UPCOMING MEETING FOR OFFICERS AND GUILD

Here we go topics for discussion for the upcoming meeting.

It would be really great if everyone could consider these questions and have some suggestions and criticisms of the guild ready so that we can improve.

Raiding

• Raid Team (there will be a spreadsheet)
• Raiding Roles (what's the ideal raid set up ei rdps, mdps magic users etc)
• Alt Runs
• Availability for raiding (Days, Times, Floaters, Commitment Levels)
• Gear Checks (Do we do them, should we?)
• Expectations
• Steps to Reach Expectations
• Suggestions
• Criticisms

Developing the PvP Arm of Riftwarriors

• What's the interest level
• Is anyone prepared to and has the ability to lead a RBG
• Are there PvE players who want to have a dabble
• Arena Teams??
• Expectations
• Steps to Achieve these
• Suggestions
• Criticisms

The Social Component of the Guild

• Are we doing enough for the social and Community members of the guild
• What are some things that we could do
• Old time raids?
• Guild picnics?

General Rules 

• Some players have experienced some bullying in whisper during raids
• Attitudes of players in the guild what are our limits 
• What are kick-able offences
• Other peoples gear is not your concern unless you want to help get them better gear
• Linking Gear and Meters is that ok?
• Respecting peoples space and differences (We are not all the same)
• Guild Size 

Thank You

THE YEAR THAT WAS FOR RIFTWARRIORS

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Riftwarriors.  I thought I'd write about the year that was for us.  It was a big year.  We've really had some fun on Warcraft in our guild this year.  The highlights have been so many I've had a bit of a tough time trying to pick out the top moments. If you can think of any more add them to the comments below.

We decided to form a raiding team and eventually got our core group going. My right hand man in this was Ephi who worked out the maths.  I dragged my pvping real life sons along with us through most of the SoO content. We formed some great friendships and our team work was outstanding. We certainly got the raiding dances down pat.

I delved into the world of pvp and was carried by my son's to get the arena mount. I discovered pvp wasn't so bad and the boys discovered being a "care bear" could be fun. Inspiration to form a PvP arm of Rifties in the expansion.

We got three girls into the raid team Vonds, Gaatos and I. Gaatos found out that having low ping is a good thing and the raid heard all about it because her boyfriend left his vent on voice activated. We all had a glimpse into the private conversations of a WoW couple. To much embarrassment for Gaatos and of course the amusement of the whole raid team.

Vonds started talking on vent and teasing the boys relentlessly to everyone's delight. She got promoted to officer so I wasn't alone in the officers chat with a heap of young guys also because she's a great player and an awesome asset to the guild. The witty banter in guild and officer chat is so great because of Vonds and of course Madril.

Holyfyre got the nickname "Sirdiesalot" and spent the whole rest of the MoP raiding experience trying not to die a lot. We invited cross-realm Potter on his Pally and he died a lot more which took the pressure off "Sirdiesalot".

Madril and Who/Ninja formed the tanking team for SoO and what a lot of fun they had running into tank the bosses on their various mounts and rolling off for starting the boss fights. They worked like a smoothly oiled machine together.

We eventually formed a healing team which consisted of Alysith, Nuthegera (occassionally), Smokin' and Thundersquid.  Smokin' transmorg set inspired lots of guildies to go out looking for "Summer Outfits". Bainmar, Madril and I went full on into the summer outfits.  Maddy and Bainmar went that little bit further trying to get a summer indian outfit, construction worker outfit, cowboy outfit and of course we all loved Bainmar's summer pirate outfit (No Homo).

Who/Ninja invited Gladstone to the guild. He started with Thundersquid who jumped into the healing role and has come to nearly every raid. Squid, started helping who with the recruitment of Gladstone. We got Potter on his pally in Siege, who leveled a rouge in the guild through the expansion.  That was after persistent nagging from me, I do believe.

We got the BoA weapon for nearly all our members and their alts and half the people on my Real ID list. We got our lovely Sarior addicted to the Riftwarrior fun times. He has now become our unofficial guildy, despite him being in one of the top raiding guilds, he's always keen to come with us.

We went into the expansion. Ephi was first to 100 and Who/Ninja a close second. In the expansion our guild, all of a sudden, expanded dramatically, old players came back, friends of current guildies came back to WoW. We picked up the "Boys from Perth"  who felt like a group of four puppies bounding around the guild getting into all kinds of mischief. Fraeric, Jez, Serdos and Aly 2.0. We expanded with literally hundreds of other players joining us. Good thing I'd been to puppy training school with my real life puppies Leeroy and Airial.

