Raiding Research Online

From time to time, I hear from other students who are hoping to do some research relating to WoW as part of their master’s or undergraduate degrees. It’s always great to hear about what’s going on out there and I’m always glad to see that gaming continues to grow in relevance as a research area.

Well, one of them recently contacted me to ask if I can help him promote a research project that he’s doing for his master’s degree. And since he needs input from raiders, this is your big chance to get involved in an academic research project! He needs us to complete a questionnaire about teams and raiding: https://ugroningenbss.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bJYO1Y01cH104f2.

Here’s what Daniël has to say about his project:

Hello, I am Daniël Meijer, a Master student in Organizational Psychology. I am conducting research about World of Warcraft for my masterthesis.

I have been playing World of Warcraft myself for a couple of years now. My belief is that if you ever took part in a raid team, you really know what teamwork is:

·     Working together with 10 or 25 people to defeat the most evil and challenging bosses

·     Situations where, if one of the team members fails, the whole team wipes

·     Teams that work together towards a common goal!

Games like WoW require skills, coordination, and teamwork-just like any other task in the real world. Fortunately, social scientists are becoming more and more interested in WoW, particularly because it is (in some way) so similar to many real world endeavors. Personally, for example, I believe that many business teams in organizations can learn a thing or two from Raid Teams. With my research I want to add something positive and constructive to the image of WoW and the image of gamers in general, showing the world that games can be inspiring and something you can learn from. My research focuses on team processes and differences in performance of teams.

In Organizational Psychology there is much interest in team processes. With this research I want to add something to this literature. This research is part of a bigger project which is under supervision of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. This project is being led by Dr. E.F. Rietzschel, who is also my supervisor.

Taking the questionnaire will take approximately 15 to 20 minutes of your time. Your answers will be anonymous. Your participation is highly appreciated, but of course it is entirely voluntary. I will keep the questionnaire open until the 17^th of February 2012. If you haven’t got the chance until then to enter the questionnaire, please don’t be hesitant to contact me.

Link to the questionnaire:

https://ugroningenbss.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bJYO1Y01cH104f2

As soon as my Master thesis is submitted, I will provide the results to this website so that you can find it here again.

Please inform your fellow raid members as well. This research is about teams, so it would be nice if we can analyze teams that are complete.

If you have any questions, you can reach me by e-mail:

Daniël Meijer

d.s.meijer@student.rug.nl

or

wowrugraidresearch@gmail.com

I’ve been thinking about this, and with some helpful input, I’ve got a bit of preliminary data…. but I realised this is a fascinating topic area that I intend to spend a bit more time trying to study–in fact, I may even come to more of you for help!

The question always pops up about who spends the most time raiding: 10-man guilds, 25-man guilds? Casual guilds? Hard core? Elite? Something in-between those?

We looked at the top 600 ranked raiding guilds from Tier 12 (Firelands) and we did find something interesting: US guilds spend 3.9 days a week raiding, as compared to the European server guilds at 4.5 and the Taiwan server guilds at 5.2. Now this was based purely on self-reported information in the “info” posted on a site like wowprogress, so there could be some inaccuracies, but I thought it was interesting.

Another area I’d have to work on in relation to these data is to see how do these guilds self identify (elite, hard core, casual, etc.) and does that result in a variation in days spent. Also, looking at just the top 600 is a bit of a problem as that’s a higher ratio of competitive progress raiding guilds as compared to, say, the bottom 600 which might represent a wider range of casually oriented raiding guilds.

So… I’m just letting you guys know that I’ll be digging into this soon and would love to hear from any raiding guilds–of *any* ranking level or guild type–who’d like to help me with this. Let’s resolve this question once and for all. What type of raiding guild tends to spend the most time (over the course of a tier) raiding?

I had a chance to sit down tonight with seven of the world’s highest ranked raiding guilds to discuss a few things about the Tier 13 race:

• the LFR ban
• the current rankings and the shifts from previous tiers
• the problems with content and raid encounters in the current tier of raiding
• the state of the raiding race and its future
• the emergence of Asian raiding guilds as dominant

Participants were:

• Absalom from Blood Legion (US)
• Arx from DREAM Paragon (EU)
• Cika from Exodus (US)
• Crusher from Stars (TW), via email
• Dusk from Envy (EU)
• Grafarion from vodka (US)
• Sco from Method (EU)

I am very grateful to all seven participants for their time, perspective, and insight. I think we had an interesting discussion and quite a number of salient points were brought up about this challenging raiding tier. I did want to point out that I did try very hard to get in touch with KIN Raiders and some of the 10-man raiding guilds (like Silent) and was unable to get their participation in the call. I imagine language and time barriers contributed to that failure. I know that more perspectives would have resulted in an even better podcast and I can only say that I’ll try harder next time to get these additional perspectives to the table. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the wall of sound!

Hey everyone! Happy new year!  I hope 2012 is a great year for all of you. We’re on the verge of the Year of the Dragon, which could make it quite a dramatic year indeed!

So not much to report, though I did just put a new piece up on the Paragon site that should be of interest to my thinking readers. Also, if anyone out there has run across any other mainstream media pieces about the recent tier raiding race, please let me know? When I say “mainstream” I mean your national newspapers, the BBC, CNN, etc.

Right now I’m toying with a few ideas for expanding my site and hope to share those in the coming days and weeks, but for now I’ve got a new poll up and hope you’ll share your thoughts. We’ve definitely had some changes in interest in the raiding this tier (unlucky tier 13 anyone?) and I’m curious about how much of an impact the release of the new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic has had on this tier. I realise other issues may be impacting the race such as the LFR ban or the Christmas holiday season, but I’m wondering if SW:TOR is signalling anything. I’ve often heard the prediction of the demise of WoW when a new and highly anticipated MMO is released but so far none have been able to knock WoW off of its pedestal.

Seasons Greetings! I hope you have a happy Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, and have a great New Year! Apparently the world is ending next year so make the coming year count, guys!

Unlucky Tier 13

It’s been quite a Tier so far and if you’ve not had a chance to view any of the content I’ve been covering over at the Paragon community site, please do feel free to check it out at The Raid Observer. So far we’ve had a number of events that have made the current tier one of the most contentious, unexpected, and confusing to date. I’ve been joking around about this being an unlucky tier due to its number (13), but maybe I’ve not been too far off. It’s definitely been very unlucky for some guilds. What we’ll have at the end of the race is honestly anyone’s guess. Anyway, a few highlights of what I’ve been seeing so far, in no particular order (and things anonymized for obvious reasons):

• A bug around the LFR is exploited by certain top guilds and a large number of temporary suspensions are handed out for up to 8 days.
• The heroic race begins without a significant number of the longstanding top-ranked raiding guilds involved. They’ve either opted to wait until the bans are lifted or reform as 10-man teams.
• A higher than usual amount of jabs, jokes, and accusations are pointed at those involved in the “scandal” and some begin to predict a US-dominated top based on the fact that the majority of top ranked US guilds did not engage in the LFR exploit. Some suggest that even if the US can win the race, it will be meaningless since the “real competition” was excluded from the race.
• The bans are lifted at the 2nd week of heroic runs and guilds appear stuck at 6/8, with Spine being described as a very unforgiving DPS-driven fight. Gear appears to be the deciding factor and many predict that the following week will result in improved gear to allow for a greater chance at moving ahead.
• By this time the top EU guilds are all caught up with the US guilds at 6/8 and you can see a smattering of Korean and Taiwan server guilds in the mix as well. But the ongoing banter by onlookers remains focused on whether the US can beat the EU for the first time in many tiers. I guess they forgot to look in the rear view mirror….
• Kin Raiders, a Korean server guild, gets the first Spine kill. All the comments about the “US having a chance to win this” and “will the EU catch up and take over the race again” seem moot at this point.
• While some claim that the double resets that the Korean and Taiwan servers had each week from late October helped the guild improve their overall gear and deepen their viable roster, others claim that this is just the lamentation of “fanboys” disappointed that their own guilds did not down the boss before. While it’s true that Kin Raiders do have a very deep roster and may have access to more legendary weapons than other guilds, this is also being identified as good planning and preparation. Could it just be–many ask–that Kin Raiders just outplayed the other guilds?
• Within a couple days Kin Raiders has also killed Madness, giving them the world first ranking and giving a Korean guild the world’s #1 spot among 25-man raiding guilds for the first time in WoW raiding. Frustration is expressed, not so much because Kin Raiders got the world first but because the final boss in the encounter may be far easier than the penultimate one.
• By the end of Week 3, only 3 other guilds (Korean, Chinese, and French) have reached 7/8, with a 50/50 split between 10-man and 25-man. The previously top 5 ranked raiding guilds appear stuck at 6/8. Many claim that Spine is impassable without more gear, hoping that the next reset will give them that edge that they need to break down the wall.
• The Week 4 reset on the EU servers takes place, which brings with it endless disconnects at earlier bosses while guilds attempt to quickly clear earlier heroic content so they resume work on Spine. But these server and instance DCs really slow down normal progress. Any plan to regain any lost ground appears even more challenging to guilds that are probably already struggling to maintain morale and focus in the wake of bans, negativity, and a loss of the top prize in the raiding race. At best the remaining guilds can hope for a 2nd place spot and honestly, considering how many competitive gamers/players feel about coming in second, that racing for World 2nd just may not sound quite as sweet.

Christmas is just a couple days away and for many raiders this means time away from the game. If they can’t get past Spine in the next day or so, it could be days before they can move ahead. The previous problems combined with server connection problems and the impending arrival of Christmas could make this the unluckiest tier of all for some guilds. How they navigate these difficulties could prove to be the trickiest Boss Fight they’ve ever faced.

Christmas Raid-Themed Musical Medley

So, in the spirit of Christmas, raiding, and Tier 13, here are some Christmassy songs for a musical medley. And I admit these are a bit of a stretch…!

First is a classic by Elvis Presley, dedicated to those raiders who’ve made their family/friends blue by raiding a wee bit too much this holiday season….

And here’s a song by The Killers. I wanted to include it because it’s about boots and other stuff, but also because it reminds me of the wish that some players have out there to get some special gear or item from that special boss this special time of year. And ok, the video made me cry.

And finally, for all those cuddly trolls out there, for which Tier 13 has been particularly enjoyable:

And because I just love this particular Christmas song….(sorry the sound quality is so poor, but I wanted to show some video from the original version).

Have a good one, everyone! xox

So what is life like when you’re not quite an elite guild but you’re also very competitive and driven to succeed? Well, that’s the case for a lot of guilds. Think of things this way. According to current data on a tracking site, we’ve about 21,000 guilds that have killed Morchok on normal mode. That gives us a general idea of the number of groups that are out there forming some sort of association intent on raiding, even at the most casual level. Out of those 20-odd thousand guilds, a lot of attention tends to get put on the top 50-100 guilds, the ones we lovingly (well, I lovingly at least) call the “elite” guilds. And then attention seems to fade away. But what about the guild that’s ranked 200th? 300th? That’s impressive still, right? They’re probably server first at least and in the top 1-2% of raiding guilds.

