Guild Topics

Can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. Guild topics for your perusing.

Does Your Guild Need Social Media Guidelines?

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In a word, probably not.

More and more players are finding themselves on Twitter and Facebook. Guild members are adding each other as friends to all these other social networks and their thoughts are then broadcast which expose themselves to even moreplayers. There is always an inherent risk though. Much like the way companies operate, the wrong tweet or message could lead to getting fired or facing a penalty. I’ve witnessed cases where WoW guilds did very much the same thing.

One disgruntled player said something damning and they were pretty much run out of the guild.

With something like 10+ members of Conquest on Twitter, I keep an eye on it as much as I can. I prefer to address problems privately and directly. I don’t want to find out about issues via someone’s blog or their stream. At the same time, I recognize the need to vent frustration. It’s a fairly fine line to walk between presenting the best image for the guild and allowing people to just be people. I’ve written out a set of guidelines just to remind players who do blog and use social media to keep this stuff in mind before they start blasting stuff openly.

Recruiting is hard

Again, it’s partially about image control. Smart and tech savvy players might uncover blogs or tweets from individuals talking about a guild that they want to join. I’ve spoken with players before in the past who stated that while they expressed interest in joining Conquest, scouring the twitter list of players gave them pause because some of their thoughts about the guild was upsetting. The truth of that is going to vary. My point is that social media stuff has direct impact on the recruiting efforts of guilds. So if you’re sitting there complaining about how raiding has sucked because no one’s applied and people are getting restless and no one’s showing up or applying to the guild, how do you think that’s going to look to potential applicants? No one’s going to put in an application to a guild that looks like its on the verge of collapse. Granted, that guild might have a motivated GM trying to rebuild and put things back together. But tweets and blog posts that reflect negatively could hamper their efforts.

The Public Drama

Things like loot drama or so forth should be kept internal.

Now, I toe an extremely fine line when I write about players past and present. Years ago when Syd was still with me she and I had a philosophical disagreement. She felt that publically recognizing players was a good thing. I disagreed because there was a potential chance it could lead to elements of dissatisfaction from other players who felt snubbed at not being given the same treatment. From the GM perspective, I wanted to avoid the potential headaches that it would cause. I have no qualms when it comes to writing about certain situations, but I’ll go out of way to obscure select details. When it comes to blogging, I do it to help educate not to vindicate. I’m not one to hold grudges. But not every blogger out there shares that sentiment. Some use it to write about their thoughts without regards to the ramifications of what they’re saying.

At the end of the day, if any player gets to the point where they’re extremely unhappy about their situation within the guild, that’s something the GM need to address. Every solution needs to be considered even if it means dismissal. Sometimes a change of scenery is needed. If it were me, if I was tweeting and blogging about how upsetting my guild was to me, I’d take a step back and wonder what the heck I’m doing in here in the first place.

Another reason? Can you imagine getting into a public mudslinging fight? I would much rather have a conversation in private detailing a player’s shortcomings. If a player decides to take things public, then I can either walk away and take the hits or come back and publically rebuke them. For example, if I had a player who was particularly venemous and wrote a blog post about why they felt they should have gotten this item instead of that other player, that loot council sucked and that it wasn’t fair and so forth and I noticed that the post generated some number of comments, I feel obliged to reply to explain our stance.

So I might have to come back with reasons like this:

  • No actually your DPS wasn’t that high. You got out DPS’d by players who were under geared and who were doing specific things (like dispelling or doing gongs).
  • You’ve been missing the past 4 raids or have left early.
  • I’ve blown 10 battle res’s on you in the past 15 bosses. That’s 10 too many.

I don’t like embarrassing players in public and I’m thankful it’s never gotten to that situation. But I knew I wanted to create a reference for players who used social media.

I think there are many GMs out there who aren’t quite adept when it comes to things like public relations or damage control. They often want to take the easiest solution and run with that. Sometimes the easiest and fastest solution is to kick out the troublemaker without even trying to establish a conversation.

Note that I didn’t say it was the best. I just said it was the easiest and fastest.

smedia-2

Drafting the guidelines

It’d be stupid and fruitless of me to try to discourage players from using Twitter or from blogging. I can’t control that. At the same time, when I came up with the guidelines I wanted to ensure that the team had an idea of what was cool and what would give me headaches. I don’t like getting headaches. I get headaches from healing raids and figuring out how to tackle certain bosses. Those are good, acceptable headaches. I don’t want unnecessary headaches. They’re a waste of time.

