Oh this? That's just my feat of strength....

New poll on feats of strength: www.raidingresearch.co.uk

So last night I participated in observing one high-end raiding guild’s (Bridgeburners on the EU-Emerald Dream server) final push toward achieving a pretty difficult guild feat of strength. They had to start at 3 am (when things ‘ticked over’) game time.They managed to have a couple dozen of their guild at the ready for group activity such as heroic runs, intended to give them more guild exp and push their guild’s level to 25, thus earning them the highly prized feat of strength of being the first guild on the server to level 25. As one of the guild members put it to me, “This is a once in a game experience opportunity.”

I asked to join in and they graciously allowed me. But my role was more as a fascinated observer than active participant. I got up at 2 am my time (3 am game time)… I logged into the game… I listened to them on vent. I tried to ask some insightful questions (at least they sounded insightful to me at the time). But mostly I sat and watched. Obviously a guild achievement is for that guild alone and I could only do so much from the sidelines, but I’ll admit I am extremely impressed. I asked the group this morning (yes they kept going all night, while I gave up after two hours for a snooze) what percentage of their group they estimated to have participated and they believed around 80-90% so far with an expectation that every member of the guild will pitch in at some point. They are not quite there yet, but I would estimate that they will get to the FoS within a few hours. UPDATE: Within a little more than 8 hours the guild had won the ‘Realm First’ achievement. And their relief and joy was audible on the vent channel! Congrats to them.

This feat of strength doesn't really give you a tangible reward. There is no pretty epic. I mean you can buy a mount and there's a server wide announcement and that's that.  But I think it proves something more valuable. It proves that a guild has done things together and can work together on guildwide tasks. I’d say that’s pretty important for things like guild cohesion and team building skills. Ironically, though, for a guild to pull together like this they already need some cohesion. And this guild has it. They are in the top 500 worldwide and they are the top guild on the server. But even they seemed surprised by the high level of participation and enthusiasm for the effort. They had not anticipated such a high rate of involvement and I think it’s given them not only a boost about what they can do, but (at risk of sounding cheesy) may have helped them pull together socially even more.

There were a few other guilds that actually were ahead of this guild when they started this push and, apparently, it seemed unlikely that they’d be able to surpass the other guilds. But based on their largescale response and support of the effort, and they actually did reach this goal first–nothing like being the underdog, after all! I asked the group if they would have been so motivated to charge ahead if there wasn’t any competition to contend with. Many responded that the competitive feel of this challenge was definitely a motivating factor. And are we really surprised? Raiders love a good competitive experience, after all.

But not all raiders find value in achievements or feats of strength. When I mentioned the plan to a friend in an elite guild, he expressed surprise at the effort as he himself does not care about achievements. Something that one could find a little ironic considering the coordinated effort, sacrifice, and dedication that elite raiders will often put into burning through the raiding content as quickly as possible.

But it’s about what we want to do while we play and how we create that atmosphere that helps us work together as groups on difficult tasks. I would be surprised if the positive impact of this groupwide effort didn’t have a positive impact on the group’s raiding efforts.

So how do we feel about these feats of strength and these big achievements? Do you participate? Do you care? Vote in the poll, www.raidingresearch.co.uk.