SWTOR

[Fabricated]

I'll be playing with my former WoW guildmates that Cataclysm literally ran off.

I get this image of, like, a cataclysm box literally chasing your friends away, and they're forced to run off and live in the woods cause cataclysm will bite their nuts off

That sounds about right.

[Paelos]

I'm playing with Bat Country as my Empire experience.

I'm playing a Trooper with my normal guild to raid.

Best of both worlds.

[Bunk]

]Doubtful. The EQ2 guild would've been somewhat active, except the people who stuck around were all into raiding and whatnot, so they joined raid guilds.

I'd like to think we could hold together at least enough folks to run some raids, but history shows our guilds aren't 'serious' enough for mmo players. Bioware seems to be pushing guild alliances, so hopefully those of us who move into raid guilds will keep BC as an ally so we can fill in some raid slots down the road...assuming (HAH) that all these guilds end up on the same server, since there will probably be a pretty massive launch.

Not going to be helped by the schism with a Republic secondary guild running simultaneously.

Raiding is not exactly my priority. Now if they implement it in a way that I can log in in the evening, see a guild broadcast that people need a couple more bodies for a raid, and jump in to help, with the expectation that it might take an hour or two - then I'm in. If it requires me to spend six hours studying mob attack patterns and scheduling a six hour block on a week night to participate - then fuck it.

I'm in it for the casual. If it's a good game I'll stick around, that's pretty much it.

I don't think the Rebel thing will be a big issue for me, the prequals pretty much solidified my hatred of that side of the war. Plenty to keep me busy on the Sith/Imperial side.

[luckton]

Raiding is not exactly my priority. Now if they implement it in a way that I can log in in the evening, see a guild broadcast that people need a couple more bodies for a raid, and jump in to help, with the expectation that it might take an hour or two - then I'm in. If it requires me to spend six hours studying mob attack patterns and scheduling a six hour block on a week night to participate - then fuck it.

I'm in it for the casual. If it's a good game I'll stick around, that's pretty much it.

I don't think the Rebel thing will be a big issue for me, the prequals pretty much solidified my hatred of that side of the war. Plenty to keep me busy on the Sith/Imperial side.

This is something else that's key...raiding needs to be highly accessible from the get go with this game if it's truly going to set some kind of standard or put up a fight against WoW. 

[Draegan]

Seriously some of you have a crazy image of what raiders actually do to "raid".

If it requires me to spend six hours studying mob attack patterns and scheduling a six hour block on a week night to participate - then fuck it.

[luckton]

Seriously some of you have a crazy image of what raiders actually do to "raid" post-Wrath.

If it requires me to spend six hours studying mob attack patterns and scheduling a six hour block on a week night to participate - then fuck it.

FTFY

[Bunk]

Seriously some of you have a crazy image of what raiders actually do to "raid".

If it requires me to spend six hours studying mob attack patterns and scheduling a six hour block on a week night to participate - then fuck it.

My "image" of raiding is based on knowing people that would decline doing anything with friends on the weekend for multiple month stretches, because they were scheduled to participate in raids to get their purples or some such, and would get kicked out of their guilds if they missed them.

[Sky]

My idea of raiding comes from PUGs in EQ2 (I know, I know) and more recently from some raids in Rift and my inability to meet the membership guidelines of two or three guilds I was hanging out with there. Gaming is extremely low priority for me irl and whatnot, and I have the adhd.

Whatever, I still hope to do some casual raiding with BC in TOR. I was even thinking of setting up a google calendar to coordinate stuffs 

[luckton]

I had a good thing going with the guild I found during the last patch of Wrath.  We ran 2 hours, 2 nights a week, and we still beat the Lich King.

And then Cata came along with all of the 'feedback' that they received saying that Wrath was 'too easy' and the entrance bar to ride the raid train was raised to "Fuck that" levels.