When harnessed correctly, social media can be a strong asset for any guild. I’ve managed to recruit players, drive up interest and gain some raiding insight from players who use it. Its a neat way to meet new players and get a handle on different personalities.

When I came up with the guidelines, I approached it from the angle of encouraging players to think about their experience and how they wanted it presented to their followers. Keep things light yet professional. It was also a reminder to them that the leaders and I would always be available if there was something truly troubling them. Unless they seal and privatize their accounts, they would always represent the guild in everything they say or do.

In the end, like it or not, everything said online has an impact on the relationships around you whether you intend to or not.

I went through several drafts and revisions before I settled on this iteration of it.

Conquest Social Media Guidelines

These are the suggested guidelines for the use of social media at Conquest. Conquest members are encouraged to create, contribute, or comment on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, forums, online games, or any other kind of social media both on and off Conquest. If you do, you are kindly asked to understand and follow these guidelines.

We’re not here to censor you.

Principles

If you participate in social media, follow these guiding principles:

  • Understand and follow the Conquest Code of Conduct
  • Try to keep remarks meaningful and respectful—do not post spam, offensive or derogatory comments
  • Take a moment and think before posting
  • Respect confidentiality whether it’s guild related or otherwise
  • When you’re disagreeing with the opinions of other players, keep it appropriate and polite

Guidelines to Keep in Mind

Openness – If you are blogging or tweeting about your adventures and efforts in Conquest, don’t be afraid to disclose it. You are free to write and launch creative projects at your discretion. Projects like Redhawks’ Gaze and the LeetSauced podcastare maintained by the very same players who are a part of the guild and I have no intention of trying to restrict their creativity. Feel free to approach Matt for advice or assistance.

CommunicateProblems First – Conquest is a transparent guild. I don’t have a problem allowing players to vent. However, if you experience any severe problems with the guild or its leadership, you’re asked to approach the leaders first to see if a resolution to the problem can be found before taking it public.

Try to Stick to Your Expertise– I write about healing and raiding. I wouldn’t dream of advising a Mage on things like their rotation or stat weights. Don’t intentionally mislead players who may approach you for advice. If you’re not sure, do refer them to other players in the guild or other resources on the internet.

Your Words Have Effects– By saying you are a member of Conquest, every tweet, post and comment you make indirectly reflects upon the guild as a whole. This can have a severe effect when it comes to things like recruiting new members to when securing guild partnerships/sponsorships in the future.

Be Conversational– Have some fun interacting with your readers and followers. You don’t have to be mechanical and personality-less all the time. There are many interesting players out there. Don’t hesitate to reach out to them.

Accountability– What you write is ultimately up to you. I can’t restrict your speech. Being a part of social media as a member of Conquest reflects upon the guild, so treat it well. Follow the terms and conditions for other communities you are a part of.

The Grandma Rule– If you’re about to publish something that doesn’t feel right, think about whether or not you should post it. If your grandma or parents saw this, would you be embarrassed or worried? If the answer is yes, you may want to consider modifying or refraining from publishing altogether.

The Internet is Forever– Stuff that you put out there can be saved. When you publish information, any efforts to destroy it or render it anonymous might work. It also might not. If you’re not prepared to have something published for all eternity, re-work it or reconsider it.

This is your guild – If being a part of the guild gets to the point where the direction is severely upsetting to you causing you to start publically blasting players and its leaders, you may wish to reconsider your status within the guild. I have no intention of trying to keep players who have absolutely lost their desire to remain in the guild. I want players to be happy, irrespective of what guild they belong to.

A Lesson in Guild Ultimatums

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It’s been 2 and a half years since Conquest has been formed. We’ve had our shares of victories and defeat. I figured a situation like this would come one day. I never imagined it would come from a main tank. Least of all from a main tank. I knew he wasn’t having much enjoyment out of the raiding scene.

Let me be clear for a moment. The story I am about to tell is not one of vindication or shame. It is one of education so that my guild leading colleagues would be better prepared should a scenario like this arise. It would come in many forms, but the most common would be if I don’t get <this>, I’m leaving.