In my research I’ve not only spoken with the elite raiding guilds. I realise that my blog may have given that impression but that’s because I usually limit my public discussions to those elite guilds (with their permission) as I figured that’s of more “interest” to the reading public. Of course, by doing this I may have unintentionally suggested an elitist attitude toward the different types of raiding guilds out there. Nothing could be further from the truth. I myself have spent a great deal of time playing with and researching casual, social, hard core, semi-hard core, and other types of raiding guilds and find them all remarkable in their own ways. Sure, a more socially driven guild may not be as competitively-oriented as the top 10 ranked raiding guilds, but their orientation toward and expertise with the social and group dynamics can say something just as important about what’s going on in raiding as what we’re learning from competitive raiding guilds.

I had a recent discussion with what I’d term a “hard core” guild named Imperium (http://imperium-eu.com/) on the Nagrand server, ranked 186 on 25-man raiding during the Firelands race. (Note: A more recent check of the standings has them at a 190 rather than 186, but this is largely due to higher ranked guilds changing status, name, or server.) I’d run into one of their co-GMs, Fenchurch, in the Paragon IRC channel and asked to interview them when he showed me something very intriguing that he’d created as a kind of motivator for improvement and a track record of what the guild had done over a period of time (in their case tiers 8 through 12). The graph is below. You may wish to click on it to see it better.

http://imperium-eu.com/images/impproglarge.png

To explain in a bit of detail, the numbers on the graph denote the guild’s worldwide ranking in correspondence with the boss kill or heroic achievement. For example, their Heroic Rotface 25-man kill was completed on March 4, 2010, leaving them with a ranking of 537.

Now I can freely admit I’m a bit of a graph geek. This is always something a researcher like me gets a bit giddy about. Why? Well, it shows a pattern of progress and movement and indicates this particular guild’s focus on its own progress. And this was confirmed during the interview I conducted with Imperium. For the guild, their goals are, and have always been, about improving their own performance. While I’m sure they’d be thrilled to leap well above their previous 186th and prove a competitive challenge to other guilds worldwide, they are more concerned with improving their own performance and setting a new personal best, explains Fenchurch. And their goal is to get above 150th. This drive to improve began in the latest expansion, Cataclysm, and appears to have not slowed down since.

I asked Fenchurch if he’d had any goal or aspiration of orienting the guild toward being an elite guild–if he’d ever thought about making that leap from hard core to elite. “How could we do it,”  he mused. “Well, that depends on a lot of factors. I guess I could streamline the guild and try to go for it but I’d rather develop the guild members and improve them so we can achieve our goals together that way.” So becoming elite is not really a priority to the guild, despite the fact that Fenchurch has obviously given it some thought. This notion of concentrating on ensuring the guild itself is improved and its members supported to achieve more in terms of raiding suggests a very specific interest that a lot of raiders have toward personal and group improvement. That a game activity like group raiding can start to sound a bit more like a sports team or a business team really seems to transform the very idea of a game being just a frivolous activity with little goal or meaning.

I learned from talking to Imperium that they’ve played together for almost five years. I found this striking considering that the guild’s average age was early 20s. In fact, quite a few members indicated to me that they’ve been playing WoW (not necessarily with Imperium) since their early to mid-teens. “Growing up” with a game like WoW is not unusual and is also noticeable in guilds like Method, but I was very happy to see how close and amicable the guild was. They share contact details with each other, help each other through the ups and downs in life, and seem genuinely interested in each other’s well being. They’ve also arranged gatherings in real life, where some members of the guild have met each other over the years. It felt, to me, that there was quite a bit of your typical “young guy” humour floating around with quite a few inappropriate jokes and comments made here and there. But despite the rough banter on their Mumble server (don’t let your Gran listen!), I could tell it was all meant in good fun. I would suggest that the guild’s desire to protect its friendships and closeness will always be more important than trying to be “world first” or something, though clearly they want to do better than they did last time.

Imperium is the only really competitive raiding guild on its server and as a result struggles to attract new members from time to time. This can result in the habit of some guilds of coaxing new members from other, perhaps less successful raiding guilds on the same server. Newer member Yuana explained how he had come to Imperium and how leaving his previous guild presented a crisis of loyalty that probably sounds familiar to a lot of raiders who tend to stick with a guild out of a fierce sense of loyalty, even if the raiding progress is not satisfying:

Loyalty was a big issue for me. I  had never really left a guild before. It was kind of different. It’s a tough thing. Then all of a sudden people try and recruit you. The guild I left I wasn’t an officer, but I was helping where I could and I heard they were going to realm transfer because the core players were reduced to 9 players including me.

But for Yuana, since a realm transfer wasn’t an option, the change presented an opportunity to move to a higher performing guild and resolve his loyalty dilemma. I’d say this intense feeling of loyalty is often a reason that many people will stick in the guilds they join–playing with the people you feel connected to can often far exceed the perceived benefit of raiding at a higher level. But sometimes, a change in circumstances will allow the player to make a change that benefits their playing goals without severely compromising their need to remain loyal–and thus Yuana was able to join Imperium and raid at a higher level.

Structurally, Imperium follows a kind of controlled leadership approach. Fenchurch and Essem lead the guild as co-GMs, with Tatsu also functioning in an officer capacity. Many of the core functions and administrative duties of the guild seem to fall on just these few officers of the guild as Imperium found trying it another way (having more officers or delegation) did not work for them. Giving direction and keeping the guild oriented can be quite an intensive responsibility for so few individuals, something I have often noticed can be a bit risky for guild continuity, especially if one of the officers suddenly has to stop their involvement. But that’s not to say that this kind of guild structural construct is not uncommon among many serious raiding guilds, nor does it mean it’s a problematic approach for a guild. I’d say that in a structural arrangement such as how Imperium has it, leadership will often expect a high level of reciprocity by the raiders themselves as a kind of “payment” for taking on the lion’s share of responsibility for the guild. By showing up, doing their part, and building the guild atmosphere, a guild like Imperium appears able to sustain its chosen structure and its leadership appears willing to keep doing their part.

