The Start of the Summer Slump

Last night's raid failed. We simply didn't have enough people to get the party off the ground. Sure, it was our healer's RL birthday, so he and his wife (2nd healer) didn't log on. Unfortunately, the crowd 3 people that did logon weren't motivated to do anything else. No raid? Guild chat is filled with a round of  g'night! all. Sadly, no one wanted to run a single heroic.. :(

I blame the pug. Nobody loves 'em. Everyone hates that he rubs his hiney on the carpet, has smelly, kibble breath, and constantly yelps. As I mentioned earlier, even the bag of goodies for the Dungeon Call to Arms, doesn't appear to be encouraging those necessary players to 'do one for the team'.

Really, why? Most people who are seriously raiding multiple times a night have all the gear they could want. They are either sporting an average ilevel of 359 gear (or heroically higher), or are very close to max'd out on tier gear. No need to suffer the pug's smelly breath, if all you want is to improve your gear. Raiding, or really, heroic raiding is the only thing that will suffice.

So, here begins the summer slump. Attendance is impacted by RL vacationing. (trip to beach <> WoW) Kids are up later and more outside activities consume the standard raid time. If 4.2 doesn't drop relatively soon and bring new raid content, attendance of the regularly scheduled raids (not just my casual group) is going to start suffering.

Good vibrations coming from the PTR. Last night when I checked the last update to the PTR, I downloaded a total of 40mb. Considering the game is 25gb, 40mb is like a single grain of rice, in a steaming, hot bowl of teriyaki chicken..That is a good sign that it should drop rather soon. (guess I shouldn't blog before eating).