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About Converge
Converge News Index
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Guild Forums
Guild Roster
Guild Fiction
Guild Info
Guild Progress
Guild Events
Guild Bank
Guild Admin
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Item Search
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DKP - Raid Planner
DKP - MC/Onyxia
DKP - BWL
DKP - AQ40
DKP - Naxxramas
DKP - Tier 4
DKP - Tier 5
DKP - Tier 6
DKP - Tier 7
DKP - Tier 8
DKP - Tier 9
DKP - Tier 10
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Guild Raid Logs (WoL)
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Recruitment
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We currently have the following vacancies in our roster:
Please note, we ARE still accepting applications
for classes listed above as being
FULL.
Be aware though that since such classes will have
the greatest competition for raid spots, expectations
for the applicant's gear and experience will be
high.
If you are interested in applying for one of our vacancies,
please visit our
applications forum.
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Raid Progress
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Mergers & Acquisitions
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"Mergers & Acquisitions"
If you are the GM or an Officer of a guild that is
considering merging with or being acquired by another
guild, Converge is interested to talk to you.
Having existed since 2006, Converge has experience of
successfully 'acquiring' other guilds and integrating
them into our unique organisation.
Full details of our policy towards mergers and
acquisitions can be found on
our 'M&A' page.
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Realm First Achievements
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Converge has won the following realm-first
achievements during its pursuit of raiding
progress:
"I'm on a Boat (25P)"
"Many Whelps! Handle It! (25P)"
"The Traitor King (25P)"
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Upcoming Events
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A summary of forthcoming in-game events
is given below.
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For more info, see the
events page.
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Guild Twitterings
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Fiction & Creative Art
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"Fiction and Creative Art"
Discover our very own collection of fiction
and other creative artworks in the guild's
fiction and creative art curation.
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Search WoWHead
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Useful Links
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Official Silvermoon Realm Forum
- A small amount of useful information wrapped in a
thick duvet of nonsense and spam.
WoWHead
- Arguably the most popular WoW database site
with comprehensive information and useful tools.
"WoW Gem Finder"
- Handy site for determining the best gem to match
your slot colour and statistical requirements.
"Be.IMBA"
- Popular character equipment analysis tool.
"Elitist Jerks"
- Leading WoW theory-crafting site.
"RaidComp"
- Useful raid composition tool from MMOChampion that assists
in illustrating what buffs and debuffs various raid compositions
can offer.
Curse Gaming
- Home of one of the most comprehensive WoW
addon libaries."
WoW Interface
- Another great addon download site..
WoW Ace
- Wow addon site dedicated to game addons developed
using the one of the extended "Ace family" of
component frameworks.
WoW Ranked (Silvermoon-EU)
- WoW Ranking Site. Lists realms and guilds in terms
of their equipment collection visible via the Armory.
Instance Reset Calendar
- Find out when your favourite raid instance will be reset.
WoW Wiki
- A useful source of basic strategies, tactics and information
about various instances and quests.
Thottbot
- And old favourite WoW database site, home to the kids
who yell "I'd roll on that, it's a hunter weapon!"
Allakhazam
- Another WoW database site.
WarcraftRealms Character History
- Useful tool for reviewing a character's history on a
realm-specific basis.
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Other News
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WoW.com
- News, Analysis and Opinion from inside the World of Warcraft. (Was originally
known as WoW Insider)
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World of Raids
- Raiding news and blues posts from WoW.
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MMO Champion
- Leading news-breaking WoW information.
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Broliant Writes...
- Occasional musings on WoW and other things.
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Homegrown Addons
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ConvergeFu
- A simple FuBar plugin to provide useful functions
often required by guild officers.
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RecountFu
- A simple FuBar plugin to toggle the display of the
Recount damage meter window.
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Zero Advance Tactics (ZAT)
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When players are considering applying to join Converge and
are investigating the guild via this website, they'll often
see mention of the phrase "Zero Advance Tactics" or its
abbreviation "ZAT" and wonder what it means.
Typically, it will have been used in one of the "First Boss
Kill" website updates posted to our homepage that will state
something along the lines of "Converge just killed Boss
BLAH for the first time ever using our ZAT approach."
So, what is ZAT then and what does it mean?
Basically, most
guilds that go raiding approach a new boss encounter by doing
a little bit of advance prep-work to get some advance
understanding of the encounter's mechanics and of the best
way to approach the fight.
Typically, this involves spending time visiting sites like
WoWWiki,
Bosskillers
and
StratFu
which detail both the essential mechanics of each encounter
along with in-depth guides on exactly how to approach and
overcome these fights. From these sites one might also be
directed to other sites like
YouTube
which commonly hosts hundreds of videos from other groups
demonstrating exactly how they tackled the encounter.
Although this approach is very common and is certainly
a proven and successful one, it does reduce the overall
game to one of "Can we as a team execute the strategy
supplied to us by those other teams?"
New encounters therefore contain no surprises because the
research we do at sites like those listed above reveal all
the secrets to us before we even log into the game. As a
guild, our members are a group of people that unsurprisingly
have a great deal of enthusiasm for video games in general.
The question therefore to ask is would we play any other
game by first reading an in-depth strategy walkthrough BEFORE
we even began?
