Slyde wrote: >>I know this isn't Bard Related -but no Kabong so far -
so I have a question - is it impossible to do a Dragon or Plane raid
with members from multiple guilds? Granted the ability to use guild
chat makes communication easier (although once in the plane - isn't
Shout the equivalent)? People use shout in Sol B all the time for
Fire Giant Raids. I can understand the concern for having people you
trust to know how to play their chars and not "ninja-loot". But
unless I'm missing something - this concept is what causes people in
smaller guilds to complain of "uber-guilds" and "Character Stealing".
Is it TRULY necessary to have a single guild complete these events?

imho, it comes down to organization. My gf and I had gone 40 some
odd levels without joining a guild... nor had we wanted to join one.
I led a guild in another world (Meridian 59) and I wanted to
completely avoid any politics this time around. As we got higher in
levels, looking ahead to the things we'd be doing, it seemed
basically impossible to get involved on a consistent basis in Dragon
Raids, Plane Runs, and now many of the new ROK dungeons. We went
along on a Phin raid in Kedge prior to joining a guild, but
opportunities were few and far between. I talked with a few of my
guilded friends and it basically worked like this:

Player A wants to organize a raid. He needs 18 - 24 people to do
it. He first looks within his own guild to gather people. If he
can't find enough, he'll invite people from allied guilds. If still
there is not enough they'll take stragglers. Certainly having a
friend within one of the guilds going makes it easier, but if there's
only 2 spots open and 9 people have non-guilded friends.... you get
the picture. Now this is only how it worked with that guild in
particular.. I have no clue how other guilds work, but I suspect it's
close.

Now, why would they organize it like this? Getting 18-24 people
together to do something of this nature (where everyone has to be
working together, knowing their role) when you're not guilded is
basically impossible. Who do you start inquiring of? Getting the
word out, setting times to do the raid, and confirming people coming
are large tasks. If 4 people don't show in a guild raid there's more
to draw on... if 4 people don't show on a straggler type raid, it's
much more difficult to fill those spots. Also, there's a level of
trust. Everyone must be working together to get these things done.
Organizing and making sure this happens on an unguilded level is
another monumental task. When it's the same basic people doing the
raids over and over again, you start to know who to trust and what to
expect. Things get more efficient and easier.

So, certainly it's possible to organize and pull off a non-guild
event like this, there are many obstacles in place making it
extremelly difficult. I wonder if any dragon or plane has been
successfully done without a guild of some kind organizing it.

We ended up joining that guild about 2 weeks ago. We went on our
first "guild" raid into Chardok last Friday. It kicked ass. This
being only my 2nd raid ever, I just watched, listened, and obeyed. I
was lucky enough to be in the group with the "leaders" of the raid so
I could see and hear what was going on more than if I was in one of
the other groups. We ended up getting to the named mob (Kor
something.. a very large Sarnak) and killing him. He was about level
57 necessitating a pretty much melee only attack (almost every caster
was resisted). I crashed to desktop when I was quad hit for 260, so
I didn't get a screenshot of him killing me about 20 seconds before
he died. Then, pathing bugs caused the party to get wiped out by
other normal mobs allowing me to get experience doing my first real
corpse recovery. :) This was about 2 more hours of pulling the mobs
that saw invis to the zone for their execution by numerous people
in "pajamas" and having a few brave souls pulling corpse after corpse.

On a Bard related note: 1 Symphonic Saber dropped. It was me and
another Bard from my guild in the lotto. I was #1, she was #2. The
guild leader rolled a 2. :-/ I'm petitioning for favortism due to
her being in the guild longer. :-) j/k

Darkfox Reven'tsol
Xegony