Guild Topics

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

Your Guild’s Dual Spec Policy: What Will it Be?

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Two Seagulls

So what’s the question on everyone’s mind?

Will you, as a player, need two sets of specs as enforced by your raid leader?

For most players, one spec should suffice. You were brought into your current guild and asked to perform in a role. That has not changed. What has changed is the ease in which you can switch from one role to another. You can go from raiding to soloing. You can switch between PvE work to PvP relaxation.

All this stuff can be still be done right now.

It’s just pretty darned expensive between re-gemming, re-enchanting, and re-glyphing.

Your guild policy

I suspect it will be similar to mine. After reading about it and thinking about it, I decided the best course of action was to allow players to select whatever secondary spec they like.

Their primary spec is going to be used for raiding. Of that, I have no doubt. If they didn’t want to raid, they’d just let me know and hibernate for a while. The players that are still around do want to raid and there’s no way they’d jeopardize that.

I’m not doing your job for you

I’ve always told my players to select whatever talent points they needed to excel in the role they are asked to do. I don’t have the time or the interest to research every class and spec in the game and tell them what to get. That responsibility is there for them. I can provide them with resources or point them in places to look, but beyond that I am hopeless.

Now don’t get confused between asking a player to switch roles and to pick out talent points. Asking a Panzerdin to switch from tanking to a healing job is going to require him to completely switch out some specs. What I will not do is tell them how to spend each point individually. This is based on the assumption that they want to and are capable of doing it.

Some misconstrued people on Twitter get into a knot when they assume I expect and enforce people to spec a certain way. That’s not true. I expect them to pick a spec that allows them to contribute as much as they can to the raid in a manner comfortable with them. While I understand guilds that enforce specs I’ve never been one to do that unless I desperately felt that it was an ability that is absolutely essential to successfully complete an encounter. And even then, I’d ask first if they were comfortable with the idea.

What if I’m a bonafide raid healer forever? I know if I were a raiding Holy Paladin, I’d select the standard PvE Holy loadout for one spec. But my second? I’d grab the one that stretches down the Protection tree deep enough to grab Divine Guardian. 12 seconds where the raid takes 30% less damage is a make or break ability that can give healers the time to weather the incoming storm. I do this with the knowledge that it offers my guild a second option in the event that it’s needed. Not like I was using it for anything else anyway.

Again, this is assuming I don’t PvP or dabble in other roles.

The other guy we all love to hate

Most guilds have that one annoying player that everyone hates.

You know who I’m talking about. He’s the guy that knows more about your class then you do. He can play it way better than you. He has the raid achievements and the epics to prove it.

But what if you had 24 other players who knew just about as much as everyone else? Constantly asking questions, pointing out strengths, identifying weaknesses and just making people think rationally about what they’re doing is a shift in environment that a lot of players would be unfamiliar with.

With dual specs, guildss can start expecting DPS and healers to start talking to each other more. I can see different players asking each other how they specced a certain way. Maybe they’re asking for advice on what points to take for a second spec after deciding on a role. I know I don’t have the faintest clue on what to glyph, enchant, or augment if I were to grab shadow.

My Shadow Priests ask me once in a while what my thought process was between this talent point and that talent point (like Serendipity vs Test of Faith).

What about off spec loot?

And the question that every raid leader hates to answer but has to for the sake of their guild is how should off spec loot be handled? This is something that’s still under discussion. It’s always good to hear everyone’s perspective.

But in the end, it’s up to the GM to decide on one. You can’t please everybody. And the GM has to pick a policy that follows in line with the rest of their organization.

Now the Bank of Matticus is a large corporation that requires resources to continue functioning. It helps  sponsors enchanting materials for the guild. In the future, a path is being explored where it can be used to help sponsor guild repairs.

It needs a way of generating income.

Some pointers

  • Main spec (role) will get a clear priority
  • Assuming no main spec raiders need an item, players that would like to use it for offspec can obtain it
  • Players that would like more than 1 item for offspec will be asked to compensate the guild accordingly. This could be in gold (like 100g), an Abyss Crystal, a stack of Infinite Dust, or half a stack of Greater Cosmic Essences.
  • This cap resets after one week. So a player can get a free off spec item once per week (on top of any main spec items needed)

This addition is still under debate. But I expect to have a decision rendered before this week’s raid.

