I’ve always thought about forming my own raiding guild. I’ve always talked the talk. But can I walk the walk? It’s still something I’m mulling over. The expansion is nearly here. It’s time for players to re-evaluate their guild, their goals, and their environment. Are you happy where you are? Are you going to achieve your goal where you are? If you answer no, then it just might be time to do some soul searching.
That’s what I’m doing right now. Raiding with Carnage has been a major blast and one of the best WoW experiences I’ve had. I had my own reasons for joining Carnage because my goals coincided with their goals. Now my goals have changed.
I’m still mulling things over. But I’m more or less committed at this point. Talks with friends have helped me orient myself and I’ve come to realize that the only way I can be satisfied playing this game is to do it in a way where I’m doing what I want. Along the way, I’m going to have to find 24 other players that want to do the same thing as I do. It’s going to be a tough sell. Will they buy into the Matticus system and philosophy? Who knows? But I have the support of around 12 players on the same server and off the server.
Who else out there is changing guilds or is thinking about leaving? What’s holding you back? What’s making you consider pulling the trigger?
Wish I had the title of General Manager Matticus. Anyone in the market for a raiding progression guild?
New blog post: Hard Decisions http://tinyurl.com/5v7exq
“I had my own reasons for joining Carnage because my goals coincided with their goals. Now my goals have changed.”
That’s nice and all, but if you’re angling for recruits, well, you might wanna share what those goals are.
A few months ago I left my raiding guild because their way of raiding wasn’t something I was comfortable with.
Since then I’ve been looking for a new raiding guild without luck, I just can’t seem to find one that suits my needs with the irl life I got going on.
So I’ve decide to keep my chars in the small family guild I’ve created start leveling slowly in WotLK and see what happens.
I’m the type that run pugs when leveling and who knows I might get some new friends in other guilds and I’ll take it from there, it’s going to take some time to get to 80 anyways :p
It’s really important to be in a guild where you’re happy about most things they’re doing, if you’re not you might get burned out from the game and just not enjoy it anymore.
My thought about your post is that.. if you’ve thought about doing this for a while then I’ll say go for it. I’ve read your blog for some time now and I think you can pull this off, it might take some time but meh better to try than dwell on the though of what if.
Interesting topic, yesterday I wrote a post titled /Gquit: Is it time to move on? It’s something I’ve been thinking of a lot recently. The guild I joined is a casual guild, but they don’t do any raiding. I’m finding that is what I want so I’ll be moving my Holy priest to another guild and keeping my alts in the casual guild.
The guild I’m looking at isn’t new to me. I regularly do instances with one of their members and have met a few of his guild mates when they’ve joined my buddies in various instances.
I’ve already said this, but I enjoy hearing the sound of my own voice, so I’ll say it again. As you say, the only way you will be satisfied with how you play is if you have control over it. Since you are one of those ‘leader types’ (not a bad thing), I imagine that you would be happiest with your own guild. And not only would you be happy, I can imagine you would be pretty damned good at it as well.
Best of luck!!
Saresas last blog post..Raiders: 5 Easy Ways to Push Them to Their Potential
Yeah.. I’m in the same boat as you. My whole issue is I think the guild I’m in now, although I love the people, just aren’t on the same level as I am. I find myself thinking about leaving alot, but it has nothing to do with the people in the guild. It is a tough decision to make. I’ve told myself that I’m going to wait until 80, and see what happens with them, then decide, but my fear is by then I may have waited too long to get a prime spot in a more like-minded guild.
At least I’m not the only one 😉
In general–the expansion is a good time to make changes.
For everyone leaving guilds, just make sure you do so with class. I don’t believe in burning bridges, regardless of the drama you might be leaving behind.
Allready have my raiding guild set, 6/6 4/4 5/5 9/9 pre 3.0, and 5/6 after.
GMing is hard work, though. Don’t consider it without knowing (and explaining) exactly what you have in mind.
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This is something that I’ve been working through the last few months as well. Sunday morning we finally setup the Guild Charter, collected signatures, and are now tagged. Most of the initial work is done, and now we are on to the “answering questions and finding like minded people phase”. Our initial goals are a bit more modest, but like any new raiding guild , it will be easy to judge how well our ideas play out in practice.
I would encourage you to go ahead with your plan. As has been said, it is a lot of work, but once you are attached to the idea it is hard to let it go – at least until you try it. Better to try and find it isn’t what you want, or even to fail, than to sit back and picture “what it would have been like.”
Even in the worst case, I have a hard time imagining you not landing on your feet.
