Blacksky Raiding

The following page is meant to hold the rules, schedule, and organization of the raiding members of the Blacksky Company. It will be updated mostly by IceShadow, the guild master of the Blacksky Company, and he would ask that members refrain from changing anything on the page except where noted.

Forum / Signups

Our official raiding forum can be found at horderaid dot iceshadow dot com. One must sign up there and have an account in order to sign up for raids with us. When signing up at the forum, please use your main character's name as your login name and NOT your RPG.net handle. Once you have signed up, please post to the Applications & New Users forum and you will be added to the correct groups to be able to see the rest of the forum.

Once you have a handle, you can sign up for raids at our web application, which can be found at http://www.iceshadow.com/bsc/oob/index.php?page=calendar. You must first create a character there, and then if you are approved by an officer (by posting in the Applications forum) you will be able to sign up for raids.

OOB System, Full Signups, and Replacements

The calendar system will classify people as either full signups, substitutes, or replacements. One can choose at the time of signup whether it should be a full signup or a replacement signup; substitutes will begin to be listed if the full signups are past capacity. Feel free to still sign up if the raid is full, and it will either sort you into an available class spot as a full signup or list you as a substitute.

Raid signups can be cancelled freely up until 30 minutes before the raid starts; after that point, you must notify the raid leader to let them know you will be absent.

Substitutes and full signups are both expected to be online and ready to go at the start of the raid. Replacements are NOT required to be on at the start of the raid; they are essentially tentative spots, and thus no attendance is required from them. Replacements can be moved from replacements up to full signups at their own discretion using the calendar system until 24 hours before the raid; past that point, the only way to move from replacement to full signup is to cancel your signup and re-sign as a full signup. If you move up from replacement to full using the button to do it more than 24 hours before the raid, you will keep your signup time. Cancelling and resigning will cause you to be regarded as signing up at the new time.

If we are short full signups, or if we have absentees from full signups, we will first pull from the Substitutes queue and then the Replacement queue.

The calendar sorts people automatically when they sign up as full signups, first to fill class balance, and second by signup time. So, if you are not one of the first few people of your class to sign up, you may be initially regarded as a full signup and later be bumped to a substitute if more people in an underrepresented class sign up.

If you intend to raid with a specific character, sign up with that character. The raid leader may allow, at his discretion, people to change to a different character, but it will typically only be allowed if the second character is from an underrepresented class and if he will be switching to a character with the same raid role (DPS, Tanking, Healing). It is NOT permissible to sign up from an underrepresented class with the intent of switching to a class that is "full" in order to secure a signup spot with the "full" class.

Rules

Preparation

Players are expected to be online, in their raid, and ready to start by no later than 15 minutes prior to the start of the run. If you cannot be online until later than this point, be courteous and let the raid leader know ahead of time, and they will hold a spot for you until the beginning of the run. You are still expected to be online, in the raid, prepared to go, and inside the instance or at the designated meeting point by the start time of the run, or you may be replaced and counted as absent.

If you are signed up for a raid and cannot attend, or will be late, notice should be given to the raid leader either by in-game mail, a private message on RPGnet, or sending an e-mail to the Blacksky officers by e-mailing blackskyofficers at iceshadow dot com. If less than an hour of notice is given, and you are not ready to go by the raid start time, you may be counted as absent for the raid.

Being prepared to raid is defined as:

• Having all of your gear sets repaired above 90% durability
• Having all of your gear sets in your inventory that you may need to use (resist sets, healing sets, DPS sets, etc.)
• Having all required addons/programs installed, updated, and running
• Having enough reagents for the raid, typically being a stack for buffing materials and 20+ soulshards for warlocks, a full quiver of ammo for hunters, etc.
• Having any raid-specific requirements ready to go (some raids may require items, potions, elixirs, etc.)

Attendance

Players are also expected to make every effort to attend the raids they sign up for. If a player misses three consecutive sign-ups, or two sign-ups in a raid cycle, they will only be allowed to sign up as replacements until the completion of the next full raid cycle, and thus will only get to raid if there are not enough interested other players. Players who chronically miss raids may be asked to sign up as a replacement only on a longer basis.

