Guild Topics

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

Unreasonable Expectations?

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Conquest took its first ever raid foray into Naxx. We didn’t have enough for a full 25 yet (that comes on Monday). I took 10 players and we went into Naxx for the first time. Many of them have not seen the post Wrath Naxx before and some were delightfully surprised at the familiarity that was there. Over the course of about 3 hours, we knocked off the Arachnid quarter, Plague quarter, and Military quarter (and Sartharion).

Picked up the Gloves of Faith and the new Earring, Spirit-World Glass.

That’s an early progress report so far. I’m really happy and proud of the way things have been. This may very well be the first mageless WoW guild that I’m a part of. Hopefully, my Monday night op will be able to attract some more players.

This isn’t the main point of the post, however. We now have 15 level 80s in the guild. We’re going to have 3 more by the time the weekend is over. We are very close to being able to run our own 25 man raids.

And I haven’t finalized my raid policy yet. I figured I’d put up a draft copy here. You readers appear to know me better than I know myself. You know the kind of crew I want to run and how I want to run it.

Raid policy

AFKs: AFKs are going to happen. I ask that you inform one of the raid leaders if you need to take a quick break. Be mindful of where we are when you do take your break. The best times to do it are on initial pulls of trash after a boss or if we’re handling loot that you’re not interested in. Bad times to do it are after Heigan when we have to do a gauntlet pull or when there isn’t much time between encounters. I’ll rotate players out in shifts. When we get to a boss, and you’re still gone, you’re going to have 24 other annoyed players to come back to. We don’t have much time to raid so keep AFKs to a minimum.

Greens/Blues: All blues get banked and all greens get DE’d. In exchange for that, the guild will attempt to supply whatever mats you need for enchants if there are any available.

Be prepared: Be repaired! Bring your own consumables. Only you can judge the amount of pots you pop in one night. Prepare yourself accordingly! Don’t forget reagents! We can’t supply you potions or buff food. But we do have Alchemists and Cooks who will gladly cook things and make things for you. If we have any food in the bank, you’re welcome to ask an officer for them if they’re unclaimed. We’re not exactly made of money yet so guild repairs are a no no for the time being.

Chatter: Keep the raid chatter down and to a minimum. Focus on the job at hand. If there are any problems or issues, message one of the raid leaders. On progression raids, if it’s not important or useful to the boss at hand, then it shouldn’t be said. If it’s a farm night, things will be more relaxed.

Be on time: First pulls in raids will start at 6 PM on all raid days. Raid leaders will decide what the raid of the night will be. It’ll be posted in the Message of the Day until we develop a set schedule. You’re expected to be ready to pull at 6 PM which means you have to be in the instance and in the raid.

Strat adjustments: Even leaders will make mistakes. If you have an idea, go ahead and whisper it to a raid leader.

Battle rez’s and Soul Stones: Hold them until they’re asked for. Leaders will usually give you a target in both cases.

Raid pace and speed: Main tanks have been given the authority to pull at their discretion. They do not need to seek permission of raid leaders to pull trash. You’re expected to keep up with them as much as possible.

Ready checks: Before every boss, a ready check is going to be issued. If you’re missing a buff, not at full health or mana, haven’t taken a flask, or if you’re not ready in some fashion, click No and say what’s up. If you need to drink or eat up, that’s okay, we’re willing to wait. It drives me crazy when someone clicks yes and don’t turn out to actually be ready.

No general chat: Don’t talk in general chat. Period.

Guild policy

Raid organization: The only guild sanctioned raids are going to be 25 player raids. 10 mans and other group related activities will be done in what Syd affectionately refers to as the anarchy model. If players wish to organize and set up their own 10 man raids or heroics, they’re welcome to do so. Officers and leaders will not do it for them. Most of the time, various people in the guild will be organizing on the fly runs. It’s a matter of being in the right place or the right time. Feel free to use the forums to set something up further in advance. But I am not going to fit set tanks, set DPS and set healers into group A or group B.

Why?

I don’t like forcing players into doing things they don’t want to do. I’ve been in such a guild before where I was “assigned” to groups. On some days, I was tired and didn’t want to raid yet I felt compelled and obligated to.

