Cremzen

Well, someone's getting off their tushie to try to make it happen, but I can't do it alone. I think one man Hami raids are pretty much impossible, like 99.99999%.
What really seems to get me, that even though raiding is not fast enough to be worth some people's time, they make the time to tell us about it. The people who are lazy get off their @$$ to say they can't do it. Those who are unwilling to help, say it more than likely can't be done. PLEASE do not take this as me flaming anyone who has expressed their opinion negatively towards raiding. There are alot of different opinions out there, and it's your God-given right to have them, and your internet provider that gives you the right to express your opinions, freely. It is not my intention to pick a fight or tell anyone they're wrong, but why bother wasting your time discouraging others from trying something new? Yes, there are many of us that have done it and done it and done it, but some of us actually still like doing it, and there's a huge number of people who've never gotten the chance to experience it. How many people do you think there is on our server who've only been around for 3-9 months? And how many of those do you think have experienced a raid? Some might not ever want to, but they might look at this thread and get discouraged from ever trying it. I know there's a good number of people on Infinity that are grinders, or "min/maxers", as someone put it, and until we can get our times down and keep them down consistently, this is not an event for you, but some of us like the "epicness" of doing a raid.
The fact is, I know we can get a raid done, I just can't promise it'll be under 60 or 90 minutes. Do I think we can bring whatever times we have down once we've gotten a little more used to them? Absolutely. Can we bring them down to other server's average times? I don't see why not. We just need to get this thing off the ground first. Once the community is a bit more familiar with it again, there's no telling what we can get done.
Basically, it all boils down to this, I'm trying to bring life back to an event that I know at least some people really enjoy doing, and the last thing I want, is to debate whether it's right for each individual that frequents these forums.
If I have pissed you off, offended you, or attacked any of your opinions, I apologize. I'm just expressing my opinion, as you have the right to do....

Time vs return is more of a worry then risk vs reward, but a raid shouldn't be just another task to be thrown into the normal TF grinding for merits, it's just something a little different from all that with a nice reward. But for the sake of those grinders, I can understand your position. This problem is easily remedied by having the community supporting the raids more, which is what I'm trying to get an idea of now.
Most of the people that were actively participating in the raids lead by OSHA, or the OSHA's I should say, and Miss Illuzion can tell you that those raids did not take very long at all. On a really bad day, they never lasted more than two hours, and for a 53 merit/HO reward, that's no too bad. Having participated in a large number of those raids, and going on to lead teams in some, I know how to do it successfully, as I did not too long before taking a break. Unfortunately, I was thrown a HUGE curveball at the start when half of my team leads didn't show. That was the biggest hurdle to overcome in that particular raid, but I did take the time to make sure that the fill in leads knew as much as I could, as fast as my fingers could type.
As far as the amount of time each step of the raid takes really just depends on the people that show up. EoE farming is usually done the night before, and if only a few people show up, it can take quite awhile, but if most of the people planning to raid shows up, it goes very fast, like maybe 15-20 minutes, maybe less. Then during the actual raid, spawning Hami takes a few minutes, but it depends on how many GM's we have to kill to bring Hami out. If we have all our team leaders present and prepped so they can prep their teams, setup isn't too long, 5-10 minutes at the most. If we're well prepared, we can began the waves in a matter of a couple minutes. Taking Hami out consists of four waves, each wave taking 5-15 minutes, depending on how good the participants are, and the setup for each wave all depends on how fast our TPers can get their teams out, and how many rezzers we have. I know OSHA had his times down to under an hour, from Hami spawn to defeat.
When you look at the problems, like if you feel it's not worth doing (i.e. risk vs reward, time vs return, etc.), it all boils down to three main things, a good raid leader, good, dependable team leads, and a community supporting it. Now, I can't begin to claim to be the foremost expert on Hami, but I can get the job done. People might be a little reluctant to step up to lead a team, but I think that can be overcome. I believe the common belief is that you have to be an expert on Hami just to lead a team, but that's just not true. When half of the team leads didn't show for my previous raid, I had to recruit a few, Madame Diesalot stepped up to tank Hami, and fortunately, she had a little experience. Gate-Keeper and Doom Saint, however, stepped up to lead teams with little to no experience, and did a great job. All a lead needs is to be a good player, and a decent leader. Experience is always a plus, but knowing Hami is the raid leaders job. Then there just leaves the community, and whether they're going to get behind the raids, and that's what this whole post is all about.