And selfishly, no matter the direction the road eventually leads, it should make for very interesting reading.
notcodings last blog post..Warriors: Talents for WotLK
Yes indeed – GMing is a massive amount of work – not just setting up raids, recruiting for raids, and running guild events – but managing a motley assortment of people who come from such varied backgrounds that likely all they have in common is WoW. Don’t underestimate the time-sink that dealing with every little player-crisis will turn out to be…. and it’s not a lot of fun most of the time.
On an entirely different topic, if you have 12 others lined up, you can at least be sure that you can raid all of the content 10-man style….. that’s not a bad place to start.
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I have already told the officers in my guild that I will be leaving. I’m not the leader type, but my boyfriend is. Fact is he’ll not truly be happy till he is in a leader position so we formed our new guild, it was officially born Friday night! Yay! We are the proud new parents of Innuendo! I have no intention of being a leader, but I will however lend my boyfriend some diplomacy as he generally needs help with that.
Anyhow good luck with your guild if you do choose to start one! 🙂
One thing holds me back. Time. Been there done that and know that to do it properly will place time demands on me that will impact my work and my family. Therefore my main is in a guild that accepts my limited raid schedule and all my alts are in a guild with friends.
I am sure Auz and Syd would agree, even if you find people who have exactly the same vision as you, running a guild takes a lot of effort, in game and out. If you don’t have the bandwidth to do it, you shouldn’t be leading a guild.
Well, I try to follow the philosophy that since I pay for WoW, I should play however makes me happy. This led to me leaving a very solid guild where we were easily #1 in progression because my GM told me that attending family functions was “pussying out” of raids; I realized how incompatible my attitude towards the game was with them.
So I’ve returned to my former, laid-back guild as an officer with my husband and a dear friend of ours, and realized how freaking miserable some of the people there make me. I don’t want to leave, but I do want to rework the place from the ground up. We have some terribad players (you know, the types you carry?) who are nonetheless absolutely dedicated to the guild, and then we have some great players who have the worst attitudes in the world and I cannot communicate with. It’s a difficult process to build a guild, but it’s wayyyy more difficult to maintain your guild. I know that the people who were leadership in our absence did their best, but their standards slipped and now I’ve got to help clean things up.
Good luck with setting up your guild — it definitely sounds like something you should do. Don’t let it become a job, and don’t let it ruin your fun. There’ll be times when you don’t want to login and have to deal with your guildies, and that’s just the way it goes; just be careful that those times don’t start to outnumber the ones where you WANT to be around them!
It was no secret that the guild I was in kind of imploded a bit before the beta started. We had to carry too many people who were just there to be a warm body and freeload. The remaining few of us who put forth the effort are joining/creating a new guild with a couple Gladiators in our guild and their 2400 rated buddies with the intent of raiding 3 days a week.
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@I Don’t heal: Heh, in due time. Everything will be laid out here. Goals, the philosophy, the plans, everything.
And from the other side of the coin…
I think the hardest part of being in a casual, friendly guild is watching people leave for raiding guilds after we leveled them up to the “uber” point. Leaving alts in the friendly guild is a nice gesture, but I know never to count on those alts for anything, because it’s been made clear that we and our goals will always be second priority to that player.
But I agree with Sydera…please do it with class. Being told that we are “backwards” and “suck” (words told to me by players leaving an old guild I was in) creates more drama than what you think was already there!
Best of luck, GM-to-be Matticus!
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It was a hard decision to make but I know you wanted your own guild with your own ideas Matt. Sometimes the right things to do are generally the hardest decisions you will have to make
You know my thoughts on the whole idea. My philosophy of raiding is try your very best 100 percent of the time and Review after on how you and others can become better.
I had a good run in Carnage and got to see all the content of TBC as a result but in the end what I wanted and what the guilds direction was going to be were two very different things. I can be hot headed at times and I did not think I could hold off say something that people would construe as being jerkish
I, too, am at a crossroads. I am not thinking of changing servers, but if you plan on organizing on Eredar, hit me up. =)
I am in a small guild of real life friends, experienced raiders in vanilla wow, who have not been raiding seriously.
One of them took his alt to a raiding guild last night. I want to raid, my husband wants to raid. he has put in an application with one of the top guilds on our server where he has made some friends and been invited. They are not accepting my class. Ideally, I want my rl friends to want to raid, to want to become a raiding guild, but I don’ think it will happen.
I don’t think I want to run a guild either. As a law student with two children under 5, I just do not think I would do a good job. I also know a lot about healing, but only about healing.
So, do I apply to other raiding guilds, or do I stay and hope we can find pugs to complete 10-mans. I don’t know.
