Cataclysm: Preparing For Patch 4.0.1

[Paelos]

Meh, I just think it's dumb to cap it, but also to squeeze out the smaller end. It's like "Ok kids, if you fall between here and here, you're cool. The rest of you, get with the fucking program."

At this point it's moot. They'll end up changing it in the long run, because I don't think their original implementation is on point. Also, they aren't really releasing a lot of official information packages about it yet, meaning a lot of things are still up in the air.

[Rendakor]

I thought they removed the "only the top 20 earn" cap a while ago? Also, the real cap on guild size is 1000, not 600.

[Paelos]

I thought they removed the "only the top 20 earn" cap a while ago? Also, the real cap on guild size is 1000, not 600.

Hard to know, they don't really talk about the system when it comes to changes. The cap increase is confirmed though. Here's a blue comment:

We've reevaluated what we believe the realms are capable of supporting and instead will be enforcing a guild member hard cap of 1,000 members. This means that guilds with more than 1,000 members will no longer be able to invite new members until they drop below the cap.

Guild leveling in Cataclysm features unified progression powered by a series of complex systems that track the contributions of all guild members. The larger the guild, the bigger the impact on these systems. We found it necessary to determine a maximum guild size to ensure continued performance now and into the future.

[Sjofn]

SLAP is not small.

It varies really, really wildly. The 25-30 is probably a good guess at our average number of people logging in throughout the day, but some months we'll have a hefty four people on at once at our high water mark. I wouldn't describe us as "small" exactly, but we certainly can go weeks without doing a ten man raid because we don't have the numbers.

[Lantyssa]

Sure it has its ups and downs, but compared to a guild that is five people total, there's a difference.

[Sjofn]

And that guild isn't small, it's silly tiny. And I say that as someone whose Horde guild consists of about five people. Honestly, I don't consider that a guild, I consider it a couple of friends with shared storage. 

[Fordel]

Pfft, like anyone but the inscriber ever uses that bank.

[Sjofn]

I used it JUST TODAY! I took a piece of chilled meat out for Zandrys' cooking daily.

[caladein]

I thought they removed the "only the top 20 earn" cap a while ago? Also, the real cap on guild size is 1000, not 600.

Yes, they removed the "top 20 earners" system a while ago.  Now it's just a guild-wide daily experience cap with individual contribution caps per character.

[Ingmar]

That they removed the weapon disparity between 10 and 25 raids led me (possibly erroneously) to conclude the 10 active players is the average guild size, not the smallish guild size.

Which was my thinking when I started with 10-15 being the medium/average. 

25-30 active players being smallish implied to me that something larger was the medium/average-sized guild.  If that was the case, why would they de-emphasize the 25-man raids?

25-30 active players is not enough to run a 25 person raid. Maybe if there were 15 person raids we could pull that off. All the guilds I know that run 25s are much bigger than us.

[Chimpy]

I was in a pretty tight-knit, insular, high-regular attendance guild when I was raiding in TBC and WotLK. A guild that didn't want to sit people, so only had 1 "spare" of any class (at most).

Even in that guild, we had around 35 people. A lot of raids were cancelled because 2 people who were "vital" class/specs would have to take the same night off.

In Vanilla, the most successful guild I was in (which the core of those later guilds came from) liked to stay at around 60 regularly on (5 of 6 raids a week) and a total of about 70 who could possibly be in a 40 man raid on any given night.

These were server leading guilds, with considerably more "hardcore" attendees than other guilds. I know most of them kept "active" rosters of at least 50% more than we did.

[Merusk]

As I mentioned earlier, you don't need that many folks.  If you're focused on raiding, as in that's the primary purpose of your guild, you'll have attendance req's for raids (or the "raider" rank if you're like mine and let friends and casuals join.)  Keeping folks feet to the fire on that will mean you can keep only a few 'stand bys' in the roster with zero drama.  30-35 dedicated players who'll commit is all you need.

The class homogenization of WOTLK meant you could cut your roster due to needing buffs or roles, not a specific class.  (Or it happened naturally as folks found guilds instead of sitting out)  Since they're spreading the few class-specific buffs like Heroism out among other classes AND Dual-Spec is a feature it means you need even fewer additional players.

Now to preempt the cries of catassery around attendance reqs, it's like any other club.  Some folks enjoy this as their primary hobby, some don't.  Go bitch at the hardcore softball players first before shitting on your own kind (gamers.)  Seriously, I know guys on 3-4 leagues at a time, meaning they have a game every day or every other day.

[Sjofn]

Attendance requirements ARE catassy, but I wouldn't pretend they aren't necessary if you want to do raids (especially the bigger ones) on a regular basis. It's a matter of finding the happy medium for your guild. In our case, it's scheduling raids every week and just not going sometimes because we only had 8 DPSers and nothing else sign up that week. 

[Ratman_tf]

Didn't the term catass come from people neglecting their RL duties to play moar? A the height of my raiding, I only logged in for raids and maybe to grind dailies for cash.

I think more than the actual time spent, is the perception that the time is manditory, and on a set schedule. To continue the softball comparison, if someone just wants to toss the ball back and forth, they can do that whenever. But if you join a league, there's a certain expectation of participation.

