fun. I also remembered once upon a time gulidies used to get along with each other and helped each other out by sharing loot and whatnot. Those were the days.

Camyu wrote:

Daewen wrote:Let us not worry that we are hampered on progression by gear- in time, we will get it- and we know for a fact we're already highly skilled.

All I'm gonna say is if we all are already highly skilled, we should have no problem clearing Naxx25 on a weekly basis - not counting the fact that some people thought we spent too much time failing to do Sarth25+2 last Tuesday.

How many guilds have you been in?

How many pugs have you run?

How many people from the so-called 'top raid guilds' do you know?

In comparison to the majority of the server, and even to -some- of those raid guilds, you are actually in very good company. no, really, there's worse. Much worse. And some of the only reason why those 'top' guilds are so far up there is they raid 5+ days a week for 4-6 hours a day. I hate to suggest it, but a lot of them do stupid stuff too. They wipe, the pick up, they do it again.

We "suggest" 8pm, because more people can start then than at 9pm. But we're not strict about it, because, well, what are you going to do with your group of friends? punish them?

I've been in at least 5 guilds, 2 of them were considered pretty accomplished hardcore raid guilds of Icecrown. The reason I get riled when people suggest me to pug is because I already spent two YEARS doing pugs- there were no such things as full guild runs for me back then. My /played time is well in excess of 300 days game time. Yes, I'm an ass, I've got a precious thin patience, but FUCK if I'd give up the casual gang we have here for the performance-critical verbal abuse and cut-my-own-wrists loot drama of any other group.

And I think we've said this before, in another thread: This is a friends-and-family guild, we do it because we want to play, and have fun with our friends. If this is not your primary goal or measure of success when you log in, don't.

I'm really indifferent, since my primary attendance is Thursday raids (wife works late on Wed, Thurs & Sat). Yes there's more bang for the buck in the overall greater amount of drops from Naxx runs, and yes there's some that need only 1 or 2 things, or nothing from Naxx runs (they probably only need something from the Sarth +2 table), but it's also fun to keep things mixed up.

Maybe alternate weeks that we start Sarth+2 runs on Tues with weeks that we start Naxx on Tuesday to try and keep the majority of both sides of the fence happy. As long as we don't see a decline in numbers that can be attributed to which Target we're doing (and that shouldn't be an issue considering the membership of the guild in the first place) then we should have a nice mix of runs where there's a little something for everyone.

And if we do have an issue, that's easy enough to solve with a nerf gun, water balloon, or paintball gun fight around the time of the next BBQ get together.

charline wrote:Last I remembered WoW was a video game people played for fun. I also remembered once upon a time gulidies used to get along with each other and helped each other out by sharing loot and whatnot. Those were the days.

We are still doing that. Since when did we not share loot? Since when didwe stop getting along and stop helping each other out?

Daewen wrote: How many guilds have you been in?

How many pugs have you run?

How many people from the so-called 'top raid guilds' do you know?

1, 0, 0.
Are you going to kick me out because I have limited experience in this game? I'm just cherry-picking your comment and saying that your suggestion of we're highly skilled is wrong.

Daewen wrote:And I think we've said this before, in another thread: This is a friends-and-family guild, we do it because we want to play, and have fun with our friends. If this is not your primary goal or measure of success when you log in, don't.

Am I not having fun playing in this friends-and-family guild? I'm getting to that point. I'm playing here because Cenon and I are friends of Dom, and Cenon wanted me to come play with him for four years, and I finally did. Since Cenon no longer plays, I'm seriously contemplating about not playing. But I've stuck around for a few weeks even though he doesn't play anymore. Why? Because I enjoy raiding with this group and I want to contribute to the raid. Because I'm also friends with Dom, Brad, Andy, Luke, Rich, and Katy in real life (did I miss anyone?). That is why I don't log on anymore except to raid now because that's when I can enjoy the game with my friends. Don't throw your guild/raiding superior crap at me because you are in no way to judge me based on how little guild and MMO experience I have. And even so, I study my character hard and I contribute the best I can with what I know. I read forums and study my class. I work hard playing my character on a weekly basis, and I contribute.

And we were taking ideas on how to finish Naxx, so I suggest simply that we should start on time. At 8pm as SUGGESTED. Everyone can feel free to throw that suggestion out the door, but that's one of the things that can be done so we can try to finish the damn thing.