Raiding. Leading. Again.

Saltycracker, Big Crits' former Raid Leader, has returned to Big Crits after a brief hiatus. The following is a blog post from Salty about his new role in Big Crits. You can read his blog at http://randthotgen.blogspot.com/

About a month ago, I got that itch again to start raiding. I missed it. More importantly, I missed the people that enjoy raiding. The people that make new friends constantly, tell geeky jokes, make bad sexual innuendos and double entendres. You know, fun people. Not like all those stuck-up people you meet everyday in real life.

Ishraaq, our fearless Da Crew chief, approached me about leading another Firelands run. Something simple, something 10man, something for mains/alts/those not raiding enough. I agreed to lead it. This has now morphed into a 25man Dragon Soul run with expectations attached to it. Yikes.

Let's talk about Da Crew for a second quick. Da Crew is our "casual" raiding rank for people just not up to snuff with the standards of the main progression team, but still wanting to raid with good people. The problem is that casual is a very grey word. Back when Big Crits was formed and the guild was starting to pick up steam, there were a lot of people wanting to be a part of the guild, who did not have the time/desire to raid in a progression environment. Couple this with the fact that pugging raids on Sen'jin Horde was AWFUL, Da Crew started joining up and became a casual group of people with whom the alts of the main raiders and the casual folk could play and have a good time getting some phat purps. 

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Big Crits & Geek Switch - The return of the Big Critcast (sort of)

Back in the day there was this thing called the Big Critcast. It's hard to keep a healthy real life, a progression raiding spot, and another crazy time-commitment habit like a podcast, and so unfortunately the Big Critcast fell to the wayside.  Fast-forward to summer 2011 and after some lively Twitter exchanges with @Kirwen he joined Big Crits on Sen'jin. When he and @TonyLivingston launched their uber-geek website, Geek Switch, they were going to include a podcast. After talking with Kirwen, aka Dante, we realized we had a great opportunity to connect some geek dots.

Starting this week, every Geek Switch podcast will include a Big Crits update segment. Some weeks might even feature another Big Critter (Furioso dropped in last week to flex his sexy--and quite possibly over-sexed--self) but definitely you'll get the update from yours truly as to what's going on in Big Crits. More about this week's killer episode below.

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Ten Man Raiding - A Postmortem

After raid leading 25mans during Wrath, I decided to see how the 10man side of progression raiding would measure up to what I thought was the more stressful and chaotic 25man side of things. While it lived up to my expectations in some areas, 10man progression raiding underperformed drastically in others. Would I call it a win or a loss? I’d call it a wash. Both models have their warts, but as long as the Internet exists there will be people from both camps lobbing grenades at each other.  Let’s dive in.

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Why I won’t be going to Best Buy at midnight

When Wrath of the Lich King was released, I showed up at the midnight event in NYC at about 11pm. The line was a few hundred people deep, so I turned around and went home; I had to work the next day anyway. This year, having done extensive standing-in-line training at Blizzcon, I was primed to stand outside in the cold for the midnight release of Cataclym so I could get my collector's edition and start playing that very same night.

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