Wow, I thought my casual guild really was casual as we're only starting Karazhan this Friday. Out of the potential raid members only 4 have ever set foot in a raid instance before, three of them were keyed last night and we hopefully will get our last 2 members keyed tonight (we're still looking for our 10th). It is my intent that I will mould these casuals into a hardened raiding crew, occasionally being able to kill trash mobs in Karazhan!
That would be great!
Things used to be different though as pre-TBC I was a member of guilds who'd cleared & farmed MC, BWL, AQ40 and we managed to get Heigan down in the week before TBC was released. When I saw the progression choices with trade skills, pvp etc I decided I wasn't going to raid in the expansion so I simply stopped on Jan 14th, quit my raiding guild and rejoined my wife's vanity guild. Things were going very well with PV, I was able to play my alts a lot more than I had been previously but the raiding bug bit me again after I was invited to help out a friend's Kara raid. We started recruiting immediately and now we have a guild that is 4x bigger than it was a month ago and most of those new members are new 70s or are still levelling.
I'd like to say I don't really know why I want to raid again but I know the exact reason I want to do it. The challenge for me isn't the Kara keying or fights inside Kara or the loot or being on my server's progression list but it is simply that I want to take some clay players and mould them into competant raiders. However... I fear having to train them how to raid because if the 5 mans and ZG last friday was any indication it'll be like herding cats I'm sure. Ok, i'll say it, my guild isn't filled with casuals, it's filled with noobs! With a few exceptions, no one really knows their class very well, they don't fully understand how their class works with others (warlocks & shadow priests) and to a man none have ever set foot in an instance with more than 4 other people. They are casuals with the attitude of "I'm playing for fun not for progression", with equipment occasionally chosen for its colour or the fact that it has horns (?) and the talent choices? My god. Yeah, true casuals.
Originally Posted by Tzan
Go in and get flattened. Really. It's a great way to get people more motivated about gearing up through Kara. If the Raid thinks it's ready for TK, go for it. If you win, then you've got people excited about Raiding and they'll be more active and committed. If you get crushed, then people will be more willing to work on other encounters because they'll know they need to gear up better to progress. And, if you get flattened, the next time you go in with better gear, it will seem easier so people will start off the return with higher expectations.
It's a win/win.
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This isn't my experience at all with learning new content. I love generalisations because they're always terribly accurate so allow me to make this statement: "Farmed content brings out the casuals, learning fights bring out the hardcore." If you aren't offended yet allow me to explain further: 'casuals prefer loot, hardcores prefer encounters.' As guild of hardcores you'll enjoy beating the content more than the end result (loot) but if you have a guild of casuals new content isn't a challenge, it's a steep mountain infested with spiders and stinging nettles with an omniponent and unbeatable boss at the peak. Just being in the raid for 2+ hours is justification enough for some to demand loot for their time... seriously.
My MC/BWL guild was about 40% hardcore and 60% pure casual and when an encounter or instance was on farm it was nearly impossible to get into the raid but for learning fights we might have 32 online when the raid started. This occurred with MC, with BWL, a little less with AQ40 (trash
) and then picked up again with Naxxramas. Kill Rag? Next week is a full full full raid for the MC farming but when you zone into BWL and see Razorgore for the first time the raided ended up with 32 again.