Threats never work. Even if the leadership allows the request to go through, you can be damned sure it’ll be done so reluctantly and not out of loyalty. If anything, such gains are only for the short term.

Right, let me resume my story. Our main tank had opted for retirement. Not having fun’s a perfectly valid excuse and one that appears to be echoed throughout the community by several players. I have absolutely zero desire to force someone to play a class or role that they don’t want to play. It’s just bad for business. So I accepted it and moved on. Every player that had a tank position in my raid group was bumped up 1 rank. The secondary tank became the primary tank. Tanks 2-4 frequently rotated depending on the encounter. I am blessed with having 6 players w ho are capable of tanking should that need arise.

I come back the next day and visit my forums. I discover that our retiree posted a message:

“If you don’t make me an officer, I’m going to quit the guild.”

Was that what this was all about? Power and recognition? My gut instinct was to flat out say no. Officers are selected based on certain qualifications. There are certain traits that make them special and dependable. However, what you may not know is that there are qualities which automatically discount a player from ever being an officer.

I’ll list some of them here.

Attendance

When a player takes a break from a game without mentioning anything, I might give them a bye for it if their reason is justified. When a player pulls that stunt multiple times without saying a word, that’s the line for me. I cannot have leaders who decide to come and go at their own whims without notice. It would do more harm than good. A leader needs to be available when they can and to say so when they cannot. If a raider does this, I cannot trust they won’t abandon their position when issued additional responsibility.

Shirking responsibility

Conquest has an unspoken leadership ladder. As leaders are appointed by myself with the consent of the other leaders, there needs to be a way to evaluate their mettle and skills. Our loot system involves the use of loot council. The only way to ascend is to go through the process and sit on the council at some point. If a player refuses to handle loot council, then they may not be fit for command at all. If they’re not willing to handle important decisions like who they believe loot should go to, then I don’t know if the harder decisions can be handled (such as roster, player evaluations, and so forth).

Saying no the first time

When the boss asks a player if they want additional responsibility, the player shouldn’t just say no and then issue an ultimatum months later. If I asked someone and they said no the first time, that’s that. I wouldn’t approach them again because I figure there’s no interest in it. Onus is on the other player if they reconsider. I can’t chase people down and hound them repeatedly. I do that enough during raids calling stacks, spreads outs and debuffs. I generally don’t make offers more than once. But that’s a personal style.

Stability

This one actually just occurred to me. Leadership players need to be a rock (or at least, pretend to be one in front of everyone else). It’s okay to be pissed off and upset once in a while. But constant brooding does no good to anyone. A long time ago, I had a player who would crumble and fold when they were chastised for blowing an assignment. Officers have to be made of tougher stuff to withstand the criticism that’s bound to happen. Someone who sheds tears or anger every time something negative is said in their direction isn’t a player fit for command and I doubt such an individual would be able to garner the respect and loyalty of the players.

That being said, I learned a few things from this experience. Strong player depth is what allows guilds to keep going and to survive. The very day that ultimatum was issued, the player was flatly denied and practically laughed out of the guild. We went and took down Theralion and Valiona on heroic mode that same night. While tanks are a critical component for raiding guilds, an awesome tank does not a successful guild make. You still need the DPS and the healers to play at their best. One of my faults is not keeping a tighter finger on the pulse of the guild. It’s difficult to split time between work, raid and just general socializing. It’s also nigh impossible to know what goes on in the heads of others. But I have to make a better attempt somehow even if that means sacrificing my peace and quiet time.

The burden of command is not a light weight to carry at all. Anyone that tries to make such demands for it is just out of their mind.

Next time you’re annoyed about something, I’d suggest talking about it first and requesting it rather than trying to make a threat. Odds are good it won’t end well.

When Good Enough isn’t Good Enough

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With Conquest taking down Throne of the Four Winds and Theraliona on heroic mode, we find ourselves now at 7/13 hard modes for progression (We could also greatly use another Rogue or Warlock).

At that progress level, I’ve had to make slight adjustments to our recruiting requirements. Namely, gear that was good enough to get through normal mode bosses such as players with a mix of crafted epics, reputation epics and other blue heroic quality gear just won’t be enough anymore. With the way the lockouts presently work, we only tackle heroic bosses. There aren’t that many normal mode bosses that we can really take on lest it compromise our progression. We generally don’t downgrade heroic bosses to normal because we usually take them down within a couple of attempts.