In the first week of raiding we were up there with the leading raiding teams being, one of the first raiding teams to down the first boss.  It was our tenacity, not allowing the constant server issues to stop us that led us to beating Sariors guild in the downing of Kargath.  Our team of 10 players was dramatically expanded to 24 players on that night with 21 being there for the final kill. We did it after I think it was 3 or 4 attempts.  Naturally I forgot to take a picture.

We got stuck on a few bosses and got left behind.  We lost a lot of fly by night guildies. We kept our core raid team. We lost most of the Puppies from Perth, the bonus was we kept the best one from the bunch and now have Aly 2.0 joining the ranks of core raiders. He's an officer now, working with Ephi and Who on strats for the last boss in Highmaul. I think he likes spreadsheets and graphs as much as I do.

We also gained Alyina whom I sucessfully poached while out questing one day. I glided down from a mountain to find a mage killing stacks of mobs. I helped him out. He added me to his party and I asked the big leading poaching questions "Are you interested in raiding? Are you happy in your guild?".   I knew he would fit right in to our guild :). The rest is history; top dps and frequent raider. We also got Andy, Oak and Rentail back playing more regularly

So, the New Year begins. We have our smaller raiding team, we've gained a few great players into the bargain. Vius, Rawpower, Jubilation and schmeedqt to name just a few.  Our New Raiding Year begins with our Officer Meeting in January. I'm looking forward to what we might achieve. The sky's the limit.  I just want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone and huge cyber GROUP HUG for making RIFTWARRIORS such a great place to be.

The Boys and I preparing for Arena

The Established Raid Team (Building for the Future)

Someone Remembered to take a photo of this one

BoA weapons for Everyone

We wont  forget this grind

Sarior Invited Riftwarrior to a Snowball fight

There were more Rifties than ppl from his guild

Can't wait for the Riftwarriors Raiding in 2015

RAIDING CHANGES IN THE NEW YEAR

Last nights raid was a bit hard.  We will probably lose of few guildies which is ok it's better if people leave and move onto others guilds if they are unhappy. We reformed and downed the boss successfully with just a few guild members and the rest pugged from real id and the in game lfg. It was a bit of a long night but a great success in the end.  A huge thanks to Alyiana, Ephi, Oak and Smokin' for sticking it out until the early hours of this morning. Please pass along my tanks to your real id mates who came in to help out. We now have a tank, two healers and two dps that have successfully completed the fight and know the key roles.

A few things will be changing in the new year which will help us to communicate and get going with the rest of the raid content. It's important to understand that it is not unusual to be on a progression boss for two or three weeks.  Try to be prepared to stay on these bosses for that amount of time. I know that it is frustrating however, the emotion preceding success is frustration.  The New Year Plans are listed below:

• Pre-raid Officer Meetings
• Strict item level requirements 
• If you aren't meeting the role requirements you maybe asked to sit out fights so someone else can be rotated in. 
• Change of raid times (7pm Officer Meeting, 7:30 invites out, 8pm first attempt and 11pm finish)
• Monthly Guild Meetings for people with suggestions.
• A Separate Casual Raid Team lead by a few officers (rotated) Flexible Times to be discussed
• Some members of the casual team may want to move up into the progression team

Please have a look at the following boss fights and interesting Ted Talk Featuring WoW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HXFMVhE5rs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q8Vsjcb_Ko

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world?language=en

RAID HEALING SHAMMIES AND THE METERS (I think I heard a heart breaking)

I haven't healed in raids in a long time.  Not seriously ever.  I do realise that it is hard going at times. A few guildies have expressed concern about how they are going in relation to the meters. These meters are a great guide to seeing what is going on in the raid. However, they aren't always reflective of the effort put in by players. Nothing could be truer when it comes to shammy healers.  As there have been a few concerns raised about shammy healing in the raids, I went researching the topic of Shaman heals. So on my journey of research I found out a few things about healing as a shammy and how that translates onto the meters.

