I've been thinking about this for weeks and just had to ask.

I started trolling your forums a year ago and you've allways seemed to be the perfect high end guild. The way you run your guild has been both a inspiration and a confirmation to me as a officier about many many issues and i've done my best to go in the same direction with our guild. You treat people like people and have a very big amount of players and I admire the organization.

now, why is there no progress, that screen on the front page is getting old and i'm wondering if there's anything we need to watch out for. this is not a trolling atempt but a genouine concern.

I had a long wordy reply all written out but none of that's needed really. We're still progressing. It just takes longer with a guild the size of ours who cannot (or do not) field the same 40 people every night of raiding.

Nothing terribly drastic's happened, we just had a bunch of tanks go away to school and be unavailable for a few weeks. We had at least one whole sunday afternoon of 4H attempts get scrapped because there were 3 warriors and 2 druids available at start time

things are back on track, though. The page should get updated soon :]

Good to hear.

I don't! I hatses them allses!

I wonder if EJ, or any other guild, is suffering a lack of progress due to the inpending expansion. It saddens me to read so many of my core raiders telling me they no longer feel the need to progress, or in some cases even play, with the expansion bing "Just around the corner". It would be some, small, comfort to know it is not just us who are suffering this malaise.

If anything, I'd rather be geared out the ass, making the trip from 60 to 70 that much quicker.

I think you may find those that have the attitude that its not worth playing because better loot is available later are precisely those who aren't your best guild members. You'll find that guilds with players in it for the challenge and progression are the ones pushing as hard as ever.

I guess the people who want to `be the best` will simply keep raiding as usual.

But there is a very definite element of uncertainty right now as to what will happen post-expansion and not a huge amount of time until we find out. Barring major disaster, it looks like TBC will be out before the end of the year.

It is no great surprise that those who were in some way thinking of taking a rest have chosen this time to do so.

There will also be a significant number of people who are preparing to re-roll. The new crop of Alliance shaman and Horde bloodknights will, I suspect, be gearing up for massive twinkage to level 70. And some people will be wanting to play the new races also.

Taking my own example - Nightelf priest - rerolling to Draenei in TBC seems a valid move. The +hit aura alone beats all the nelf basic plus priest racials combined, the Elekk looks cute and following a few weeks behind everyone else in Outlands will mean not having to quest in lands scoured clean of monsters by the slavering mob.

Inevitably, this will effect some raid groups and their current motivation. Sucky, but unavoidable under the circumstances.

Personally I feel that unless your guild has a strong chance of experiencing C'Thun(i.e. killing Twin Emps) or Kel'Thuzad, why bother? Those two alone are very significant and enjoyable(I'm assuming here that KT is on some level), but if you're going to end up a week from expansion on like Huhuran or Gluth that would be fairly weaksauce.

If you're within reach, go for it and at least make your mark on that level of content while it still means something, but if you can't for whatever reason just sit tight and enjoy what's coming up.

My opinion is most likely influenced by the fact that I'm been guildless for about a month or so and haven't killed anything in Naxx, but oh well.

The related question I've been considering lately concerns the 4 Horsemen specifically - we've got the Spider Wing + Razuv clear and Noth to 1% the other night, so I'm kind of figuring we're in position to reach the Horsemen in a couple of months. If not for TBC looming, I'd be pushing to prep for them by recruiting up to 8 Warriors, making more of an effort to prioritize loot for 4/9 DN, and so on.

But would we be justified in recruiting more members when we're already forecasting roster cuts for TBC? Can we justify restricting months of loot for an encounter that may be vastly diminished, progression-wise, as soon as we reach it? I don't know. I've reconciled myself to accepting the GM's decisions, and I don't envy him the choice. Maintaining momentum in progression content seems to require choices that might be counterproductive to the efforts to maintain social cohesion through the tumult of the expansion.

Feel free to advise whether my estimate is realistic, by the way, or with your own views on the 4HM prep problem.