Greedy Goblin

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The PuG

Hereby I announce my new project, integrating the experience from the perfectly running Undergeared and the reusable ideas and many people from the terminated Ganking Project. It's a raiding guild named "The PuG" on EU-Agamaggan server, alliance side.

The points to be proven (or falsified):
  • The behavioral rules of the Ganking project work and perfectly capable to keep M&S out.
  • There is no need for "job-like" approach for the raiding. It can be perfectly no-obligation and casual
  • There is no need for dedicated leaders if the goals are properly set and feedback can be provided by the system and peers
The guild is named "The PuG" for a reason: it wants to simulate PuG-ing from a competent base. Practically being in the guild is like being guildless on a server where everyone are competent. I want to prove that PuG got it's bad name not from being without hierarchy but from the complete lack of skill or even human decency of the available playerbase. I want to prove that if people wouldn't be M&S, there would be no need for organizations and obligations.

Update: the rules have been clarified, new ruleset here.
Guild rules:
  • All the behavioral rules apply from the Ganking project. In short:
    • Recruitment is permanent, whisper Glotan or any officers
    • Anyone who violates the below rules gets warning(s) and if does not fix his error, kicked
    • Retarded behavior gets you kicked
    • No IRL things on gchat
    • No gz spam
    • No hi/bye spam
    • No communist collective
    • No alts in the guild (of course you can have alts elsewhere)
  • There are raid times every day from 19:00-23:30 server time with two 10 mins breaks around 20:30 and 22:00. A player is expected to leave only at the end or in a break unless he announces on inv he will leave at XX:XX and the leader approves. Of course you can start your raid at 20:30 or 22:00 and the leader can leave in the "break" too.
  • There is absolutely no attendance demand, you can choose to join all 21 90 mins or 5 or 2 or none. The only reason to set times at all is to avoid luring players whose time doesn't match others and would linger all alone online. If these times are not for you, we are not for you. You can keep raiding after 22:00 (or before 19:00) but anyone is free to leave without consequences.
  • The raid ID belongs to all participants. You are free to invite other members and pugs in the declared raid times. You are expected to invite those who have the same ID (unless they sucked and it's told to them). However you are not expected to not raid just because X cannot be online and want that boss.
  • There are no officers, everyone are equal. There is "inviter" rank for people I trust not to invite retards. They have the same rights as everyone plus can invite. Only I can kick and I do it in prime time so the public eye forms "checks and balances".
  • No dedicated raid leaders! Anyone can announce his raid. Soon the natural leaders emerge. I know I will start a raid, but ready to join the raid of others. You can start any raid in the raid times from "ICC25 HM going full clear" trough "ICC10 6/12 fast run" down to "Sartharion and Naxx to fresh 80-es" or even "Kara for achievement". Of course if no one comes to your announcement, you shall get the message. Again, it's a PuG-simulation. Anyone can form raids and anyone can join! You are not required to be "this" progressed. You can be here without placing foot to ICC once and just doing Ulduar/Naxx/ToC raids.
  • No one is forced to join any lockout. If a group did 4/12 on Wednesday and want to continue on Thursday, you can still start another 0/12 raid.
  • No voice communication. I find it a tool for one to tell others what to do. I expect the people to use their own head. I rather see a wipe and a debriefing when people learn from their mistakes than simply yell at them "purge empowered fanatic!" that makes a kill, but leaves the player clueless about why he was purging.
  • Loot rule: In ICC, ToGC, VoA it is gold bid with the 1/3 to second bidder, open bidding, 200G minimal bid, 100G increment to 1000G, 250G increment after that. 1/3 means if you win an item for 3000G, you pay 1000G to the second highest bidder and 2K for the pot. To lower tier raids (below 80, T7, T8, ToC) the standard Group Loot interface can be used. Pot is distributed at the break or at the raid end. If someone leaves in the break or at 22:00, he must be paid his part. Middle time leavers get nothing.
  • Raid leaders have the right to remove someone from the raid if inactive for 5min+, inactive for short time many times, abysmal DPS, making stupid mistakes again after the first mistake was told them and their questions answered. Also the RL can remove anyone who has no clue about the fight, as you are expected to read up. There is room for error but not for being clueless. Such removed players get no gold from the pot. RL is also authorize to fine 300G for the pot from those who do something stupid wiping the raid. As a general rule: slackers pay, those who have problems that cannot be repaired in 10 mins (like messed up spec, no clue about the fight) or really undergeared are replaced.
  • On the other hand RL has no right to remove or exclude anyone based on GS or lack of achievement. You get your chance, but if you can't do your job (due to low gear, inexperience or simply being dumb) you can be removed.
  • People write their PvE spec(s) into their public note. No one can be asked to spec differently. But of course no leader can be asked to take you, if your spec does not fit the raid composition, so there is a "supply and demand" here.
  • Write your crafting profession(s) to your note only if you want others to bother you with crafting requests.
  • Rerollers get 100G start money at lvl 19 (60 for DKs). Still no guild bank, use the AH, I'd like to stress the "no communist collective" rule from the behavioral rule set.
If you can't, or don't want to raid according to attendance rules of HC guilds buy got enough of the "communist collective" and overall stupidity of the social guilds, join. Considering that this project is much more conservative (PvE in a PvE game) I can't see it fail like the ganking project. I'd like to remind you the continuing success of Undergeared, as a guarantee that the PvE project will continue and will not be terminated. Since there is no competitive goal (we must win WG), the project is much more resilient against temporary downtimes. It can happen that there will be weeks when we can only raid with 8 people, but hey, we can do Naxx8 or old world raids, surviving the bad times. Also, the summer and the pre-expansion blues are coming, killing many raiding guilds, providing large pool of non-raiding raiders. I'm so sure in the longevity of this project that I'm ready to offer 2000G compensation to all members if I ever choose to shut it down (2K*100 members = goldcap).

