Raiding vs. tabletopping

RangerWickett · Jan 5, 2010

I've been in game sessions ranging from 3 hours to 8. But I don't play WoW or any other MMO. How long do raids tend to last? I have a sense you can play a short raid in less than half an hour. I'm looking for the differences in what appeals for MMOs vs. tabletop RPGs, so I can play to the strengths of face-to-face gaming, and not try to compete with multi-million dollar technology.

Filcher · Jan 5, 2010

IMO, it is that I can log on at any time. The gratification is shallow, compared to a good tabletop session, but I don't need to try to schedule it with four of my friends. Quick, immediate immersion, without the wait.

cignus_pfaccari · Jan 5, 2010

The 5-man dungeons, on average, are supposed to take an hour. At present, based on the average gear level available, they should take at most half that time, even the new ones.

As for raids, a lot of time goes into assembling it, especially with a pick-up group (PUG) raid, but even guild raids people tend to not be there on time, need to update addons, etc. Also, remember that if the raid wipes, all that time is wasted.

In general, though, I'd assume 10-20 minutes per successful boss encounter, including trash.

A surprising number of raids have one real boss in them, like Eye of Eternity, Onyxia's Lair, and the Obsidian Sanctum (also Vault of Archavon, as everybody only wants the newest boss, really...). These (with the exception of EoE, which is a rather technical fight) are quite often pugged.

On the other hand, instances like Naxxaramas (16? bosses) and Ulduar (13 bosses) have many more and can take some time to clear. These are less likely to be completely pugged, but it happens.

Brad

ExploderWizard · Jan 5, 2010

When speaking of raiding there is a difference in time to complete from progression raids compared to having the raid "on farm".

During progression the boss fights are being learned, mistakes are made and progress is much slower. Once a raid is "known" and run by a good team they can go by pretty quick.

Its kind of like playing through a module multiple times with the same characters except the treasure tables always change.

coyote6 · Jan 5, 2010

ExploderWizard said:
Its kind of like playing through a module multiple times with the same characters except the treasure tables always change.

Every module comes with its own random treasure tables, too, and the GM looves to roll on 'em.

Kzach · Jan 5, 2010

The attraction of raiding in WoW used to be both the challenge and the loot. Nowadays there isn't much of a challenge so it's all about the loot. The prestige of having the best gear on your character that you can get.

To get that gear, you have to either raid or do arena. Arena is pretty quick. Team matchups, usually only lasting a few minutes. Raids are so easy these days that they can all be PUG'd (Pick Up Group, ie. a random selection of noobs from the Looking For Group channel).

People generally PUG for specific bosses, to get specific loot. These kind of arrangements usually take a good hour to get together and complete. This does depend on the time, though, as during off-peak times, raids can take quite a long time to get the numbers together. But during peak times, raids fill very quickly and with porting and summoning, a raid can be put together in ten to fifteen minutes and then take about half an hour to down the boss.

Guild raids are a different beast altogether. Guild raids will often go for several bosses at once, as opposed to PUG's which usually only go for one or two specific bosses, or have saved instances (raid dungeons reset every few days and until then, you're 'saved' to a raid ID so that dead bosses are gone). That can take several hours, depending on the commitment of the guild.

The camaraderie of a PUG is close to nil. You generally get to know a few regulars but at the end of the day you could be PUG'ing with just about any old noob. The camaraderie of a guild, however, is usually pretty strong.

All in all, I'd say your real competition is that sense of commitment and belonging to a guild. Anyone who would pass up a face-to-face session of D&D for a PUG, is probably someone you don't want to be gaming with anyway. So ultimately, it's about friendships and whether or not someone's commitment to the guild is stronger than their commitment to their D&D group.

kaomera · Jan 5, 2010

One thing that is key, for me, is that a Raid can be spaced out over several nights. This was one of the things that really appealed to me about the digital gaming space that the DDI was supposed to provide. It would be much easier for me to schedule 3 mini-sessions a week than it would to try and get a single session long enough to accomplish much.

blargney the second · Jan 5, 2010

In D&D Online most raids have a series of 6-man flagging quests, followed by the 12-man raid itself. There are usually 3-6 flagging quests, each of which will take about 30-60 minutes. The actual raids are usually 1 or 2 parts that take 45-75 minutes altogether.

Dice4Hire · Jan 5, 2010

If you are having lots of free time for RPGs, PBEMS or groups (Yahoo/Google) or PBP can all help scratch that itch.

JoeGKushner · Jan 5, 2010

Penny Arcade - Garbled For Your Protection

This is some great stuff. We had raids back in my day. We called then random encounters. Heck, sometimes as a player I'd encourage the others to go for it because we had an old school GM who rolled magic items/loot right in front of us and it was a blast seeing what we got.

Raid.... newbies.