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We Have a Winner: An Eclipse is Born

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I missed out on the last few rounds of voting unfortunately, but it was a fun branding exercise. After all the meme names and inside jokes, the team settled on Eclipse as being the new raid going forward. I’m a fan of it. It’s a two-syllable word, and it rolls off the tongue quite well. Besides, some of the world’s top guilds have two-syllable names so they’re in quite good company (like Liquid, Echo, Method, Skyline)!

Apparently, the votes were pretty close. The final round was between Last Pull and Eclipse as the new name going forward.

Naming a guild is actually one of the harder things to do. You don’t want it to be serious, but just the right amount of serious so that your players can be proud of wearing that guild tag. If it’s too much meme (or cringe, as the kids say), you might not be able to attract quality talent and personality. That’s why congratulations to this group of gamers because Eclipse is a great name (and it inspires a pretty simple, straightforward logo design to boot).

Round 2: A Raid Team’s Rebrand and Name Voting!

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As some of you may be aware, I am currently a part of a large Warcraft community called DJ’s and Zeroes to Heroes. We have multiple raid teams at varying degrees of progression. The raid team formerly known as Team Salt is undergoing a rebrand. The team had the opportunity to make suggestions and then – get this – it will be voted upon in a single elimination, best-of-1 bracket. This may well be the most important democratic race this year!

Round 1 has finished, and now let’s see who has survived and advanced to the second round! We’ll start with the top half of the bracket.

Team Benched squares off against round 1 challenger, Team Last Pull. This one’s going to be a tight race, as both names are pretty indicative of the squad in general. I’m a big fan of Team Last Pull in this situation. It really is only fitting that Last Pull would win out by a vote or something. I hope they take that one and move into the Semi’s!

Prediction: Team Last Pull

Team Dumpster Fire would be waiting in the wings for it’s next challenger, and it’s Team Pepper. This one’s not going to be a significant contest. Team Dumpster Fire will easily overtake Team Pepper here just by virtue of what it symbolically represents: An actual dumpster fire. Has this team been a dumpster fire at times? Oh definitely it has felt that way at some points. Will it shake off that reputation? Probably not.

Prediction: Team Dumpster Fire

Now let’s check out the bottom half of the bracket.

Now we have the safe pick of Eclipse against Guild Level Zeroes. Will Eclipse take it? I hope so. It just sounds cooler in comparison. I’m giving Guild Level Zeroes a zero chance of advancing forward.

Prediction: Eclipse

Our final matchup involves… Mankrik’s Wives? Hmm, they might have a chance against Ouroboros. This one could go either way as well. How many wives does Mankrik even have? Will there be enough to overcome and overwhelm Ouroboros?

Prediction: Ouroboros

Only two more rounds left!

Round 1: A Raid Team’s Rebrand and Name Voting!

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Fellas, we have an exciting day today. As some of you may be aware, I am currently a part of a large Warcraft community called DJ’s and Zeroes to Heroes. We have multiple raid teams at varying degrees of progression. The raid team formerly known as Team Salt is undergoing a rebrand. The team had the opportunity to make suggestions and then – get this – it will be voted upon in a single elimination, best-of-1 bracket. This may well be the most important democratic race this year!

Let’s take a look at the selections, shall we?

As we check out the top half of the bracket, we see Team Westfall against Team Last Pull. Below them, Team Pepper squares off against Team Phoenixer. You’ll also notice that there are two names with a bye between Team Benched and Team Dumpster Fire.

My analysis? Westfall is the name for one of the earliest zones in the game where you’re levelling, and it’s full of Defias and this giant tornado. I don’t see Team Westfall making it out of round 1. Team Last Pull is pretty apt, and the raid team formerly known as Salt has had its share of securing its first kills on the last pull of the night. I think it embodies them quite well, but whoever wins this one is going to have to take on a rested Team Benched.

Predictions: Team Last Pull moves on to round 2.

