Recruiting! Tier 2 Required; Two New Realms Online!

[Kolle]

This post is about gear gaps and new servers. There's a disturbing connection between the two that will continue getting worse. The expansion will alleviate it to an extent, but then we'll be right back where we started...unless the xpack's 10man content delivers 40man raid quality loot.



There are a few things about this that is disheartening. If you browse the websites of most decent raid guilds you'll discover that they all require T2 gear or better in order to apply. For example take a look at FoH's recruitment page:

http://wow.fohguild.org/applications/FoHApplication.php

We have moved to Black Dragonflight. We are taking Priest, Hunter and Mage applicants as a priority over all other classes. Rogues, Warlocks, Shaman and Druids being of the lowest priority. Warriors are still up in the air. We are looking for experienced raiders and not wanting to re-train new members, we also prefer your gear be full T2 or equal.

I'm somewhat of a server/board/guild website junky. When on flights or if I'm bored I troll a lot of them. For some strange reason I have a fascination with trends with guilds and servers. Anyways...

The first thing that jumps to mind when I see this requirement is: Who has T2 or better armor and will join this guild? I figure most players who have that kind of loot already have a good guild. If they would dump them just to join a guild that's a little further in progression then I'm not so sure that person is a quality guild member. I guess there are other situations where a guild disbands or someone leaves for personal reasons...whatever. Overall it seems silly to me, but I can understand that some people fall into that category. I hesitate to even mention server xfers because I know of too many that do this just to escape a bad reputation. The good ones who xfer just make an already shitty server even shittier.

Plain and simple: Guilds don't want to spend any effort gearing up a player regardless of their playing skill or supposed dedication to raiding.



This is a frustrating problem for many thousands of players. If for whatever reason you do not already belong to a great raiding guild then you're kinda screwed. This goes especially for newer players. They would be great raiders and good people to have around, but they never have the chance since they are months or years behind in gear.

So what happens? New servers!! They all want new servers. Luckily for them new servers pop up fairly fucking often. However, I think there must come a point where bringing up new servers must end. That is, unless they take on a practice of merging all the lower population servers to justify opening new ones so people can have that 'fresh' server. However, time and time again these new servers surge at first then slowly die off. Very few survive this trend. Many of them are so damn empty you must wonder why anyone bothers to stay there. Blizzard can't beg enough to get people to roll there. They can't even trick them into doing it by purposely mis-labeling the server status (something they do frequently).

But ah...take a look at even those barren servers that Blizzard wants you to play on instead of asking for new ones. The serious raiding guilds all have a requirement...yep...T2 or better! I consider it silly for a guild to do this anyways since they are missing out on potentially great players, but it's bordering on foolish to do this on a low/medium population server. It's no wonder they all have to recruit consantly since the pool of available players is so small. That touches on a problem that even the big guilds on bigger servers have. They end up only recruiting people with high experience and gear, but they end up with higher turnover than is necessary because they place gear over player quality.



So a lot of players are just fucked and they can't do anything about it. Their best hope is to play on a new server. A lot of them get screwed over even then since these new servers have such unstable guilds. Those guilds will break apart or merge. They'll have assholes for leaders. Blah blah this, blah blah that. The cycle continues and thousands of players cry out for new servers.


Will the expansion solve this? I suppose if someone makes a new character on an old server, lvls to 70, and gets dungeon gear...well then they might be close to on par with tier 2 and 3 stuff. I wonder if guilds will recruit them? Seems likely. I wonder though, after a few months go by and guilds are raiding TBC will this gear gap return? Will the cycle just start all over again?

As I mentioned earlier I guess Blizzard could just constantly release new servers for years. I suppose they might have to merge the low pop servers then open a new one so everyone can get in on the fresh piece of ass.


Anyways I was thinking about all this and what better place to type it all down.

[Arbitrary]

When you have to level up, join a guild, gear up a little, dump them, join another guild to go a bit further, dump them, and then finally apply to the guild you wanted to do so you could experience the top content, it's ugly. WoW doesn't look there quite yet but trying to play EQ again on a normal server from scratch with no PL and no other connections was sucky.

I don't think WoW is there just yet and honestly just having to gear up is not as harsh as being told your gear is not only lacking, but you need a shit pile of flags too. And some AA. By some we mean 500. And augments are equipment slots, you better not have shit there.

Just T2, solid playtime, and skill to join Fires of Heaven? Sounds easy enough to me.

[Drauk]

Originally Posted by Kolle

Plain and simple: Guilds don't want to spend any effort gearing up a player regardless of their playing skill or supposed dedication to raiding.

Not really. Before Naxx my guild have recruited a lot of good players in pretty sub-par equip and geared them. You see, the problem is that person in anything worse than T2 is almost worthless in Naxx. This is very much obvious for tanks and dps classes, less for healers, but poor geared healer still won't be able to sustain 7 minute healing on Patch for example. And if the guild is serios about Naxx and not uber hardcore (like DnT with 7 raids a week), they will have very litle time to dedicate for anything else (1 raid day for non-progression raids).