The aim of this is to discourage players from attempting to assemble 4 or 5 sets worth of gear. I’m sorry, but no one needs that amount of equipment. It’s absolutely wasteful. Want a healing and Moonkin set? Absolutely, that’s no problem. Grab a few items here and there during the weeks where no players need it. Donate a couple of hundred gold and an abyss into the bank. Augment your gear with stuff from heroics or normal level raids.

You don’t need a tanking set, a cat DPS set, a moonkin set, a PvP moonkin set, a Resto set, a dreamstate set, and so forth. That’s absolutely greedy and unnecessary.

4 Points of Crisis Management

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“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
Chinese Proverb

As individuals, we’re exposed to conflict on a daily level. We get into arguments with loved ones. We curse at the guy who cuts us off on the highway. We become angry because of decisions made by other people that affect us.

One of the Criminology courses I’m taking in university is called introduction to policing. Today I wanted to share some important lessons I learned that day. It’s something that law enforcement go through often in their careers. It’s a great skill that benefits all of us regardless of what your jobs or interests are.

It’s about crisis management.

People need time

parabola

See that poorly drawn graph above? The shaded area is a person’s “rage” meter. This is when a person is at the peak of their anger. Give them time to calm down. Don’t rush anything just yet. Some people get extremely fired up at first and their judgment gets clouded. After some time has passed, the “rage” meter will start to decrease and come down.

Watch your tone of voice and conduct yourself appropriately

Many summers ago, I had a job as a carnie. No, I wasn’t the guy that dressed in the clown suit. I was the guy that had to make your kid wait in line in front of that Scooby Doo or Spongebob Squarepants bouncy castle. It continues to be my observation that when a parent’s kids are involved, all sense of logic and reason goes out the window. The supervisor on deck never stopped preaching to us to watch what we say and to not lose our temper. Direct any extremely flamboyant customers to the supervisor. But above all, don’t lose your cool. Because by raising your voice, you’ll only escalate the problem even further.

And no, I didn’t clean up when your kid peed in my ride either. I got people junior and I to do it. Hooray for seniority (and bless the guy that invented Fuh-breeze).

Reflect on what they’re saying and keep talking

Try and understand their perspective. Keep the conversation going. Try and find common ground. Learn to compromise. What exactly is the subject fired up about? Is there a way for you to help and resolve the situation?

Give them space and distance

When dealing with high risk offenders, keep your distance and give them a lot of space. It doesn’t hurt to have a lot of objects (or tables) in the way especially if the person in question is pissed off at you. It just means there’s more crap they have to navigate through in order to injure you. This also means not deliberately trying to set them off even more. You can tell when someone is mad. But you can also tell when someone is downright pissed. They start saying things they wouldn’t otherwise normally say. Their volume and tone reaches heights it wouldn’t normally reach. It’s not a cue to keep pressing their buttons. Its a cue to just stop.

6 Ways to Reject a Guild App Without Sounding Like an Angry Ex

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In the spirit of the blogger’s challenge I laid out last Saturday, I felt it was only fair to come up with a post of a similar theme.

I issued a question to the Twitterati asking them this:

On what grounds have you had to turn away guild apps?

Of the multiple responses I received, I was able to consolidate the majority into 6 real reasons guilds reject players.

Some of these reasons sound eerily familiar. Probably because I’ve been on the receiving end of all of them at some point.

It’s not you. It’s me.

@greyseer Attitude does not align with core purpose or ideals

This is the one of the more often used rejection reasons. Sometimes a player just does not fit in with the rest of the guild for whatever reason. Player personality plays a strong role in the minds of most GMs. If a personality clashes, then the door is closed. Perhaps the applicant is simply too liberal in their use of language which makes players uncomfortable. Maybe they’re looking to do nothing but PvP in a progression raiding guild. Whatever it is, the applicant just doesn’t have a place in the guild’s grand scheme of things.