Something I often like to ask raiders is if they’ve see any positive impact from raiding on their daily lives, both at work/school or in their personal relationships. A few of the members mentioned some interesting experiences (with a bit of humour mixed in!):

Taldy: “I took the application from when I applied to Imperium and used the same answers to questions in a job and I got the job. I almost copied my application to Imperium to the job situation.”

Monkeygooch: “I told a girl I downed Ragnaros to get her attention.” (laughter)

Fenchurch: “I manage 35 people in this guild. Managers often manage, what, 4 people? They’ve got nothing on managing in WoW.”

Essem: “WoW and raiding has made me improve my speaking skills. I am getting confident speaking in public too. I am learning to become a teacher. I had an assignment and had to speak to 60 people and I think that helped me.”

I also like to ask raiders what they think are important qualities for being a successful raider and part of a team. The following were offered (again with a bit of humour laced in there):

• Consistency
• Commitment
• Not wiping the raid
• Make sure you want to do what you’re doing
• Always be focused, know what the fight involves, know your class and the game
• It’s about a good attitude; if people show up with a bad attitude, it won’t work
• Calmness, not flying off the handle
• People get very worked up about things and maybe they should not—it’s about taking criticism well

Kind of reminds me, again, of what we might say makes for being successful on a new job or while taking a course. Simple thoughts are expressed above but I am sure many raiders nod their head in agreement. We seem to know what works well for raiding and what assets a raider brings to the table–it’s a bit like a kind of code of performance.

I liked talking to Imperium and if I’d not had so many technical problems with the recording I would have even more salient notes to share! But suffice to say it’s been great to get to know an exuberant, fun-loving group that also loves raiding together. They’ve been doing some exciting things in preparation for Dragon Soul (like PTR access and even some preparation for the heroic content next week [and the guys assure me that they did NOT take advantage of that LFR bug that emerged during the first couple days of Week 1]) and I am certain that if they keep this up they will definitely improve their own goals and achieve a new personal guild best. I’d be willing to bet they might pleasantly surprise themselves!

Best of luck, guys!

One thing that kill videos and slick ads by Blizzard don’t tell the unfamiliar is just how much waiting we seem to do while raiding in World of Warcraft. It’s a classic manifestation of the hurry up and wait syndrome that seems to happen a lot on things like airplanes and queues in the supermarket. It’s not surprising. Often trying to get 10 or 25 raiders back into the right spot in the raid instance and all ready to go on time can sometimes feel worse than herding cats and can probably be blamed for causing the mental breakdown of many a raid leader. During progression time we may wipe dozens of times. In fact, one night I was observing a raid group and I noted that during a 72 minute period of raiding, about 10 attempts/wipes took place equalling 28 minutes, while 44 minutes were spent recovering from being dead, flying back into the instance, gathering at the right spot, taking a short break, waiting on people to come back from disconnects or sudden “afks”, making sure everyone was ready to go, and then beginning again. I realise we don’t always spend the majority of our time waiting to start up again, but this can be a distinctive element of a raid and sometimes it’s nice to make the best of our time raiding, even if we’re just waiting around.

So in the spirit of fun and to help you get through those wait times with a little amusement, I thought I’d share this addon that was written especially by addon creator Olog. Olog has designed some other addons that are used by his own guild and has written others that have been more widely used by the gaming community at large. When I approached him with my idea, he found it quite an amusing concept and agreed to create something which he whipped out in an hour or two. This addon is called Gnome Chef Roulette and the idea is that you have a way to create esquisite gourmet dishes inspired by the “produce” available in the game itself! It’s a game of roulette as you’re going to have to trust your little Gnome chef pal to concoct something appropriate for the occasion. So get cooking and amaze your fellow raiders!

GnomeChefRoulette

Instructions: Just load it like any other addon and type /chef to open the window. It’s quite self-explanatory but people can either whisper to you or say !food and your chef will automatically produce something fabulous! (You can also just say !food yourself and you’ll broadcast what you’ve cooked as well.)

Enjoy and happy Patch 4.3!

Happy belated Thanksgiving to my fine American friends out there. I love that holiday and all the gastronomical joy it brings… and it’s just a lovely idea too!

I’ve been so utterly buried in my work that when a friend said something about “DS” to me, I had to ask what he meant. I thought he was referring–at first–to the handheld gaming console. How sad is that? And how ironic. I should be on top of these things, considering it’s sort of my line of work! Just tattoo slacker on my forehead. (Note: Just in case you’ve also been buried in your work, DS is “Dragon Soul”. I’m so embarrassed!)