When healing in dungeons its a guarantee that you will win those healing meters.  You will blitz it in every time, mainly because you are the only healer. Raid healing is a very different ball game. In my limited experience as a druid healer in BC, there were a few things that were very different from dpsing my head off as a hunter in the raid team.  The first thing that struck me which was way different was, that in the raid there was a separate chat channel for healers. That was because we needed to assign healing, talk to each other about rotating our aoe heals, like the fabulous tranquility.  We would occasionally discuss important matters like who stands in stuff more and who is easier to heal. We had an intimate detailed understanding of the raid team as healers that no dps or tank could ever know. We knew who was going to stand in the fire and who was going to skip out of it in a millisecond. We knew who was going to be easy to heal and who was prepared for anything. People who had bandages for example.  

Communication was "Key" to the BC healing raider. And I must admit that I did feel like a member of an "in" club when I was healing through "SSC, Black Temple and Sunwell".  We were "Mission Crucial" secretly communicating in our own channel,  how to heal the noobs who stood in stuff. It was like entering a secret level of raiding that I'd never seen before. 

Healing has changed. As far as I know there is no more secret communication between the raid healers. That is all about to change well in Riftwarriors anyway. The primary reason for this is because the shamman have copped a bad deal on the meters. Sometimes smashing it up on the meters and other times so low I can hear the shammy hearts breaking. The Pallies and the Priest who are tearing it up consistently, whisper to me mid raid "We need to talk about the heals after this raid" in serious tones which I know are going to lead to a close examination of the shammy heals.

 I asked myself what's going on? I then went to the guildies and said "What's with the Shammy heals and the meters boys?". The font of all things WoW, that's of course Potter aka Icgankedppl and Who (that's who the Tank). "It's the bubbles Krin..the Pally puts a bubble up the Priest puts a bubble up the damage is stopped and so to are the heals of the Shammy and Druids". That's the short interpretation of a two day long discussion. I confirmed this info by searching the web. (see the links below)

The answer to the question then is for the good ol' secret world of "Healing Communication" to commence so that the healing is more coordinated, so the poor old shammies aren't throwing around their heals onto bubbles and not making the meters.  From all reports Shammies are in fact awesome raid healers. That awesome healing rain is only making the meters if the noobs are standing in it.  The tanks and dps can help out by running into the circle not away from them. Assignments for the circles and where to put them can be discussed in the secret underworld of healers, in the soon to be set up healing channel. I want to hear the shammy hearts singing next raid not breaking.

http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/healing-guide

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10302480214#1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoLFNrlNjlo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MzjSBEqQ_I

Raid Times Raid Teams Raid Goals

We will be developing raid times, raid teams and raid goals.  There will be a guild meeting and an officers meeting once a month to work out what we want to achieve in the game as far as raiding goes. Please ensure that you update myself or Holyfyre in relation to your ilvl if you are gearing up to be part of the raid team.

So far we have enough members to run two 10 man groups twice a week and one big raid group once a week.  Below is a list of the current team make up. This is not set in stone and it will be up to each team to discuss raid times that best suit the team members.  There is also a list of Pool Players those are players who are geared but can only attend raids irregularly due to work, family or life issues. There is also a list of Pool Players who are not yet geared but would like to raid. If there is a particular player teams want to gear and take under their wing please feel free to take on that role.

Team Who

Madril
Who
Alysith
Smokin
Thundersquid
Aly 2.0
Ephi
Holyfryre
Alyina
Vonds
Baranis
Schmeed

Team Jez

Jez
Beartank/Andy
Jubilation
Romeo
Maxi
Frae
Cxyleader
Vias
Elementalgoat
Serdos
Krinsta
Elencia

POOL GEARED

Rentail
Oak
Nuth
Bainmar
Cramos

POOL GEARING

Serrinus
Potter (Icgankedppl)
Shrekk
Connert

If you are raiding please make sure that you have your pots, flasks and food ready the guild bank is open to officers you can use the ones in there. It a limited supply.  Be independent and responsible for your own stuff, it's a good habit to get into. Raids will be kicking off around 8pm server time until further notice. Please try not to argue during raids or prior to raids we want to get in there kill bosses and progress.  Save any concerns you have for guild meetings, talk to an officer in whisper if you are very concerned. Raid chat is for socializing in a friendly way with your guildies and talking about the boss fights.

There has been significant interest in developing a PvP group which would include bg's, rbgs and arena teams.  If everyone could send mail to me regarding these matters it will make it easier to organise. This will be discussed in the guild meeting.