You’re not open with me enough.

@asara_dragon Poor command of language on application
@cuppy Didn’t follow app instructions
@misskeli Didn’t fill app at all

First impressions matter. When GM’s are exposed to you for the first time, your language use plays an integral part in how you virtually “look and sound”. Take the time to put in the periods and capitals. Run it through a spellcheck. Come across as professional and intelligent. The guild app is your way of “selling” and marketing yourself to the guild. Even if you’re the best player around on the server, a crappy application will stone your efforts. Prove yourself out of the game or else you might not get the chance to prove yourself in the game.

Even worse than leaving a bad first impression is not following the instructions. If an applicant can’t follow instructions on a simple post, who is to say they can follow instructions in raids?

I think we need to go on a break.

@sylus Reputation for guild hopping
@Nightravyn Known drama llama
@dadexter Known to rob guild banks

These types of players are lone wolves. They travel from guild to guild exhausting their resources until they are no longer welcome. Fortunately, the names of such players spread quickly and far via trade chat and forums. It’s advisable for guilds to maintain their own blacklist for players that their guild should stay away from.

I’m just not interested in you right now.

@Threon We’ve got 4 Resto Druids
@Narayu People that app that are classes we’re full on.

Even outstanding apps have to get rejected. There are only 25 positions available in a raid. Some players already have cemented positions and it is extremely difficult to dislodge such people. It all boils down to having no room. Barring some kind of emergency, full time players who raid are full time for a reason. Their attendance is virtually flawless. This reason for rejecting players becomes more apparent in progressed guilds. They just can’t fit any more players, classes or roles into their raids. I’ve had to release some people over the past few weeks because I knew they wanted to raid and it wasn’t fair for them to be kept on retainer. They deserved to raid. There is still time for them to look for other guilds to join.

I’m too busy focusing on life and my career to get involved.

@siha You can’t make our raid times
@crazeigh Attendance and availability

Players apply with intentions to raid. Some guilds are okay with a 50% attendance rate or what have you. Other guilds expect raiders to be able to go at it from start to finish. Obviously it is not possible to expect flawless attendance. From experience, I can say that guilds I’ve been in, there is an expectation that players show up to a set amount (as a minimum). Given the choice between two identically geared and skilled players, I will always start with the player that can go from start to finish as opposed to the one that has to leave every night right before Patchwerk. From a management perspective, it just makes sense. A player that can only be available for a small amount of time is not going to be able to serve the guild well in a raid capacity.

You can’t afford me.

@Kreeoni Gear is lacking

Older friends have told me that companies generally don’t care what type of degree I have. I was freaking out because I was second guessing my program choices for school. Kimbo, an officer, explained to me that companies only care that you have the piece of paper that says you’ve got your 4 years or 120 credits. Whether it’s Psychology, Criminology, Sociology or Business Administration isn’t as big of a factor (in most cases but I know someone’s going to say “but yes it plays a HUGE factor”.

Having the degree shows you have the discipline and perseverance to work your way through school.

That mentality has some merit here. I’ve always held the belief that gear and skill are equally important. I need the weapons and armor to do my job. But I need the knowledge and skills to use my gear effectively.

Having your Sons of Hodir enchants or your exalted Rep faction gear demonstrates that you put a lot of time and effort into your character. Having high end heroic blues or a smattering of epics shows that you’re willing to grind through to get what you want. Appropriate gems and enchants show that you know how to best augment your character (unlike that one Priest I saw with nothing but agility gems. Hmm!

Finally, with raiding instances set to go up in difficulty, it becomes clear that minimum throughput of DPS and healing are only going to go up. For example, the gear requirement for pre-nerf Sunwell was much higher than a fray into Gruul’s Lair of Magtheridon’s cavern. The entire raid has to reach a certain minimum baseline performance in order to kill a boss. Otherwise the enrage timer hits or healers run out of mana and it’s game over.

Why have you or your guild rejected applicants? Do you have any good (or sad) stories you like to share?

