I ranted a few days ago about the abuse of tentative status on the in-game calendar. Now that it’s been posted to guild forums, here is what I’ve done to deal with that problem – and to more immediately address the problem of people logging on about half a minute before the raid is supposed to start. I decided I really only have one stick that I can effectively beat people with.

The loot stick. It looks like your average staff, but it’s completely purple and has jagged spikes at one end. All in all, it looks like it was formed from the giant trees in Crystalsong Forest.

We use Suicide Kings for loot distribution, a change we went to recently after many years of open rolls, main spec over off spec. I love the system, because it’s easy to use, especially with a good addon, and I manage to win loot every once in a while! Magic! Did I also mention that it’s very fair? I’ve never used the DKP system because, frankly, it sounds like a nightmare. From what I’ve heard and read about though, Suicide Kings is like the casual version of that – perfect for a casual, raiding guild.

And now it has even more uses! Someone sign up for a raid and fail to show up on time or at all and didn’t bother to communicate that in advance?

Suicide them! (Or, as Noxy pointed out in his punny way, homicide them!)

Someone decide not to sign up at all because they’re the same person who always tries to snipe a spot at the last minute?

Suicide them!

Someone leave themselves as tentative and never bother to commit until 2 minutes before raid time?

Suicide them!

It’s quite possible that this makes no sense to someone outside the guild. I’m sure it sounds unjustifiably harsh to penalize someone when they did at least make it, more or less before raid time. I could see that. But we rarely have more than 11 or 12 people sign up for any 10 man raid. It’s even more rare to see more than the same six people sign up as “Accepted” several days in advance. And as the person trying to herd the cats, I’m tired of never knowing how or even if a raid will happen until 5 minutes before start time. But it happens constantly the way things are set up – or were set up. Just last weekend, sign ups were so badly sporadic that we ended up going to ToC on Friday night when we should have been in ICC. Then on Saturday, raid time rolled around and we had eight people capable of raiding ICC online.

We almost headed to fucking Naxx for the Less is More achievement.

But then two more people came online and it felt like rewarding bad behavior to invite them and go to ICC anyway. But it was equally unfair to everyone who did sign up and show up on time to say, “Too bad. Screw those jerks. We’re still doing this Naxx thing.”

So we went to ICC. And I did some dressing down which was, as far as I can tell, either ignored or they were too ashamed to say anything back.

So here I am now, with my rage and my plans and my loot stick. I hope I won’t have to beat the hell out of people before they finally get it, and I hope that girding myself to possibly toss some raiders out on their ears altogether won’t end up being necessary.