About the server: EU-Agamaggan is a badly progressed low-middle population PvP server. Majority of the voters wanted PvP server for several reasons. One of them is that finally changed my mind: "less stupid kids since they can't take ganking". While being ganked is annoying to everyone, we can fight back since we have several PvP geared and skilled ex-Gankers in the ranks. You won't be alone against a corpsecamper! Low population also protect you from being ganked, simply because you won't bump into people every second. It's also great against lag, questmob-camping and login queues. I'd like to stress that "low" does not mean "Maghteridon-low". There are about 5x more alliance online and 5x more auctions in the AH. The server is a bit horde-sided, as all PvP servers, but the horde population is also "low" (about 3-400 online) and the odds are much-much better than they were in Magtheridon. Also, the dungeon queue allows you to level and play without ever leaving a capital city. It has healthy AH, with no markets empty but also without fierce competition.

We will hold PvP events (remnant from the ganking project). They are completely optional and won't be very frequent.

So if you want to prove the points above, or simply seeking a guild where you can raid with other competent people without being forced in any way, come! Both transfers and rerollers are welcome and will always be. My transfer is complete, whisper for inv!

85 comments:

Anonymous said...

A bold statement of the 2k gold offering should you EVER choose to disband. I for one anticipate this with great enthusiasm,

See you in the PuG.
-Fubu

Anonymous said...

assuming you get a large enough guild i'm quite interested to so how long it's gonna take for alliances to form and the 'pug' ends up being less of a pug.

my guild used to do the same for 10 mans. just pug whoever is avaible to do em, but as time continued you'd always end up going with the same ppl to increase your chance of getting a drop bc all others already got their trinket,... you're doing HM and don't wanna start from scratch again,...

Zeran said...

... and now I wish I had an EU account, and a touch more free time to play with you.
Best of luck, and I'll be studying your motives to see what ideas I can steal from it.

Squishalot said...

Mmm, I'm not convinced. It's only a PuG insofar as the first few weeks are concerned. After this point, you'll have dedicated raid leaders and dedicated raiders, and the people who were left out last week are still likely to be left out this week, and next week again. And it becomes a traditional casual raiding guild.

The only difference that I can see that is positive is the advent of raiding every single night. The success of this project can't be measured by its overall progression, but instead by its nightly casual progression. Having a single raiding group defeat LK won't count for anything - having multiple groups do so will mean success.

Or enough people transferring in to warrant it becoming an elite raiding group, again.

Xaxziminrax II said...

>weeks when we can only raid with 8 people, but hey, we can do Naxx8 or old world raids

What's wrong with ToC8 and ICC8?

Anonymous said...

"I want to prove that if people wouldn't be M&S, there would be no need for organizations, rules, obligations."

Immediately followed by : "Guild rules"

So what's the point of your project again ?

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: fixed. Rules needed exactly to keep M&S out. (However if they would not exist, there would be no need for rules)

Anonymous said...

Raiding every day 19-22, but what timezone? Servertime?

Anonymous said...

I recommend also making recruitment posts on Blizz forums and (moderate) in-game message spam. That way you'd get in more people and a greater variety (still keeping out idiots through the rules ofc).

The reason I say this is that from reading your blog it seems to me that the majority of the reader base are veteran WoW players. Recruiting in-game, for example, might attract new players who know how to play but haven't been able to get into guilds because of their GS.

Ulatekso said...

"No voice communication. I find it a tool for one to tell others what to do. I expect the people to use their own head. I rather see a wipe and a debriefing when people learn from their mistakes than simply yell at them "purge empowered fanatic!" that makes a kill, but leaves the player clueless about why he was purging."

