In-between gripes and general commentary, let's try and throw in a couple of recommendations. This, this will be a recommendation.

Raid coalitions should choose a chat channel. Use it for everything. As a member of a raid coalition, try and use the chat channel instead of guild chat. You need to build a feeling of fellowship and amity among the raid coalition members; a busy chat channel is a good way to do that. It's a pity you can't do item links in chat channels, but do what you...

Abbi

"Christ, Abbi, you're cranky and pissy."

"I'm FEISTY. It says so in the blog title. I have this LOUD gnome TANK image to keep up and all."

"You're a pudgy guy pushing 40 years old, dude."

"WHATEVER."

"Whatever. So, you keep talking about mistakes. Surely it wasn't all mistakes."

Nah, it wasn't. (Nor will it always be cheap rhetorical devices to introduce each post, by the...

Abbi

I was just writing an entry about one of our first (and continuing) pain points: balancing progression vs. farming. I had a good head of steam up, it was well underway, and then I realized it was really about to turn into an entry about the second big mistake I made. I can't talk about why it's hard for us to give up on a given instance without talking about associates. For that matter, the entire history of WIR is shaped by the initial decision to formalize an associate status. So, yeah, I ought...

Abbi

My first mistake was numbers. I wanted to make sure I had my 30 or so core raiders nailed down before the expansion launched; I wanted everyone feeling committed and aggressive from the start. I was also concerned that I'd lose key people to other raid coalitions. So I went ahead and started recruiting in December 2006.

That went OK. Not great, but OK. I managed to fill out the team with my best guess at an appropriate class balance for 25-mans, and on the whole I got reasonably competent...

Abbi

Once upon a time, I raided pretty casually. There was this Earthen Ring raid coalition named SASU, which was originally a single Molten Core raid, underwent the usual drama, and turned into a conglomeration of 300+ active raiders doing three or four Molten Core raids, a bunch of Z'G, a couple of AQ20 raids, and by the end two BWL raids. Also we killed Skeram. I ran with those guys -- Molten Core, Onyxia, AQ20, etc. It was casual. Our BWL raid had a mage with those blue +healing shoulders from Silithus...

Abbi