Sister-Guild for Raiding

[Sabryla]

Proposal for a sister-guild to OOTRB which would be based as a Raid guild.
This would be an entirely separate guild to OOTRB, but would have a name themed along "Red Blade".
It would be affiliated with OOTRB, and OOTRB members would be welcome to have alts and raiding chars in the guild.
I myself would be running the guild and organising the raids, and will myself commision a TS3 channel (or other voice communication channel) for raids. That channel would be available for people in OOTRB and the sister-guild to use anytime.
The guild would not actively raid until MoP, and if plans reach fruition stage, then it will be created about 1month in advance to MoP Release. As such, nothing has yet been decided and while I have spoken to some members, and our great and wise Cheiftain about it, there is still much planning needed if it is to be succesful.
As such I decided it would be worthwhile to make a poll to see what the guild's stance is on this.

INSTRUCTIONS--
The questions given below are all answered in the same list of answers. For this to work, all answers are numbered to indicate the question they represent, and each person should ONLY tick 1 answer for each question. People have multiple votes in order to do this in 1 Poll Thread. As such I am praying people will be honest and not purposefully corrupt the answers in favour of their choice for a specific view... This is easy to spot, just by adding the total votes for each questions' answers, and if that be the case then i will do it in separate polls. Please Be honest.

QUESTIONS--
1- Are you in favour of a sister-guild to OOTRB which would be focussed around raiding?
answers: 1-Strongly Yes / 1-Yes / 1-No / 1-Strongly No / 1-Undecided.

2- Are you interested in raiding, or would like to try it?
answers: 2-Yes, I have a character I could use / 2-Yes, but I would make another character for it /
              2-No, i am uninterested in raiding

3- Do you have any experience with raiding?
answers: 3-No i told you i am uninterested / 3-No i have just never tried / 3-Yes but not in a proper guild team
              3-Yes i have done it casually / 3-Yes i have done it professionally, such as in a core team or lead a raid team

Please feel free to post any other views or queries you may have.
Constructive critisism welcome ( but be nice to me )

[Sabryla]

MY EXPERIENCE WITH RAID GUILDS--

Thought it would be a good idea to write this to ease any doubts about my experience with raid guilds.

First off, I started by e-life (term coined by me ) in WoW on October 22nd 2008. It was late into the TBC expansion, and my only TBC raid experience was with an IRL mates' guild, as i often covered for him while he was working. I was playing a warrior at the time mainly RPing but my mate was rolling a Disc Priest.
It was love at first-sight and I rerolled a Disc Priest early into WotLK, doing RP with the priest as i levelled. During Naxx I was a casual raider in a social guild called "The Dedicated Few" ( Yes, after the naxx acheive!)that did occasional runs. I wasn't terribly well geared but i did my best to be up-to-scratch with gems and enchants, etc.
When Ulduar was released i joined a 25man raiding guild called "Serendipity". I respecced to holy where my healing greatly improved and was made an officer and led the lower 25man raid team. We cleared Ulduar and did a few heroic modes and acheivements, but never managed feats like 1 light in the dark, or Algalon

With TotC, I split from Serendipity along with a good chunk of the lower raid team and I started a Raid Guild for one of the world's largest gaming clans; "The Art of War" (TAW). We managed to do Totc25hc with around 30-ish tries left, and grew to include our own lower raid group which was a 10man team led by my brother in his short wow e-life.

On the release of ICC, we were clearing the bosses in 25man as they were released.
I was running the guild, in charge of recruitment, raid arrangement and leading, and maintaining our part of the clan website. TAW had its own TS3 channel that we used.
We managed to clear ICC25hc 11/12, but never managed all the acheives for the mounts.