I can see the point of not using it during a fight, as a lot of talking will come down to telling people to fire is coming, and surely they should be able to see that themselves.

However, going over tactics before the pull, either general or specific roles for your current raid composition, becomes much less painful when you can discuss it over voice-comm, instead of having to type out everything.

It might be hard to enforce such a "semi-voice-comm" rule on a project where you're not around for every raid, though. I'd love a setup like this for Undergeared, that's for sure.

Ablimoth said...

Can someone write the instructions for converting a US account to EU as well as post the time (GMT +/- XX) that is 19:00 server time for Agamaggan-EU?

Gevlon said...

@Ulatekso: on an EU server many people are not native English speaker. Reading English is one thing. Listening to the English of another non-English speaker over a noisy voice comm is different.

@Ablimoth: you must buy an EU account. 19:00 is 13:00 NYC and 10:00 in LA

Lethora said...

Server time is CEST.
Standard time zone: UTC/GMT +1 hour
Daylight saving time: +1 hour
Current time zone offset: UTC/GMT +2 hours

So 19:00 is 17:00 GMT during daylight saving time and 18:00 GMT otherwise.

joost said...

Hi Gevlon,

When does this project start?

Unknown said...

What I don't get (probably it shows my personal brain weakness) is that how is this a PuG? You started off by recruiting your ganking project first, and your blog's readers second, and I assume (in fact I'm pretty sure I'm right about this, not that I can prove it) that your readers' skills are way above average when it comes to raiding. For the moment this project of yours is a "decent raiding guild for alts" in my eyes. Did I miss some point(s)?

Unknown said...

Also sorry for posting again, but keeping M&S out of a "PuG" is a paradox, and while you may really be pugging literally (Pickup Group), your blog being the trade channel at this time, the raiding group formed will be really far from the raiding group everyone calls a PuG.

Anonymous said...

I'll give it a shot. I've got nowhere else to go now that IGG stopped, and I should be able to attend the second halfs.

Gevlon said...

@Gusztav: because anyone can join who keep the rules. I'll post on realm forum and everyone are free to post about it on his blog, forum, whatever. You are NOT required to read the blog to join.

Siobhann said...

I wish this were a US server, or even US work-friendly times. I'd transfer the shaman I'm leveling in a moment. It sounds like great fun!

Jokkl said...

nice idea... with the new raidlockoutsystem in mind this should be some interessting project. raid whenever you want... hm... ok... this time you got me.

Anonymous said...

@Nees, The concept of the second half is an excellent idea.

EU PCT is down at the moment, what a surprise.

Looking forward to not seeing, /gz /lol / ftw (still don't know what that means and the demise of /imba.

Oh and a decent raiding atmosphere as well

lux said...

Quite interesting.
Can you be more detailed about the pvp activity ?

Anonymous said...

Are there going to be any prevention methods against it turning into groups made up of the same people (or a rotation of setups)? It seems really interesting.

Anonymous said...

"due to low gear (...)".

Oh really?

Gevlon said...

No one keeps attendance if they are not forced, so the teams can't be fixed. Simply half of the raid won't be online next time.

Anonymous said...

Is the guild already created, if so, can I get the link from Armory?

~Dave

Sten Düring said...

While I believe that the progression part of the project will work perfectly well, it's still a falsification from the start.

It's not a pug. It's your Joe-average non-retard casual guild, well, probably a big one, but still.

Agreed upon loot-rules pre-raid as well as criteria for kicking. Observe the term 'pre-raid'. It's NOT the same as 'raid-announcement'.

The very nature of the true PUG makes this an impossibility.

What you're going to 'simulate' is the "we define this as a pug, but if I've never heard your name before I don't think you'll get an invite" -PUGS common on a low-pop realm. I usually know fifteen people at the start of an ICC 25 'pug'. If the pug IS indeed a pug, then I expect trouble at Deathwhisper.

Chopsui said...

Gevlon, when do you consider this a success? That stupid people are stupid? Yes, it's true that considering the difficulty of content, this PuG idea if it works out like you think would probably clear ICC25 normal, and along with it a few hardmodes.

I just don't consider ICC25 normal mode "raiding". It is not hard, and my current guild does 11/12 in ICC25 normal on a saturday night with a semi-pug structure like you propose here. Mostly in-crowd people who proved they weren't retarded.

You have put forward points, but not one single quantifiable result. When is a success?

Chopsui

Anonymous said...

Server looks horrible. Awful progress overall, but with ally side being especially dire. PuGing the last 7 spots for a 25man or getting that healer you need looks a grim prospect.

Anonymous said...

