15 Minutes of Fame: Pre-Raid Trivia pumps up enthusiasm, strats
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How do you get guild members to log in nice and early before raids, remember their consumables, build a steam head of enthusiasm and polish up their knowledge of strats and game skills? Believe it or not, it's not a struggle - it's what Relyimah of <Klatoo Verata Niktoo> on Kilrogg-US and her guildmates do for fun. If it's an hour before raid time, it's time for Pre-Raid Trivia.
Most of Relyimah's trivia sessions cover the gamut of WoW knowledge, but every session is capped off by strategy questions pertinent to the encounters the raid will be tackling that evening. She calls the learning process "strat by osmosis." "All rounds are 20 questions worth one point a piece, and the five bonus-round questions are worth five points each," Relyimah explains. "I have a lot of fun writing the questions, as it makes me learn the strategy as well. I usually grab my info from WoWWiki or Tankspot.com." Winners scoop up 25 gold plus prizes such as an epic armor kit or Frostweave Bag - but the best reward, she notes, is a raid that succeeds.
Main character Relyimah
GuildKlatoo Verata Niktoo
Realm Kilrogg
15 Minutes of Fame: How did Pre-Raid Trivia get its start?
Relyimah: It was all because two guys were being horrible to each other in guild chat at the beginning of the year. They just wouldn't let up on each other, so I just threw out a random trivia question: "What was Harrison Ford's first role in a George Lucas film?" That got everyone to stop because guild chat lit up with Star Wars and Han Solo, which were all incorrect (the answer: Bob Falfa in American Graffiti). But it got those two fellas to stop hammering on each other and got their mind on something else.
So are you a guild officer?
Nope, I'm not an officer. I'm just your regular, average, ordinary guild member who is lucky enough to have a GM that lets me go off on my creative whims. If I had to have a title, I guess you could say I'm the unofficial morale lady - or as my GM puts it, I'm the sticky stuff that helps keep us together. I just make sure the Fish Feasts get put out, I do the Druid battle rez checks in the raid to make sure our raid leader knows what is available to him, and I run Pre-Raid Trivia on Saturday nights. I guess you could call me the guild/raid cheerleader as well.
What content is KVN working on now?
Ulduar-25 and Crusader's Coliseum.
Are there prizes for trivia winners?
Every week, 25g goes to the winner of the trivia round, no matter what. Usually the 25 gold for the winner of the trivia round comes out of my own pocket. It was my idea to give out a monetary prize; it wouldn't be right to ask people to put up the prize money - it goes along with the ethic of "never ask someone to do something you wouldn't do yourself." Some of the items donated: Frostweave Bags, gems in every cut and color, armor kits ... Nothing extravagant, though. It's about the questions and if you know your strat, not about what you can win, the prizes are just an added bonus.
Who supplies the prizes?
We all chip in. Really, it's whoever feels the need to donate a prize. Whoever donates the prizes for the week gets highlighted as that week's game sponsor. If I don't have a sponsor, then I pick a random guildie and do a parody of their raid habits, and we go without a prize.
What about the challenge's structure?
Most rounds contain between 20 to 25 questions. If we go to 25, the last five are the five-point bonus questions. The rules of the game are simple: For the first 20 questions, each question is worth 1 point. No using the internet to help answer the questions. For each round of 20, there is at least one special prize bonus question.
Each week, depending on who has sent the bonus prizes, they become the sponsor the week. For example, Horry, our Warlock class leader, sent over some cut gems for the prizes, so for the sponsor announcement it said, "This week's Pre-Raid Trivia is sponsored by the new KVN film "Horry and the Hook," the tragic story of a young Warlock lost in Naxxramas. Now playing at a theatre near you. Tickets available at your local KVN box office." ("Horry and the Hook" is a reference to when we were first starting Naxx-25 and going into the Spider Wing. Horry got a little too far to the right in the entry hallway and a spider web-pulled him - and yeah, he died, but I could have sworn I saw the surprised look on his toon's face as he got yanked into that pack of eight-legged pain.)
So give us an idea of what you ask.
I'll be mixing up the new strats for the Crusader's Coliseum with the goods for Ulduar as well in the upcoming weeks. Here's my list of topics:
Old School WoW Instances
10-man Naxx
WoW and the Movies
WoW! How Entertaining! (pop culture references)
The Horde and YOU (we're an Alliance guild)
Talent Trees
Professions
World Holidays
Factions
Dragons
Death Knights
Dwarves
The Ulduar Overview Part 1
The Ulduar Overview Part 2
Starting Zones
Hodir
Foods and Potions
Freya
Feats of Strength
The Grand Review (review of the first 20 weeks of PRT)
Thorim
KVN Grab Bag (a.k.a. How well do you know your guildies?)
Mimiron
Think you have what it takes to be a Pre-Raid Trivia winner? Click over to Part 2, where we'll run you through Relyimah's gauntlet.