Bliz had a pretty good thing goin' with ICC by having the regular-mode decently accessible, and then made it hard via hardcore mode.  With Cata, they made regular-mode 'hard' and hard-mode 'hard++'.

The solution of providing a version of the raid for casual people and one for the hardcore still works, and is easily applied.  Hopefully BW can get this concept on day 1 instead of having to tweak shit later.

[Montague]

EA investor webcast quotes Riccitello as saying "high scale beta" is to start at the end of June. I'm not familiar with that term - is that stress testing/open beta?

[luckton]

EA investor webcast quotes Riccitello as saying "high scale beta" is to start at the end of June. I'm not familiar with that term - is that stress testing/open beta?

Only stock holders can get in 

[Rasix]

THIS TIME it will be different.

Doubtful. The EQ2 guild would've been somewhat active, except the people who stuck around were all into raiding and whatnot, so they joined raid guilds.

I'd like to think we could hold together at least enough folks to run some raids, but history shows our guilds aren't 'serious' enough for mmo players. Bioware seems to be pushing guild alliances, so hopefully those of us who move into raid guilds will keep BC as an ally so we can fill in some raid slots down the road...assuming (HAH) that all these guilds end up on the same server, since there will probably be a pretty massive launch.

Not going to be helped by the schism with a Republic secondary guild running simultaneously.

Of all folks, I thought you wouldn't care about raids. 

This seems like the ultimate game for the solo player.  Embrace it.  Bat Country will be good for having a few folks to talk to and maybe for doing a couple dungeons.  Then I'll just go back to being super casual, while everyone races ahead. 

It would be nice if we could get Bat Country on the same server as other folks guilds here, but that could be complicated if Bioware does a lot of shit to fragment the servers (RP, PVP, regional, etc).

Good thing is that unless word of mouth has this game pegged as absolute garbage, there should be a critical mass of people playing at launch.  Probably more than we've seen for any game yet.

[Draegan]

Seriously some of you have a crazy image of what raiders actually do to "raid".

If it requires me to spend six hours studying mob attack patterns and scheduling a six hour block on a week night to participate - then fuck it.

My "image" of raiding is based on knowing people that would decline doing anything with friends on the weekend for multiple month stretches, because they were scheduled to participate in raids to get their purples or some such, and would get kicked out of their guilds if they missed them.

So you had a bunch of neckbeards for friends.  That doesn't make all raiders neckbeards 

[Nebu]

So you had a bunch of neckbeards for friends.  That doesn't make all raiders neckbeards 

I think it's safe to assume that most raiders are neckbeards.  Particularly if they raided in any MMO before WoW. 

[Rasix]

Wrong term, the word you're looking for is "poopsocker".

Plus, it's not wrong to assume that raiding comes with schedules.  Those schedules will inevitably conflict with something else unless you have absolutely nothing else going on in your life.

[Merusk]

So you had a bunch of neckbeards for friends.  That doesn't make all raiders neckbeards 

I think it's safe to assume that most raiders are neckbeards.  Particularly if they raided in any MMO before WoW. 

Nope.  Raiding since EQ, and always have /played less than my non-raiding friends.   Even in EQ raids were only Sat/Sun from ~9am until noon or so in the guilds I joined.  We weren't doing cutting-edge but we were still raiding.

It's about finding the right guild for what you want to do.  In a game as large as WoW it's pretty easy, particularly since the demographic IS skewing older and people have other shit to do.   Are there still the 6-hour-daily "if you miss 2 in a week you're out" raid guilds out there? Of course, but they're nowhere near as numerous as the "Raid on weekends/ weeknights until 11.  Come if you want" guilds.

Fuck, even my "hardcore #5 on the server" guild took weekends and Friday nights off, and only raided for 3 hours Tues-Thurs.  Add in an hour to do dailies and zomg I was playing 16 hours a week! The horror!

Sometimes you guys sound like the people you vilify in politics, spouting off without education or research.