I am tempted to join in cata. I think ill level a goblin priest for healing or dps. I love the idea and think it will be a big success. Think I'll play the AH there on a level 1 to make some gold for it as the only thing holding me back is the fact I have 5 level 80s with all professions and 150k on another server and don't really want to leave that as I enjoy having gold :P.

Anonymous said...

Nice idea yet again Gevlon. Personally won't be joining due to the server but good luck. I would think that a med-high server would be far better for this as you would have a decent pool of people to pug from outside the guild. i.e it's thurs, only 6 online so grab 4 outside pugs and go. Much more likely to be able to host 25man GDKP runs also.
Anyway, I promised myself to never reroll on a low pop server again, and 5 times more players than magtheridon is still terrible.

Quicksilver said...

And I have just transfered the other day my character from Eu-Agamaggan Alliance side.

hahaha, owned.

Unknown said...

I can imagine the post in the guild recruitement channel :

Join “The PuG”. A casual raiding guild without M&S, without required attendance, without hierarchy, raiding every night between 19:00 and 22:00 with whoever is online.

ardoRic said...

Very interesting project. Unfortunately I'm one of the people whose "if these raid times are not for you, this guild is not for you".

I was considering transferring my tanking DK, with whom I usually pug, so my experience on him would probably be a lot different in such a guild. I do have a question:

Are raids allowed to pug outside the guild?

Gevlon said...

@Chopsui: most GUILDS have not killed LK 10 man. So 25LK + a few hard modes would place us in the top 25% of GUILDS.

@Okrane S: too bad

@Anonymous: I picked low-mid pop on purpose. Less retards, no [anal] spam.

@Ardoric: of course.

@Sten Düring: you have some points here. However the "real" PuG is mostly defined by drooling retards. The "no inv if I don't know you" rule is against them too. So this is as close as possible we can get to a true PuG without failing on LDW

Zazkadin said...

"I want to prove that if people wouldn't be M&S, there would be no need for organizations and obligations."

And what do you do to prove this? You create a guild with some needless rules. How does that compute?

antaria said...

might actually come back to the game this summer just for this
im a bit of a half heroic ulduar geared DK tank/dps, since thats right about the time i quit

Chopsui said...

@Gevlon

Yes, that would put you in the top 12% of guilds that are ranked on wowprogress. Obviously I'm trying to get you to formulate a measurable goal. Considering this is a PvE effort, it's not hard to formulate one. Top 10% of ranked guilds? Top 5%? Top 15%? Getting the endboss of raid instances within a month of world first kills?

The way is set up at the moment it's just a non-organised guild, where you can raid a bit when you want, or not, with a very slack set of rules. That in and of itself doesn't prove or disprove anything.

Anonymous said...

Less spam maybe on low pop, but far less players to pug from also and in my opinion a poor play experience. Maybe it's just me, but one of the big things with wow is the massively multiplayer aspect - an AH full of traders and goodies, being able to log on on a friday having missed the guild voa or icc run and being able to join a decent pug. There are pugs on my server with better progress than all but 1 of the guilds on Eu-Agamaggan. A decent weekly pug should easily farm 11/12 normal. A properly led weekly pug with vent and decent amount of players to select from should be aiming at 8+ 25man hardmode. But given the server population and experience you just won't be able to get decent outside pugs to fill your own raids. And if you miss the guild icc25...joy a fail 4/12 pug awaits. High pop servers just bring too many bonuses, if spam annoys you just disable /2.

Anyway, good luck.

Anonymous said...

Call it just "PuG".

Guild tags with "The" in 'em sound bit stupid in my opinion.

Asoc said...

@Gevlon

I'm a very big fun of this project. I don't feel comfortable when it comes to speaking/listening with vent that is why if it is not allowed in guild it is only good for me. I really value freedom in spending time that is why PuGing raids is only viable metod of doing progress because guilds usually require to declare when you will be present for sure. While I cannot predict in advance when I will have time for raid once I look for one I can stay for long. I tried to figure what content are you aiming? I downed 6/4 ICC10/25 so far but it is on farm status now so I will gladly do some progress and PuGs on my server usually quite after 1st or 2nd wipe on futher bosses. So I cannot advance and I really want to reach one more boss each raid. Is it acceptable pace for your guild or it is for more progressed raiders?

Anonymous said...

Good luck, all! I'm intrigued to know how well the GDKP runs will work if you end up with a bunch of people with no gold to spend :)

El said...

I dont know if you would be open to the suggestion of having 2 raid times.

1) The raid times listed
2) A later raid time as well 22.00 - 01.00 for those that are on later.

I could see this helping with people who cant get on early, espically those in as it is raid with whoever is online.