Below them, we have Team Pepper versus Team Phoenixer. For context, we have a raid team in the community that’s called Team Phoenix. I’m not sure who decided to be lazy and suggest Team Phoenixer but it doesn’t appear they were trying hard! Then again, Team Pepper didn’t really have much of a creative spin to it either especially with the previous name of Team Salt! Salt goes together with Pepper, so it stands to reason to change up the name with a close pairing, right? It’s a good thing the winner of this set is going to move on and face Team Dumpster Fire, because that’s my opinion of both of these submitted names!

Predictions: A jump ball here with the edge to Team Pepper.

Let’s scroll on down to the lower half of the bracket!

We have some even more questionable matchups!

Let’s start off with Daddy’s Whelplings against Guild Level Zeroes. I’m not sure what Daddy’s Whelplings are meant to be, but when I see Whelplings, I think of tiny, immature, upstart drakes that are trying their hardest to fly but can’t quite get the velocity for their tiny little wings. Guild Level Zeroes is a mouthful on its own, and it sounds a little cooler. Team Zero might’ve been a more solid suggestion. The winner of this matchup has to tackle Eclipse in the next round.

Predictions: This is a tough one. I think the meme voters will come out in force and give Daddy’s Whelplings the go-ahead vote.

To finish off the first round of voting, we have Ouroboros against Team Salt and Pepper. An Ouroboros is the embodiment of a snake eating its own tail. It represents an endless cycle of death and rebirth, or something. On the other side, you have the ever so creative Team Salt and Pepper! Maybe it represents half of the squad who are showing signs of their age! This one’s a bit tough to predict, but I’m a fan of the Ouroboros. Hopefully it isn’t representative or symbolic of the team wiping and respawning repeatedly.

Predictions: Giving the the W to Ouroboros.

We’ll find out soon what the results will be!

Crests and Flightstones Need to be Alt Friendly

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With the upcoming The War Within expansion for World of Warcraft, we’re getting some cool new features like Warbands and reputation consolidation (at the cost of Human Diplomacy, sadly). But if we really want to make it easier and more fun to play with our alts, we need to take another look at how we gear them up. Right now, the system for Crests and Flightstones is a massive pain, especially if you’re trying to gear multiple characters.

The Current Problem

I’ve got a Priest and a Shaman both sitting at item level 527, which is pretty close to max (barring some vault upgrades). But when I think about levelling up my Paladin, Mage, and Evoker, it feels like an insurmountable grind. Running endless dungeons to collect Crests just isn’t appealing. To make things worse, Crests and Flightstones can’t be sent to your other characters, even though other in-game currencies can in TWW. This really slows down progress for alts.

Some Ideas to Fix This

Discounted Upgrade Crests and Stones

A great solution would be to offer discounted upgrades for Crests and Flightstones for alts. We already have something similar for gear upgrades. For example, if you get a new belt, you can upgrade the ilvl of it to match your current belt at a cheaper rate (no Crests, just Flightstones).

Why not extend this to our alts?

Imagine if once your main character fully upgrades their gear set to a certain level, like with the The Awakened Aspects achievement, your alts could then upgrade their gear more cheaply. This would reward your hard work and make gearing up alts a lot less painful.

Exchange Rates for Crests and Flightstones

Another idea is to let players buy Crests and Flightstones for their alts using an exchange system. Many of us have loads of Crests and Flightstones just sitting there unused on our main characters. I think my Priest has like 450 Aspect Crests just collecting dust. If we could trade them at, say, a 3:1 ratio, it would make those extra resources useful again. This way, we wouldn’t have to grind so much to gear up our alts.

Better Boss Drops and Incentives

On a completely different note, we also need to talk about raid rewards. Right now, the last two bosses in any raid drop the same level Crests as the earlier bosses in the instance. But bosses like Raszageth, Echo of Neltharion, and Sarkareth are a lot tougher. In Heroic raids, for example, it would make sense for these bosses to drop higher-level Crests like Aspect Crests instead of just Wyrm Crests.

