2008-01-11 Becoming a Guild

The Grunt Foundation hooked up last night for our 2nd outing in the Ghostlands. Personalities have started to come out a bit as we get to know each other a little better. The group leader is the paladin, Arq. He knows the Ghostlands and takes a very methodical approach to questing. At the start of the evening he suggested that we work the "northwest" section of Ghostlands. The other four of us were like, sure man, whatever. Anyone who not only knows where the NW section of anywhere is, but what quests are in that section, gets my nod as a good guy to have around. Our one warrior has provided supporting melee for the paladin lead, but routinely pulls his own targets as well. Philly tracks them both and often I have to find the spot between them where I can heal both. The troll warrior is a bit of a free spirit and loves to talk cajun. The serious one is Brae, the mage, who quietly delivers the damage. Kon, the warlock, is the least experienced, but has been very helpful making bags and handing out green gear he has crafted to the cloth wearers. Believe me, at level 14 Philly still has slots where I have no gear yet, so anything crafted is a major upgrade for this grow from scratch group. Kon has provided some unintentional fun, as well. During our first run we were racing about so fast it can be hard to keep track of what quests are done or if you have everything needed for the quest turn-in. I have an addon that displays that info on the screen, but if you don't have that then you have to open your bags and look. Periodically we would post in group chat things like "4/6 spider legs" to tell the others how far along we were. When we were about ready to leave an area, we asked Kon if he had all the quest items. We got no response, despite all three of us asking him the same question in various ways. Whatever Philly said finally connected with Kon. He laughed and said, "Sorry dudes, I was trying to figure out who this "Kon" was you were talking to." The rapid pace can also get confusing, and I've noticed that when Kon gets turned around he'll usually follow Philly to get back into the action. That's not always a good thing, since I've been known to lose my way once in awhile (Duh!), but Kon is the only other female toon in the group and us girls need to stick together. ;-)

As for Philly, she seems to be the cheering and encouragement side of the group so far, making sure everyone gets the appropriate credit, offering good natured suggestions, and generally keeping everyone together. If the pace starts to get a little too frantic, Philly will call a mana break, even if I don't really need one. When Arq and Huldu head off somewhere new, Philly of course needs to be in tow for healing, but once in awhile the other clothies will get tangled up with a mob or two and the two won't notice right away. I'll run back to help, they'll see I've gone missing, and hold up while we regroup. We don't leave our mates behind.

At the end of the evening we had a level 15 (Arq), 3 level 14s, and a level 13 (Brae). My personal opinion is that we all seemed pretty pleased with how well we were working together as well as the synergy of the group. We had a few rough spots during the evening. In particular, in one area we were clearing camps of hostiles, and had swept an area clear. We were rolling on a chest when every hostile in the camp respawned at the same time. That was exciting, but no one lost their cool, no one died, and we wiped out the respawned camp.

This coming sunday we are going to attempt our first dungeon, Ragefire Chasm. RFC is beneath the city of Orgrimmar. It's the lowest level dungeon in the game, and since it's located inside a horde city, it's almost exclusively done by horde. The recommended level is 13-16, with emphasis on the higher end, but we think our group can handle it. The test is whether we can switch from the pel mel questing and grinding mode of the Ghostlands, to a more controlled pace in RFC. Whether it turns out to be easy or hard, its here we start to learn to work as a coordinated team, each of us with our own roles and responsibilities.

We have purchased a guild charter and had a signing party before we started play. We'll need five more signatures before we have a guild. Huldu the warrior has taken the lead on getting that done. He has also set up a guild website, so we will shortly stop using the yahoo group. What's the chances of getting five random players together and get someone who know things like website management or who can draw and quarter a map for efficient questing? So far this is working out very well.