Its our JOB to make Command Decisions

Sure has been quiet over here. What's the deal?

Maybe burnout.

Maybe spite.

Maybe summertime.

Maybe pressures of trying to help run a guild.

Maybe annoyances with impatient people.

Maybe jaded feeling from a few recent ship jumpers.

Maybe hatred for Blizzard's Arena queuing mechanism which still has me facing Hands of Adal and Challenger/Rival teams, 6 weeks into Season 4, rated at 1450.

Probably all of those.

I think summer and pre-expansion blues has hit my guild square in the nuts.

We've been raiding 10-man content since January 2008.

We just started raiding 25-man content a month ago.

Some people are adamant about getting their last piece or two from Kara.

Some people rather not visit Kara anymore.

Some people have been farming early ZA for months, and are itching to push further. This would require consolidating more of the Guild's talent onto that ZA progression team. Doing so would leave the remaining players without most of the leadership that keeps the raid together, so we haven't made that difficult decision yet.

Some people are still playing for gear. Gear that has a guaranteed shelf life of no longer than November 2008.

Some people are playing for content. Content that will be rendered obsolete in a few months, nothing more than a passing fancy to be visited by 15 level 80's sometime in mid 2009.

A week ago, we had the best-ever guild turnout of 23 raiders. We had a tough time in Gruul's Lair, but stuck together, tried some different strats tailored to the specific people in attendance. We got the job done and killed Gruul, starting only 15 minutes late, but ending 30 minutes past bedtime.

A week later, Magtheridon on the schedule, only 16 people show up. Combination of vacations, active military duty, ship jumping, new girlfriends who don't let their boys raid (lol, not mine, she's uber. And her Orc shammy is gettin pretty bad@ss), and I think that's it. So no raid. Amava went and grinded some Kuranei rep.

The night following the canceled Maggy, only enough show for a single 10-man upper Kara run. So Amava went and grinded some Consortium rep.

Sorta feels like we're a bit too late in the WoW lifecycle to make a serious push at 25'ers.

Seeing BRK's Aetherial Circle posting that even well established 25-person team is struggling, well, gives me minimal hope for our brandy-@ss new raid.

For the foreseeable future, I think my heart is in Zul'Aman, and I only hope I can convince the officers and members that consolidating talent into a progression team is the right thing to do, and is not meant to be elitist or arrogant or sticking with a clique.

Professional Hockey teams have four lines of offense. Only one group of three players gets to be on the starting line. Only a few players get picked to work on the power play, or to play shorthanded. The coach, with the help of his assistant coaches and team captain, is responsible for making that decision. The guys who don't get selected for the first line sometimes get upset at the choice, but in the end, they realize that on any line, they have an important role to play for the team. And if they truly desire a position on the starting team, they bust their tails during practice, watching game films, studying their opponents, working out between seasons, enchanting their gear lol.

When picking DPS for upper Zul'Aman, difficult choices have to be made. If half your team is only outputting 600 DPS on Nalorakk, Halazzi is simply not an option.

I guess I'm just ho hum at the concept of farming kara, farming early ZA, all the while, seeing that there's suitable talent in the guild to push further if the other officers would just agree that its OK for us to make the command decision to consolidate the highest performers and kill some progression bosses.

Nay, its not OK. Its our JOB to make command decisions.