Image courtesy of nyuszika

8 Questions Your Guild Should Ask Itself

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I have to share this. I saw an excellent post on Plusheal asking for advice about a fresh and new guild trying to find it’s legs (actually it was about how to democratically disagree, but that’s a topic for another time). One of the Plusheal acolytes, Caveat, replied with a great list of questions to help “reality check” your guild. Here it is!

  1. Do you have a clearly defined identity?
  2. Do you have a clearly defined schedule?
  3. Do you actually FOLLOW that schedule? (some of the best recruits we have had recently left a guild whose raid times started the same as ours- but while we start pulling within 5 minutes of that time, the other guild routinely failed to pull for 45 minutes or more. We went thru that stage, and figured out we were shooting ourselves in the foot )
  4. Do you have legitimate and fair looting system, with defined rules that are followed?
  5. Do you have a plan for progression?
  6. Do you have fun playing together?
  7. What is your vent environment like- are you foul mouthed teens or boring old geezers? (Each is ok, but appeal to totally different players)
  8. How are you with female players?

What would you add to the list? More importantly, how would you answer these questions about your own guild?

Image courtesy of OwnMoment

Case Study: How Conquest’s Healers Were Recruited

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On Saturday, I wrote a brief highlight on how not to recruit healers. The actual post was written by Ess. Reader Spinks posted a comment wondering how I recruited my healers.

In truth, recruiting healers involved higher standards and scrutiny. This was only because I’m way more critical with healing. It’s difficult to explain. Maybe it’s because I know what I want in a healer.

I’ll start with the longest serving healers and work my way up.

Sthirteen

I’ve served with S13 in my last guild. He was there when we worked on Illidan and onto Kil’Jaden. Even though he’s only played for a little over a year, he’s come a long way from the Druid who played all the way up to level 10 without realizing he could equip gear. His signing was a no brainer. I’ve known him for many years and Resto Druids aren’t exactly a common commodity on my server.

Sydera

Syd was a transfer. She was one of the founding mothers of Conquest. If she hadn’t come to me, Conquest might have still been just a dream. Her case is a unique one. She was on a different server. There was no way I could gauge her play without directly observing. A lot of it was based on inference. It certainly helped that she turned out to be a great Druid blogger. Reading her posts showed me that she knew what she was doing even though I had no way of seeing it for myself. Her previous guild managed to kill Illidan prepatch which added extra credibility.

Kaldora

I didn’t know Kaldora that well. I’ve played with him several times in other raids. One day he decided to leave his previous guild and sign with Conquest for a more focused raiding experience. I knew from the times I’ve played with him before that he knew what he was doing. He took advice and critique really well. Quick learners is a big must for my healers.

Epiks

I don’t know what it is about Resto Shamans. But they’re always hyped up on something. Epiks actually came to me in trade chat. I didn’t know about him before so I had very little to go on. Like Kaldora, he wanted a change of scenery. I had nothing to go by other than his present gear and the reputation of his old guild. I knew how progressed his old guild was and I could tell by some of the 70 gear he still had Epiks was a part of the team that helped his old guild get to where they were before Wrath. That was a testament to his perseverance and his abilities. Even though those were all good marks, I still didn’t know enough about him as a player. A Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum run later, his position was virtually cemented in the ranks.

Krinan

I took a chance on her and she took a chance on my guild. Krinan’s journey into the guild revolved around Twitter (and she has a post up on that very subject). Her pickup was a great risk moreso for her then myself. She was willing to take a chance on an unproven guild with an unproven GM. In most cases, that would have been a recipe for disaster. I’m proud to say she’s still in after 4 months. I think what did it for me was her willingness to give this organization a chance and her ability to learn quickly.

Notice that gear didn’t play a significant factor in the signings of these players. In Epiks’ case, his 70 epics from BT and the like demonstrated to me that he could hold his own. But not a single one of these players entered the guild and leveled to 80 with more then a handful of blues and greens.

These are players I know and count on to hold down the fort and they’ve done an admirable job of doing it.

photo © David Martín :: Suki_ :: for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike