We failed. We missed Glory of the Raider by two achievements. In the three to four weeks leading up to the release of 3.1, attendance became very, very flaky. A large part of this was known issues, with term papers and major tests all seeming to land at the same time, as well as a few untimely business trips. This left me scrounging for warm bodies to fill out Immortal runs and 6-minute Malygos kills.

Moreso than the known missing people was the no-shows by many alt raiders and regular guild members. For the past few weeks, it hasn't been unheard of to see everyone online in our current raid instance. While somewhat cool to look at, it doesn't bode well for changes in the lineup. I see two reasons for the lack of alternates.

The first is the quality of our raiders. We have a dedicated group of individuals who maintain a high standard during raids, which makes it difficult to sit them for alternates. They also tend to not miss raids unless something serious is going on. This makes for a very small window of opportunity for people to get into guild raids and earn a place.

The second is content burn-out. I blame Blizzard for this. The content is so easy that it was being pugged before I had enough 80s to field a raid group. People point to re-released content and the prevalence of boss guides, but it was still simple to do. In most cases a quality tank and two healers can take any group of 22 others and be successful.

With the exception of Sarth, even the 'hard mode' fights were easy. Killing Malygos in a shorter amount of time isn't new and different. It just requires more gear. Pulling extra Aboms during KT doesn't take any skill. It's something you do weekly because phase one is just so damn boring. And everyone is seeing this content weekly. All those alternate raiders are seeing it every week, which while good for gearing and experience, isn't good for keeping things fresh and new.

I'm still discussing possibilities for handling this moving forward. I don't want another situation where I am struggling to find people. You really need a solid group of alternates to survive. So far my plan is to limit my primary raiders, or core as we call them, to 20 spots. The remaining 5, 1 healing spot and 4 dps, would be where I swap in trials, rotate people, or adjust raid makeup. Combine that with 5 alternate spots, and we should see people raiding at least every other week. I'm not sure if this will work, or if it's even feasible, but I think it would correct a lot of the issues I ran into building up to 3.1.

I'm not really sure how the guild's moral is right now. A lot of people wanted to hit glory and are likely to be upset that the patch hit when it did. A lot are likely not to care one way or the other, and may be why we didn't get it. And I have a funny feeling that where most nights lately have seen fewer than 30 players online, tonight will top 40.

Since I've taken over raid leading, we've missed every milestone that has appeared. We didn't kill Kael before attunements were lifted. We didn't kill Illidan before 3.0 made the game cake. And now we didn't get Glory before the mount was removed. I attribute that to some slow leveling, some new faces, and a rebuilding raid team, but it still stings. I'm not sure what the next cycle brings, or how fast it will go, but I think now more than ever, we'll be able to keep up with content releases.