Before the end of WotLK there was a change of leadership in TAW, unfortunately for the worse... The new CO of the entire WoW section (They had 3 guilds; 2 american server raid guilds and my guild on Bloodfeather), wasn't fond of the guild being led my a non-american, who was also under 18 (which is i most cases against their rules) as the clan and all its leadership from my position upwards is american and over 18. In my defence was the time-difference between US and EU times, and that the previous CO had chosen me out of several others to lead. In the end our section was scrapped and removed from the clan. We were barred from the TS3 and removed from the website.
At the time I wasn't earning and wasn't able to supply our own TS channel so the guild fell apart. I the end I sold the guild for an alt storage as it had all tabs and some items. I then co-founded a guild with some WoW mates from TAW called "Abstract". We did casual raiding until Cata released, when I left in order to concentrate on A-Levels.
If you've read all the way to this then thank you for reading and I hope it has covered any doubts about my guild-leading expertise, and ifyou still have any questions, i say Fire away and i will answer ASAP!

[Gor'Thrak]

My main is currently in a 25man guild that has, as far as I know, downed every single end boss on heroic mode, but it's terribly lacking a social side to it and it's driving me mad, so therefore I'm interested as I can get to both raid and RP if this goes through.

I've a few simple questions though (No I'm not demanding some real hardcore stuff, so don't get the wrong impression!).

At what level would you be raiding? Would you be going social (Very laid back, not caring if the progress is slow), casual (The average raiding guild, often not finishing the heroic content but having an okay progress (As in for example 9/12hc in ICC, or 6/8hc in DS)), semi hardcore (Trying to have everyone work hard, look up tactics and contribute as much as they can, often finishing the content after a while but usually not raiding more than 3 days a week) or hardcore (Often between 4 and 6 raiding days a week, there's a demand for everyone to look up on the tactics for bosses and have the best stuff at all times and the similar)?

I guess you're probably going 10man, but just to be sure, would you aim for 25man or simply stick to 10man?

How many days a week, and what amount of hours would be spent on raiding? If you've already set the days and times, which?

And last but not least, will there be cookies?

[Sabryla]

COOKIES WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR ALL!!!

It would likely be 10man, however if more people get involved, and if we can hook something up with other guilds then 25man could be a possibility.

Raiding I would aim to have a fairly casual and friendly atmosphere, but i would strongly guide people towards looking up tactics, enchants, gems, etc in the semi-hardcore sense. So while guild atmosphere would be social the raid atmosphere likely semi-hardcore.

Raiding days would probably start around 2-3 (preferably 3) and see where we go (everything is up to scrutiny as nothing has been finalised).
Raiding times i would aim for 3-4 (preferably 4) hours a night officially, and if everyone was happy to contiue, then indefinitely.

n.b as it would not be an RP-based guild, restrictions to class would likely not apply.

[Vashnarz]

I tend to do just normal wrath raids on wednsdays and truth be told I see alot of ORB members not being keen on PvE as we are mainly a RP pvp based guild. However I am not sure how big of a demand the pve aspect is in ORB tbh

[Sabryla]

No reason we cannot expand...? It would bring wider publicity to the guild, and if people wanted a taste of raiding they could come along. I think it would be beneficial to the guild as a whole.

[Kintka]

Is it not an idea to set up a raiding community within the guild? Is a sister guild necessary? I mean I've known of many major RP guilds to have the community within. Such as the Bashi Empire.

[Sadok]

Is it not an idea to set up a raiding community within the guild? Is a sister guild necessary? I mean I've known of many major RP guilds to have the community within. Such as the Bashi Empire.

Kintka's hit the nail on the head. I believe there is an appetite for raiding, but we needn't make a whole other guild for it when we can do it under the <Orcs of the Red Blade> tag. SGE and Shatterskulls already do this, and ORB raided in Wrath.

Better yet, with monks, we'll have eight available classes to choose from (and if we badly need priest, paladin or druid, we have a few friends in other RP guilds that would no doubt love to participate).

Considering how many mains we have in ORB, setting up a raiding guild inside the guild would appear the most sensible way forward, instead of making another guild specifically for raiding.

No reason we cannot expand...? It would bring wider publicity to the guild, and if people wanted a taste of raiding they could come along. I think it would be beneficial to the guild as a whole.

Arguably, being able to offer a raiding team under the <Orcs of the Red Blade> banner would better advertise the guild. Further to that, I know many whose RP and raiding toons are one and the same (and indeed have their alts in other RP guilds), and thus I'd imagine rather few would join a second OOC raiding guild.