On the other hand, the problem of top guilds feeding on lesser guild is indeed exists. However i wouldn't say that person willing to quit an old guild is not a quality member.
Ill give an example of my server - my guild is top guild, Cthun/Ouro killed and 5 bosses in Naxx. There is one runner up - Ouro killed, 3 bosses in Naxx. 4 other guilds have killed Twins and shitloads have killed Nef. There is even more lesser guilds that have killed Rag recently and started to progress in BWL.
Our potenial recruit is somebody from the guilds that have killed Nef. They can't advance further because either their management is shitty (one guild is a running joke for this, since GM and all officers are relatives in RL, thus getting called "a family"), or because they have a dead weight of shitty players. If they have T2 quality gear they probably spent enough time in the guild to realize that there is little to no potential in a guild (some guilds have been stuck on Huhu for 4 months).

[Rythonn]

Except the T2 Part. I mean if you are in full t2, as Kolle said, you are already in a guild that is a few steps behind. Why would you leave, and start over on a new DKP chart?

[Arbitrary]

Originally Posted by Rythonn

Except the T2 Part. I mean if you are in full t2, as Kolle said, you are already in a guild that is a few steps behind. Why would you leave, and start over on a new DKP chart?

To be in the top guild.

[Drauk]

Originally Posted by Rythonn

Except the T2 Part. I mean if you are in full t2, as Kolle said, you are already in a guild that is a few steps behind. Why would you leave, and start over on a new DKP chart?

Because you realize that a guild is shitty ? Being stuck on Huhu for 4 months isn't few steps behind. Its a fucking lot of steps.

Upd - to clarify, somebody applying from runner up or from guild that killed Twins will indeed rise a question - "is he here just for loot?". Somebody from a guild that clearly sucks and reached the top of their potential - will not.

[Jooka]

Originally Posted by Kolle

This post is about gear gaps and new servers. There's a disturbing connection between the two that will continue getting worse. The expansion will alleviate it to an extent, but then we'll be right back where we started...unless the xpack's 10man content delivers 40man raid quality loot.



There are a few things about this that is disheartening. If you browse the websites of most decent raid guilds you'll discover that they all require T2 gear or better in order to apply. For example take a look at FoH's recruitment page:

http://wow.fohguild.org/applications/FoHApplication.php



I'm somewhat of a server/board/guild website junky. When on flights or if I'm bored I troll a lot of them. For some strange reason I have a fascination with trends with guilds and servers. Anyways...

The first thing that jumps to mind when I see this requirement is: Who has T2 or better armor and will join this guild? I figure most players who have that kind of loot already have a good guild. If they would dump them just to join a guild that's a little further in progression then I'm not so sure that person is a quality guild member. I guess there are other situations where a guild disbands or someone leaves for personal reasons...whatever. Overall it seems silly to me, but I can understand that some people fall into that category. I hesitate to even mention server xfers because I know of too many that do this just to escape a bad reputation. The good ones who xfer just make an already shitty server even shittier.

Plain and simple: Guilds don't want to spend any effort gearing up a player regardless of their playing skill or supposed dedication to raiding.



This is a frustrating problem for many thousands of players. If for whatever reason you do not already belong to a great raiding guild then you're kinda screwed. This goes especially for newer players. They would be great raiders and good people to have around, but they never have the chance since they are months or years behind in gear.

So what happens? New servers!! They all want new servers. Luckily for them new servers pop up fairly fucking often. However, I think there must come a point where bringing up new servers must end. That is, unless they take on a practice of merging all the lower population servers to justify opening new ones so people can have that 'fresh' server. However, time and time again these new servers surge at first then slowly die off. Very few survive this trend. Many of them are so damn empty you must wonder why anyone bothers to stay there. Blizzard can't beg enough to get people to roll there. They can't even trick them into doing it by purposely mis-labeling the server status (something they do frequently).

But ah...take a look at even those barren servers that Blizzard wants you to play on instead of asking for new ones. The serious raiding guilds all have a requirement...yep...T2 or better! I consider it silly for a guild to do this anyways since they are missing out on potentially great players, but it's bordering on foolish to do this on a low/medium population server. It's no wonder they all have to recruit consantly since the pool of available players is so small. That touches on a problem that even the big guilds on bigger servers have. They end up only recruiting people with high experience and gear, but they end up with higher turnover than is necessary because they place gear over player quality.



So a lot of players are just fucked and they can't do anything about it. Their best hope is to play on a new server. A lot of them get screwed over even then since these new servers have such unstable guilds. Those guilds will break apart or merge. They'll have assholes for leaders. Blah blah this, blah blah that. The cycle continues and thousands of players cry out for new servers.


