From the opposite stand-point, how would you feel if you worked hard to make time on your schedule to raid, only to be told "lol sorry full". It's something that shouldn't happen if the officers are on top of things.

They had *20 extra people*. That's not them being whiney, that's massive over-recruitment, along with not using some sort of sign up mechanism that tells people beforehand if they get to go (like raidninja, etc).

This is *all* on the head of the RL of that group. They need signups, a priority scheme (even if first come first serve per role), and a set number of standbys so this clusterfu never happens again.

WTF does your rant even have to do with the original question being asked? NOWHERE in the question OR the response was there ANYTHING that suggested a sense of "entitlement" or anything like it. Please try to exercise some critical thinking skills instead of dashing off an angry screed in a knee-jerk reaction to seeing certain keywords anywhere in a post.

@Qot and Shastern:

Read the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the e-mail. The ones that came back "voicing concern," which is a polite way of saying they started whining over losing their till-then permanent raid spot because no-one was there to replace them. The guy who asked the question made no bones with diplomatic talk at the end of his e-mail when he mentioned "a lot of angry messages filled the guild chat channel."

I'm sorry, but I really am an advocate of having some extra people instead of not having enough and having to call off raids. I'm now just a member with no leadership responsibilities in a very stable and skilled raiding guild and I do end up being on standby on some nights, be it either progression nights when certain setups are better suited or on farm nights when I may not need some items and someone else does. But I don't raise any hoopla about it since I know I'm not the center of the universe.

Now if the guild in question doesn't have any sort of sign-up system in place and it's an ad-hoc inviting policy, then I can see the issues it can cause. But in that case, now would be the perfect time for the guild's leadership to put a sign-up system in place and adhere to it. Or if they aren't doing so already, it's the place of the guild's members to bring it up on their guild's forums in a constructive way. Don't just point out problems, give out constructive solutions. Don't just spew out "a lot of angry messages filled the guild chat channel," go post constructively on the guild's forums.

"Some" extra people is a whole lot different than "Nearly a full raid of extra people"

Maybe I should clarify that the reason I'm probably not too alarmed by the quoted number is because it's almost the same number of people who're online during every raid night in my guild. There has been no drama about it in my guild since people can actually take raid nights off without the guild having to call off raids, not to mention the fact that the RL can swap around some people if someone has to leave mid-raid or if the setup isn't beneficial to a particular fight.

So yeah, I may be biased in that sense but if every raider in the guild thought of themselves as a part of a whole instead of thinking of themselves as the center around which the entire raid revolves, no problems should arise.

The problem here is what if you've had a core of players who've raided together for months, and then suddenly there are new people and even though those core players are on, they are passed over for spots to get the new players into the raids.

Now I agree that if you are a 25man guild and have significantly more than 25 players you need to have some sort of standby system in place, but from the sound of it, this is a guild that was basically a 10 man group that expanded. One would hope that the 10man core would be some of the best raiders. Why should they not get a spot if they are on on time?

Until the guild stabilizes in members (45 is way to high). Those core members should be in every raid, with the extra slots given to the new recruits. The new members should understand that they were on a trial run, and if they didn't perform they would lose their raid spots. That the Officers could find out who was working and who wasn't and kick the people who arn't working out.

The people who get mad and quit over not getting into every raid (assuming they are newer members) most likely shouldn't be in the guild anyway.

The biggest thing is your officers need to be transparent about their invite policies.

"From the opposite stand-point, how would you feel if you worked hard to make time on your schedule to raid, only to be told "lol sorry full". It's something that shouldn't happen if the officers are on top of things."

Sounds like the standpoint of someone who's never actually organized a continuous raid night. Do you think it's possible to ensure that exactly 25 people show up every night? Unless you're in an exceptionally hardcore guild that can claim 100% attendance, then no. Now I'm not saying that having nearly a second raid of members sitting out is a good thing. It's way too much overflow, at least in my opinion. But the idea that officers can somehow magically always get exactly enough people to fill out a raid is not practical for sustained raiding.

You do realize this is a GAME, right? People are playing to have fun, not satisfy your leadership needs. Sure, if you can cherry-pick 25 raiders out of a pool of 45 it's easy for you, but that leaves 20 people not having fun.

The point of the letter is that the RL is an idiot like you who forgot that raid slots are filled by people trying to have fun, not souless bots. If you seriously can't see the damage in over-recruiting, that's pretty sad.

@Zanathos

Actually, I have experience from both sides of the officer line. Nowadays organizing raids is ridiculously simple compared to early BC raiding. You've got an in-game calendar, the option to do 10-man or 25-man, hard modes or normal, dual specs (and people who can play both)...

The rule remains the same, though. As long as you're clear when someone's likely going to be a reserve or likely to be raiding, you will have very few problems. It's when you dangle the illusion of raiding to get people on-line and then yank it away in favor of someone else that you get problems.

If this guild had 25 people that were playing for fun and showed up to have fun on a consistent basis then there never would have been a need to recruit so many additional players. The email even admits that they were unable to fill out a raid for 3 weeks.

If you're just playing for fun when it's convenient for you, attending raids when you feel like it and skipping them when you don't, then you're hurting the chances of 24 other people being able to have fun. The only way to compensate for an unreliable, fairweather raider without kicking them is to recruit additional people capable of filling their spots.

Some of you people want to have your cake and eat it, too, and also make sure no one else gets any so that you can have some later if you're in the mood.

It's simple, recruit a little more and run two raids.
/shrug

I think the reason people get angry is because raiding isn't a 30-minute affair. Some people have to actually schedule it. Being married with no children, I have to schedule for raiding, and make sure I don't have plans with my wife or friends. If I put a 3-4 hour block of time on a weeknight or a day or two on the weekend, I clear my schedule, and then log in to find that they aren't taking me to the raid, of course I am going to be pissed.

That being said, there IS something that "S" could do to help the problem..
Use the Rank system in the guild. GM/Officer/Core Raiders get guaranteed slots if they accept and show up to a calendar invite on time. The rest, you fill in as necessary, taking several things into account, like attendance, preparedness, time in guild/rank, and class performance. These should all be factors used to determine guild rank to begin with.

Late logging in for an invite you accepted?
Didn't bring enough flasks?
Forgot to bring required reagents?
Each infraction is a strike, and 3 strikes demotes you a rank. Make it harder to gain rank than to lose it.

You will have recruited enough people for a 2nd 25-man Ulduar group by the time you have "too many" of the top ranks completely filling your first 25-man.

@ Pat:

You sound like just the sort of parasite I'm glad I don't have to deal with in my guild. You seem to the self-serving ingrate who thinks he's entitled to everything and that he's doing a favour for the guild by just being in it.

I can easily picture you being one who doesn't t log in at all for days on end without any prior notification and when you do decide that you want to raid, you log in that day and immediately EXPECT to be invited. If there is no raid that day, it was the officers'/GM's fault. You don't want to sacrifice anything and yet you expect others to sacrifice for you.

Like I said, I'm glad I don't have to deal with you either as a player or a person.