Breakfast Topic: What happens when a raid ends early?
by Mathew McCurley 
Aug 16th 2011 at 8:00AM
The night that I am writing this, we are doing the same thing as last week -- Ragnaros is the only one left, and hopefully he dies in a minimal number of attempts. There are so many episodes of Breaking Bad left to watch, League of Legends games to play, articles to get ahead on, and people to see. Even though I could be doing everything and anything, I still love to raid. I guess I'm just a little weird like that.
What do you do when your raid suddenly disappears or all the bosses are dead? Does your guild still use the time to do old content, or does everyone just sort of break for the night? I know it sounds like a weird question; that shock of suddenly having the night available is so wacky sometimes.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
razion Aug 16th 2011 8:08AM
Back when our guild raided, we always did it based on time--say, we put aside two to three hours for raiding--and we would keep to the time excluding rare cases (such as 1% wipes). And after those two to three hours were up, we would play some of our own custom games. The guild would use whatever guild funds it had left for the week after repairs to host little events. Usually these sorts of events would include buying little haliscan outfits, going into BGs, and walking throughout the battleground while still managing to win.
Leftover gold would usually go to the MVP of the day, or whoever won the contest (walk with just a tabard through Ironforge, see who gets the furthest to the Bank, or whoever answers the most questions in a guild quiz, whoever catches the most fish in a guild fishing tournament...).
There are a lot of events you can create for yourself in the game, and the festivities are only over when you run out of ideas.
pancakes Aug 16th 2011 8:09AM
We finished with an hour & a half left on our latest raid night (one shot rag for the first time), so we did a bear run (which I finally won) then did kara for nostalgia.
MattKrotzer Aug 16th 2011 8:09AM
Age of Conan.
Despite being a stark failure on the "WoW-killer" front, it's really NOT a bad game, and there's a ton of RP opportunity there in a fantasy setting with stark differences from WoW.
MattKrotzer Aug 16th 2011 8:10AM
Wow. I like the word "stark" this morning.
Stark.
Mortenebra Aug 16th 2011 8:26AM
"Winter is coming."
Better warn Deathwing.
AudreyR Aug 16th 2011 8:42AM
Stark Industries is funding you, isn't it?
If you misspell "wane" you could get a fat check from Wayne Enterpise.
Sleutel Aug 16th 2011 8:45AM
Smock, smock, smock.
winterhawk Aug 16th 2011 11:02AM
You mock my smock and I'll clean your clock.
(This is meant to be in reply to Sleutel's comment, in case the comment system pulls its usual trick and sticks it somewhere random.)
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Aug 16th 2011 8:16AM
Some of us call it an early night and log off. Others, well, they try to scrounge together a group to kill Halfus because their boots STILL haven't dropped. LOL
dj.clayden Aug 16th 2011 9:42AM
We finished last nights raid an hour early (we were having issues on Staghelm for some reason, so we left a lot of time free, then we took bout half as long on Raggy as we did on Staghelm).
About half the raid logged off immediately, the other half just did other stuff, around 5-6 of us stayed on vent and chatted for an hour or two ^^
People underestimate how pleasant it can be to simply relax and chat to guildies/friends.
dj.clayden Aug 16th 2011 10:06AM
...I am almost certain I did send that comment as a reply.
Flolyn Aug 16th 2011 8:20AM
My guild sometimes starts up BH or Bot/bwd runs. I personally log off and browse the internet until I go to bed.
lolikitty Aug 16th 2011 8:29AM
If the raid ends early then I go back to digging in the dirt hoping to stumble upon that Tol'Vir mount.
Also, Breaking Bad is fanfreakingtastic.
Mortenebra Aug 16th 2011 8:34AM
A couple of people see it as an excuse to call it early... get some sleep or vegetate, etc., especially if it's on our weeknight. The majority of us go run heroics to obtain what valor pts we can, but then it gets awkward because there's never enough for two full five-man groups.
Once during early Cata, our raid ended early (I think someone had a sick baby emergency) and, on a whim, I asked, "Who wants to knock out some of the old-school raid achievements for the guild?" Before I knew it, the rest of the guild that happened to be online-- usually people who prefer not to raid or do progression content-- replied and we nearly had ten people again! A lot of these people were curious about the previous raid content and just wanted to see what it was all about... plus, they got to help the guild get some achievements! It was so much fun that we had an "old-school raids" night setup for a while.
Hal Aug 16th 2011 8:38AM
Depends on the circumstances. I'll usually:
-Cajole/bribe/blackmail guildies into running dungeons to get the guild challenges completed for the week
-Watch Leverage (Sunday night is the night things tend to end early)
-Play something on my XBox.
Just depends on what's happening.
Gendou Aug 16th 2011 8:41AM
Depending on how early we wrap up the progression portion, we might go do some older raids for achievements and mounts, or split up into heroic groups, or just call it a night.
It all depends on what we're doing and how far we got that evening.
Jaq Aug 16th 2011 8:58AM
It depends on the raid. If we finish BoT, we usually go on to Throne or BWD. If it's late-ish when we finish Throne, we usually goof off flying around where Al'Akir was for about 30 minutes, doing goofy stuff like having air races and summoning pets to watch them fall to their doom. (Especially funny with Army of the Dead.) BWD usually ends in everyone hearthing out. Firelands, my guild only started working on, so we don't have a pattern set yet.
xenothaulus Aug 16th 2011 9:00AM
Netflix. Right now I'm working through Enterprise, and a cool BBC show called MI-5.
Shoryl Aug 16th 2011 9:15AM
Back when I did raid, the guild would usually go do older content with a pile of alts, or friends, or some combination of the two. Sometimes we'd go do something to help someone with a personal goal.
Kaphik Aug 16th 2011 9:18AM
People will get together for heroics, run stuff on alts, maybe even an alt raid. Sometimes we'll go back for old achievements or mounts, like OS+ 3 drakes. In a more perfect world, i.e. back in TBC and early Wrath we'd go start up some world pvp.