Will the expansion solve this? I suppose if someone makes a new character on an old server, lvls to 70, and gets dungeon gear...well then they might be close to on par with tier 2 and 3 stuff. I wonder if guilds will recruit them? Seems likely. I wonder though, after a few months go by and guilds are raiding TBC will this gear gap return? Will the cycle just start all over again?

As I mentioned earlier I guess Blizzard could just constantly release new servers for years. I suppose they might have to merge the low pop servers then open a new one so everyone can get in on the fresh piece of ass.


Anyways I was thinking about all this and what better place to type it all down.

did you eat mushroomws tinight too? if so, damn, get outside some.

[Kolle]

i live in the desert. bad things happen when i go outside.

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Kolle

Will the expansion solve this? I suppose if someone makes a new character on an old server, lvls to 70, and gets dungeon gear...well then they might be close to on par with tier 2 and 3 stuff. I wonder if guilds will recruit them? Seems likely. I wonder though, after a few months go by and guilds are raiding TBC will this gear gap return? Will the cycle just start all over again?

Short answer? It will.

Apparently, the design will make a clean slate between raiders and non-raiders from the previous expansion. Non-raiders farming the end-game group instances, get blue gear which, once socketed, will have a quality between Naxx and AQ, depending on the pieces.

The big difference is that, on day 1, the Naxx-level raiders will not have to farm the dungeon instances. They'll shot to 70, and then start raiding, and get the level 70 epic gear with sockets, which they'll fill as fast if not faster than the non-raiders. And the gap will start all over.

It's probably going to be a bit harsher. After all, with TBC, every time, you get a new piece of equipment, you also get 3 sockets to fill with gems. So, every time you get a piece of equipment, you're going to have to buy some gems asap. Then probably add some blue quality gems from dungeons. And wait until you get some epic quality gems from raids.

You were complaining that you needed to take a break from raiding to get some repair cash and consumables? Get ready to take a larger break to get cash, consumables, and find good gems to socket your new equipment...

[Fendryl]

Originally Posted by Rythonn

Except the T2 Part. I mean if you are in full t2, as Kolle said, you are already in a guild that is a few steps behind. Why would you leave, and start over on a new DKP chart?

There's a pretty big difference between the difficulty of BWL & that of Naxx/AQ. It's quite possible that a guild that's geared up in full T2 could still get to twin emps or some of the harder early naxx fights & find themselves at a speed bump in progression.

[Quineloe]

Two of our better members joined a guild that had one C'Thun kill when we had C'thun at phase 2 already.
3 months later we have 8 dead Naxxramas bosses, they however failed their trials and are now in a guild that has only killed Razuvious. Man, we're having so much fun rubbing that in every time we see em :P

[Digo]

At risk of touching a soon-to-be rickshawed thread, there are over 18 guilds on Hyjal that are working on BWL, and several more that have it on farm status, but have not yet broken into AQ past Skeram or Sartura. More and more people are raiding every week, and it's not like EQ where we can cockblock them out of it.

It seems to me that as a guild and server troll, you somehow wish that you could be a part of those uber guilds, but start feeling sorry for yourself when you realize you don't have T2 gear. "LE SIGH, WHERE WILL I EVER FIND THE OPPORTUNITY TO ACQUIRE SUCH FABULOUS ITEMS?" New servers aren't the answer, and most people aren't flocking to them. There is a veritable swarm of new guilds tearing through the year-old content every week.

Apparently, the design will make a clean slate between raiders and non-raiders from the previous expansion. Non-raiders farming the end-game group instances, get blue gear which, once socketed, will have a quality between Naxx and AQ, depending on the pieces.

Right, because ilvl 100 blues will drop like candy from every space murloc and mini-boss of the first instance. And Tyler Durden will blow up all the credit card companies bringing us back to square one, wearing a cow costume while he does it.

[gavinrad]

It's not silly, because as several people have said, guilds at the top can do that. Guilds at the top get to feed off the lower end guilds, always have, and always will. The only guilds relatively immune to this are the guilds that have a tight crew and good leadership, because the members realize they will get their too.

Whenever you stall on something too long though, you will have a couple rats jump ship. I can't imagine ever staying in a guild that was stalled on Huhuran, or any mob, for four months. It means that the leadership is terrible, the members are stupid, or people just aren't motivated enough. My guild is just now working on fankriss (tried him twice so far), but we've already got probably half the guild with the NR needed for huhuran, all of the tanks have full Ironvine + most of the shit from maraudon.

If you aren't in a shitty guild, you won't have a serious problem with losing members to the cutting edge guild(s) on your server. If you are in a shitty guild, you should find somewhere where the grass is greener and raid there.

[Cybsled]

Your guild might also have fallen apart, or recently come under new shitty management. Those are 2 valid reasons.

[Lefazz]

I think the problem is with the recruiting officers/leadership that demand such requirements. I'm an officer of a guild and we pretty much focus on a person's availability and skill over equipment. Equipment is easy enough to obtain -- a good and reliable player isn't.