Furthermore, perhaps guildies have friends outside the guild that they’d prefer to hang out and socialize with. This is a great way for them to do it without isolating them. The same method goes for PvP. I’m not going to set up guild based arena teams. It’s up to them if they want to do it. 25s are the heart and soul of this guild and it’s what our goals are. Whatever else players want to do? Entirely up to them.

Sufficiency: Like I said earlier, we don’t have a means of income yet. Players will have to be self sufficient on their own. Enchants are expansive and the guild will try to subsidize that with the greens we obtain from raiding. But it’s ultimately up to players to try to maximize themselves and be the best they can be.

I know I’ve forgotten a point or two. One thing I learned early on is that it’s impossible to try to plan and account for every little thing that can happen. Sometimes I just have to roll with it and deal with it on the fly. My greatest challenge is that when I’m setting a precedent, I have to be sure I stick to it and not deviate too far from it. I have to remain consistent in my decisions and reasoning.

The Difference Between Recruiting On Server and Off Server

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Mages. They used to be a dime a dozen. Our second highest level Mage is Stop (clocking in at a health level 4!)

There’s generally two places to recruit players from:

  • On server: This is the typical route most guilds will go through.
  • Off server: A little tougher and a little rarer. Players that transfer are generally a good breed.

I’ve delegated Sydera to the role of recruiting off server. So far, she’s done an excellent job scouting out players and prospects. She’s a lot more familiar with the process and the effort required with offserver players. When guilds recruit off server, it’s a big decision on the part of both the guild and the prospect. Server transfers aren’t free (usually) and it involves a big commitment. The process of speaking to a prospect and then transferring to join a guild could take days or even weeks at a time. But Syd has a good idea of knowing what I want and how to convey it. She represents the guild well in this regard. As a GM, I have to make sure that prospects know exactly what they’re getting themselves into. Things like my expectations, the way loot’s handled, raid times and so forth have to be said and sometimes repeated.

The worst feeling in the world is for a player to come over here only to find out this isn’t what they were looking for. That’s why I prefer vent interviews instead of in game. You can learn a lot about a person from the way they speak and their tone of voice. All our key indicators.

Coincidentally, most of the off server players who have applied read the blog. Go figure.

With regards to the on server recruits, my process isn’t as detailed or thorough. A simple trade chat macro with your guild, what your guild wants to do, raid days and times, along with classes preferred is generally a solid way to go. This way, players get all the basic information. The ones that are interested will message you for more details. The ones that aren’t interested won’t and you’ll end up not wasting time. I like to give players the option to come on vent if they want to discuss the guild more if they have any questions. I think it’s a good way to establish a dialog with them.

After that, I let them know that they’re a trial and they’ll be evaluated in the weeks ahead when we start raiding. Everyone’s performance will be analyzed and compared to see if anything can be tweaked or adjusted. It’ll continue to be an ongoing process. As much as I hate doing it, I’m going to have to make cuts in the future. I’m not sure if there’s a single GM out there that actually enjoys making cuts from their guild. It’s a dirty job but it has to be done at times.

But first thing’s first, I need to recruit.

The difference? One takes a lot more time and energy to invest in and has the possibility of not working out.

There’s enough of us at 80 now to step into Naxx and OS 10. We’ll be making a run on Saturday. The Monday following, I’m going to try and run a Naxx or OS 25 pickup group. There’s a smattering of guilds out there who have 80s but not enough in their own guild to run a 25 in house just yet. My goal is to work with a few of their players and my players and just get our feet wet so that everyone can benefit from the experience. I’m not sure if this is what Lume had in mind when he mentioned that a “GM should establish themselves and become a visual figure”.

Either way, it is a start. And it’s either going to work or fail horribly. We’ll find out!

Now, if I were a guildless Mage, where would I be…?

Twitterati’s Advice to GM-to-be Matticus

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Let it be known that to me, GM does not stand for Guild Master. I prefer to think of it as General Manager. Sports terms work a lot better for me and it’s something I can handle (though I suppose it is more of a business term). Yesterday afternoon, I lit up a simple tweet:

What advice would you have for up and coming GMs?

The response was absolutely long and enormous (as you can see on the left).

