Behold...the key!Follow

I'm surprised to discover how much drama can occur over one little key. The Naxx 10 iris key to be exact.

My guild got its first clear of Naxx a couple of months ago. We're a small social guild who not until recently has given raiding any kind of shot. So we're behind just about everyone else in WoW, but that's fine. We're not competing. It was a big accomplishment for us so we're stoked.

Well we down Saph and I reward the key to our disc priest. She's been to EVERY single raid we've ever had on that character and is one of our officers. I had passed this buy the other officers and made an off hand comment to the guild about it. Well the key drops and I give it to my mom and one of our members starts throwing a fit.

Mind you, he's the kind of guy who has hindered our progression, refusing to run with the guild until he was sure it was going to be a nice smooth run for him. He's shown up to a total of two raids in the last two months. So I ask...what?


Now the reason I turn this into a thread is because my horde guild tonight ran Naxx 10. Four of us are 80s. We hosted the event. Provided the tanks and one of the healers and DPS. Each of us were in the raid for every boss beginning to end despite having gone through well over 18 other DPS and healers over the last two nights as people would decide to bail after a few bosses. (we made great time, well controlled run, and well cooridinated group...they just decided "hey i have work tomorrow, bye").

Now granted I should have notified the group ahead of time, I forgot, but once the key dropped I announced to the raid that I would be taking it for our guild. I am our main tank so nothing is going to be happening with the guild that doesn't involve me.

Two people throw yet another fit in raid chat about how since its a pug I should make it fair for everyone.


Now I fully expect some to disagree with me. Which is fine. I'm simply putting this out there to find out what are your guilds standards regarding key drops like this. Does it change when there are pugs?

This is my mindset. I am the raid leader. I setup and led the raid for the 5-6 hours we spent clearing naxx over two nights. My guild was consistently there for every single boss fight. I think its insane to give open roll for a key so someone, who is outside our group, who we will never see again, can win the key. When it comes to a guild run, I think its important that an officer who has been committed to the guild running naxx repeatedly should also get the key. It completely kills our raid groups progression, even if we're pugging, simply throwing away the key to others. Chances are the majority of the people who win that key are not ever going to use it. And they definitely are not going to use it to benefit our raid group.

In every other loot roll I am completely and totally fair. I show no favortism on loot. But when it comes to that key, which is access to another raid, I make sure it lands in the hands of someone who is going to be providing the best chances of us all getting access.

What is your opinion?

Unless you warn upfront, giving the key to your guild is only slightly different from giving yourself a piece of gear you didn't win because "Hey, I ran this, didn't I? I deserve something."

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but you must be absolutely certain everyone knew in advance.

Well the problem here lies in that it is not just a piece of loot. Its access to a raid. If I reward someone a piece of loot I can be almost certain its going to be used. However, a key is a different story. It grants access to a raid. Without that key there is no access. The majority of players are not going to form up and lead an Eye of Eternity run. The majority of them are not going to make sure as many people from our current raid are going to get access to EoE. Whereas we will be including at least four from our guild and as many of the people who contributed the most to the Naxx 10 run.

Also, the idea that all should get equal access to a key that requires a complete clear of Naxx is a bit illogical. There was only one person besides our guild mates when Sapphiron fell that had been with us for more than a quarter, let alone every boss. As I said, we had literally gone through 17+ pug players getting to Sapphiron. Most of those who were part of the Saph kill had only been there at best an hour and a half. Compared to the four of us which had dedicated six hours to clear every boss and continue the raid the second night.

I agree that everyone should ideally get equal chance on loot, but to say the person that just joined the raid for Saph should get to roll on a key that required a complete clear of Naxx is a bit...well honestly unfair to those who made the effort to show each night and for each boss.

Edited, Sep 6th 2009 1:39am by ekaterinodar

It's Naxx10..


It should have been clear up front, but that can get tedious if you really did have ~18 new people come in.




Really though... its Naxx10.

True, but many of those necklaces don't compare to badge rewards or even Heroic ToC drops. With that said, I plan on creating a loot rules macro including the special notes about the key.

I had fully intended on announcing our intentions with the key before the pull, but unsurprisingly the players who threw temper tantrums (note, I do differentiate between honest complaining and downright childish whining) was getting belligerent and causing problems BEFORE the pull. After dealing with them I was pretty flustered and forgot.


Anyway, since it seems these group of guildies want to make raiding a habit I'll probably create up a few macros announcing our run rules which I'll spam every time we get a new member to ensure nobody is confused about loot.

Edited, Sep 6th 2009 1:55am by ekaterinodar

It's a wise idea.

Another wise idea would be to have everyone in guild start practicing on the daily quest "Aces High!" for when you take your Maly key out for a spin.

As for the guildie who complained about not getting the key, that would be grounds for a /gkick imo. People who don't contribute and then complain about loot are not worth keeping around.

As for the Horde run, that's a touchy subject. Personally, I would never join a PUG hosted by a guild (ie. at least 3 people in a 10-man run were from the same guild, including the RL) and expect to be given the key (or even a chance to roll on it).

On a more or less related sidenote, making the following rule for PuGs is almost a must:
"If you **** up on a boss (for example, crossing charges on Thaddius) You get NO loot for that boss."

It drastically reduces the amount of **** ups and removes the painful thing of giving loot to a failure.
It's also hilarious to see how everybody agrees to the rule at the start, then when someone fails, rolls on loot and gets told he ****** up and doesn't get loot the rule makes no sense and it was lag/a bug/the cat's fault.

The PUG members were absolutely in the right to say it should be an open roll. If you don't declare the rule ahead of time, you can't wait until the boss has been downed and say "by the way, my guild is getting this". There's no such thing as an implicit loot rule.

You're wrong. It is not the prerogative of the raid leader to say "you can't have this, you'd never use it". For all you know, those others were there because their guild was skipping a raid that week and they wanted to try to pick up the key to get their own guild into further raids. Your role is only to enforce those loot rules which are stated (i.e., main spec only, then off, etc.) and allocate loot accordingly. You don't say "this is a bigger upgrade for someone else than you, so you don't get it even though you rolled higher".

Again, loot rules are not implicit. You're right that it would be stupid to give the key to someone who joined for one wing. It would be even stupider not to tell them this up front. They could reasonably expect to be given a shot to loot, because they did participate, even if only in part of the raid. You don't tell someone who joins a heroic before the last boss "you can't have any of this loot because we did the entire instance to get here and you didn't".



That's swell. A great idea. There's absolutely no guarantee that you people you invited had read this, though (in fact, it's pretty unlikely they had). Again, state the rules IN THE RUN or else you may as well not have any rules. If we go to play a game of tag, and I touch you and yell "you're it!" and then you punch me in the face and inform me that we were playing by European Standard Rules Edition 18 Volume 4, where excessive noise is punishable by injury and expulsion from the game, don't be surprised when I punch you right back.

Honestly, you don't sound like you want to hear whether you were wrong or right. You very much sound like you want to hear that these people were wrong, when really, it's completely your fault for not stating how loot would be distributed. It's entirely possible that these guys were ********, yes; but if you don't want ******** getting any loot, don't put them in your raid. If you spend their time on your run and then, after it's all done, say "thanks for the free key!", you're the one being a jerk.

And a pug is a pug, no matter how many guildies are in it. From your perspective you forgot to mention a rule of the raid. From their perspective, you changed the rules.

True, but calling something a "guild run" when 6 out of the 10 members aren't in your guild is a bit iffy.

I think the only way to settle this is for you to log onto an alt and ask the other faction what they think.

If a guild is having to PuG spots to fill a raid, everyone who participated in that raid is entitled to roll. I say that as someone who has never rolled on something like that in a PuG, but I could have. I'm not there for the loot. But as someone said, this may be someone whose guild canceled their run that week, or even has no other way to run Naxx. Just because they aren't in a guild doesn't mean that they couldn't use the key. PuGs happen all the time, even for EoE; with the key they could make up their own PuG.