As of today, we have moved our website to Saga-raiding.com. This website will no longer be updated, although we will leave it up in case some of us wish to visit the old forums.

Raiding stop ends!
Today also marks the end of our official raiding stop. While we have started raiding earlier than planned, I have not been keeping track of raid attendance, as I felt this would be unfair. Starting today, raid attendance will be tracked, like it was before Wrath. This means we'll expect our raiders to attend at least 50% of our raids per week.

Ranks
The reason I've phrased the raid attendance as '50%', rather than '2 raids per week', is because of two reasons. One, I'd like to give people a bit more flexibility when it comes to attending raids. Two, I'd like to remove the Casual rank, and go with one single Member rank. Hold your horses, this does NOT mean you can't be a social member, or a casual one anymore. It means that from now on, RANK is completely based on what you have done for the community, without raiding status being factored in. The current ranks strongly give the impression that you need to raid to get promoted, which is both unfair towards our social and casual members, and actually not true except for the Raider rank.

However, when it comes to loot, we still require people to attend 50% of the raids before they can bid on items. This is both to encourage raid attendance, and to ensure that the loot gets to the people who actually need it to progress.

Raiders, main and alts
Now that the raiding season has officially started, I find myself trying to fill some vacancies in our roster. What classes do I need to recruit, and what specs? I'll be starting a thread on the new site, asking you all for the name of your raiding main, and his / her class and spec. Please, post a reply to this; you'd be doing me a huge favour with it.

Loot system
I am also taking this opportunity to announce that we'll be adjusting the loot system. We have yet to find a working addon for the EPGP system (the trouble is that it needs to support communities, rather than guilds). This has prompted us to do a review of the various loot systems out there, and see what is the best solution for us. Stick with EPGP, or go with a new system? I will soon be starting a thread on the new forums, detailing various systems that might be suited for Saga. I ask you all to give us your opinions - what do YOU think would be a fair lootsystem?

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: At the 13th of January, the Saga website will move to www.saga-raiding.com!

Yes peeps, you read it correctly! We have a brand spanking new website, complete with our own domain name! While we're still tinkering with it (Grig insists on pink hello kitties, and I'm having a difficult time convincing him that skulls and kneecaps are much better), the site itself is already fully functional. Feel free to have a look around, and don't forget to update your bookmarks!

The new site should be more stable than our current one - Wowstead has been down several times at crucial moments, such as at the start of a raid when we wanted to check the signups. Also, the new site comes with better officering- and admin tools for us officer gits, and is able to display DKP standings - something that can only be done in a workaround way here on Wowstead.

After the 13th, the Wowstead site will no longer be updated. We will keep it intact, however, in case you wish to browse the old forums.

Saga started as an attempt to keep in touch with good friends, to enjoy the game together, raid together and have FUN together. Over the course of the year, we've grown into so much more than just that; we've found many new friends, and somewhere along the way became a raiding community known for its kindness, its relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and most of all its dedication to its members. Last year has seen us arrive late at the raiding scene, move on to kick ass in SSC, TK, MH and BT...and finally weather a WoW expansion, despite some precarious moments.

As of now, all of Saga's raiding spots for Death Knights are CLOSED.

If you want to switch your raiding main to a Death Knight, you are now too late to do so - all vacancies have been filled already. When the new raiding season starts, Saga's Death Knights are Vestar (Ildria), Doubt (Revosh) and Jaináá (Jainaa). We will not accept any new DKs as raiders; we cannot bring you along on raids, because there is simply no room for you.

We currently have ONE tank slot available for a DK, and TWO slots for DK melee DPS. Who fills out which slot is something our Death Knights will have to sort out for themselves, in a gentleman's agreement. :)

I have received very little notification of people wanting to switch their mains, even though I have explicitly asked so in the news post of November 6th: "If you wish to level a new raiding character (especially if you want to switch to a deathknight), please let the officers know beforehand, so we can keep it into account." Of the three people of whom I know they will play DKs from now on, only one actually informed me. This, needless to say, is NOT good at all. I've got a raid composition to consider, which is why I asked for information beforehand. I will reiterate my request here one more time; INFORM the officers if you do something major, like switching mains!

Wowstead have added a new feature - Addons!
Right now, it's simply listing addons, and you can filter them by name and one-click install them if you have WowMatrix installed on your computer. You can also rate addons, and write comments for others on wowstead to read.

In the works is a feature where the website admin can select a few addons to make "required" and they can be listed separately and installed directly from our website.

I'm gonna add the function in the Navigation menu, but right now you can access it through this link. [LINK]

Exactly one week from now, Wrath of the Lich King will hit the stores. Like with any raiding guild or -community, the expansion's release will bring quite a few changes...we'll say goodbye to the old content, much like raiders did when WoW saw the arrival of The Burning Crusade, and start exploring a brand new continent chock full of quests and instances. A new race to level and gear up will begin, giving new raiders a chance to catch up with the old guard. This last week is therefore dedicated to celebrating the last few progression raids Saga will hold in TBC content!

• RAIDING STOP: The 13th of November marks the beginning of a full raiding stop for us, that will last for 8 weeks. During this time, Saga's officers will not be planning any community raids. Looking at the poll, many people expressed they'd love to continue raiding 1-2 days a week. Therefore, instead of us scheduling raids, all raids to TBC content will be on member initiative - including the 25-mans! Feel free to trudge around here for shit and giggles, and make these places distinctly unsafe for their by-then doubtlessly frightened inhabitants! A word of advice if you wish to plan one of the bigger raids: make sure you've got people on board who are able and willing to lead the raid and handle healer and tank assignments. It'll save you a lot of hassle, especially on tactical boss fights. Trust me on this one. ;)
• RAIDING START: Saga will resume raiding on the 13th of January, jumping fangs-first into the new Wrath content! Please make sure your raiding character is both levelled and geared at this time - you won't be able to join on the raids otherwise! If you wish to level a new raiding character (especially if you want to switch to a deathknight), please let the officers know beforehand, so we can keep it into account.
• EPGP RESET: At the onset of Wrath, all EPGP standings will be reset. Everyone will be given 1,000 EP and 500 EP to start with, resulting in a priority of 2. Extra EP can be earned as usual, by going above and beyond the call of duty - for example, farming tons of mats to help gearing the raid.

At the moment, all raid history is being kept stored in an addon called HeadCount. The developers of Wowstead are currently working on a way to use the text string HeadCount uses to export raid information (attendees, bosses downed, loot gained etc) to import all that information here.

As it works today, in order to create a raid information post, an officer must manually enter all the attendees and all loot.

Once the import script is ready, I'll export all raids from HeadCount and import them here for your amusement.

Also - this is very important!
Taking a look at the EPGP table, I have noted how I some people are registered on their alts. In order to prevent this, so all your points go into the same pools, I ask you all to send a PM to Grigoriy with a list of who is your main character and every alt that you raid with. Please do so at the earliest convenience.

Pretty soon we will leave Karazhan behind us. As soon as the Wrath of the Lich King hits, the tower will be forgotten and left. As a memento, I brought my old trusty polaroid camera tonight and photographed a wall in there.

Saga will never be forgot by the denizens of the tower!