Anyway, 4.3 is here and there are more fiercesome foes to fell in the furious fight for first amongst heroes! Since it’s the boring “day before” I tend to like to put a poll (gasp, yes, a new poll!) up to see how we’re feeling about the changes. Are we jazzed? Ambivalent? Terrified? Disappointed? I know some classes/specs are not feeling any love from Blizzard while others appear to be on the verge of a Great Leap Forward. But don’t fear, neglected ones, there’s always the next patch! Nothing ever stays the same in WoW-land. So a few reflections:

• Are we in a reign of terror? I know that Deathwing–lore wise and geographically speaking!–did kind of throw the world into a bit of chaos, but aside from knowing he’s coming in the next patch, have we actually considered this period of time in our WoW history to be “Deathwing’s reign of terror”? I think we might have forgotten the amazing things he did to us last year, particularly once we had the thrill of being randomly struck dead by him.
• Is the new raid content exciting? The Deathwing encounter sure sounds intriguing in concept and some of the fights have that new car smell, but it seems like sometimes we just get into the habit of saying something like “Oh that boss is just like x-boss but with an extra debuff”. I don’t think that’s Blizzard’s fault or anyone’s fault, though. I think that’s what happens when you become experts at a particular process or situation. And while not all of us are on the bleeding edge of the raiding race, many of us have been around the block enough times that we’re now used to the nature and arrangement of certain fights. I’ve even written about this and categorised the various key elements of boss fights because some parts are just familiar ground. Certain predictable factors are now customary in raiding and we tend to veer toward the associational in our preparation and explanation of a particular boss rather than being able to look at it with a completely fresh perspective. So yes, while the content is exciting I’d say that’s as much about the content being new to explore and because it allows for a new race to start than the fact that the bosses might look different, throw us a few new curveballs, and drop fancier loot.
• And what about everything else? Will we use the raid group finder? Is transmogrification not just a cool word to say but also cool to use? New dungeons? Rogue legendary weapons? Class balancing? Void storage? The list goes on!

Anyways, what do you think?

If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to peruse Part 1 of this post first.

NOTE: This post does contain some strong language. I apologise to the faint of heart, but I believe that most of those who bother to actually read my walls of text will be capable of coping with a few strong words uttered in the heat of the moment.

And so we continue our exploration of the experience of Method over the summer…

Let me preface this part by explaining that a lot of my observations in this section are based on listening to and documenting the audio recordings the guild made for me of their attempts on both Majordomo and their early attempts on Ragnaros in early July 2011. This was captured by Xabok for me while they were live raiding. Now, unless I’m corrected, I believe I’m the first academic to receive, and Method is the first elite raiding guild to actually make, recordings like this for the sake of research. (That’s the geeky kind of thing that gets an academic researcher giddy…) I’m only excerpting a tiny portion of what was said for the sake of brevity and to try and capture the experiences and feelings of the raiders involved. Method has always been pretty willing to point to their own mistakes (you only have to watch some of their funnier “first kill” videos to see that they will often add on a minute or two of footage showing their fail wipes before getting to the actual successful kill) and I think this willingness to help me out with my research request says a lot about them and about raiders in general, particularly about our brutal honesty about things. We know we usually fail a LOT before we finally succeed. And even after we succeed we’ll often fail all over again.

On some level, reading these experiences of a top level guild might be comforting to those guilds that are further down the raiding path and who might mistakenly believe they are the only ones who have missteps and mistakes along the way. Trust me, we all do,  just at a different pace and in different ways. It’s much harder to be open about our mistakes than our successes, so thank you to Method for allowing me to observe your experiences. I’d have to say it took character.

Majordomo: Saddest World Second Ever

For Method guild members, the penultimate heroic boss fight (Majordomo) proved a genuine test of their guild’s orientation toward the competitive and actually allows for a compelling exploration of how competition is enacted in different ways during a contested raiding race. Majordomo took, according to Valiane’s estimates, 71 tries before the group was able to defeat him. This is in stark contrast to the estimate of 23 tries (in total, mind you) on the first four bosses. (I tried to wrap my own mind around the fact that guilds at Method’s level need so few tries before actually defeating the majority of heroic bosses in a given instance. But anyway…) Method determined a tactic early on that they knew would help them defeat the boss as long as it was executed properly. But things did not go so well, according to Trekkie:

We had a strategy… [but] every try was some kind of execution fail one after another. The second try we tried that tactic we got him down to like 30% or whatever and that’s basically the whole fight.

So the guild knew they had a working tactic but their execution of it was letting them down. The frustration over these “execution fails” were audible on the TS recording. Why? Well, the guild knew that every failure on their part meant that the now five-hour advantage they had on Paragon was being squandered away. Sco, the guild master, can be heard quietly but unrelentingly attempting to refocus the guild by making what reads like a prophetic statement:

Ask yourself if you want to kill this boss before Paragon as we’re playing like shit please. This boss is actually not that hard and I think you don’t realise we’re going to lose the world first on this fight.

All is not lost at this point yet, however. Majordomo has still yet to be downed by any guild (it’s some time before Paragon actually get him down). And an attempt to refocus appears audible on the recordings as the group starts all over again. This time the fight is as successful as they’ve been so far. Calm and controlled, members of the group call out information, others inform the group of their actions, some warn the group of the various Gamic devices from the boss. (If you need a reminder of how this boss plays out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh8rZZm_-ng) It appears to be going well, the boss’ health, after a concerted and prolonged effort of about 8 minutes, has been diminished to under 10%–the end appears nigh. The world first is in hand. The group sounds focused, oriented, and animated. Instructions are handed out efficiently, encouragement is offered, pleas are uttered (mostly by the guys who are laying there dead already, forced to watch/listen from the sidelines):

Nuke nuke, come on!

Nuke please…!

Come on…

Oh nice nice…!

Go go go go…!

And then they wipe.

1.4 million.. 0.4% wipe.

Fuck, oh my God…

1.4 million, that’s oh my God…

They had managed to reduce the boss’ health pool by 99.6% and only 0.4% remained. Anyone who’s raided before understands how painful this is. To have gotten so close only to fail at the last moment. The group has failed. They must collect themselves, return to the raiding instance, and start again. General disappointment with the group’s failure to master or exhibit the skill it knows it can are muttered, “We almost don’t deserve a world first with this play, honestly”. This kind of talk is not unfamiliar to any of who have experienced progress raiding. The idea of “deserving” that accomplishment can often come into question when we are not performing to par, even if that par is based on achieving a personal or guild best. I think what struck me the most when I was listening to the recordings at this point was how familiar this all sounded. How often have I heard a raid leader or raid member say something similar in an attempt to jolt some improved performance into the group or at least vent at the perceived inability to succeed?