Even if you dont have 2 raid times I can see people raiding after the scheduled raid if there are enough people on at that time!

Good luck with the project Gevlon I may even look at joining sometime :)

John Newhouse said...

Gevlon, would you pay for my transfer from Mag to that new server? Buying the game + 2 expension was kinda expension :(

Anonymous said...

Looking at my own realm forum I see we have weekly pugs here with :

1 at 9/12 heroic
2 at 8/12 heroic

There's also 2 GDKP runs doing 8/12 heroic.

9 or 10/12 hc seems a reasonable aim for a pug-guild with decent players.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Been playing on Aggamaggan since the free transfer from Shadow Moon a few years ago and the server is indeed horrible in terms of PvE progression.

Personally I'm taking a break from raiding since I've got burnt out spoonfeeding the M&S in our guild. If the project is still alive and kicking by the end of the summer I'll definately consider it.

Fetzie said...

Coming from someone who played on a low pop faction for a while:

You will not be able to find many people who want to join your guild. Low pop means just that. If you want to start up a new guild and you want to have more than the "core" that transferred with you, you will need a medium population realm (2000-4000 players on the faction) to be close to successful. If half the players are rubbish, and your faction consists of 500 players that leaves you with 250 potential members, many of which will probably be in a guild already due to not being able to successfully pug a lot on such a realm.

You have a certain amount of "celebrity" among your blog readers and perhaps on the EU R&D forum while will definitely help your cause, but recruiting from the new server will be EXTREMELY hard work.

Gevlon said...

@Chopsui: Here the goal is rather longevity than "kill LK HM in 2 weeks". Due to my blog's popularity, I probably can recruit 24 people who raid as a HC guild. However to make people STAY for long, to let this project run for YEARS, it must be good and sustainable. That's the goal.

@Anonymous: I expect 99% of the members transfers/rerollers. Some will join from the server, but they will be minority. Also high pop means TERRIBLE PuG behavior since the guy is anonymous. In a low pop server if you piss of ALL 4 guilds, you are screwed and they know that. Also, the server being not progressed was one of the CRITERIA to avoid critism "you are boosted by top HC players".

@Asoc: We will run several DIFFERENT raids to different contents, to differently progressed people.

@Spinks: I transferred with 35K. Half of the gankers transfering with 15K+

@Wildhorn: you made purchases on your OWN decision. I never asked you to do so.

Larísa said...

So finally, after all this time we might end up in the same guild Gevlon! I haven't decided yet, but yeah, I'm considering to roll a little alt to level up on that server. The raid times don't fit me but at least I can follow the banter - or lack of banter - in the guild chat as I'm making my way through Don Morogh. Should be interesting.

Who knows, maybe there will be enough people to kick off a raid starting at 22 at some point as well. But first I have to reach 80, and that will surely take me a while...

Anonymous said...

@El "later raid time as well 22.00 - 01.00 for those that are on later."
I was getting a group together for this in Inglourious Gankers, so I'm planning try this again as soon as the new guild is up and running. There wasn't enough interest in IGG though, but maybe in the new guild there will be.

Jokkl said...

give me 2 weeks to polish my tankalt. this time count me in... sounds very interessting to me and i have to give it a try... you showed me how to be filthy rich so its time to pay something back i guess.

chewy said...

A good read today and I look forward to reading about your new guild progress.

I was disappointed that you brought up "the M&S". The project would stand on the merits of proving that the random nature of a pug can work with skilled players.

Flick whatever chip it is off your shoulder, you don't need it as an excuse, the value of your projects are there without it.

Gevlon said...

One more raid time added: 22:00-23:30 for the late people. (Hi Larísa!)

It will also increase the PuG-ness, as I'll never be online these times.

DKS said...

Good luck Gevlon! Certainly looks interesting, and using GDKP would be a fantastic solution to all the loot drama, not to mention weeding out free-rollers who're only interested in "kill boss loot epics".

Anonymous said...

just one question: why alliance?

you said:
Majority of the voters wanted PvP server for several reasons. One of them is that finally changed my mind: "less stupid kids since they can't take ganking".

From the Daedalus Project:
Players who prefer the Horde score significantly higher on the Advancement, Competition, and Mechanics motivations than players who prefer the Alliance. In other words, players who prefer the Horde tend to be more achievement-driven, more likely to enjoy provoking and challenging each other, and more likely to be min-maxers. On the other hand, players who prefer the Alliance tend to score higher on the Role-Playing and Customization motivations than those players who prefer the Horde.

So shouldn't you choose Horde if you want less "stupid kids"?

Anonymous said...