This change could also keep players interested in completing entire raids. Right now, when I join pickup raids, I notice many players quit after getting their weekly vault rewards from the first six or so bosses. If the final bosses offered better rewards, more players might stick around to finish the raid or decide to give it a few pulls just to see.

Wrapping It Up

This expansion is a perfect chance for Blizzard to make the game more friendly for players with alts. By adding discounted upgrades and an exchange system for Crests and Flightstones, the game could become a lot more enjoyable for those of us who like to play multiple characters. Not only that, by tweaking raid rewards to match the difficulty of bosses, Blizzard could keep more players engaged throughout the whole raid. We can do it with the power of… uh, friendship!

In the meantime, I’m going back to chain-running dungeons to try to max out my Paladin before expansion launch.

Signs of an At-Risk Trial Raider and How to Address Them

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I know firsthand how exciting and challenging (and annoying) recruiting raiders for your team can be. Every new player that comes in brings potential, but not every trial is going to be able to integrate into the team. Sure they’ve passed the initial sniff test they’ve answered the right questions, but now those players have to live up to those expectations that have been set. Recognizing when a recruit is at risk of failing their trial period and knowing how to address that situation is super important for maintaining a strong, progressed raid team.

Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made when I was a GM (or as an officer) is not doing anything about the new trials that I felt weren’t fit, but I had to keep them around because the raid team as a whole didn’t have enough players to help go through a raid night. This would lead to feelings of resentment from more senior members of the team because they felt lacklustre trials weren’t really contributing to the progression or, worse, actively hampering any farm clears and slowing us down. If I could do it again, I would be more aggressive in identifying and making a more concerted effort to look for ways to help with improvement or at least open up communication with them.

Today, I want to explore some of the signs that a recruit may be struggling and offer up some pointers for addressing at-risk trial players.

Recognizing the Signs

Really, the first step that has to happen is actually identifying the member who is at risk of failing their trial or losing interest. These are some of the common indicators to watch for:

1. Inconsistent Attendance

If they don’t show up without saying anything, that’s usually a pretty good sign. A trial member who misses raids without prior notice or valid reasons might be struggling with commitment levels and realizing they can’t actually sustain the schedule they were hoping for. Consistency is key in a raiding guild (especially a CE one like ours), and frequent absences can disrupt the team’s progress and cohesion. We usually cut after 2 non-appearances and with no messaging from the player.

2. Performance Issues

While it’s true that everyone has an off night, consistent performance issues are another big sign. This includes not following mechanics, uncharacteristically low output (DPS or healing), and a failure to learn from mistakes. If a trial member repeatedly struggles despite feedback and guidance, it might just be a lack of effort or understanding. This is players not making that hustle to get to the stack point with everyone else, or getting their own debuff out of the raid before it detonates. It could also be someone resisting being a team player and not selecting talents or loading in a build that’s simply not ideal for the encounter. Going multi-target to help clear out ads when single target is what’s requested doesn’t help the raid get through those damage checkpoints.

3. Failure to Complete Required Mythic+ Dungeons

Mythic+ dungeons are absolutely important for character progression and meeting raid standards. At DJ’s, once we start extending raids, these are going to be the only sources of upgrades that players will be able to get (especially from their vaults). A trial member who neglects to complete the required key dungeons as outlined by the guild is going to be at risk of falling behind. Not participating is going to stall both their individual progress and the guild’s overall performance. It also demonstrates a lack of interest (in the game or the raid). We’re a CE guild, and we’re mandated to run at least 4 high keys a week. That’s not an impossible request, and it’s balanced around the expectation that players have other obligations (families, careers, hobbies, walking their pandas, etc).

4. Lack of Engagement

By itself, this isn’t a significant clue. A trial member who is not engaged in guild activities beyond raids might be losing interest. There should be some level of participation in guild chat, forums, or Discord discussions. Just being involved and engaging often builds a good impression of a member’s commitment and enthusiasm for the guild. At the same time, some players just don’t have that kind of social battery and shouldn’t be expected to be “on” all the time.