Plus, it's not wrong to assume that raiding comes with schedules.  Those schedules will inevitably conflict with something else unless you have absolutely nothing else going on in your life.

Exactly.  Or are we going to start vilifying folks whose golf game or softball league(s) interfere with going out as well?

[Nebu]

Sometimes you guys sound like the people you vilify in politics, spouting off without education or research.

The evidence on both sides is anecdotal.  Perhaps we can call it a draw.   

[Murgos]

Here are a couple of previews based on more extended (17 hours) playtimes:

Bounty Hunter
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/13/17-hours-with-star-wars-the-old-republic/

Agent
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/13/17-hours-with-star-wars-the-old-republic%E2%80%99s-agent

I haven't read these yet so I am interested in what they have to say.  17 hours should be more than enough to get out of the starter areas and well into an advanced class.

[Merusk]

Sometimes you guys sound like the people you vilify in politics, spouting off without education or research.

The evidence on both sides is anecdotal.  Perhaps we can call it a draw.   

If you want me to start linking guild websites I can.  Last I had to search the only reason I crossed off a number of them was they didn't need the class/ role I wanted to play or they were PST raiders.  I can't do 1am EST bedtimes anymore.  It wasn't hard to find folks with a schedule that didn't require me to play 30 hours a week.

And that was without paying a server transfer fee.

[Malakili]

The real problem as I see it  with the raiding takes too much time argument isn't the raw amount of hours, so much as it is that the time must be interupted.  A lot of us probably spend the number of raw hours gaming that it would take to raid these days.  However, its the fact that those hours have to come at a specific time, and they must be uninterrupted.

That last part is the hardest part for me personally.  I used to be able to do that, but now I can't, and frankly don't want to.  Anything more than an hour in one sitting is more than I realistically want to put in.  I want to be able to get up and get a snack, go watch a TV show with my wife, come see the cute thing our cats are doing, just plain old play something different or whatever.   It isn't that I'd need to play DRASTICALLY more than I already do.  But it would change how and when those gaming hours happen, and thats the issue.  I used to raid pretty hardcore, and while I did play more hours than I do now, it wasn't drastically more, and there were people I was raiding with who played a lot less, and we were top 2 or 3 on our server for whatever that is worth.

I think the argument comes from people who say "3 hours isn't that much to ask"  WHich is true, but 3 hours in a row without interuption and at a specific time is actually a lot different thing to ask in my opinion.  I might play 3 hours of games during a day, but it'll probably be like, 30 minutes here, an hour there, 20 minutes with my coffee in the mornining, and so forth.  At the end of the day we might have played the same amount of time.  So I think its unfair to call anyone who raids, even people who are fairly advanced as poop sockers or to make raiding out as a lifestyle (maybe it used to be, but thats a different discussion). But neither is it fair to assume that the amount of time and more importantly the way that time must be organized/used/compiled is trivial for everyone, even those who can play the raw number of hours together.

That being said, I'm fine with not being able to raid, I don't think they need to make it so that someone who plays like I currently do can raid in a game.

[Azuredream]

The evidence on both sides is anecdotal.  Perhaps we can call it a draw.   

Guildprogress has 160,000 guilds registered to have killed a raid boss. How many do you think have attendance requirements?

[Malakili]

The evidence on both sides is anecdotal.  Perhaps we can call it a draw.   

Guildprogress has 160,000 guilds registered to have killed a raid boss. How many do you think have attendance requirements?

I think there is a difference between killing raid bosses and "raiding." Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but it seems to me that the discussion is about raiding as a consistent part of playing the game that makes it enjoyable/is the reason you play. I think its fair to say that if raiding is something that is the big draw for you, that is different than just having killed some bosses, or cobbling together a 10 man once a week.  That might be my competitive attitude sneaking in though, I don't derive a ton of enjoyment from that kind of thing generally speaking, unless I go "all in."  I'd generally speaking rather quit it altogether.