When you think of pretty much any game that has been popular
in recent years, a huge degree of the enjoyment from playing
the game has come from the discovery process, of unravelling
the story of the game as we attempt to keep Nathan Drake out
of harms way, to help Ezio Auditore da Firenza to avenge his
father's death, to unravel the mystery of the Origami Killer,
to help the soldiers of COG save the planet Sera from the
Locust Hordes or to simply survive until you can be rescued
from the zombie masses by the emergency military evacuation
teams that you hope are still stationed in New Orleans.
(Trivia moment: How many of the games referenced in the
preceeding sentence did you identify?)
The point is, to reduce a story-rich game like WoW to a simple
"strategy execution engine" is to denude the game of much of
the fantastic value that it offers to its players. Here at
Converge, we've settled upon a different approach which we
have given the fancy title of "Zero Advance Tactics" or "ZAT"
for short.
All the title means to us is that before we meet a new encounter
for the first time, we purposefully avoid reading up on the
mechanics or strategies that other teams/guilds that have already
tackled the encounter have documented.
Instead, we make a point of going into the encounter 'blind'
and we seek to discover the encounter's mechanics by our
own powers of observation. We continue to avoid reading
up on an encounter until we have managed to beat it all by
ourselves. (Note: Once we have achieved that important "first
boss kill" we do then 'read-up' to compare our notes with the
accepted wisdom of the crowds for that fight. Sometimes we
find we've arrived at the same conclusion and method, other times
we find our approach is unique.
What this means is that our first few attempts on an encounter
are normally a bit chaotic because there is invariably some mechanic that
wipes out a raid in double-quick time until we've worked out what
we have to do. It generally does not take too long though. Most
mechanics of each encounter can normally be understood once we look
at our combat logs and start sharing our observations with each
other.
Over time, our experience has shown us that the "ZAT" approach
typically only adds an extra day or two to most fights, that
additional time being the 'cost' of going in blind and making
our own observations. Of course, some fights with more complex
mechanics do take even longer to work out but when we finally do
the kill is all the more satisfying as a result.
If you are considering whether or not you might want to apply
to join Converge, this is perhaps one of the most significant
things about the guild that you should consider when making your
decision.
Although our approach is appreciated and enjoyed by
many players, there are also many players that simply want to be in
a guild that gets to the "farm" stage of raiding as quickly
as possible and that enables them to gather the most amount of
high-end loot in the shortest possible time and for the least
amount of effort.
There is no shame in admitting this fact to yourself if you are
such a player but you absolutely should understand that Converge
is not the guild in which to get from point A (new content
is released) to point B (guild is farming new content) in the
shortest amount of time possible.
If however the idea of working with your fellow team-mates in
a truly collaborative and engaged manner to uncover an encounter's
mechanics and to formulate strategies to use to overcome those
mechanics appeals to you, then Converge is one of the only guilds
offering this playstyle within the WoW raiding community. In addition
to that, the fun of being surprised on a regular basis as new
encounters do unexpected things is a joy all unto itself. For some,
it is the best thing about the "ZAT" approach.
Apart from Converge, and possibly a small handful of guilds that
may be out there following a similar approach to new boss kills
that Converge does with its "ZAT" method, the only other players
that normally get to see new content "unspoiled" by advance
knowledge are those in the semi-professional "World First" guilds
and we have occasionally been asked, "if you want to see
content unspoiled, why don't you just do that on the Public Test
Realms instead, like those 'World First' guilds do?"
It's a good question, but we have a good answer.
Unlike those players in the competitive "World First" guilds,
our members are not comprised of people that can afford the huge
time investment that playing on the PTR would need. In general,
our members are primarily professional adults with jobs and families
and friends and a thousand other commitments to attend to outside
the game. Thus, spending time playing on a PTR only to have to
then lose that time investment when the PTR was closed is an
expense of time that very few, if any, of our members can afford or
justify. We prefer therefore to make the precious time we can
spend playing WoW provide us with the most enjoyable experience
and that is what the "ZAT" approach is all about.
The other question we've been asked is whether the "ZAT" approach
is only suitable for the most exceptional and brilliant players.
The answer to that question is, with no uncertainty, "No." To
be successful in employing the "ZAT" approach, we simply need players
that have a reasonable ability to play their character - ie. they
know their class and abilities well - and are able to follow instructions
when given to them and to be able to avoid "standing in the fire."
It needs good competant players, but it does not require that
everyone be the "Michael Jordan" or the "Pele" of PVE raiding skill.
WoW's boss encounters are not rocket science. Even the most complicated
encounters are fairly straightforward with a little practice. If you've
spent any time in a reasonable raiding guild before and have not struggled
to perform alongside your peers, you're probably a good enough player
to try the "ZAT" way.
Having a working microphone is a HUGE advantage of course but we
do have plenty of members that have been playing with us for years
that we still have never heard speak. So long as you can communicate
clearly and play well, the rest is merely "icing on the cake."
So, that's a brief introduction into the meaning of the phrase
"Zero Advance Tactics", aka: "ZAT", and what it implies for members
of Converge. We hope you've found it to be an interesting idea and
if it sounds like an approach that would appeal to you, we'd love
to hear from you.
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