5. Lack of Communication

Effective communication is essential in a raiding guild. A trial member who rarely communicates with raid leaders or fails to respond to direct messages and discussions concerning them can be problematic. This might honestly mean a poor fit within the raid dynamic. We’ll try to reach out to new players from time to time to check in with them, and sometimes it isn’t really reciprocated.

6. Negative Attitude

Yeah, this one’s a biggie. Any trial member exhibiting a negative attitude or causing drama within the team is a problem and warrants a fast response. This might include being overly critical of someone else on the team, resistant to feedback from another player, creating conflict, or just being crazy defensive for no reason. There’s a right time and a right place for everything, including raid feedback.

7. Slow Improvement

While everyone learns at different paces, a trial member who shows little to no improvement over time, despite coaching and feedback, may not be a good fit. We are a CE guild, and our expectations are that players learn and adapt not just to their own mistakes but those of others. Progression raiding requires adaptability and growth. Lacking either of those isn’t going to lead to a solid finish.

Handling an At-Risk Trial Member

Have you figured out if someone is struggling? Next step is to figure out exactly how to handle it. You want to find ways to help them out but you also need to recognize when to cut your losses and let the player go if they’re not playing up to the level they need to.

1. Open Communication

Start an honest conversation with the player. Talk about some of the observed issues and provide specific examples. If you can use log replays or Warcraft Recorder clips to help demonstrate it, that can bolster your case. Work on your tone and make sure it’s constructive, focusing on their potential for improvement rather than just pointing out flaws (or everything that’s wrong with them). This can help the player understand the areas where they have to get better.

2. Provide Constructive Feedback

Give them feedback and actionable steps for improvement. Whether it’s specific mechanics they need to focus on (like less deaths to a key mechanic), DPS rotations, or positioning, clear guidance can help them know exactly what is expected. Give them resources like guides or videos to help their learning. Pair them up with someone in raid of a similar (or identical) class that they can learn from.

3. Set Clear Expectations

Reinforce and reiterate the expectations regarding performance, attendance, and behaviour. Make sure the trial member understands what is required to pass the trial. If you’re able to set clear, measurable goals, it’ll help both parties track progress.

4. Offer Support and Mentorship

Assign a mentor or buddy from the team to support the trial member. This can provide a more personalized approach to their improvement and help them feel more integrated into the guild. Regular check-ins with the mentor can offer ongoing guidance and encouragement. In DJs, we do our best to assign every new trial player a buddy (or a mentor) that’ll check in on them and help show them the ropes. Things like where to find the roster for the week, point the way where required WeakAuras are and answer any questions they might have.

They’re basically a Pokemon for the veteran raider.

5. Evaluate Progress

Monitor and assess the trial member’s progress over a set period. Are they showing improvement in the areas discussed? Are they more engaged and consistent? Regular evaluations can help determine if they are on the right track. Keep the feedback going as well. We have private Discord channels for each trial player where everyone on the team can provide observations (both positive and negative) about them along with how interactions have been.

6. Make a Decision

If, despite all efforts, the trial member is not meeting expectations, it’s time to consider letting them go. Approach this decision with empathy and professionalism. Thank them for their time and effort, and provide honest feedback on why they didn’t pass the trial. It’s important to maintain a positive and respectful atmosphere, even during difficult decisions. Sometimes a no means a not yet, and the player just needs to develop and gain more raid experience, whether it’s in another raid team that’s catered towards their skill level to allow them time to grow. After all, not every raid team is right for every player.

At-risk trial members in a raid guild require a careful balance of support and evaluation. Recognizing the signs early, providing constructive feedback, and offering mentorship can help struggling recruits improve and integrate into the team. However, knowing when to cut losses and let a player go is equally important for maintaining a strong, cohesive raid team. By handling these situations with transparency and empathy, you can ensure the long-term success and harmony of your guild.