What about afternoon PuGs? What I enjoy about PuGs is that there are some at every time of the day. Of course, the majority of players (including myself) tends to play in the evening, but if the size of the guild allows it, wouldn't it be logical to allow raiding at every time? For example, many people like to do VoA right after the maintenance (provided their faction has WG) and of course, there are weekends. I don't think you would forbid pugging at noon, but I guess the current rules discourage this.

Right now, I'm definitely thinking about transferring for this project since it is exactly what I want from WoW. Raiding on a high standard without having to waste time on M&S and without having to raid 4 days in a week.

Malthan said...

At first you're saying "No dedicated raid leaders!" but then "Soon the natural leaders emerge" - so you are counting on people being dedicated leaders, the only difference is they are not being appointed, anyone can become one. But pretty soon most people will be playing with the same players they usually do - since it's easier and more efficient - so those who come late and want to become leaders will have a hard time getting people to fill their teams. And since most rules like not using voice or loot distribution methods were deicded by you, they don't have tools to compete with those who came before them, except choosing diffrent raids.

Anonymous said...

This sounds amazing. Someone please set up a guild like this on US servers.

Maybe I will, but I don't (a) have a following, (b) have the skills to explain why these anti-intuitive concepts are good to the people on my server.

Klepsacovic said...

Emergent leaders are still leaders. Even without previously defined hierarchy, as you said, leaders will emerge. People are social, they organize themselves, even if you don't tell them to.

The ability to gkick people is going to distort the behavior of the population. People behavior differently when there are no consequences, as is the case in a true PuG.

I really do like the idea, but from the start you're distorting the results and making them invalid.

Kris said...

Good luck with this!

Very curious as to hear how the "raid when you want" policy turns out when you have limited members and lockouts to consider.

To make it a bit easier on yourself: Go on a med-high pop server. Specialized projects struggle on low pop servers.

Anonymous said...

I'll be curious to hear how the GDKP works out (I don't doubt the scheme, just wonder how well it'll work for this group).

Anyhow I think I have a 75ish priest hanging around on alliance somewhere, maybe once transfers are back up I'll come pay a visit.

Anonymous said...

This will work. Basically, you're constructing a Franchise System for raiding. Anyone can step up and announce their raid, they just need to follow the Franchise's system.

3 points:

The raid times. I don't... completely understand your english. I think you are saying that there are 3 raid periods each night, the first from 19:00 to 20:30 (90 minutes), then a 10 minute break, then from 20:40 to 22:00 (80 minutes) then a 10 minute break, and finally from 22:10 to 23:30. (80 minutes). (Or something close, obviously we're not going to stop a boss attempt just because it's exactly '20:30')

The raid leader can then specify that his raid straddles all 3 periods, or a subset of the 3.

Second point:

The raid leader needs to record a log parse for the raid, with a standardized title notation specifying RL, instance, date and put the log up on World of Logs immediately after the run. This will be invaluable in arbitrating disputes (Which will occur)

Third point:

Qualifications for the harder raids. If a guy announces "ICC25 HM full clear" the last thing he wants is people that have never set foot in ICC. He's going to want to avoid the "Mistake, wipe, explanation, learning, retry" cycle as much as possible. One rule... "Finish regular before doing Heroic or Hard Mode"

What will happen WITHOUT this rule is "Off the books" raids, where the raid leader hand picks a team and doesn't announce the raid to the guild. This will form "HM cliques" that will be nearly impossible to break into, undermining your Franchise System.

D said...

I see a problem with the "1/3 gold go to the second bider" rule of the gdkp.

With that rule, i will bid every time to inflate prices. If i'm second bider, i win lot of money. If i win a useless item, i sold it right after to someone who really want it, and have a lot of money.

So, the only limit seem to be gold : the richest goblin will "win" each bid.

Is it good for greedy goblins ? Obviously no, because other players will quickly start to hate them...

Anonymous said...

Hmm. 2 rules stick out for me:

"On the other hand RL has no right to remove or exclude anyone based on GS or lack of achievement. You get your chance, but if you can't do your job (due to low gear, inexperience or simply being dumb) you can be removed."

"People write their PvE spec(s) into their public note. No one can be asked to spec differently. But of course no leader can be asked to take you, if your spec does not fit the raid composition, so there is a "supply and demand" here."

The second rule overrides the first. The RL can just invite whomever he wants citing 'raid composition' as the reason.

At first blush, that may seem unfair. But it's not if the project sufficiently emulates a free market.

RLs want the best people.

The best people want the best group.

This requires consistent raid times. You only have one lockout... if you are among the better players, you want to use it on the best raid.

So, the pattern that will emerge is that the best RLs (Those most knowledgeable in Log Analysis and Raid Composition) will have their raids on Wednesday, with the 'lesser' raids competing for slots on subsequent days.

Those not selected for the Wednesday run will be forced to settle for later days while they boost their skills.

