Time Off from Raiding

A couple of months ago I was spamming trade chat like most guild recruiters looking for healers. Amazingly, one day I happened to find one! This might have been the most extraordinary luck our guild has had since starting up.

This healer brought a friend over eventually and everything was great. The healer has turned out to be a top-quality player and a great asset to our guild. The friend he brought over has also been a great addition. In the past week, we've had an flood of newcomers to the guild, many of which were members of their old guild which evidently had been dying a slow death, but die hards managed to hold on for quite a while.

It appears that we've unintentionally absorbed another guild and it appears that it was a great thing! The other night we had 22 lvl 70 members online at one point. We've been trying to get people geared and excited for 25 man content for a couple of months now, but we've been unsuccessful. Whether this is due to the fact we are on a Pacific Coast server and at least half of us live in the Midwest or on the East Coast, I'm not sure. We have players from all four major US time zones. Getting a raid together is sometimes a chore.

So where's the time off? Well, we have so many people now that I was able to actually opt out of our Kara raid last night. At first I didn't think I was going to be able to. One of our healers opted to play an alt he's leveling and didn't want to go and the other was non-responsive, busy trying to get an arena team together I guess. So we just had 10 people to go, so I started in. Then at the last minute someone logs in late who wanted to go. I gave up my spot, although thinking back on it I probably shouldn't have.

Earlier in the day we had an officer meeting to discuss issues in the guild. One issue that came up is the frustration we have with being too lenient and I admit that I'm the biggest culprit. We have a tendency to allow people to come late and we still go. It was decided we need to make it known that you show up on time or you don't go. I did kind of want to go, but I wasn't feeling well and my wife was bugging me to go watch a movie with her, so I opted out and gave in.

It is nice to have a night off. Kara has been somewhat frustrating for me. I have yet to be part of a full guild clear, not that I haven't done it before, but I'm always part of the group that is still gearing up. I don't mind helping, because I really don't need anything from Kara, though I can use badges and a couple of items. But when others work it so that they get a geared group to go that also doesn't need anything, yet go for a full clear and not assist those that really need it, it upsets me. They complain about wasting their time and I see their point, but what makes their time more valuable than mine?

Anyway, enough with the QQ'ing. Things are good in the guild. We've got a few issues we're trying to hammer out, but we're almost there. And I never thought I'd admit it, but having a little time off from Kara was a great thing!