@julanna: I would stay where you are, and then keep an eye on your husband’s guild having openings. Won’t they even invite you as a friend/family/casual member? That way you could get to know people, get in on the 5 man runs when Wrath drops, and probably get a raiding spot pretty quickly.
My guild disbanded like 2 months ago, then now I have joined a guild with some ex-guild friends… I’ll play with then until 80… and see what happens with them, then decide.
But I love high end game and I don’t know what I gonna do when I hit 80 =(
good luck on your new challenge!!! =D
@ Mallet and Doc… So what exactly has changed priority wise? Are you looking to get into more “hardcore” raiding?
Just curious 🙂
@Thorinaaaaaaaaaaaaar: In a word, yes. I’m still mulling things over. I want to try to keep my weekends more open. Keep it similar to a “work” schedule of weekday stuff. I’m thinking about scaling down a bit. But I might add an extra day or two. I’ve already started assembling my leadership team. I’d like to lean towards being a top 200 guild at least.
Matt wanted a more higher end raiding environment. I know I sometimes felt we were not critical enough on all 25 people in the raid to get them to perform to the level I thought they should be doing. I know Matt felt the same way and instead of forcing our ideas on people who maybe did not believe in them, Matt thought it was the right time time to move towards something different
We hope to be able to raid at high level and be critical of ourselves and guildmates in a hopefully mature manner. We are not striving to be number 1 or even number 100 but somewhere just behind those guilds that are constantly pushing new content.
I do not know if it is the right idea or if it will work but after doing some serious discussions in the past few days we felt we had to at least give it a try
@Thor: But more than that, I felt like it was time for me to try something I had never done. I pvp’d at a high level before. I joined a raiding guild. I’ve done my share in leading pug raids, alt raids, and etc.
But leading a guild? Organization from the ground up? Those are things I’ve never really done before and its experience I want to get involved in. My entire life I’ve been nothing but a follower. I want to try my hand and be a leader.
This would be the best time to do it in between expansions.
I was once in the same position you were. And you know where I am today. =)
I am actually in the midst of writing about the experience, using it as context for the advice I want to give on the formation and leadership of hardcore raiding guilds.
http://www.lumethemad.coms last blog post..Developing a Successful Raiding Guild: A Prologue
Been following WoM for a while, known you through the Guild relations forum and things. If you weren’t a stubby dorf I would consider a Matticus guild.
“I’d like to lean towards being a top 200 guild at least.”
If you’re planning on being a top 200 guild, here’s the reality as a GM.
You’re going to be there on the weekdays.
You’re going to be there on the weekends.
You’re not going to have days off.
You may be able to do 3 days a week raiding and get top 200 or so, but as a GM you’re going to have to be around to deal with things, even if it’s being on-call. From what I’ve read about your school schedule and your life priorities, I don’t know if that’s the best thing for you.
I wish you luck, and as it sounds like you’re committed to the idea I hope you prove me wrong.
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@Kal: Its appreciated. But I’m also realistic about my priorities. 200 would be nice to achieve. At the very LEAST, I’m hoping to be ahead of the curve.
I’m in a casual guild and our GL is very cautious about tackling content. I think it’s because she wants a laid back guild, very family atmosphere-like.
Which has lead me to my pugging endeavors since 3.0. I’ve accomplished more and seen more with my friend (outside my guild), who I organize raid pugs with, than I would have with my guild. My guild doesn’t hold me back. It remains to be a group of very cool people who help each other, share resources, and experience.
With the new calendar tool I can organize my own raids with the friends I’ve come across, even invite a few guildmembers, and not have to worry about the rules and restrictions that sometimes applies to guild runs. I found out I don’t need to create my own guild or change the direction of my current guilds agenda to suit my goals.
It may have a lot to do with 3.0 but our pugs have cleared Gruuls/Mags easily. 4/6 in our 1st SSC run, minus Hydross & Vashj. We didn’t want to attempt Hydross without resistance geared tanks and Vashj phase 2 keeps killing us. We’re now 5/6 in SSC, still -Vashj but we now know Hydross is very doable without resistance and with a single MT. 2/4 in TK without trying Al’ar or Kael. My friend pugged BT without me and got stopped at Bloodboil. Roughly 80% of our raid consists of Kara or Arena S2 geared players.
Our goal has just been to see as much game content possible that would of otherwise been unimaginable. I’m happy about the changes recently and hope level 80 end-game doesn’t become another exclusive to hardcore raiders that only less than 10% of the WoW population will see for a very long time.