I don’t know if there’s much more to be said after such a myriad of replies.

If you have anything you’d like to add, feel free to do so.

Bonus points if you can match the Twitterati and keep your advice under 140 characters.

Note: Tweetdeck is the official Twitter client of Matticus.

Build Your Own Guild Part 10: Making Changes

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New guilds tend to start out in an idealistic mode. Guild masters and officers alike make ambitious plans–possibly including world and server domination–and they put in the kind of policies that they believe will get them to their goal.

However, sometimes plans go awry. In my experience, guild rules fail for two primary reasons.

1. Rules Have Unforeseen Consequences.

Despite the officers’ and guild master’s good intentions, new policies sometimes have unintended effects. A clause that was meant to help and support potential members may end up alienating them. Collateral Damage has make several mistakes in policy over the past few months, and it was always with the best intentions. To offer one very recent example, at the outset of our planning sessions for Wrath, CD’s officers talked about putting in a Raider Status. At the current moment, we don’t have a guild rank that corresponds to raid eligibility. While we thought it might be a good thing for organizing purposes, as it would let both infrequent and regular players know clearly how often they might expect to raid, our members did not. Most players were vehemently against having any kind of rank associated with raiding, and so this policy never made it to live, if you will. The reason? The mere suggestion of a special designation for raiders felt divisive to our members. Ironically, the very players who would exceed the standard we put forth were the ones who argued most passionately against it. The label “raider” was unwelcome, and as such, we’ve jettisoned it entirely.

2. The Guild Identity Evolves.

Guilds are organic entities, and they do not remain static for long. Part of the reason for this has to do with personnel. In the virtual environment, turnover is high, and the identity of a virtual organization depends heavily on the personality of its members. In addition, the guild’s successes or failures can determine its direction. In Collateral Damage’s case, we progressed farther and more quickly than we thought we would, and as a result, we became a more hardcore guild than our original design envisioned. Gradual change can also alter power structures. Guilds that start with lofty goals and a strict hierarchy may find that, over time, they can loosen up. What starts out as a totalitarian state led by a benevolent philosopher-king may end as an association of friends and equals. It is my belief that healthy guilds shift towards this model over time as they develop trust among members. In the case of gradual institutional change, you may find that the initial policies you wrote may have very little correspondence to guild reality.

How Can I Change Things?

When something isn’t working, it tends to be pretty clear. You will hear little grumbles here and there. This is normal for a guild, as QQ is eternal, but pay attention when you start to hear the same thing from many different parties. When that happens, make a new item on your officer meeting agenda and do something about it. If a policy is bad, get rid of it as soon as you can. Sure, you’ll look inconsistent to your members, but in the end, no one wins a prize for persisting with a bad strategy. However, in order to set your organization up to be able to change with the times, or with your better judgment, certain structures have to be in place.

1. Give yourself an out.
Sometimes a guild’s charter seems graven in stone, when in fact it’s a functional document that should always be changing. Let your members observe a tradition of keeping the charter up to date. That way, if a big change needs to be made, they won’t say: “You can’t do that because it’s not in the charter.” Believe me, CD made the mistake of having a static charter and rule set. Members will read the charter like a Blue Post, and we all know what happens whenever Ghostcrawler appears to change his mind.

2. Have a Decision-Making Structure
Make sure that your guild rules set up a procedure for proposing and ratifying changes to policies. For some guilds, it may work best for the GM to have final decision-making power in all cases, but in others, a vote among the officers will guarantee better support for the decision. The worst thing you can do is poll your members and let them vote on guild policies. People tend to vote their fears. You’ve selected your officers (hopefully) because they’re capable of thinking through problems logically. Polls are useful for information-gathering, but leave the decision-making power in the hands of a few well-informed individuals.

3. Have a System for Reporting to the Members
Transparency is a good thing. I believe that the GMs and officers should be making the decisions, but I also believe that they should explain any major policy change to the members. Document the reasons for the change carefully. It’s very common for disgruntled guild members to accuse the GM of making arbitrary decisions. Don’t give them ammunition.