The group goes at it again. For we’re resilient and persistent if we’re nothing else. And yet…

Another wipe.

And then… simply these words on TS:

Paragon got it.

Fuck.

The TS channel, which had been up until this point quite active with various members of the 25-player group speaking even in the wake of the 0.4% wipe, goes silent for almost 1 minute. For me listening to the recording, that minute felt like an hour.  It is about 01:30 am game time at this point and Paragon had only killed Majordomo a few minutes earlier. The race to down Majordomo first was over.

And then, like a knife cutting through dense air, a singular voice is heard on TS:

If we kill it this night it should still be fine.

This was in reference, I am later told, to the idea that if they can still kill Majordomo soon they would have about the same amount of time to work on Ragnaros, thus levelling the playing field for the final contest once more. So the group must shake off that 0.4% wipe, get over their failure to defeat the game mechanics, and overcome their demoralized state over losing the world first on this boss to Paragon and concentrate on the goal of beating Paragon in the overall fight.

Somehow this statement helps the group. They start up again. It’s not a perfect “getting back on the horse”, however. They have one more wipe. But by the time the group has collected for its second try since learning that Paragon has killed Majordomo, they are a more focused group, although not quite what they had been. Things have definitely changed. I hear a quieter, less animated discussion than I had heard earlier in the recording. Are they more focused than ever? Tired? Fed up? Maybe all of the above. And then:

There he goes… come on…

It’s beserk.. he’s dead, he’s dead.

Finally.

Fucking…

Good job, guys.

It’s done.

The saddest world second ever.

It is. Indeed, indeed.

It is 02:09 am. Method has achieved the world second kill of Majordomo on heroic mode. No small feat for us mere raiding mortals, but it’s a pitiful recompense to these competitively oriented guys. I can feel the disappointment in their voices, the subdued reaction to the kill being indicative of the guild’s failure, at that moment, to achieve its external competitive goals—killing the boss ahead of Paragon. And when I asked Rogerbrown later why he felt this kill was the “saddest world second ever” (as he had said on that night in July), this was his explanation:

Sad because obviously we could have got the kill before them and we had an advantage over Paragon. Not as big as it seemed in our heads, but we had at least 5 hours ahead of them to start with.. so we felt like we lost our chance there to get a world first and it was demoralizing.

So while the Majordomo fight was not the most contested fight in the Firelands race, it proved quite disappointing for the guild.

But at that point what could the guild do? Well, shake it off. They allowed themselves a few minutes of post-kill analysis and then moved on. And that they did—with a dash, that very same night, to clear the trash and get a peek at Ragnaros. Can’t let a failure to win hold you back from continuing to try and win, after all.

And what of Ragnaros? Well, it was not a simple fight and the race, at least at first, appeared it would last a long time. Method assumed every other guild was at the same impasse. But then Paragon got him down. Xabok, guild officer and raider in Method, explains how they learned about the kill, which initially surprised them all:

We were finishing our raid, we had just killed Ragnaros on normal mode and waiting on the nerfs. And the gear reset and Sco is like officers come down and we have a meeting and 5 minutes in Artzie comes in and says Paragon killed it and we’re all like what the fuck because we just said the boss is impossible. So I was like, they did it or they cheated or we just got outplayed. And we waited on the movie and we were like, ok we got outplayed.

Paragon’s successful killing of Ragnaros came a week before Method was able to successfully kill him and the guild acknowledged that in that fight that they had been “outplayed”. In my later discussions with the group there seems to be a state of polite acceptance over the Ragnaros kill. It seems to be less painful, less of a sting than the Majordomo fight. I know that placing 2^nd is still not good enough for them, but they acknowledged that Paragon just outperformed them to get it done first. I suppose you could say it was good sportsmanship. Shakaroz, with over six weeks to think about the experience, offered the following analysis of their competitive experience in the raiding instance:

It’s like we won the first half of the instance. Against Baleroc we won against them but then they caught up with us at Majordomo. We went into Ragnaros being sort of equal, we had a point each and then it was the final showdown so I think we were, I was at least perceiving Paragon as equal to us at that point and when they killed the boss it really came as a shock to a lot of people because I didn’t expect them to be able to kill it. And a lot of us were talking about Ragnaros being impassable and previously we had been talking about not raiding as much and waiting on nerfs, at least a phase 4 nerf so we could do it with 4 meteors. We did not expect Ragnaros to be killable at that point.

And adding to that analysis, Rogerbrown notes:

When Paragon killed the boss, yeah, we, even though we were shocked or whatever I at least didn’t feel like we didn’t do our best—meaning that it wasn’t skill wise that we failed or anything like that so the only flaw was that we didn’t have the alts or the roster big enough to accommodate the tactics. It was pretty much fail preparation and not fail tactics.

So for Shakaroz and Rogerbrown the failure on Ragnaros was about external factors that they had not planned for or accommodated, “fail preparation” and a belief that “Ragnaros being impassable”. And what I believe made the Majordomo kill a greater frustration to those I spoke with was the idea of a “fail execution”, or the inability of the members of the group to properly execute the correct strategy. This idea of different forms and consequences of group failure is really well represented in raiding, which enables us, I think, to have a varied response to the reasons that we fail, not just in a game but in life too. What’s important to note here is that they did not blame their failure on Ragnaros on the failure of skill or ability, necessarily. If anything is to be “blamed” here, it might be the groups’ acknowledged “fail preparation” for how to handle the boss fights in such a tight race.

