We Are World Bank: Part I

This will be something of a two-part post regarding my current thoughts on PUG raiding. This first part is more of an introductory exploration of the topic while the second part will delve deeper into the criticisms leveled against our type of PUG raiding.

While I enjoy the guild tag of Parabola, since setting up shop here on the Horde side of this server, I feel more and more as if we should just disband and rename ourselves as . Now, this witty bit of humor might pass over the head of more than a few people on our server, but I think the title is fitting, especially in light of just what we've been doing every Saturday for the past few weeks in these 25 man raids.

For those of you that follow this blog, you know where I stand on 25 man raids. For those of you that don't, well, let's just say that they make me cry like a baby...a hungry, angry baby. We're only ten people, and we can only carry another fifteen so far, but it's getting better. Oh thank god, it's getting better.

So, where does the World Bank come in? Let's take a look at the institution via a straight copy/paste from Wikipedia.org because...well...I'm incredibly lazy and I'm sure I'll have students coming in to harass me during my office hours here:

The World Bank is an international institution that provides leveraged loans to poorer countries for capital programs. The World Bank has a stated goal of reducing poverty.

Alright, let's see if we can break this down, do a little bit of comparative analysis, and see what we come up with. The suspense is killing me. I hope it lasts.

The World Bank is an international institution.

Is Parabola international as a guild? Sure enough. While we aren't pushing anywhere near the 186 members that make up the World Bank, we do have a few members that are, for all intents and purposes, international. One of our shaman is Canadian for sure. He buys his milk in plastic bags and he probably bathes in maple syrup. Not only that, he utilizes the typical Canadian "oo" and "eh" phonemic structures in just about every instance that they can be used. Our raid leader, while still a citizen of the United States, lives in Alaska, and that might as well be another country. Any place where it's light or dark for 22 hours at a time just isn't American. Also, he braves those terrible Alaskan traffic jams consisting of four dogsled pile-ups. We're international enough for a US-based server. Check.

The World Bank provides leveraged loans.

Does Parabola provide leveraged loans? We loan our ten players over to a casual-style family guild every Saturday for about three hours or so. While, yes, this does benefit us as well, it is a loan in every sense of the word. We carry the weight of the raid on both healing and DPS fronts. Hell, we even carry the tanking, too. We fill a good majority of the "required" spots for a raid, and let the other guild fill in as need be. As a guild, we have no intention of joining this other guild. We know exactly where we stand and where we want to be. We get used for a few hours and then are paid in kind via badges, patterns, and drops.

The World Bank provides said leveraged loans to poorer countries for capital programs.

If one accepts the fact that we a loaning our services out for these 25 man runs, I would also put forth that we are providing our services to individuals that are, for lack of a better term, quite poor. The Horde on Bladefist aren't exactly anything to write home about. I've seen plenty worse in my day, but then I've also seen a lot better. We're a middle of the road sort of server to begin with, but our Horde side doesn't exactly shine. That being the case, our crack 10 man group is something of one of the bright spots. We know what we're doing, and we know how to do it. We are the big fish, as it were. We lend our services to the poorer guilds. Now, while yes, I know we couldn't get access to the content on our own, but the point still stands: we're dragging a good number of lesser-geared individuals through these raids.

So, based on the goals set by the institution of the World Bank itself, I think the similarities are too hilarious to ignore. Stay tuned for the second installment where I will be looking into the criticisms leveled against the World Bank on an international scale and how those same criticisms have been leveled against Parabola as a guild in World of Warcraft.

Keep on crushin'.