Because of this, we’ve raised our gear requirements from an average item level of 345+ to 356+. Why? Because we can’t spare the time and effort to go back through and “carry” players to get gear upgrades. Our directive is to go progressive and look forward. Granted, because of this, there’s going to be a slight gap. Players that draw in will continue to get to gear and I also need to take care that the players who are sitting on the side get rotated in the week after so they can get practice and shots at gear as well.

But how can I get better if I don’t get to raid?

Therein lies the kicker. As a player on the outside looking in, that player needs to do well enough to draw into the lineup. From there, they’re off to the races. But as a raid progresses through the different bosses, the minimum requirements will go up. What may have passed as above average months ago may not be good enough now. If there was one thing I missed about having access to separate 10 man raid instances, it would be the capability to gear players on the side during the weekend. The success of pickup raids on vary wildly from server to server. I get lucky joining 5/6 clears in Blackwing Descent on my alt Ret Paladin. Not everyone is so fortunate in getting in.

Player patience

The other thing I notice is that player patience drops the moment we take something down on farm. I know my guys tolerate the first 20 – 40 learning wipes. Once we get a fight down once or twice, people get agitated if we wipe more than 2 or 3 times. Wiping more than that is inevitable if we pull in several newer players who haven’t taken down the fight yet (much less seen it at work). I counter this by placing them in the most easiest and least stressing of roles. I don’t try to switch up the tanks unless it’s extremely urgent (such as a missing tank). I’ll place new and less experienced healers on raid healing duties until they see enough of the encounter for me to get them to specialize in certain positions (Tank healing, or kiter healing or tackling the stupid Rohash platform on heroic mode).

I face pressure from the veterans from trying to get through the stuff we’ve taken down on a timely fashion to get moving onto the stuff we haven’t seen.

On the other hand, I face pressure from the newer players who are also dying to get in on some of the action for loot and to see the encounter.

This new system makes it a little difficult to accommodate both. I’m glad those big nerfs are coming in 4.2. It’ll spur up alt and pickup runs again for sure.

The bottom line

Performance matters. Is it the only factor? No, of course not. But it still represents a significant portion.

You can be the nicest person on the planet and still do lower DPS than the tank. Sorry, not good enough.

You can be the hottest guy/girl on the planet and still do lower DPS than the tank. Sorry, not good enough.

You can have the best gear available and still do lower DPS than the tank. Sorry, not good enough.

The bars on the DPS meters have a cutoff point where it becomes a liability to bring a player in. It’s up to that player to not be a liability. I’m not sure if I’m willing to stack the deck to help ‘em out or ask veterans to ease off the gas a little bit. It’s quite frustrating either way. I love the new lockout system and all. It’s freed up 3 hours of raiding that doesn’t have to be done, but it introduced an additional set of headaches.

With a 4.2 release but only weeks away, I struggle to find a line between straight progression to get as much down as we can or switch to gearing. If we go for the progression focus, I’m tempted to utilize lockouts to cut away the time. Right now, we’re operating on 3.5 hours for farm and 7 hours for progression. Basically, we spend our day 1 clearing to a progression boss and days 2 and 3 working on pulls, fine tuning and going through it completely phase by phase, minute by minute, attack by attack.

Heroic Nef is next. Could use some pointers.

How to Own Your Trial Run Like a Champion

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Been addicted to read the Game of Thrones series right now. Not watching the TV show just yet. I want to get through the books at least. Also, my hometown team of Vancouver in the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 17 years! Hockey has killed some of our raid nights with about 5 of us from Vancouver. We can still work and raid if it’s just the 5, but we could certainly use more players (DPS with off specs would be great).

Recruiting’s a bummer right now. Everyone that applies could be a stud or a dud. Today’s post is a story of how an undergeared player just strolled in and wrested a full time roster position into his grasp.

Step one: Getting In

At first glance, he didn’t have the best of gear. He sporting blue quality items. What sold us for the trial though was the application. One of our questions involved a spec explanation and what is done to maximize it. He lists the correct primary stat and then goes on to list exact DPS rotation and why it had to be modified due to additional factors like glyphs and secondary stat allocation. It’s easy enough to parrot the information that can be found on prominent community websites, but those typically demand precise gear levels before optimal equilibrium can be met. Most players applying to raiding guilds don’t meet that quite yet. A little explanation on the side helps. It’s an ideal world we live in where every player is expected to be optimal.