I think this is a fairly accurate description of the problems we had when I was actively playing, and trying to organize raids. I agree with Slax that more than likely, it won't happen here, and that's pretty much due to the troubles I had lining up team leads. It took a while to line them up for the first raid, and half didn't show for whatever reasons, and I never could find enough to do a second raid. But, more than plenty of people showed to participate in the actual raid. The raid didn't actually start until like two hours after the scheduled time trying to get some leads in place and prep them for what they needed to direct their teams to do, but once started, didn't take long to kill off Hami, and if memory serves, without any wipes, either. If Infinity is pretty close to how it was four months ago, attendance wouldn't be the issue, it would be team leads.


I do have to disagree with Mishmaster's post, though. Veteran players, more than any other, should know that the risk is minimal in a raid, so long as you know the raid you're going into. If you go into a raid with very little planning beforehand and with raid leaders that know very little of everyone else's role in the raid, then the risk is very, very high. I can't honestly say I've participated in more raids than anyone on the server, but I've been in alot of 'em, and I can honestly say that with good organization and proper execution, a raid holds next to no risk. I've participated in a number of planned raids lead by OSHA, and lead a couple of teams, then went on to lead a number of teams for Miss Illuzion, and not once have I been apart of a planned raid that failed. I know of a few raids that failed, and in those cases, they were pick up raids, or not thoroughly planned, and even one that had mostly bAEbies attending. As I stated, the raid I lead a number of months back, half of my team leads didn't show up, so I had to scramble to recruit and "field train" a few, and even though they had little to no raiding experience, they proved to be good leaders, and I explained every small detail to them that, once we began, Hami fell rather quickly. And that, I have to give credit to everyone in attendance for being patient through the beginning, and doing the job their teams had to do.
Infinty has been producing some pretty good players since I first played this game, and that's to no small part those veterans that blazed the trail for us. It's honestly not a question of whether Infinity can do it, I know we can, it's a question of whether Infinity wants to do it. So, once again I ask, if you want to bring the raids back, leave it here.

Just bring your scrap, Caleb. You can join Herc's team, or run on mine. I might try having my team follow another person on my team as a "targetter" so I can pay a tad more attention to the rest of the raid.

Bring whatever you want, like i said in my first post, and i think you're tank will be a great addition to the raid. We usually are a few tanks light of what we need, mainly because it's probably the most boring part of the raid, but it's what we have to do to get this done.
Don't pay too much attention to my initial post. I gave a few notes so people would have a basic idea of what to bring, but more than that, I wanted to give the impression that this is an easy task to do, but not one we can half-***. If you have a good group that bring their best, this raid will be cake, but, if people bring just any thrown together char, this will be an epic phail. You can bring damn near any char you want to play with, you just can't bring that char you just PLed to 50, and know next to nothing on how to use them. It was said in the last thread I posted that bAEbies ruined the last raid, and it did.
Basically, I just want everyone who is not familiar with the raids to bring their best, do their given role to the fullest, listen close, and be patient. I've had a blast of the raids OSHA and Miss illuzion ran, and I want to try to bring those back, and to make it fun again.

EoE farming will most likely take place the night before the raid. As of this moment, I don't know specifically when the raid will go down, BUT I spoke to Kellian last night, and he's agreed to taunt Hami for us. I'm glad he's going to be helping out, because hami taunt was the position I was most worried about filling. I'll be getting with the team leads to schedule a date that's good for everyone, and if it's good for all, I'm looking at the first Saturday in October (2 weeks)to get this thing done. I will post a new thread when we have a time scheduled for sure.

Thanks for the suggestion, guys. Kelian would be awesome. The one thing I was worried about was getting a good tank for Hami, and I'm pretty sure Kel can do it himself, think he did last time, with a couple emps.
It's good to see that, even thought you're not playing anymore, that you guys are still trying to help.

Don't worry, NIKKILA, there was no raid last night. I'm just trying to set up some team leads right now.
Looks like I've got 2 leads for the blasters, 1 for the trollers, and 1 for the yellow taunt team. I'll be leading the primary yellow assault team, and we still need a lead for the second scrap team and, of course, Hami taunt. It would be very nice if I can find some backup leads for the teams in case RL gets in the way for someone, as well. Any experienced raider would be good for any of these leads, not just experienced team leads. Feel free to message me in game to @Cremzen, or just leave a response here.

The last raid I participated in had alot of people involved, but VERY few who knew what they were doing. That's why I'm trying to do some preparation before leading one, so we at least have the team leads prepped on what's going to go down, before giving instructions to the participants just prior to the raid. And i'm really hoping for strong support from the raid vets, so we don't have another failed raid, and put one more nail in the hami raiding coffin for Infinity.