[Selby]

But if you join a league, there's a certain expectation of participation.

This.  Logging in 2-3 times a week for 2-3 hours a night for a raid is not catassing.  It's exactly the same as if you were on a softball or basketball league after work.

[Azazel]

It also depends a bit on context. Logging on (almost?) every day as a casual to spend 2 hours on dailies is no more catassy than spending the same amount of time online to raid. Honestly, both are potentially pretty catassy if done as an obligation over more important RL activities, or not if they're replacing 2 hours of sitcom viewing - it's all about context.

Then again, raiding guilds where they raid 6/7 days and have something like 80%-90% mandatory participation, and on top of that you're expected to be on enough to farm materials for potions/consumables/whatever and also yadda yadda you get the idea is pretty much the definition of catass. While I don't really give a shit how other people spend their leisure time, that kind of thing has got to be pretty detrimental to family/relationships/chances of geting either of those if you lack them. I always felt that the term "catass" was meant for those guys.

[Bzalthek]

Catass is a level of required play more than "I" am willing to commit to.

[Ratman_tf]

jboots

[Hawkbit]

I raise you one Raster.

[Rasix]

I raise you one Raster.

My Raster camp was 5 minutes. 

[Azazel]

Catass is a level of required play more than "I" am willing to commit to.

Oh, I've been there and had the ass in question. That's why I'm comfortable with my definition. My most recent flirtation was for a 2 week period, 6 weeks ago. 

[Simond]

jboots

Jboots were easy - kill nameds ten minutes before nightfall, then harm touch ancient cyclops. If there was anyone else in the zone, kill them too.

[Azazel]

Icefeather in.. erm.. whatever the first zone of Velious is. And Ragefire circa Solb. With a guild.

[Merusk]

Catass is a level of required play more than "I" am willing to commit to.

This, or simply making a commitment to regularly log into a game, was pretty much the tone around here for years.   And the "I" was made up of people who played 4-5 hours a week.  I hadn't realized the shift had been so dramatic. Nice.

[Ratman_tf]

jboots

Jboots were easy - kill nameds ten minutes before nightfall, then harm touch ancient cyclops. If there was anyone else in the zone, kill them too.

I actually never played EQ that much. But from what I heard, the JBoots were much more catassy before they put them in a quest.

[Bzalthek]

Nah, I did Jboots several times before the quest.  It wasn't tremendously difficult.

[Hawkbit]

I raise you one Raster.

My Raster camp was 5 minutes. 

After watching a guildmate get his on hour #220 or so, I decided not to try.  That's 220 hours.  For a handful of 1s and 0s.  Jesus.

[Shrike]

jboots

32 hours at the Drelzna camp. For all intents and purposes, I had an intravenous Mountain Dew drip for a good bit of that.

[Shatter]

I got my Jboots doing a random run through said desert and mr Cyclops was up...LUCKY!!!

[Ashamanchill]

  This shit isnt wow is it?

[Rasix]

Allow us our "remember when", it is the lowest form of conversation after all.  How else are we going to fill the next month and a half?

Heh, "catass" and "poopsocker" are just terms I like to throw at the raiders.  I don't consider you of that ilk unless you're like guys I've guilded with that had over 100 days played when the game wasn't even a year old yet.  I'm sure some of you may have some cringe worth total played stats. Even my small play times (compared to others I've known) would seem completely ridiculous to people that don't play MMOs.

A more interesting distinction might be between casual and non-casual.  Terms like "casual raiding" seem like an oxymoron to me, but being limited from a time scale skews your perception of just the range of activities and what you can accomplish with various commitment levels.

I'm just thinking out-loud, I'd rather not get into a semantic battle over anyone's playing habits.

[Minvaren]

This shit isnt wow is it?

How's THAT for an analogy?

But yeah, even with current raiding requirements, WoW is still easy mode compared to days of yore.  And I have to admit, I'd never made the comparison between bowling league and raiding, though it does fit.

[Typhon]

I never followed any of the other expansion, so I have little context, but reading mmo-blue tracker these last two weeks I'm kind of astonished at what an obnoxious douche bag Ghost Crawler really is.  Has he always been like this, or is it just the pressure of the patch having issues?

[Ingmar]

He's snarky with shitty posters, if that's what you mean. I like it, personally.

[K9]

I never followed any of the other expansion, so I have little context, but reading mmo-blue tracker these last two weeks I'm kind of astonished at what an obnoxious douche bag Ghost Crawler really is.  Has he always been like this, or is it just the pressure of the patch having issues?

He's not great. His main talent is telling people how to play the game in a way that's fun, that isn't actually a way anyone wants to play the game nor is fun, typically. He's not as good as Tigole for the put downs.

I remember reading a retrospective either post-Vanguard or post-Tabula-Rasa (I think) where one of the big points which came out was that CMs shouldn't let devs ever talk to the player base; there's too much signal to noise, and devs are generally piss-poor at not getting dragged down into pointless arguments or clarifications. Ghostcrawler hasn't managed to go full retard yet, but I really don't think that his interactions with the forums does him any benefit nor the community nor the game as a whole.