The poignancy of the group’s strong negative reaction to the Majordomo failure (despite the fact that the failure did not mean they would necessarily lose the overall race against Paragon) seems to point to the significance that these additional levels of competition and performance play for raiding guilds. It’s not simply about the overall winning of the race, it’s about how they win it and, subsequently, how they lose it. Do you prefer to lose to internal factors that you can control or external ones that you can’t control? What is a worse fate?  And for Method, those factors that they knew they had a control over in that Majordomo fight—the accurate execution of a proven game tactic (Gamic competition), their own performance and ability levels (Internal competition)—had not been successful and that proved to be a significant and unacceptable failure on their part. This illustrates the significance of these types of competitive attitudes amongst raiders and indicates that how you win (or lose) is just as important as winning itself.

The next tier of raiding is almost upon us and, as usual, the race starts all over again. Will Paragon retain its throne? Will Method achieve its goal of unseating them? And what of the other elite raiding guilds that are also hoping to claim their stake and ranking? After all, it’s not just about those two guilds. I’ll be on the sidelines—as usual—waiting to hear how things are going and who is moving up and down the ranks, thoroughly enjoying the rollercoaster ride these guys put me on!

This is a wall of text. Though I might break things up with some images of cats—everyone loves sending me images of cats doing silly things… I think that’s because there is this idea that we of the fairer sex like seeing images of cats doing funny things; I think it’s also because images of cats doing funny things represents about 83% of the Internet. But before I launch into my (epic) wall of text here, let me just offer a thank you to Method. They are a classy bunch of guys (I bet they never thought they’d be referred to as such!) to let me write up about them, particularly about a somewhat touchy subject.. the idea of coming in “second”. Of course if you consider the fact that we have thousands of groups completing the raiding content, coming in second in the world is actually pretty good. But when you’re so close to being first, second just feels like you missed the party entirely. Will Method come in second during the next content patch? That’s anyone’s guess, but I do know that they are as determined as ever and I look forward to following the race during the next tier of raiding content.. which should start very soon!

I’m also really grateful to all of the guilds like Method for being really active participants in my research. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to talk to raiders from lots of different backgrounds and they’ve really contributed a lot to my work. You may have read the earlier article I wrote back in May where I documented some highlights from my first group discussion with Method. One thing I appreciated about them, and about most of the guilds I’ve spoken to, is their openness. Sure some of us posture a bit, and there’s a fair amount of ego and grandstanding in some, but for the most part, we’re quite honest (I’d even say quite bluntly honest) about how we perform and what our challenges might be. I think as a community, raiders can be quite reflective and self-critical. I think this is due, in part, to the constant stream of data that we have available to help us see how we’ve done: fraps, DPS meters, logging sites. In a way, being open is thrust upon us by our own design. You can’t really pretend your DPS was great when DPS tracking software is telling you (and everyone else!) that it was subpar.

But whatever the reason for this openness and reflectiveness, raiders have been quite willing to be recorded and documented talking about their experiences. And sometimes it also means that the raiders themselves have collected data for me. This was Method. And I think what we did over the summer is historic in nature. During their few weeks of progress raiding in Firelands, the guys recorded hours of TeamSpeak audio for me. Now I did not get the actual recordings until long after the race was over (not until September) so there would never be a concern or any worries that I’d somehow compromise the race by getting access to information that is usually quite fiercely protected.

We are all drawn to raiding for similar reasons, though how important those reasons are will often depend on the raider and the guild to which they belong. I’d say some of the top reasons we get into raiding might be the raiding content itself, personal performance, competition, social interaction, and team play. But the way that we might rank these reasons as far as importance goes differs between raiders based on our own priorities for raiding. If, for example, we want to blow off some steam with a group of good friends, social interaction or team play might outrank competition. Well, in the case of the top ranked guilds that I’ve spoken with (and I’ve had a chance to talk to about a dozen of them), competition seems to be the primary driving factor. This piece explores how competition functions for a guild like Method and how they felt, in the end, about being the 2^nd in the world. Again. And now, before we begin, here is the world’s most insulted cat:

Really? I mean… really?

Intermission over. Shall we continue? Let’s….

“The saddest world second ever”

Second place is just the first place loser. –Dale Earnhardt

I’m not jealous, I’m just tired of being in second place. –Unknown

These quotes may evoke that cynicism that sometimes accompanies a reaction from a competitor who’s come in second place. For the second place “loser”, there is no other aspiration than coming in first. This experience of the anti-climax of finishing second is well expressed through the progress race.

Like other competitive raiding guilds, Method was formed by WoW raiders that wanted to be the first to defeat the raiding content ahead of other guilds. This assertion is made clear on the guild’s promotional material, where they solicit new members, the goal being, “to be among the first to witness, participate in, and down new raid boss encounters.” Method’s success as a world-ranked progression guild began in 2007 when it had the world second kill of Lady Vashj in a level 70 ranked raiding area called Serpentshrine Cavern. Its success continued off and on until it reached a more consistent level of prominence in 2009. It has sustained a world #2 ranking since December 2010. In fact, its history of being second seems to be quite predominant for Method. On its self-written guild description posted on wowprogress.com, it lists 31 achievements of 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd place finishes on specific important game achievements over the past four years. Out of those 31 achievements, 22 (or 71%) are listed as second place finishes. This notion of seemingly perpetual runner-up-dom has not been lost on the guild or its members, best expressed through Rogerbrown’s (officer and raider in Method) statements in May and July, respectively:

On not achieving first place: “It’s the one thing Method hasn’t done yet.” (Rogerbrown, May 2011)