[Murgos]

Anecdotally, when I left Bat Country in EQ2 it was to join a large, organized guild that was capable of doing raids.  Not a 'raiding guild'.

They posted a schedule in the MOTD of when and where and if you wanted to go you showed up at the meeting place 15 minutes early.  The raid started on time or was cancelled due to lack of participation so you never spent lots of time sitting around waiting.  The raid would be done whenever it was done but once it managed to start going no one cared if you had to leave or showed up late (unless some in game mechanic made it impossible to synch up).  Typically they lasted about 2 hours.  Often there would be two raids offered at the same time to see which one generated more interest and occasionally they would both go off and then also there was usually an early raid and a later raid scheduled for EST vs PST.

If you didn't want to raid there were usually a number of groups going in different areas that you could just go slot in on.

I know there are more extreme versions of 'raid guilds' but really, they don't have to be that way and you don't have to be in the ones that are.

[Malakili]

Right, Murgos is talking about the same thing as me.   I think its fair to raid that way (but it isn't my preference), but it doesn't strike me that raiding would be the biggest draw to the game or the feature that keeps you playing the game, if you raid in that fashion. 

F13 could probably manage that.

[Azuredream]

I think there is a difference between killing raid bosses and "raiding." Maybe I'm splitting hairs

Yeah, I'm not sure what the difference is between these two. If we define raiding as poopsocking, then yeah, 100% of raiders are poopsockers. Who knew?

[Amaron]

Seriously some of you have a crazy image of what raiders actually do to "raid".

I've raided with several different types of groups from top 10 in the world all the way down to lots of Pugging.   I'm a consultant who sets my own hours so I still have time for it and even in my older age I'm still good enough to go with your average top guild on a server.  I won't do it though because raiding relies on several concepts that just aren't fun.

Rule #1:  You don't play with your friends.
Rule #2:  You don't play with your friends.
Rule #3:  These are your new Friends™ you play with them.
Rule #4:  You raid when scheduled or you don't raid at all.

All of the above makes perfect sense for a team sport.  Do I want to play a team sport?  FUCK NO.   I want to kill the Lich King in hardmode while pulling along my friend who's a baddie with ADD and can't even pay attention to the screen for very long.  I also want the best gear because I'm willing to put in the work and get the skills.   If some fucking elitist **** sucking "bro" doesn't like my anti team self entitlement view he can go suck his own.

What the hell is the point of team sports in an MMO if you have to change your friends anyways?

[Malakili]

I think there is a difference between killing raid bosses and "raiding." Maybe I'm splitting hairs

Yeah, I'm not sure what the difference is between these two. If we define raiding as poopsocking, then yeah, 100% of raiders are poopsockers. Who knew?

To me its the difference between "I go the YMCA to work out, and sometimes maybe if I feel like it I'll get involved in the pick up game of basketball going on" and "I go the YMCA to play pick up basketball"   That doesn't mean raiding= poopsocking.  That would be another category in my analogy. The poop sockers are = to the people who play in a competitive league.

Also, the team sports attitude is a good analogy actually, when I raided hardcore, that was precisely the way our GM liked to describe it. (so yea, guess I was poopsocking then, eh?)

I should also say that when I raided I had no friends that played the game with me already, so I didn't have to abandon my "real" friends to start raiding.  In fact, one of the reasons I looked for a raiding guild was to find like minded people to play with since I didn't have anyone to play with at the time.

One last edit:  I don't see how this whole discussion is super relevant to SWTOR though.  It seems like there is going to plenty of non raiding content to keep that actually want to play busy.  Bat Country is a community guild - here are some people you sort of know that are probably a bit more fun to chat with and play with than randoms.  That seems totally reasonable to me.

[Paelos]

What the hell is the point of team sports in an MMO if you have to change your friends anyways?

Blizzard's finding out it = lost subs.

[sam, an eggplant]

EA investor webcast quotes Riccitello as saying "high scale beta" is to start at the end of June. I'm not familiar with that term - is that stress testing/open beta?

