In Which Totally Hivemind Has Two Choices

[Jolstraer]

Just a note, I'm kinda on hold for my WoWing for now, because of home things. Just to clarify though, Jolly is tank specced/geared, and I have most of my 10-man Naxx gear for my primary role. Just an FYI.

[Chrystenise]

Varenna an Carystin* on the sidelines in cheerleader outfits. IMO.

[Hinote]

Now; are you down with that, though? Keeping things mainly IC, and not using voice chat? It can be arranged for some of us, to be sure, but for others, it's simply not an option.

My plan was to have as much in-game chatter as possible be IC. If we could find a Vent server to use, I was planning on having that as our outlet for OOC chatter, raid jokes, and possibly boss explanations (for the really, ridiculously complicated ones, because I can talk faster than I can type), but given that I don't actually have a specific Vent server in mind to use, I was planning on that being more or less optional. My plan regarding boss strategies (which is really kind of the main reason I'd want voice chat available) was to have explanations and strategies posted on the forums anyway, both in IC and OOC format, and then if things need to be reworked on the fly, we can do that mid-raid.

More to come when I'm not being pestered to play Brawl. >.>

[Lansiron]

Varenna an Carystin* on the sidelines in cheerleader outfits. IMO.

No wai. I'm officially a Varenna/Caile (Cailrenna? Canna? Vaile?) shipper, don't you know.

[Shaila]

I'd really like to keep things in the format we have them now, not having a vent server and explaining new boss fights ingame. And of course keeping the expectation for our raiders to study up on them beforehand as well. I just don't really see a reason to change things up a lot just because the same people aren't leading us.

What we've been doing has worked excellently.

[Lansiron]

'tis true; it has worked. Though the people we may join up with Rosie-side might think about it different. I'm for exploring all possibilities, though my own vote still remains in the no-vent area.

I also appreciate the vote of confidence, Shai! Though to be sure, I've never led a raid myself either. I'm okay with helping organize, but if Hino's already familiar with the flow of on-the-fly raid leading, I certainly would not object to him taking point if he's volunteering.

Granted, if everyone does think I should be an actual leader or co-leader, I'll still do it.

Expect leadership and bearing to be in line with Norvallen's character, though. >:D (Ebon Blade tabards MANDATORY)

[Hinote]

'tis true; it has worked. Though the people we may join up with Rosie-side might think about it different. I'm for exploring all possibilities, though my own vote still remains in the no-vent area.

Honestly, I only have two major reasons to want to use voice chat: The first is to explain new bosses, which we theoretically would not have to do (or at least not over Vent) if people read up about them beforehand, which is something I would try to make as easy as possible. I can talk faster than I can type, and generally articulate things more clearly that way, but that said, I've had to explain stuff in chat for like 90% of my raiding time since I've had a mic for all of maybe a week and a half. So that's not a huge concern.

Of more importance, though, is making kind of clutch calls mid-fight if things go awry (or even if they don't, just as a heads-up). On Hinote, I can usually spare a few seconds to type out something quick in between casts, since they're...well, casted. On any of my tanking characters, though (which is what I'm looking at when I say this, because that's what I'd be bringing), that kind of thing just doesn't happen. At any given time I've got at least two buttons I need to push, which leaves zero time for typing even something quick like "I need a Taunt" or "Overload, run out" or anything like that. You melee types probably know where I'm coming from here. Even if I do manage to type it out, there's no guarantee it'll be seen in time or even at all if people are so focused on whatever they're doing and/or it gets lost in addon-related raid warnings and whatnot (which you guys may not use, I dunno).

So I'm thinking what I may do is just have Vent up, provided we can actually find a server, and if at least most of us can get on, great. I'll have boss explanations and whatnot posted on the forums and explained in-game as needed, and we can just use it during boss fights to call out stuff that I can't do in the middle of tanking, as well as make fun of Shaila during less serious moments like trash pulls. Honestly, it really won't kill us if one or two people can't get on Vent, so Lans, if you can't do it, don't sweat it too much.

Of course, this all assumes we actually get a Vent server we can use. If we can't, then obviously this is all pointless, and I'll just have to deal with it. >.>

I also appreciate the vote of confidence, Shai! Though to be sure, I've never led a raid myself either. I'm okay with helping organize, but if Hino's already familiar with the flow of on-the-fly raid leading, I certainly would not object to him taking point if he's volunteering.