December 17 Raid

We downed 1st boss on Heroic and first 2 Normal. Tectus needs more coordination from us.
AskMrRobot Log

Only a Few Bosses Behind the Big Boy

Raiding Guilds

We are only a few bosses behind the big boy raiding guilds not that we are really in the race.  It shows that we are going very well despite being a "Casual Raiding Guild". We always have a mix of core players and people who have busy lives dropping in to dps their s out or pop in to heal or practice tanking.  Christmas is approaching so there will be lots of open spots if players have the right item level (630) they are welcome to join and get a taste for raiding, if you have never tried before or want to get back into the raiding vibe after an extended break.  You can come for the whole raid or just one or two attempts just send a whisper my way for an invite.

Picture Courtesy of Ephi Reminding me.

How to play the game not let the game play you

World of Warcraft is such a fun game.  Its so fun that sometimes you can get lost in it.  When I first started playing warcraft I found myself in a party, after I'd made a typical huntard mistake, feeling the rage of four other people rain down on me in a most unpleasant way.. I said to my party, "It's just a game guys, calm down". One party member said "Its not a game it's a life style choice".   In fact we were both right.  It is just a game but, it can also become a very important part of our lives.  It's a place were we come to meet with people who are our friends and in our guild I'd say we are like an extended family.  Its often our soft place to fall when we've had a rough time in rl.  We log on and we know that we are going to a place of warmth and comfort filled with fun things to do with our WoW pals. People who don't care about your social status in the real world, your age, your gender (well maybe your gender a bit), your skin color, the place you grew up all those thing are meaningless to your guildies.  Its no wonder then, that its sometimes hard to get out of that safe place and face the real world which is not so kind.  Workplaces that suck balls, Study deadlines looming and not a word on the blank page before you, Partners that are mean, Kids that won't clean up after themselves. The list is endless and faced with the two alternatives; facing real life issues or killing dragons with your WoW Pals its a no brainer which one is more attractive.

However, we can't stay in the soft cosy place that is Riftwarriors and Warcraft it's just not possible. So here are some tips to avoid total immersion and real life fails.

• Set Real Life Goals to complete and reward yourself with time playing WoW
• Use the in game timer to stop yourself spending all day in WoW
• Make a deal with yourself that you wont turn the computer on until you've done your daily rl tasks
• Include completion of tasks as part of your "Raid Preparation" list in your mind. 
• Set in game tasks for example two dungeons then I'm doing my real life stuff

I really think all of you are awesome and I love our guild culture. It's really nice how everyone is getting along. I also like to hear about how great you are doing in your real lives and I'd like to think we are all here to at least provide good advice and support for the times when your real life isn't so great. It does take some time to learn how to balance fun with rl commitments.  There really is an art to learning how to play the game and not let the game play you. 

First Raid for WoD

What a great start to raiding in WoD for Riftwarriors.  After a bumpy start due to crashing instance servers, world server shut downs not to mention the guild bank being robbed and Ephi's account being hacked. There was some quick shifting around of roles which is a testament to how awesome you all are btw. We downed the first boss before the server and instant shut down again.  We can discuss the most suitable raid nights for this expansion in the guild. If people have preferences please send in game mail to me.  As every old Riftwarrior knows I place a higher priority on family time than raid time. Please negotiate a time with your families that suits them and get back to me. Keep those girl friends, wives, boyfriends, husbands, kids and significant others happy.  Its in our best interest for them to support our raiding. So far it is looking like Wednesday possibly Friday and Sunday. We could have two short raid nights and one a long raid night. The possibilities are endless. We need a screenshot taker because I am hopeless at remembering to record our victories.

Guess who forgot to take a screenshot of the dead boss

Raid Announcement

Highmaul is getting released on 2nd of December

Minimum gear requirement is ilvl 630.

Personal consumables are:

• 1000 stat potions appropriate for your class
• 200/250 stat flasks appropriate for your glass
• Weapon enchant (even the cheap 1 temporal one)
• Filled gem slots (if your gear has gem slots)
• Seals (Optional)

The bosses are as follows:

1. Kargath bladefist

2. The butcher

3. Tectus (Optional)

4. Brackenspore (Optional)

5. Twin Ogron

6. Ko'ragh

7. Imperator Mar'gok

We are aiming to kill the first 2 bosses and if within time limit will go for the 3rd boss.