A Fresh Start

I'll briefly start this post by letting you all know we would like to give Surge a proper fresh start.
Why am I writing this post?
I would like to help out giving Surge this fresh start, and feel I may have something to contribute with.

Anyway.

Since very few of you know who I am, I'll give you a brief introduction:

I'm a 23 year old norwegian, who's already put far too much time into this game.
I've got experience leading two large guilds on US-Shadowmoon in classic - for two years. We made decent progress - clearing all of the released content. We kept a decent guild structure, and things were decently organized, although, of course, they could have been better.

Once these guilds eventually disbanded, mainly due to server migration opening - which affected the entire server (people went to guilds such as Nightmares Asylum and Nerve, some even rerolled alliance to hit up Death & Taxes), I too followed a few of my friends to Nerve.
It was quite startling to see how things were run in all of these various guilds.
There was never a 'set' mentality, although a lot was often expected of the members.

I'll claim I have good experience in these regards, though there might be several others in this guild who have more.

That's why I'd like to start this post rolling by expressing what I expect of a semi-serious raiding guild, and would also like to hear from everyone else who are interested in keeping this guild running what YOU want.

Back to the guild, and remember, these are my suggestions:

Starting up, goals and aims:

Now, starting up from 'scratch' is something that won't be everyone's cup of tea. It will be required of us, however. So those of you, who would rather not do this again, you need to let us know, and leave for something that's more desirable to you. We cannot force people to spend money playing a game and not doing what they want to do - and we won't.

• How will we start? Firstly, gearing us up somewhat, will take at least two 10man Naxx-resets. Once the tanks, who I'm hoping we will have plenty of this time around, have decent enough mitigation to tank the 25mans, and our memberbase permits us to actively do this, we will once again attempt to clear the content.

• This shouldn't be hard, but it will require some time. Therefore, it would be a very good idea if the people who are willing to stay (or join) try getting to know eachother in the meanwhile.
  
  In my experience, guilds work tremendously well once everyone knows eachother. People won't be so much on guard for friendly advice, we all know what to expect of eachother, etc.

This all brings me to the next point.

Playstyle:

• If you do not want to improve as a player, or rather, a teamplayer, this project is not for you.
  
  Although it would be very awesome if we could accomodate to every playstyle, it simply won't happen. People will get frustrated if you refuse giving your best, and continueously are at fault for wasting others' time.
  
  Therefore we will probably have a more rigid quality control than what was present earlier.
  No zerg-recruiting. But please keep your eyes open for nice, mature players. Adeptness is a bonus, but we can always teach people how to play this relatively simple game.
  
  Primadonnas, however, are bad seeds, and just more likely to wreck our prospects. When time calls for cockiness, sure, go ahead, but right now, we are very brittle, and would much rather get started as gently as possible.
  
  Snide remarks are better saved for people you already know, who will laugh with you, instead of sneering at you.

Classes:

• Since the inception of WOTLK, it's both easier to get gear for off-specs, and easier to play said off-specs efficiently.
  With the added bonus of all these lore-bases (wowwiki, elitistjerks, etc.), it takes very little to learn a lot about your own class.
  
  Therefore, while you should always focus on a main spec, do not neglect your off spec. If each class has at least gear for two specs, the risk of cancelling raids due to a lack of X role diminishes greatly.
  
  With the influx of death knights, let's take advantage of their ability to tank, and more so, their impending buffs.

Raidtimes:

• We must find out when a good day is for the majority of our players, this should be easily solved with a poll.
  19:00-23:00 seems to be what's the basic raiding times for most european guilds, unless this doesn't work, we will probably use that.
  
  As we get more familiar with some content, we can expect this alotted time-slot to shrink on some days, and remain the same on progression days.

Raids:

• Ideally, we want a raidleader who is brief, but also very concise. I could take on this role eventually, but I'd firstly like to run the raids a few times so I know how the guild deals with them, and they're somewhat engraved in my mind.
  If anyone would like to volunteer for this position, that's awesome. We would try you out, see how it goes, and offer constructive criticism, and commend you for your efforts.
  
  We want our raids to be efficient. No waiting several minutes between wipes. It's tolling for everyone. If this happens too much, drastic measures must be taken, although we will definitely be soft at the beginning of this guild's restart.
  
  Also, we will do our best to prepare for said raids. While consumables most likely are not necessary for the current WOTLK raids, preparation can also mean: we let everyone know which raidboss we will attempt, members spend a few minutes reading up on said boss, so they know what to expect, which strategy we will use, etc.

That's all I have for now, please come with your suggestions, and I hope everyone who is truly interested in seeing this happening offer their opinions, and actively contribute to this thread until we're ready for launch.

Once we (hopefully) manage to find out what the guild wants through input in this very thread, we will set up some general guild guidelines (rules).

Gear checks, enchants on all slots

Great post pal.

Can't say anything else than that I agree with you on every point.

Just a short note regarding consumables, while they're not neccesary, they're not hard to come by either. And for a progression raid, they can sometimes provide the edge needed. The current content may be easy compared to TBC, but if your gear is severly lacking then you should probably consider bringing a flask or two.

Obviously this doesn't equal to spending hundreds of gold to min-max your performance for every pull, but rather being aware of the limits of your class and your gear. If you go out of mana from the mindless chain casting that's required on bosses like Patchwerk, then you could invest in a Mp5 flask. If it's a fight where the enrage timer is barely manageable, you could consider bringing a flask that maximizes your damage output.

This is of course more important for future raids such as Ulduar and beyond.

I think what Sest has already suggested is a pretty good start. I can't think of anything to add to that really.

What we need to keep in mind is that this is indeed a fresh start. I can see that going from raiding many times a week to not at all is pretty hard on many of the (now former) members. We have quite a bunch of people online daily still leveling up. What is called for here is a little patience. I have no doubt that in the near-distant future we can atleast get a 10-man team going. A way to speed up this process is for our level 80 people to come online, even when there are no raids, and assist those who cannot raid yet. We can also get to know each other better this way.

What i'd like this to become is a small, dedicated group of people, who love to play and have fun together, achive new things. I don't care if we never ever get a 25-man raid going. I just want to experience what this expantion has to offer, even if it's on a small scale. And i want to do this with people i enjoy playing with, people who can be arsed to put some effort into it.