/ego mode on

I am, on both counts. <.< I actually co-lead a weekly Ulduar-10 raid, and have organized various heroic runs ('cause heroics are SRS BSNS) in both the recent and distant past, and had an admittedly not-terribly-successful Karazhan run going for a while with the Roses during Burning Crusade. I've done Naxxramas up, down, and sideways on 10-man, including most of the hard-mode-but-not-actually-hard-mode achievements, both as a DPS (warlock) and as a tank (warrior). So, uh, if I may say so, I think I'd do pretty alright, though I certainly wouldn't say no to a second authority figure to reel me in every now and then as necessary. <.<'

/ego mode off

[Lansiron]

Hino; what's your stance on the moving-forward of this whole affair, if/once it gets off the ground? I'd personally like us to make for moving through Naxxramas as efficiently as can be done, so we can move on with all due haste to Ulduar/the upcoming Argent Coliseum ('cause most people are pretty much sick of Naxx by now). I've not even set foot in Ulduar, myself, and I'm frankly dying to. I doubt there'll be many objections, but it's worth a mention.

Also, which character are you set on playing as for this? (I've got two I'd like to switch in and out, though both DPS, but as it ain't precisely hard to get good gear--and once 3.2 comes out, T8-quality stuff will be almost laughably easy to come by)

Additionally, you touched on add-ons; I admit, I don't use any. With the possible exception of Recount, which I keep telling myself I need in order to keep track of DPS. >_> But on the whole, I actually like the vanilla interface best. Any comments as to whether or not any might be necessary, for any particular role?

And finally; assuming we can get this going, is there a place (read: forum) somewhere we can stick a sub-board for specific discussions of this? It'll be a very small-scale raid as I foresee it, so we won't need anything elaborate, just somewhere we can pull everyone to without making a single thread absurdly long, or otherwise flooding the Riders or Rose general boards with our nonsense.

[Hinote]

Also, which character are you set on playing as for this? (I've got two I'd like to switch in and out, though both DPS, but as it ain't precisely hard to get good gear--and once 3.2 comes out, T8-quality stuff will be almost laughably easy to come by)

Answering this first because it ties into some of the other stuff. My plan was to tank (main tank, unless someone better-geared signed up) on my warrior, Dendou, whom I have the most experience actually tanking with. If/when the other tank in the raid is geared enough to take over for a bit, I was pondering the idea of swapping in my death knight, Enixoth, who is also a tank (and ICly the same person) because I hate myself. She's off-tanked Naxxramas before and has some gear for it, but I'm iffy on the idea of her main tanking a raid, especially since her threat generation is currently a little low. My warrior was going to be my first and foremost choice though, in the interest of actually getting through the place, because I know she can handle pretty much anything in the instance.

Hino; what's your stance on the moving-forward of this whole affair, if/once it gets off the ground? I'd personally like us to make for moving through Naxxramas as efficiently as can be done, so we can move on with all due haste to Ulduar/the upcoming Argent Coliseum ('cause most people are pretty much sick of Naxx by now). I've not even set foot in Ulduar, myself, and I'm frankly dying to. I doubt there'll be many objections, but it's worth a mention.

I answered the last one first so I could answer this one: I'm all for phasing out Naxxramas after everyone gets good and geared (which, loot tables permitting, will happen fairly quickly), but there is a catch, which is that my warrior already has an Ulduar raid. Tying into my above response, if I can slip my death knight in every now and then and (hopefully) snag some more tanking gear, it shouldn't be much of an issue to just start using her once we jump into Ulduar. That's something we'll sort of have to look at after we do a few runs and gauge our progress, but tentatively speaking I'd be all for it.

Additionally, you touched on add-ons; I admit, I don't use any. With the possible exception of Recount, which I keep telling myself I need in order to keep track of DPS. >_> But on the whole, I actually like the vanilla interface best. Any comments as to whether or not any might be necessary, for any particular role?

I'm actually not much on addons myself, and in fact I can't actually think of any raid-related addons that I use. Stuff like Omen and Deadly Boss Mods seem pretty popular and at least somewhat handy, but I wouldn't go as far as to call them necessary. My comment about addons was more just to demonstrate that with stuff like DBM's automated raid warnings for stuff like XT-002's tantrums, phase swaps on Heigan, void zones or frost blasts on Kel'Thuzad, etc., it can be fairly easy to miss something in raid chat.

And finally; assuming we can get this going, is there a place (read: forum) somewhere we can stick a sub-board for specific discussions of this? It'll be a very small-scale raid as I foresee it, so we won't need anything elaborate, just somewhere we can pull everyone to without making a single thread absurdly long, or otherwise flooding the Riders or Rose general boards with our nonsense.

Well uh, we actually have a section on the Rose boards for scheduled PvE or PvP events like this, so I was probably gonna post weekly sign-ups there and just delete non-current stuff as it passes out of relevance. Chel mentioned during our discussion last night that we could post something both over here and over on the Rose boards if needed, which is a possibility, but that might get kind of cluttery over here. This is something I'm actually open to ideas on. >.>'

[Shaila]

I would still really very much like the triad leadership I talked about. =\