If the Wednesday run becomes completely 'Clique Locked' due to the number of people who become 'permanent' members, then a second Wednesday run will form drawing the best people from the later runs.

This demonstrates the need to Log all runs on "World of Logs" and enforce the rules on the RLs to provide consistency.

Why? Let's say the number 2 RL sees that the main run on Wednesday is full and always has the same people. (It's "clique locked") He then goes through the logs for the other runs in the week, selects his 'dream team' and whispers them to join his second Wednesday run. He'll then have to PuG the remaining slots from the guild on Wednesday (There will be people trying to break into the cliques on then)

Xaxziminrax II said...

>Qualifications for the harder raids. If a guy announces "ICC25 HM full clear" the last thing he wants is people that have never set foot in ICC. He's going to want to avoid the "Mistake, wipe, explanation, learning, retry" cycle as much as possible. One rule... "Finish regular before doing Heroic or Hard Mode"

>What will happen WITHOUT this rule is "Off the books" raids, where the raid leader hand picks a team and doesn't announce the raid to the guild. This will form "HM cliques" that will be nearly impossible to break into, undermining your Franchise System.

What's wrong with inviting who I want to raid what I want? "Link reg achieve or no inv to HM" is as bad as gearscore and typical "link achieve" pugs!

I thought Undergeared already proved that you don't need gear and achieves to raid content well above your blizzard-designated tier. So if I want to raid HM ICC on an alt, should I really have to run ICC all over again despite I could have done it so many times already on my main?

Examining Gevlon's proposed rules for the PuG guild, it seems most of them are meant to filter out based on skill; but all a 'no HM without reg' rule does is filter out based on an equivalent rating to gear.

Such a factor would already be taken into account by any good raid leader in advance, especially when posting such a raid on calendar (Can you imagine?: "Oh, there are only 10 people on server with any HC raiding experience, it's a great idea to start a group aiming for HM LK!") and if 30 sign up to a 25m raid and he has to choose who gets the boot.

>"Off the books" raids, where the raid leader hand picks a team and doesn't announce the raid to the guild. This will form "HM cliques" that will be nearly impossible to break into . . .

What's wrong with this? If only a handful of people on the server can do HM ICC successfully, and I want to do HM ICC, I should be able to form a raid for it with only those handful. Not only should you NOT do anything about this, but you CAN'T, since after all, you have no way to punish them... what, ostracize your 25 best raiders from the guild? Not likely.

Illtree said...

For those of you interested I would be willing to start this project on horde side azuremyst-us. I will work out the details tonight and post them on the wow forums and update here.

Anonymous said...

Plan for the ganking guild.

http://www.wowhead.com/item=18588 works on fish schools.

Could work on fishing in stv....

~ Bob.

Shroud said...

While I understand the reasoning for choosing a low pop server, you chose Alliance side with terrible progression. Any puggers you get from outside the guild are likely to be terrible.

Would've loved to join anyway, but no afternoon raiding killed it for me.

Anonymous said...

naming your raid guild "THe PuG" doesn't actually make it a pug. All you are doing is creating a casual raid guild. There are hundreds of these already.

Squishalot said...

@ Gevlon - Are there going to be any restrictions on the number of raid IDs available? For example, if you have 30 players running ICC10 over the week, will you require them to progress on from the 'PuG' the night before, or will a fresh 10 be free to start a new raid on the Thursday night?

I'm still concerned, along with many others, that you'll end up with a core raiding group led by a 'dedicated' RL if there are so few restrictions on the RL in choosing his group.

Gevlon said...

Okrane S posted the following comment to the AH recap post. I will make an extra Saturday post to answer that.

The only thing concerning me is your choice of a low pop realm (besides it being my old realm). If you want a really fluid group matching system where you would have an abundance of players to fuel constant raiding without much issues, a low pop realm seems like a really bad choice.

I believe your worst limitation will be raid-id lockouts (until blizzard decides to fix those: see a post on Blessing of Kings for a great idea). If your raid will be 'come when you want leave when you want', you will have one of the two outcomings:

a) Either you will have dedicated players segregating together into mini-groups and raiding together - which would kind of trump the idea of a PuG-like guild.

b) At the end of the week players will get saved with different groups and because of their complete different schedules you will have really small chucks of raids with no follow up because of their players aren't available any more and those who are will be already saved with someone else.
Which will eventually lead again to point a) thus defeating the point.

How do you see this unfolding??

