After reading Matticus’ post about the characteristics of a mature guild member and then the Massively article responding to it, I was reminded of the catch-all phrase that TRI uses for our raiding rules.
Don’t be a dick.
While there are a few explained iterations of this (don’t waste people’s time, don’t be a loot whore, don’t autoshot and watch TV), by and large, whenever someone asks what the basic raid rules of TRI are, there is a very simple, direct answer to that question. Makes things easier.
Now, of course, this doesn’t work well in a raid of people that aren’t comfortable with each other – and it can lead to issues with new people. But having trust in your fellow raiders to treat you with a modicum of respect – and having that same respect for them – makes raiding a lot more fun.
Oddly enough, the TRI 25 man raid has had a few slump-ish weeks lately, and I’d be willing to bet that a large part of that is due to people not thinking about about that rule – namely with regards to wasting each other’s time. Don’t show up late; don’t forget your resist gear; don’t take a random unannounced 5 minute afk as we’re setting up for a boss fight – stuff like that. Mostly little inconsiderate things that, when they become epidemic in the raid, cause HUGE delays and downtime and make everyone grumpy. Doubly hard is the fact that these things tend to build like The House that Jack Built – one person is mysteriously afk, and so the raid has an undetermined wait time… so other people end up going afk out of boredom.
And, really, if you can’t show up and raid – take a night off. We’re not a hardcore group, we’ve never pretended to be one. If real life wins, real life wins – and that’s ok. I’d personally rather work with an enthusiastic, less-geared sub that’s paying attention and enjoying themselves than a grumpy regular who feels obliged to be there and is juggling a sick child and a migraine on top of having internet troubles. I know I’ve fallen prey to feeling overly responsible to the group, and it’s always a tough call because I don’t want to be a flaky raider, but some nights my own sanity should come first.
(I’m also inclined to think that a good bit of our trouble is due to the evils that are midterms. Also the ‘flu. And the fact that we’re technically working on 2 bosses right now (Vashj and Al’ar) and trying to juggle both SSC and TK, thus kind of having a split focus.)
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