Sweeping Changes

The advice in this article should enable a new guild to make the small adjustments that are necessary to keep an active organization healthy. These kinds of changes are usually acceptable to all members with a little explanation. However, what happens if you want to radically change your guild’s identity? Is it possible, for example, to mold a casual guild into a hardcore raiding team?

Yes and no. In order to explain how a gradual shift might work, I am going to borrow the rather disgusting metaphor that my fellow CD officer, Bruug, used in our last officer meeting. Imagine that your guild is a cute little froggy, and you’d like to boil him up for dinner so you can snack on some delicious frog legs. If you drop Mr. Croaky into a pot full of boiling water, he’ll jump right back out. However, if you stick him in room-temperature water and turn up the heat a few degrees per minute, he’ll be perfectly happy to sit in his nice warm bath and cook.

Gross, huh? I’m not suggesting that you eat your guildmates. However, if you think that your guild has the potential to grow in a certain direction, take gradual steps to get there. Members tend to resist change. They like what’s comfortable and what works. Many people would say that you can’t take a casual guild and turn it into a hardcore one, and they’d be right in principle. Yet, CD has done that in practice, and without consciously trying (apparently we figured out how to poach a frog all on our own). If the will to be more competitive is already out there among your membership, you can help that along. Change will occur organically, but it will do so more surely and effectively if the hand of leadership gives it a nudge or two. Like a careful gardener, you can influence your guild to grow in certain directions. However subtle the changes, I do urge Guild Masters to be as transparent as possible about their vision for the guild. This is only fair to your members who, after all, did not sign their guild contracts in blood. Well, all except the warlocks anyway, and that was because their other pen ran out of ink.

Build Your Own Guild Part 9: Ambition

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Once you have your own little Raid Machine up and running, it’s very easy to get a particular kind of tunnel vision. In the context of Burning Crusade, many new raiding guilds or casual raiding guilds worked and struggled to become the kind of organization that could reliably clear Karazhan. However, once Prince started going down every week, these guilds stalled out or stagnated. Believe me, I’ve seen it–I used to be in one of those guilds! One week, the end boss of the entry-level raid is dead and every one is happy. The very next week, the best players are leaving the guild for more progressed organizations on other servers.

So, What Happened?

Many Karazhan-capable guilds encountered problems after they cleared the place for one simple reason. The guild’s wildest dream had come true, and it’s hard for a guild to outlive its founding vision. When you are at the helm of the raiding guild, it is your responsibility to adapt your goals and plans to a changing environment. Always plan weeks or months ahead, and make sure your guild is aware that you have a vision for their future.

Making Plans

Your thoughts and planning should extend to at least one instance beyond where you are. Collateral Damage practiced an extreme version of this. Because we started late, hitting Serpentshrine Cavern only in January, we had a very small window of time to clear two full tiers of content. We are less casual now than we were when we started, and we spent a full five months in T5. However, we started thinking about the next step about the time Leotheras went down. At the time, attunements were still in place for T6, and the officers started planning and strategizing about how we were going to kill Vashj and Kael. We shared part of our plans with the guild, in the first of what became a series of goal-setting posts from our raid leader.

In T6, we knew time was running short. Attunements were lifted just as we were ready to start, and we knew that Sunwell was on the horizon. Our goal, however, was to get through Illidan and Archimonde–we didn’t think about anything beyond that. We made posts promising a dead Illidan by the end of the summer, and all of my recruitment ads promised full clears of T6 by that time. And you know what? We did it. I think that the planning, goal-setting, and above all, the stubborn refusal to accept the possibility of failure allowed us to do it. Mind you, we’re not a hardcore guild, and we were even less so the first time we took a peep at Naj’entus.

On Progress

In order to survive, a raiding guild must always have progression in mind. Some weeks no new bosses will die–that is only right and good, as it is the sign of challenging content. We don’t want it to be easy, right? However, a guild must never be content to rest on its laurels and only raid farm bosses. As your group masters more and more bosses, the farm list will grow longer, potentially leaving less and less time every week to work on new content. There are two ways to manage the dichotomy of progression and farming: the fast method and the slow method. Each way has its own benefits and drawbacks.

