battletagoneCof5#1879

20 August 2012

Discovering OpenRaid

Where the hell have I been? How did I have no clue that there was a group that coordinated cross-server raids? If I had only known this sooner, my inner achiever would be ever so much more satisfied, but alas! Ignorance prevailed. Huh?


Check out OpenRaid. The basic premise of this is to allow folks across servers to coordinate the available raids -- vanilla stuff like Molten Core or Blackwing Lair all the way up to the original cata raids (To4W, BoT, BWD).

This raises the possibilities in my raiding from slim to probable, and it's huge for me.  Why?  Simply because I can't allocate a consistent time each week to raid due to my personal schedule. It's not fair for me to ask a raid team of 9 or 24 other folks to include me and then not be available reliably to help the progression. As a result, the only raids I was able to run (outside of LFR) have been random trade chat encounters. Sometimes, those go well, and other times not so much.

Enter OpenRaid. I can search for a time where I know I can be online. Then, I can either browse for raids being run (PVP or PVE) during that time and sign up. It's that easy.

Granted, there is some setup. You need an account with OpenRaid, and you need to prove that you own the character(s) you want to raid with. Depending upon the raids, you may also need ventrillo access, but I look at that as pretty standard stuff.

My only complaint? OpenRaid sends me an email when a raid leader approves my participation in a raid. I'm now all excited!  I was all set to run ICC 25m on Friday night. Well, you can also be un-approved if that raid leader needs to bring in guildmates or other friends. So, I was camped out at the entrance to ICC at 9:45 pm for my 10:00 start... and I waited... and waited... and waited... and at 10:05 I tabbed out to check OpenRaid. I had been un-approved (but there's a gap that you're not emailed letting you know that you've been un-approved).

I admit, I was disappointed that I had planned to be online and run a raid. After moping and cussing for a few minutes, I started searching more and found another ICC 25 last night.

Why it works?

I think the reason why OpenRaid works is that you have reputation points. Once your raid completed, you rate the raid leader AND the other participants. So if the Raid Leader was a jerk, downgrade them. If a player was cluelessly unaware and unable to follow any level of instructions, downgrade them. I believe that the online reputation points makes players perform at their best -- after all, you will be graded, right?

Oh if I only knew about this a few months ago, I'd probably have a few more meta's under by belt.  /sigh

Hoping to see you in a cross-server raid soon!

4 comments:

  1. Wow look at all those achievements! Grats Chris!

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    1. Amazing the amount of achievement spam I get in 25s. I was never a 25'er. We ran 10s when I was an active raider. Thanks!

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  2. When I last checked them out things were super quiet. Nice to see its picking up again. I'm going to give it a shot for RBGs once 5.0 is out and I can use battle tags instead of realid for it.

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    1. oh yeah.. battletags are so appealing!

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