On losing the Majordomo (the penultimate boss in Firelands) kill to DREAM Paragon by 45 minutes: “The saddest world second ever.” (Rogerbrown, July 2011,)

Progression racing is seen as challenging, both by design and circumstance. It requires a lot of time, focus and speed. For example, over the 26 days in Firelands that Method was clearing the raiding content, Valiane, one of the raiding members of Method, estimated that the raiding group spent approximately 200 hours working on clearing the content, with about 180 of those hours spent on the final raid boss, Ragnaros. This works out as an average of 7.3 hours being spent per day. While this kind of speed and concentrated time spent in raiding can contribute toward success in the progress race, it can also often present a series of unexpected events for the groups involved. One example is the situation where most of the top raiding guilds—due to the speed at which they progress through the content—face the raiding content while Blizzard’s game designers are still fixing bugs in the gameplay.

In July, like everyone else, Method began its pursuit of the world first completion of the newest raiding content in Firelands. During the discussion of how the Firelands race had gone, Trekkie, a raiding member of Method, indicated that the primary area of concern was the perceived race between their guild and Paragon, “Yes, pretty much only cared about Paragon’s progress in the race.” This could piss off other guilds that are also hot in pursuit of a world #1, but I think I can understand the logic. Paragon was #1 going into the race and that makes them, by default, the team to “beat.” It’s very likely that most of the other guilds in the top 10 or 20 were just as oriented toward beating Paragon.

My research has led me to define the types and forms of competition that exist in raiding. I’ll outline them briefly here: Gamic competition (this is the competition we experience against the game and the game designed challenges); External competition (competition between raiding guilds); and Internal competition (this is represented by how we compete with or against each other in our own raiding guilds). An example of Gamic competition would be how a group competes against a raid boss’ tactics and mechanics to down the boss; an example of External would be how guilds race against each other to complete raiding content ahead of everyone else; and Internal could be represented by the friendly rivalry to see who tops the DPS meters during any given raid.

Time for another cat photo:

“Don’t you people have anything better to do?”

And onwards we must march….

Method is highly focused toward External competition. This is indicated by their desire to “win the race” and surpass their long-held 2^nd place spot.  In fact, even during the 3 weeks of the contested Firelands race (until Paragon defeated Ragnaros on July 19, 2011), while Method’s interest was in their own raiding performance and tactics against the raiding challenges they were also oriented toward how they fared against Paragon. Shakaroz, another member of Method, made that clear in his statement:

You asked if what we knew about Paragon at that point [during the raiding progress] was affecting our raid? Yes, we knew their set up on Majordomo and I’m thinking it might have given us a feeling of security because we thought we knew what they were doing because at some point they swapped in like 7 to 9 rogues trying some weird strategy. So we were thinking they didn’t really know what to do with this boss and they were trying all sorts of weird things and they are not close and that gives us that sense of security so that personal mistakes and poor play isn’t really looked on as harshly because we think that we were further along than we were. With [Major]domo we could have taken the world first. We had some silly wipes and some time wasting.

So in effect here, while Shakaroz concedes that Method was externally oriented toward the progress and activity of Paragon, he felt it could have adversely affected their own guild’s performance. Perhaps this highlights the ways in which a network and series of events within it can conspire to negatively impact its attributes depending on how the network’s entities (in this case a raiding guild) react or respond to the dispersal of information. But this close focus on Paragon’s progress is understandable considering how easily accessible data and information was for raiding guilds. In the table below, you can see how close the race was and why it made sense that Method (and Paragon too) were so oriented toward the external competition.

DREAM Paragon (with dates and times of kills)	Method
H: Ragnaros–Jul 19, 2011 20:50 H: Majordomo–Jul 8, 2011 01:17 H: Baleroc–Jul 7, 2011 14:52 H: Alysrazor–Jul 6, 2011 15:54 H: Lord Rhyolith–Jul 6, 2011 13:51 H: Beth’tilac–Jul 6, 2011 12:15 H: Shannox–Jul 6, 2011 10:11	H: Ragnaros–Jul 26, 2011 21:52 H: Majordomo–Jul 8, 2011 02:06 H: Baleroc–Jul 7, 2011 04:42 H: Alysrazor–Jul 6, 2011 13:37 H: Lord Rhyolith–Jul 6, 2011 11:07 H: Beth’tilac–Jul 6, 2011 10:04 H: Shannox–Jul 6, 2011 08:52

Access to information like this, available to any raider or interested party, can help spur on the race and also motivate the teams involve to either pick up their pace or, possibly, relax with a false sense of security, such as what Shakaroz indicated above. While the significant part of the race did not come until the attempts on Ragnaros started, the momentum gained from speedily killing the earlier bosses did allow the teams to focus on that final boss. A careful review of the dates and times of the boss kills shows a very close race. Mere hours separate the successful kills of the earlier bosses, with Method ahead of Paragon’s progress until Majordomo. But the Majordomo fight was the first indicator of a change in the race between the two guilds. It’s worth pointing out here, however, that for guilds like Method and Paragon the race is not so much about the earlier six bosses but more about the final one. As North American servers get access to the game a day before European servers, for example, all of the first four heroic bosses had already been killed for the first time by the time Method and Paragon logged on. But Method and Paragon quickly succeeded those early kills and began to progress to the last bosses. It seemed too close to tell.

So what happened at Majordomo? Well, the race seemed to shift. Part 2 looks more closely at that experience and the impact it had, at the time, on Method. In some cases, it was more significant (at least from the standpoint of the “race”) than the Ragnaros race. Stay tuned!

Oh and here’s another cat image. Someone please send me nomz too….