2007-12-31 The Idea

[Author's Note: The following is the first post discussing what eventually will become the Grunt Foundation]

I've decided to attempt something new for the New Year. I've decided to try building a "play team" from the ground up of players who want to the play the game the way I want to. I thought about putting the idea up on Wild's server forum and see what interest there was, but then I decided to widen the net and instead of the WoW forums (which can get crazy), I decided to post on the Wowhead forum, which is a new feature wowhead has recently started. Since this forum is independant of server and character it would reach a potential wider audience, and most posters here seem to be more mature and knowledgeable.

No, I am not giving up on Wild or Wild's guild. I plan to continue progressing as best I can. I still think Kara attunement will come, and with that more planned raid opportunities for Wild. But on other days I also wish I could play with a small group of friends who prefer to plan their game time in advance. To better explain, here is what I posted on 26 Dec:

"Title: Helping Each Other - Planning time with friends

I am looking for players (both new players and vets) who prefer to plan their in game time in advance and like questing and doing instances with a regular group of friends.

"Join a guild" is what I hear when I bring this up, but my experience is that few players or guilds plan their in game time outside of raids. It's "catch me when I'm on" and "sure I'll help if I'm not busy". Nothing wrong with that for players who have the time. For me, though, that usually leaves me spamming /trade or /guild for help with something, or to get a group together, and that requires endless time finding people who want to do the same thing at the same time. Often my in game time is up before I ever find anyone to help.

I love WoW, but I just don't have enough time to play the game that way. I end up soloing a lot, but I would really like to be part of a guild or group of friends who face the same issues I do and would be interested in planning our game time together.

What I would like to do is begin with new or relatively low level characters, and to play those characters primarily during our scheduled times. That way we would level together and stay in sync with the areas and dungeons that we are exploring and conquering together. We wouldn't want anyone to get too far behind or ahead.

By planning in game time in advance, we would always know what we planned to do and that there would be friends in game at the same time to help.

I'm not the greatest player, but I've been playing a long time and know the game. I have a level 70 and I have guild experience, and all of that is good. I just wonder if there are other players out there like me who would be helped by having regular, planned, in game time with a steady group of friends, all about the same level so that we can continuously help each other.

I play primarily horde on Silvermoon PVE server but faction, server, etc, are all things that we could decide on. I'm asking here on wowhead as my server is an old one where we don't get many new players. I respect the players that post here and am hoping to find some like minded folks that would like to try this.

If this idea appeals to you, and if you love the game and put having fun and working together over loot and epeens then please respond to this post or PM me if interested. "

I've given the post a few days and have so far gotten interest from five others. This morning I provided some initial suggestions on how we should proceed and to get information from the others on server, timezone, faction, character and race preferences so we can figure out if this will work. Meanwhile, I hope we get a few more to express interest.

I've also gotten several helpful suggestions. This is one reason I like the wowhead forums. If I'd put this on the WoW general forum (or even the server specific forum) I would have gotten some serious replies, of course, but a lot of "learn2play noob" comments as well. This idea has been tried before, which I expected, and I've gotten some good pointers from others who have succeeded in doing this.

Well, I'm off to chill the champagne. See you all next year.