Lots of people (although sadly not me, so far) are getting into closed beta recently. They're quickly scaling up to a full-fledged but still closed and NDA-bound beta, as opposed to the 3 day mini-betas they've been running for the past year.

[Amaron]

One last edit:  I don't see how this whole discussion is super relevant to SWTOR though.  It seems like there is going to plenty of non raiding content to keep that actually want to play busy. 

Picture a million rabid star wars fans being told they basically can't kill the new equivalent of Darth Malak and loot his fancy stuff.  Really to me just the thought of it is a bit scary.   In WoW I only cared about the loot.   Here I'm going to feel some serious rage if I can't be a part of that story.

[Rasix]

Yah, I hadn't really thought about that much.  In a game so dependent on story, it sure would suck ass to be cut off from large/important parts of it because you don't want to put up with raiding.  This is where I beg for my "story mode" version of the raid, where I get a soloable version but without the shiny as to not anger the raiders. 

I don't envision myself having time to raid in the foreseeable future. Casual or not. 

[Malakili]

One last edit:  I don't see how this whole discussion is super relevant to SWTOR though.  It seems like there is going to plenty of non raiding content to keep that actually want to play busy. 

Picture a million rabid star wars fans being told they basically can't kill the new equivalent of Darth Malak and loot his fancy stuff.  Really to me just the thought of it is a bit scary.   In WoW I only cared about the loot.   Here I'm going to feel some serious rage if I can't be a part of that story.

Hmm, that is a good point, I didn't think of it from a story standpoint.  Raiding is so dissociated from story in my head that I forget the "I want to experience that content" actually has often to do with the story part of it, which will obviously more important in TOR, which is emphasizing story so much.  

[Koyasha]

As to the 'uninterrupted' issue of time: 3 hours uninterrupted is about the same amount of time, maybe a little less, than it takes to watch a movie at the theater.  Counting time to get there, time standing in line(s) and time waiting for the previews, plus the 2 hour movie (give or take 20 minutes), you've got at least 3 hours dedicated solely to 'go watch that specific movie'.

As far as SWTOR?  I have no damn idea what their raiding will be like or if I will even care.  So far I don't think the game mechanics are all that interesting to me, but then I haven't even paid all that much attention because I know I'm buying and playing this game regardless - I want to see this story-focused MMO idea, and that's what's going to keep or lose me, nothing else.  If raiding is part of the story, I'll raid.  If not...maybe I will, maybe I won't.

[Sky]

My cat, guitar, fiancee, house, yard and phone are not present at the movie. It's also generally a date thing, we go out to dinner and a movie. We're not going out to dinner and then she can sit and watch me raid for 3 hours.

The plan is to shoot for something like Murgos is talking about. A couple nights a week where we plan on getting together, everyone shows up within 15 minutes of the start time or we call it off. I have no stomach for sitting around waiting for people to dick around, ironically the same reason I haven't grouped much in the past - I don't like inflicting my own adhd on others. If my fiancee walks in, I'm not going to ignore her to play a game, if I get a song idea, I'm not letting it die to play a game, if my cat walks in, I'm going to go play with him rather than ignore him for a game. She came home while I was in the middle of a BB game the other day and it SUCKED having to play the second half while not being able to concentrate on talking to her.

Anyway, rather than focus on how easy or not it is to have a casual raiding lifestyle, lets just say that's what we're shooting for with BCTOR and see where it goes.

[Amaron]

As to the 'uninterrupted' issue of time: 3 hours uninterrupted is about the same amount of time, maybe a little less, than it takes to watch a movie at the theater.

A movie does not involve concentration.   A movie does not involve people being upset with you when you mess up.   A movie will let you pick among many time slots per day.   A movie is relaxing.  A movie has snacks.   A movie might even lead to you getting laid.

You are comparing machine guns and oranges.