Two and a half years ago this guild was founded on the idea that smart people could see end-game content without having to raid 6 days a week. It's been a long and exciting journey to get from there to here and we've never been in a better spot to make the most of the game and what it has to offer.
What Was
When we first started, "raiding" and all that it entails was still a new concept. Not only to the people of AI but to the wow community as a whole. Back then you got to end-game, you got 40 people together, you walked into a raid instance, you stood in a circle around the boss and you "tanked", "DPSed" and "healed". Movement within fights was limited, enrage timers hardly existed, bosses often did little AOE damage, there was no WWS to show in-raid performance, and only the most hardcore of guilds saw Naxx at 40man content.
We came out of the gates in TBC knowing little about raiding but in two years we learned a lot and we learned it fast. We stepped up to the content that Blizzard handed us, we met the challenge of people leaving the game and having to recruit, we canceled fewer than 5 raids in over two years and we saw Kil'Jaeden die.
Along the way we grew. We added a second raid team. We built depth in our roster. We did things that 9 months earlier nobody would have believed possible. We ran Gruul and Magtheridon as in-guild PUGs on off-nights. We proved that they key to expanding access to content is to "unlock" that content by building specific teams to get the "first kills".
Now, more than ever, we have reason to believe that our strategy is successful. Raiding is not a sprint, it is a marathon. By working hard and having fun we can excel. Ad Infinitum does not fall within the top 1000 ranked guilds in the US because we are better at "DPS" or because we raid 6 days, or because we "don't stand in the fire". We rank so high because we are professional about our activity and because we show up night after night, week after week, month after month. Our commitment to solving problems within a raid, using the tools available to us, and putting in the effort is what sets us apart.
What is Coming
On Thursday we face the next big challenge. While this guild has existed for 2.5 years few of us have been here that long. The majority of our current raiding team joined as we entered T5 content a year ago and only a handful of us have leveled together. As we look toward level 80 and raiding beyond we must remember that together we have done what few other guilds have accomplished but that without one another we cannot push forward to greatness in WotLK.
In preparation for this shift to leveling and as acknowledgment that WotLK levels the playing field in many ways the Raid 1 and Raid 2 ranks will be dissolved on Wednesday. Players in both ranks will be moved to the rank of Member and will remain there until we resume our normal 25man raiding activities.
During the coming weeks, as we level, I'd like to ask the guild to consider the following:
1) Now is the time to meet new people. Ad Infinitum is a big guild and I know it's easy to get set in our ways, always talking to the same set of friends. Quest, run instances, trade, grinding professions and share information with new people. We cannot keep track of all the new things coming or all the new tricks to leveling. Using the forums, vent, and g-chat to share information will help us all make use of our strongest asset; our community. The more networking and grouping we do, the more we spread out, the faster we will level as a group and the more prepared we will be for Naxxramas.
2) Lethon is a PvP server. Red = Dead. Forums are for scrubs. You will kill horde. Horde will kill you. Keep it off the Lethon forums. Crying about PvP on a PvP server is only going to make us look silly and hurt us if and when it comes time to recruit. We enjoy one of the best reputations on this server and we still engage in plenty of world PvP. I'm really proud of how we carry ourselves so I'm not worried. Nonetheless, a friendly reminder of this never hurt anybody
Raiding
WotLK offers a unique opportunity to run every raid zone in both 10man (e.g. normal) and 25man (e.g. heroic) modes. Our focus will remain on the 25man raid and our Sunday, Monday, Wednesday schedule will continue in that tradition. 25man content is where the big-boys play and that is what we do well. We have every right to to best content and the best rewards and we will continue to set our standards high.
Having said that, I fully expect some of our members to build 10man raid teams and that some of these teams will begin before we are fully ready to field a 25man raid team. The leadership of AI considers this a great activity and something that everybody is free to consider. However, 10man loot and experience will not play a critical role in determining priority in our 25man raids. Further, 10man raids are exclusively the realm of in-guild PUGs with no direct involvement by myself or the officers. Because 10man raid-IDs do not conflict with 25man raid-IDs it is entirely possible that some people will choose to complete Naxx in both 10man and 25man modes in the same week.
At the moment it's hard to estimate exactly when 25man raiding will begin. My guess is that by the first week of January we should be able to field 25 level 80 players of the appropriate class balance. While it is not my intention to set hard and fast leveling cut-off dates we likely will start recruiting to fill critical slots by January. We'll continue to play this by ear and if we see the guild level up more quickly then we'll start 25man raiding earlier (while acknowledging that holiday travel will affect many of us). If we find that only a few handful of us are level 80 in January (a scenario I highly doubt) we'll obviously re-tune our expectations.
Given the nature of leveling and the transition to raiding we will not be running two 25man raiding teams during the first several months of WotLK. This was a difficult decision for the officers but fundamentally the focus on leadership must be on establishing our progression raid. Trying to recruit for multiple raids would be very challenging at this time given the entire WoW community's "progression curve" has been reset. If we find that our progression raid is well established in deep end-game content and there is a time to bring back a trailing raid team we will explore it, but that remains a pretty far out decision that we'll make well after the dust has settled from the WotLK transition.
As we build our Raiding team going forward we will be reintroducing the rank of Pawn. This team will be focused on unlocking content for the rest of the guild. As I alluded to in the past State of the Guild our standards for this team are being raised to reflect how far we've come. Attendance is no longer the only standard by which we will be determining the Pawn team. Our goal is to leverage all the detail within WWS to find our best, brightest, most dedicated and raid-ready. While this may seem challenging, I know that anybody in this guild who wants to meet this challenge has the potential to do so regardless of how much content or in which raid team you participated during the past 9 months. I'm excited about these changes because the foundation we set in TBC can really be leveraged to improve the raiding experience for everybody involved.
I hope you're all ready to take it to the next level. While both raids accomplished much on short schedules in the current expansion we have much to do to prepare for WotLK. Seeing content before it's nerfed is reasonable and should be a goal for us. While Naxxramas is the entry level raid and may seem "easy" at first glance we should remain professional and vigilant. We should strive to perform at our peak and unlock content quickly.
Are you ready?
Raiding is a marathon. Do not be surprised if some small guild comes out of nowhere and claims a Naxxramas kill before us. Our goal is not to kill Kel'Thuzad first only to fizzle out two weeks later. Our goal is the marathon. Many guilds were ahead of us in T4. Fewer guilds were ahead of us in T5. Fewer guilds still were ahead of us in T6. Only 700 guilds are ahead of us now. Server firsts are not the measure of our success (though they are fun). Together, we can outlast the others and see deep end-game content early and often while having fun and without sacrificing our "real life".
