I know that Saturday comes after Friday, and that Sunday is after that, but Rebecca Black is damn near useless in teaching me where Monday can be found…

• Bastion went pretty smoothly this Monday.  Hopefully, we’ll down Halfus and the Twin Dragons quickly this Saturday so we can get in some attempts on the Twilight Ascendant Council.  I highly recommend checking out the fight if you’re coming so that we’ll be as prepared as possible.
• I will be raising the amount of gold for guild repair funds across the board.  If you have any input as to the level of repairs you would find most useful, please let me know.
• Auttylynn, Lunascar and I will be in Vegas from Saturday night to Thursday morning, so don’t be surprised if I’m not on much during that time.  I’ll try and pick up a souvenir for the guild while we’re out there.
• You already know this if you saw the Weekly Quest, but we’re planning a Guild Zul’Aman run this Sunday.  Let’s get this done before patch 4.1 hits so we can have a nifty Guild Feat of Strength.

It’s time, once again, for the Weekly Quest…where you can earn rewards for helping the guild with stuff and things.  This week, our quest is less about competition, and more about cooperation.

That’s right.  Anyone and everyone can earn points this week…you don’t have to beat Syvarian this time around (the guy must really want that Hello Kitty lunchbox).

There are also three — count ‘em, three! — different ways to contribute and earn GXP this time around.  Each one is worth 1 GXP, so you can get up to 3 points if you participate in all of them!

The Quests:

Task 1:  Anyone hitting the weekly guild contribution cap of 1,575,002 — viewed by sorting the guild roster by weekly guild activity — before the end of Monday night, will receive 1 GXP.
Task 2:  Anyone who contributes 1,000 gold to the guild bank, will receive 1 GXP.  No, you cannot receive more points for contributing more, but it was a nice thought, you high-roller, you.  (Please be sure an Author is on to verify the donation when you do it.  Those entries drop off the logs pretty quickly.)
Task 3:  Anyone who shows up for the Guild Zul’Aman run on Sunday will receive 1 GXP.  If more than 10 people show up, they will all receive points.  If less than the 8 people required for Guild Run credit show up, they will still receive points, but I will be forced to frown disapprovingly at everyone else.

It’s time to announce the winners of this week’s quest!  Three of you did your best to fill my mailbox with dead fish, but one of you went so far and beyond the others…well, let’s just say he really wanted some Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.S.

The Winners:

Syvarian (38 stacks!):  3 GXP and a Slashdance loot card
Galnadir (4 stacks):  2 GXP
Miyoko (3 stacks):  1 GXP

Miyoko also earned the achievement “Turtles All The Way Down” and is therefore being awarded a bonus 3 GXP!  Congratulations to her.

If you also fished up a Sea Turtle in the last two weeks, please let me know so you can receive proper credit.

I blame Daylight Savings Time.  I was supposed to set my clock forward one day, right?

• The Twin Dragons are down!  Once again, the “screenshot” is late, but coming soon.  Congratulations everyone.
• Sunday night the guild went in and easily one-shot both Yogg-Saron with one keeper and Algalon.  Congratulations to everyone who picked up Rusted Proto-Drakes and Starcaller titles.  We also went in to ICC and summarily dispatched heroic Lich King, so grats to everyone sporting Bane of the Fallen King, as well!
• I’ve officially picked up some crafted tanking epics and will be trying to get my mojo back this week so that I can be a viable tank when we’re low on meatshields.  I would appreciate if some patient folks could run some heroics with me in the meantime while I relearn the art of protection.

Have anything you think should be mentioned here?  Shoot me an e-mail at cutaia@thecunninglinguists.net.

The raid last night left some people feeling a little disappointed.  We ended up working on the Conclave of Wind, but Blackwing Descent had initially been on the schedule.  I take responsibility for the lack of communication on my part and for not thinking about some of the reasons this was a bad idea.

After the raid, we held a little open meeting in Mumble to discuss how we’ll handle raid schedules in the future.  I brought up a couple other things, too, while I had everyone there.

• From now on, we won’t deviate from raids that are scheduled on any given night.  This means that on Bastion of Twilight night, we won’t head over to kill Magmaw like we did this week.  This allows people who might need gear off a certain boss to know that they’ll get a chance at killing said boss if they sign up for its raid — no more zoning in to BWD to find your favorite loot piñata already dead.  It also allows people to be prepared for the content they’ll be tackling.  A great point was made by Cullendunn in that we likely would have done better on Conclave last night if people had known beforehand that we were going to be doing it.  Videos might have been watched, etc…
• We’re running into issues on some raid nights where more people are signing up for certain roles than we actually have slots for.  Going forward we’ll use earliest signups to determine who’s going to make it in when we have a surplus of attendants.  To avoid people simply signing up for everything that’s on the calendar, we’ll be unable to signup for guild events until a week before they are scheduled.  In other words, once this Saturday’s raid time arrives, the following Saturday’s event will be opened for signups.
• Finally…to be fair to people who are on the east coast or simply have limited time for raiding, we’ll start replacing guildies who haven’t shown up 10 minutes after the scheduled raid time.  We’ll replace first with backup guildies, followed by puggies.

On that last point, we initially started coming up with far more complex and in depth “rules” as far as punctuality, replacing, etc.  Fortunately, Rashmahal gave us a verbal kick in the ass to remind us of the more casual, social nature of our guild, so I thank him for that.

Thanks to everyone who was a part of the conversation.  I know it went on far too long and got way too businesslike, but I appreciate your help in bouncing all those thoughts around.  <4

Alright…this “screenshot” is several days late, but damnit…it was hard to make!  Ok, so it wasn’t, but that sounds better than saying I’m just lazy.  Whatever.  Leave me alone.

Is it the late edition because it’s almost Tuesday, or because I didn’t post one at all last week?  You decide.

• Halfus Wyrmbreaker is officially down!  It’s too late for me to put it together right now, but I’ll be sure to get the standard “screenshot” up tomorrow.  This only moved us up 1 or two spots on the server rankings, though.  Killing Conclave of Wind and the twin dragons will give us a nice boost, so those are both good candidates for our next targets.
• Also in rankings news, we’re currently 22nd on the server for raid achievements.  Just a nice little thing for you guys to be proud of.
• We had a great Ulduar run over the weekend.  We’ll be heading back Sunday night (the 13th) to try and finish off One Light in the Darkness to get some folks their drakes.
• A late congratulations to Hairsuit on his new mini off-tank.  In celebration, Clint handed off a lovely BoE helm to him tonight, so double grats!
• In the shameless self-promotion department, your guild leader has written something for a website besides WoW Insider.  There’s now an article up on learntoraid.com, with more to come in the future.

It’s time, once again, for the Weekly Quest…where you can earn rewards for helping the guild with stuff and things.  This week, the guild is in need of fish.  Not just any fish, but these fish:

• Algaefin Rockfish
• Blackbelly Mudfish
• Fathom Eel
• Highland Guppy
• Mountain Trout

These all come from fishing pools in Cataclysm zones, so you’ll probably need to be level 80 to start helping.  Keep in mind, though, that no fishing skill is required to succesfully fish from pools.  Send your fish in stacks to Cutaia to receive credit.  This quest will last for two weeks, ending at midnight on March 14th (standings will be posted one week into the quest to encourage some healty competition).  When this is all over, the fish will be turned into buff food for the guild bank.

Rewards:

First place:  3 GXP and a Slashdance loot card!
Second place:  2 GXP
First place:  1 GXP

As a bonus, anyone who gets the achievement “Turtles All The Way Down” will be awarded a bonus 3 GXP.  So, grab your rod and head out into the wilderness for some nice relaxing fishing.