Jokkl said...

in cara you will be locked to bosses not raids anymore. so basicly i can jump in as lets say a tank... bash my way through till 22:15... leave cause of whatever... then the rest of the grp get some new tank and clear the rest out. 2 days later i can then jump into another raid wich dowend the first bosses (wich i killed 2 days ago). so... where is the prob? i think this should work good in a guild like that. needs only a littlebit of coordination with tanks/healers... dps dosent count cause there are enough of them. just planing wich tank/healer raids on wich days till what time.

you wont be locked to grps anymore...

Kris said...

in cara you will be locked to bosses not raids anymore.

Huh? I think you need to read the blue posts again. They are not talking about removing raid ID.
It will work as it works today, only that 10 and 25 man cant be done on the same character.

So, you can still jump out after one boss, but you cant join another raidgroup for the rest of the instance.

Anonymous said...

No, The One And Only has the right idea. They are changing it so that as long as you have killed the same bosses as the raid in question, you’ll be able to join them, even if you’ve already been with a different group in that same raid dungeon during the lock-out period.

Anonymous said...

It is my understanding that raid lockouts will still be "The entire instance" in Cata, but with smaller instances.

So... instead of a 12 boss instance, you'll have 2 6 boss instances.

You'll still have one raid lockout for each sub-instance, so if you don't do the second one with the cool kids early in the week, you'll be begging for a slot later, after all the good groups have completed both.

Or... if your group downs only 3 of the bosses in either, you won't be able to join a different group to finish the other 3.

As such, I fully expect that raiding cliques will quickly form and the competition will be to get into those cliques.

Vixsin said...

If you want proof that a "PuG" doesn't automatically translate to failure or require strict raiding rules and leadership to achieve success, you can simply look to FH's (Black Dragonflight, US) Sunday alt PuG ICC, which is currently 10/12 hard modes. Formed regularly with alts from 2-4 guilds on server, we have no dedicated raid leader (only someone kind enough to coordinate invites and assure minimum requirements are met), no attendance requirements, an open loot system, and re-invites are based loosely on the past week's performance. You can also look to Elitist Jerks'/Serious Casual's example, they used to run ~8 GDKP PuGs during the week on Mal’Ganis, organized around the same principles. Members of “approved” guilds can sign up for any of the PuGs and also have access to a private in-game channel, which operates similar to a pre-approved LFG pool.

So, ultimately, while the premise that you're suggesting is valid in most respects, I think you'll undervaluing one element. In any PuG, there is one person with an actual obligation and a vested interest in success (if for no other reason than personal interest)--the player who forms it. While other players may enlist or opt out on their own volition, the raid former has the implied obligation to form the raid to a level which is capable of success. The perception of this person’s skill in forming is what will assure that players continue to attend the scheduled PuGs. Thus, the point at which you draw the line between "raid former" and "raid leader" is the point at which you make the distinction between a regular PuG (which is what you have when you assign a specified starting time) and a casual guild run.

Sounds like an interesting experiment; best of luck to you.

Anonymous said...

Please explain two rules:

- no alt: you surely do not mean I have to transfer my main char, but rather I can only have one char in the guild?

- Is loot distribution via gold bidding mandatory for all raids? Sounds time consuming (in my guild items have fix price dkp)

Gevlon said...

1 char in the guild/account. Of course you can have alts elsewhere.

GDKP in current tier raids, need/greed/disenchant interface on lower tier

Anonymous said...

Nice project.
If my account would be active then I would have joined/rerolled to you. Slowly I begin to regret my choice of quitting the game ...

Good luck to everyone.

Unknown said...

Sorry, didn't realise brackets would eat the name of the guild. A repost, then. 'Testâment', a US version of this project, has launched on Burning Legion.

Xerian said...

I like this concept and I think I might be tempted to create an level 1 character on your server and join.

Might not be able to raid anytime soon, but I'd like to follow this closely :)

Josh L said...

@ Gevlon: I'd like to see something like this on a US server as well. I'm considering the idea of starting a guild like this in parallel with your EU guild. Would you support this? I'd like to get as much detail from you as possible to better establish my attempt as a partnership rather than a spin-off or copycat.

I do think the idea of this could be enhanced by providing a good source of class, raid, etc. information for players to browse at their own leisure and improve themselves. By source, I mostly mean a directory of links to things like EJ, tankspot, etc.

Let me know what you think.

Anonymous said...

Huge fan of this idea! If my latency to US servers can't cut it when I move, I'll definitely re-roll.. only downside is I'd be re-rolling to a server where everyone reads this blog!

Anonymous said...

I consider re-rolling to Alliance, just to be in this guild.

Jorrag said...

I have started an antisocial guild myself.
It is basically a ripoff of <The Pug>,
except it is on a german server (Malygos EU) and on Horde side.

So, if you are a german player (or know one) looking for a <The Pug>-style guild, feel free to join us.

Jorrag of <Perpetual Motion Squad> - Malygos EU