But, we don’t live in an ideal world. We adapt to what cards we’re dealt and make it look awesome.

Step two: The Trial Run

This is where the applicant shone. He had never seen any of these heroic encounters before first hand. But you don’t need previous experience to understand that stuff on the ground is generally bad, or to run to a specific location with a bad debuff. Stand out applicants pick up mechanics within one or two attempts and maintain a high level of consistency in play.

Absolutely nailed it. You know you’re off to a good start when no one calls a Rebirth on you because you didn’t die. If you don’t stand out negatively like that, you’re golden.

Step three: The Aftermath

Didn’t do so hot there? That’s tough. I daresay most guilds allow recruits additional time to get acclimated and comfortable. You might get a second or third shot later on where you can really rock their world. The line that annoys me the most as a recruiter is the “I don’t have enough gear to make an impact” argument.

Now, I get that.

But if gear level really was that low, they wouldn’t have been screened through in the first place. This applicant barely scraped by our minimal expectations laid down in an application but came in and nailed DPS rotations and survived like the best of them. Their numbers were on the low end of the curve relative to the other players. But they kept quiet, made no excuses and did the absolute best they could. They didn’t complain, they didn’t whine when they weren’t brought in at all knowing that sooner or later their chance would come if they continued to appear. Summer is here which means roster sizes are going to be all over the place.

For me, it’s always been about the attitude. It really annoys me when performance is blamed on stuff like gear. I second guess their mental fortitude after that. What happens if they have a crappy raiding night later on? Is it going to be blamed on gear when they’ve already been outfitted with what’s available? Relax a little and do what can be done, listen to the feedback given by evaluators and run with that. Not everything needs to be a point of contention.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit your ass down and shut your ass up. Don’t be difficult. Our new player acknowledged his short comings and resolved to try harder. Since then, he’s worked his way into a starting spot.

* Bonus step: Fitting in

Hang out with the guild for a while after raids. Just be sociable and get to know people. They’re your new guild. Find out what makes people tick and just try to be friends. Don’t start off holding grudges against other players who do better than you or getting too competitive. No one likes a loud mouth who comes in trying to rock the boat. It just makes them seem desperate for attention.

How EPGP works

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This is a guest post by Valen who has graciously offered to clarify the EPGP loot system and the process behind the usage.

Hello! I am Valen, Guild Leader of Temerity, an efficiency-focused progression guild on the Windrunner server. I also happen to be helping maintain EPGP while its author, Disht of EU-Sunstrider, takes a well-deserved break. My hope is to provide an introduction to EPGP and demonstrate why many people believe it to be a superior loot system.

What is EPGP?

The EPGP loot system, nicknamed “dkp reloaded,” is a mature, established loot system that has been in active use by many guilds for a number of years. Sometimes known for being somewhat “mathy,” EPGP tries to provide a fair, transparent, configurable, deterministic, and reasonable loot distribution system. EPGP is somewhat more complicated than most loot systems, but thanks to addons that simplify calculations and management, both the master looter and all members of a guild will find EPGP to be a fluid and effective loot system.

The word “fair” is somewhat ambiguous when it comes to handling loot, and is highly subjective. Can loot systems be fair to every member of a guild, and to the guild itself? Probably not, but when people think about fair loot systems, often words like “unbiased” are used, with sentiments of objective, even distribution. EPGP provides such features.

Many familiar loot systems, such as DKP and its variants, use a single point pool, whereas EPGP uses two. Those two kinds of points in EPGP are in the name — EP and GP. EP, which stands for Effort Points, encapsulates the contributions of a raider to the raid (primarily attendance). GP, which stands for Gear Points, encapsulates the loot a raider has received from the raid.

How does it work?

Dividing a raider’s EP by their GP determines a raider’s Priority. When a piece of loot drops, the player who is interested in it with the highest Priority gets the loot along with the Gear Points the loot is valued at — there is no randomness or rolling in EPGP. This therefore increases the player’s GP, which lowers their priority once the division takes place, putting them below many other players (depending, of course, on the other players’ EP and GP values).