[Sabryla]

Better yet, with monks, we'll have eight available classes to choose from (and if we badly need priest, paladin or druid, we have a few friends in other RP guilds that would no doubt love to participate).

This is the biggest Problem I have with it...
We are in OOTRB restricted by class... e.g Priests as you say, yes we would lack. The character I have raided on for my entire raid history is a priest i would like to use. Therefore if I used my priest it couldn't be in the guild, which raises concern about things like guild progression. Also how can someone not in a guild lead raids for that guild...
We'd also lack druids and Paladins, and in a raid guild the last thing you want is not to be able to use classes because of conflicting guild rules. Things like class runs if we wanted to get the benefit of all buffs etc, would lock us out of guild raids, guild acheivements, and guild progression.

Also we couldn't really recruit new people for raiding as they would be tied into doing the RP, and they may not necessarily be into RP, similarly people in OOTRB may not be into raiding. This means our choice of people is limited.

Kozgugore did say when i spoke to him that OOTRB did have a sister guild at one point.

One way around this would be to have an OOC raiding rank in the guild separate to the rest of the IC guild ranks, which non-orcs could be, enabling us to do complete guild runs with all classes, and open us to guild acheivements / progression / etc...

[Vashnarz]

"Better yet, with monks, we'll have eight available classes to choose from (and if we badly need priest, paladin or druid, we have a few friends in other RP guilds that would no doubt love to participate)." Sadok has just said how we can get those classes I myself am very good friends with Sonitus and I generally ask him if he and his herd would like to come along. I don't see the need of guild progression and I am not sure how a sister guild would help the guild find new members as they would join the sister guild and therefore not be in ORB to begin with. I do think it would be better to just find a raiding team inside <Orcs of the Red Blade> It would actually bring more benifits to the guild than a sister guild would.

[Sabryla]

For one RP and Raiding dont syngergise well
Being able to have all the classes and characters in the same guild will make it more attractive to people rolling those unavailable-to-orc classes to raid.
It would bring more people to OOTRB as by being in a sister guild people would be told about OOTRB and might be interested in trying out RP and therefore making characters for it.
A rank in OOTRB for OOC characters to raid could be an idea to solve class / guild issues?
Also guild acheivements / progression, brings guild benefits and rewards.

[Sadok]

For one RP and Raiding dont syngergise well

The Shatterskulls and Gurubashis would perhaps dispute this, or even the old Covenant RP raiding-group.

In any event, though I'm interested in the idea of ORB branching out into raiding, if a prerequisite is membership in this OOC sister-guild, I would have to decline. Both of the characters I might raid on (my mage and resto shaman) are in RP guilds with no intention of leaving them.

I wish you best of luck in your endeavors nonetheless. 

[Udron]

Personally, I think that raiding would be very much possible with only members of the guild and possibly alts of the guild members. It is commonplace you don't have one of each class in a 10-man raid (and it won't be possible in MoP). Several classes share the same buffs and if we don't have one, there are other sources (warlocks and warriors can replace priest's stamina buff, monks will be able to replace druid's buff, etc.) Also, correct me, if I'm wrong, but ORB raiding wouldn't be in the race for server-first kills, in which case hardcore min-maxing of everything doesn't seem necessary. I think a bunch of good players could eventually beat all the challenges with any class.

[Vashnarz]

A rank in OOTRB for OOC characters to raid could be an idea to solve class / guild issues?
Also guild acheivements / progression, brings guild benefits and rewards.

The idea of having non orcs in a orc only RP guild was disgussed but not going to happen.

Also guld achivements and progession would not help Orcs of the Red Blade as it would be the Sister guild.

[Gor'Thrak]

Having a sister guild for this would make coordinating things, keeping a set team and the similar plus generally keeping control over things much easier. Simply pulling in outsiders from other guilds will make it hard to keep a steady team going and would make us lose benefits. As mentioned earlier class diversity would also be a problem and the similar. Still, I do see the points that you raise. I will be keeping my main on my current realm in this case though, or placing it in another PvE guild on Defias as things will be much simpler that way.