After reading Req's treatise on the joy of playing WoW with the SSX I got to thinking. Usually that's a bad thing when I'm doing it of my own free will, but this seemed like a really good idea to me.
What if we all got an alt to a specified level and then committed to playing it with the same group of 5 and no others? That way we'd all progress at the same rate and would have really good raiding squads worked out when lvl 60 came along. I know I always get the most enjoyment out of multiplayer games when I have a regular partner or four that progress(es) closely with my character.
Reading about how y'all did something similar in the beginning gave me the idea. What do you say?
What if we chose a different server and did it as Horde?
Hey Bladesinger...
personally, i really would not like to start over....after putting in countless amounts of time and energy to improve my charcs and expanding the guild to a point that we can do trash runs in MC, and probably do ZG as a guild to give it all up is too tough for me personally....if everyone agrees to go, thats fine but i am going to stay....i have countless times help guildies out to either lvl or to grind when i have the time but to start over from scratch, that i am really not going to do after countless all niters that i have pulled to get my charcs the way i like them is just too tough....
myself personally, i have enough alts to keep me busy....so to create another it just too tough when i am looking to create one when the new expansion comes out.....i am sorry but i won't be doing it....with req, he doesn't have enough alts, so yea for him it's easy...but not everyone has only 2 charcs......anyways....i doubt all of us wants to start a horde at all....
Going to have to say I'm with sakuragi on this one. I've worked very long and hard on the character I have, and although I have several alts, I seldom have time to play them as it is.
The second and biggest part for me though is how would you chose which 5? The reason the original groups worked is that they weren't selected or planned. I know at least for the group I was with, a lot of our questing was done separately and we didn't intentionally wait for one another. It so happened we often were on and available at the same times and needed the same instances. Other times however we still went with pubby groups or received help from upper level characters when they were available. I have no issue helping out where I can, I enjoy it and try to as often as I can. Also when I'm on an alt I will often look to see if there's anyone around the same level, but that doesn't usually happen too often. Trixster, Sakuragi, Lili, and I all already by chance have alts that are about the same level we were talking about leveling together... I think that was about 3 weeks ago and we still haven't touched them lol. If you'd like to hold a character around that level, that's completely up to you, but I have no idea when we'll get around to that, likely not until lili is off of rotation and then likely only on possibly Monday/Tuesday nights, possibly at times when there are very few people online on the weekends... They're all at or about lvl 23-24, priest, warrior, mage, rogue.
Third, I'll never have a horde I do anything with... simply put they're ugly and smell funny. Might get little Alex to run with you on a horde, I know he was looking to get a horde char started or just did... I'm sure there are others that might see playing the opposite side as fun too...
I am probably not going to start a new alt. I do have a few that need some more attention though. The only problem I have with working on them is there are current goals I have set for my main that have not been met yet. I remember lvl'ing my main mostly by my self with help on harder quests when I asked for it. Other than that it was either solo or PUGS. I actually at the time prefered it as I had never played a MMO before. I honetly still don't mind playing solo for the lower lvls (at least until around 50, where the game really kicks into multi player mode). I still have no problem helping anyone who needs help when I am avaliable. Last night was an example. I could have helped people but it was a slow night for SSX. I will say though that I started school again this week so my playing time is going to be a bit lower than it has been in the past month or so. I still hope we can continue to build up SSX Mannaroth as a whole.
P.S. if any of this didn't make sense please forgive me I am on Darvocet right now due to my front steps being a skating rink this morning and I was not aware until after I went skating down all of them.
I'm sorry, I was unclear. I wasn't trying to suggest that we all drop everything and start alts from scratch. It's the lvl 60s that are the in-game foundation of the guild and I feel raiding is essential to our overall enjoyment of the game as a group.
What I've noticed while in-game is that most of us have alts in the 20's and 30's. I think it would be neat to declare an off night as Alt Night where we all organize into groups according to closest level and work to get them all to a specific point, say level 40. Once at that point we could organize into more formal 5-man groups and maintain those characters as cohesive squads up to lvl 60 where they'll join the guild stable of raiders.
The only drawback I can see in organized squads is if one or more members isn't able to play for a period of time. However, since most of us have more than one alt and/or higher level characters, missing squad members wouldn't mean we couldn't still play the game.
This could have multiple benefits (in no particular order of importance).
1) It allows those of us w/o 60s to get there more quickly.
2) Increases variation in who we play with, thereby increasing the community feel of the guild. I believe this is going to be increasingly important as we get larger.
3) Strengthens raiding groups as a whole. As the squads get used to the play style of each member they'll be more effective, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the entire 10, 20, 40 man raid group.
4) Alleviates some concern about not finding a group to play with that night. I know I'll look forward to playing my alt more knowing that I'll have a group to play with that night.
5) Increased XP gaining and loot efficiency. We all have quests that we can't solo until we're such high level that we don't get optimum XP for the effort and the item rewards are no longer in-line with our character's development.
I hope this makes more sense than my last post,
Phil