Left unchecked, EP, which grows as raids are attended, and GP, which grows as loot is received, would increase unbounded since neither are reduced inherently in the loot process. Instead of spending points, both simply accumulate. To prevent infinite growth, EPGP uses the concept of decay — at the start of every raid, or every raid week, or any other interval, everyone’s EP and GP are reduced by a fixed percentage. This results in EP climbing quickly at first, but then eventually sloping off towards a natural cap. GP, on the other hand, tends towards zero as it accumulates only when loot is rewarded rather than every raid.

The above is intentionally vague and lacking in specific numbers. This is one of the areas where EPGP is configurable to meet a given guild’s needs, but also where it tends to intimidate users.

  • How much EP does a raider get?
  • What earns EP?
  • How much GP does a piece of loot cost?

The latter question is the easiest to answer; by default, every piece of loot has a fixed cost across all guilds and servers, based on the slot it is used in and the item’s level (aka, ilvl). Deep inside the game, there are formulas used to determine how much of a each stat such as Haste Rating or Intelligence a piece of gear has; this formula is based on the ilvl and slot, so, for instance, an ilvl 359 two handed sword has more strength than an ilvl 359 one handed sword or ilvl 359 ring. EPGP uses this formulation to derive a price for each piece of loot, normalizing around a chest piece with an arbitrary cost of 1,000 GP. Weapons cost more than 1,000 GP since they have a bigger impact than a new chest, whereas rings, carrying smaller item budget, cost less.

EP is more fluid; typically guilds award EP based on attendance, both who is present at the beginning of raid and who is present throughout its duration. Even players on the bench receive EP and thereby loot opportunities when next they are in raid.

EPGP in action

Each guild decides themselves how much EP to award and what to award for, so rather than a complicated explanation, I will use a concrete example and explain how my guild uses it.

Fifteen minutes before raid starts, a decay of 7% occurs. Then an on-time bonus of 1,250 EP is awarded to each member in the raid. Every fifteen minutes thereafter until the end of raid, 300 EP is awarded to anyone in the raid and on standby. Finally, at the end of raid, another 1,250 EP bonus is awarded. The net result is a typical, 3.5 hour night of raiding results in 7,000 EP.Some guilds opt to also award EP when bosses die (with different amounts of EP depending on the farm status of the boss) but we choose to not award the kills themselves.

The values chosen are largely arbitrary; we settled on a 7% decay as it is a decent rate to prevent hoarding as well as to encourage taking loot (since GP will decay at a decent rate). We chose 7,000 EP per raid because it has the mathematical property that, a player with perfect attendance across an infinite number of raids, would cap out at 100,000 EP — the point where a 7% decay equals the EP awarded for the evening (7% of 100,000 is 7,000, of course).

We also choose to award a small, fixed weekly amount of EP for consumables — specifically, raw herbs and fish. This was a new experiment for us as early Cataclysm consumables were extremely expensive until supply grew and guild perks kicked in, this helped us supply flasks and feasts — a significant competitive advantage.

The EPGP system itself is managed via the EPGP addon. Earlier I mentioned that EPGP is transparent; this means, thanks to the addon, any player can see any other player’s standing and priority from within the game. In fact, this addon keeps all EPGP state in-game rather than on an external website. Therefore, it is never a surprise when someone receives loot as any player can, at any time, see other players’ EP, GP, and Priority. Likewise, the addon places the GP cost to every item in its tooltip, so you know the exact price an item would cost by simply mousing over it.

In addition to the EPGP addon itself, there is a third party addon named EPGP Lootmaster. This addon handles the loot process itself, providing very simple push-button distribution and vastly reducing the time it takes to handle the many drops off of the typical 25 man heroic boss. I highly recommend using both addons together for a tremendously smooth and simplified loot process.

Hopefully this has provided a relatively math-free explanation of EPGP. I’ve personally used it for over four years, and while certainly imperfect, it is an excellent combination of transparency, fairness, and efficiency that is suitable for guilds at all levels of progression. Once the initial setup is done, there is very little maintenance and the distribution of loot itself is very quick — important attributes for efficient raiding!

Further resources

EPGP’s website, mailing list, and bug forum
The addon itself
The Lootmaster Addon