The Fast Method

Following this method, a raid leaves farm content behind as soon as it is feasible. The raid may set some essential gear goals, like a certain amount of tank health or survivability, but no attention is paid to the completion of gear sets or the acquisition of best-in-slot items. End bosses in particular, because of their relative inaccessibility and high level of time investment, are more or less neglected. The raid may kill the end boss of an instance three or four times at maximum, and all fights in the dungeon will not be on farm status before the raid moves on to the next boss. Inevitably, gear gaps arise, as people do not have the opportunity to collect all the gear from the instance. In Burning Crusade, players looked to badge gear, craftables, and Zul’Aman gear to fill the gap. Similar opportunities for gear outside of raids may also be available in Wrath. This method allowed Collateral Damage to get through T6 in short order, but if you ask some of our members, the progress was too fast at times. The pressure was consistently high, especially for a casual raiding guild, and members spent a great deal of time outside of raiding optimizing their gear.

However, the great benefit of this method is that players never get bored. The challenge is consistent, and the raid doesn’t stagnate. Even if they farm on Tuesday, they know they get to wipe to fun new content all night on Sunday. If you are a guild behind the curve of progression, which many guilds that start up at the dawn of Wrath might be, this is probably the best progress model to adopt. Before you do, however, make sure your players are up to the pace.

The Slow Method

According to this tactic, the raid farms instances until the majority of its players complete their gear sets. These guilds do spend time on new content, but they happily farm the old until they reach a comfortable overall gear level. If the guild follows this method, the members have little need to acquire gear outside of raid instances. They can spend their non-raid time in less stressful ways. The risk, however, is that members will get bored. Over time, a good raid can master so much content that it is impossible to go through it all in a week. There will always be people who want one last thing out of an old dungeon. Take, for example, all those raiders, casual and hardcore alike, who farmed Karazhan into the ground.

The slow method, however, can backfire as easily as the fast method. Raiders may become complacent and sloppy if they’re not motivated to reach new content. It feels terrible to wipe repeatedly to farm content–this is what happens when players do not pay attention or, worse, stop attending farm days.

The Happy Medium

Is there a way to combine the approaches? I would tend to say yes, but from my experience, certain types of guild structures manage the struggle between farming and progression better than others. Naturally, hardcore guilds are the best at farming–they have structures that ensure their members’ attendance, and those members tend to be really interested in raiding anyway. Smaller guilds will always have an easier time leaving instances behind than guilds with deep benches because they have less members to outfit. However, small guilds run the risk of not filling farm raids if members lose interest. However any raiding guild, regardless of size or structure, can both farm and progress, as long as its leadership is actively managing the relationship between the two. The key idea here is responsibility: farm responsibly, and progress responsibly. Here are some tips on maintaining the equilibrium between these two opposing terms.

1. Farm it like you mean it.
When you do farm old content, or clear the front half of an instance in order to get to new bosses on the back, play as if every fight were a progression fight. Many raid leaders will be tempted to be more inclusive on farm rosters, letting more casual members of the guild see the content. Do this with caution. Make sure that whoever you bring along will not slow the group down. Your highest commitment should be to your regular raiders–make them happy, and you will have a stable guild. I also advise against allowing raiders to bring alts in farm content. In the long run, they will be sorry they spread their DKP over more than one character, and their play may even suffer because they have not concentrated adequately on one class and role.

2. Always have progression time.
In a 12-hour raid week, which seems to be a typical raid schedule, try to dedicate at least 4 hours to new content. That is enough time to take down a new boss if it’s fairly easy or to make significant progress on a difficult one. I have seen bad weeks and good weeks of raid progress, but the only thing that guarantees a stagnant week is dedicating insufficient time to the fun new stuff. Make sure your people have a reason to farm quickly–they should know that, at the end of their raid week, they get to challenge themselves with something new.

The key idea here is reasonable progress. Don’t force your raid through content at lightning speed, but don’t let your group stagnate either. Remember that a guild that makes steady progress will be happier and more stable than the server-first guild that rushes through thanks to sleep deprivation and a Raid Leader who knows how to crack the bullwhip.

After all, what are you going to do when you run out of content? At that point, it’s all farming until the next patch comes out. Make sure that when your guild gets to that happy point, the members all like each other enough to stick around through some slow farming weeks. That’s the kind of organization with real staying power.