Leaving early or coming late will be considered the same as an absense, whether or not the person was able to go to a portion of the raid, as it is important to have a full block of time to dedicate to learning strategies and encounters. Sometimes several (or all) of the participants on any given raid may choose to raid past the finish time; however, raiders may always leave at the scheduled finish time, or without notice after it, with no negative repercussions.

If this sounds serious, it is, a bit. Yes, this is only a hobby, but if you do not attend when you have signed up, you are inconveniencing up to twenty-four other players, or even preventing them from raiding. We understand that real life is more important, and that is why you will always be able to miss a single raid without warning with no negative repercussions, but having a stable and available group of players is the only way to advance in raid content. In addition, there are ways to sign up as a replacement player that should be utilized if you are unsure if you can attend.

Loot distribution

Distribution may vary by instance, or may be shared with other instances. A summary of different loot systems that we use will follow.

Scheduling

Each raid will be split up into separate raiding days on a set cycle of time (typically one or two weeks). Raids will have two types of spots available: Raid Serious, and Raid Casual. Raid Serious spots will be assigned by IceShadow from a pool of interested players, and will have a maximum of 60% of the available spots for any given raid. These spots will be filled each raid by a set group of players that will change only when warranted; the Raid Serious players assigned to those spots will be guaranteed places at each raid.

The Raid Casual spots will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis through sign-ups using the Guild Event Manager 2 addon. Raids will be posted on GEM one week prior to the raid. Preference for Raid Casual spots will be given first to fill raid roles (tanks, healers, DPS), second to fill class requirements (as evenly spread out as possible), and third to people who have not had the chance to attend any raid recently, in that order.

If you are uncertain if you can attend and wish to sign up as a Raid Casual spot on the chance you might be able to go, make sure to check the "Force Replacement" box. This can be removed later and you can be sorted back by signup time/slot, but only up to an hour before the start of the raid. Preference will be given to those who sign up normally and not as replacements, but signing up as a replacement is a good way to save your sign-up time if you are uncertain of your availability, or simply to express your interest without committing.

Eligible raiders should express their interest in scheduling by stating which spots they will be available to sign up (Raid Casual) and which they would like to attend on a regular basis (Raid Serious). Players will choose a designation of Raid Casual or Raid Serious Applicant for each raid day they express interest in. IceShadow will assign Raid Serious spots from the available pool of eligible Raid Serious Applicants.

A thread on the Video Games Open subforum will act as discussion about players' desires for raid positions, and players will be able to directly edit their RSA/RC status, and add or remove themselves from consideration and availability, or IceShadow will simply use the thread to populate the appropriate area of the wiki page. Players should indicate which days they are interested in raiding, whether they would like to be considered for a Raid Serious position or simply be a Raid Casual available person, and how many Raid Serious positions per week they would be willing to fill. (It is possible that someone will express their availability for more Raid Serious spots than they wish to raid per week, and this maximum will ensure that people are not overbooked for Raid Serious spots.)

IceShadow will attend each raid and take one Raid Serious spot as a main tank and raid leader. Additional Raid Serious spots will first be filled by available tanks and healers as needed, and then DPS roles, attempting to achieve as even a class balance as possible, and attempting to ensure that each person who wishes to be Raid Serious is alloted a place. Raid Serious positions may be taken away from players who have more than one Raid Serious position per cycle in order to allow someone else to have a Raid Serious position, but if a player only has one Raid Serious position per cycle, it should never be removed without request for a non-disciplinary reason. Players will not be assigned new Raid Serious spots after their initial indication of interest, even if they remain listed as a Raid Serious Applicant, without being asked by IceShadow first; thus, no one will be suddenly thrust into a new Raid Serious spot without consent.

Players should let IceShadow know if they wish to step down from a Raid Serious position, either to remove themselves from the night entirely or just to move to a Raid Casual spot. A week's notice would be appreciated, but only 24 hours is really necessary (to avoid being considered absent). Accommodations will be attempted if they still wish to be Raid Serious on another night if someone steps down from their only Raid Serious position, but a spot cannot be guaranteed.

This system should, given a large enough pool of interested players, allow the most advancement to be made in raid progress while still allowing players to attend given their own possible strict time constraints. Players will also be able to choose their own level of involvement.