Guild Leader Archives - Page 2 of 2

I just wanted to highlight some links for any up and coming Guildmasters who aren’t sure where to start looking for the various services they will need to set up and organize their guild..

Guild Webhosting

Enjin (Affiliate link) – Free. Contains forums, item mouseovers, roster, news management, calendar, progression indicator, multiple themes available (Demos, upgradable)
Guildomatic – Free. Contains forums, item mouseovers, roster, news management, Ad-Supported (Demo, upgradable)
Shivtr – Forums, character profiles, image gallery, events calendar, guild bank interface, polls (Free trial, $8.99 /month)
Guild Launch – Free, Forums, calendar, guild progression, RapidRaid loot management system, guild bank interface, armory interface, 10 MB file storage, Ad-Supported (demo, upgradable)
WoW Guilds – DKP system, bank management, raid progression module, WoW MP3 player, event management, over 70 templates to choose from, guild stats, armory interface (Demo – $9.88 /month)
Guild Universe – Forums, calendar, event management, guild application, roster, news management, polls (Demo, upgradable)
Guild Portal – Forums, polls, mail, content management system, raid calendar, bank management, roster management, (Demo, equals to $5.00 /month)

Webhosting

Dreamhost (Affiliate link): Dreamhost powers World of Matticus (500 GB Disk storage, 5 TB monthly bandwidth, $5.95 /month depending on prepayment).

Forums

Yuku – Free, hundreds of skins, customizable polls, member management (premium available)
Free Forums – Free, daily backups, over 100 styles, member management, data recovery (premium available)

DKP and EPGP

DKP 4 Guilds – Inhouse DKP management, raid attendance logs, raid bank, item mouseovers.
EPGP Web – Web interface for EPGP users.

Voice Servers

Nationvoice (Affiliate link): My personal vent provider of choice. I’ve been with them for over 5 years since my early days in Counter-strike (50 users for $14.99).
Typefrag – An alternative to Nationvoice. A number of Guilds I know use them (50 users for $9.99 and they have a special where if you order for a year, you get 50% off).
MMO Mumble – Mumble hosting service. $5.63 for 25 slots.
Raidcall – Free, no dedicated servers needed.

General

Warcraft Realms – Online WoW census. Tracks a player’s guild history.
WoW Jutsu – Ranks guilds based on their progression. Filterable by battlegroup, server, and faction.
WoW Progress – Ranks guilds based on their progression. Filterable by battlegroup, server, and faction.
World of Logs – Think of it as a really indepth damage meter. Takes your combat log and outputs it into something meaningful.
WoWpedia – The encyclopedia of WoW. Useful for learning about raid instances and the trash therein as well as boss strategy.
Boss Killers – Various strategies for killing bosses.
Ask Mr Robot – Online tool for figure out what gear to get next on your character. Optimizes reforging and augments. Customizable stat weights.
Icy Veins – Class information and raid strategy

Recruiting

Elitist Jerks – One of the largest theorycrafting communities. $25 per thread.
Tankspot – Available to Tankspot donors only.
WoW Lemmings – WoW forums aggregator. Sorts the latest posts on the Guild Recruiting forums on the official WoW site by faction and class.

Ah the Group 2 problem. What a sad and illustrious history it has. It generally consisting of B-List raiders who do not appear to be as active or as skilled as Group 1 (yet). Back in the day (when Kara was THEE instance to run), Group 2 was like the middle sibling in the Guild. They would always be overshadowed by the elder group. Every week, Group 1 would continue to link their swag in Guild chat. Eventually, it comes to a point where Group 2 (or the reject group) feels demoralized without the desire to raid any more because they feel they aren’t “good enough”.

Would it be accurate to say that the above experience happens to all Guilds? No. But I suspect that it happens to most casual raiding Guilds (the hardcore raiding Guilds don’t have such a problem since they advance through Kara at roughly the same pace).

From what I’ve seen in the past, Group 1 consisted of the most keenest raiders who shot to 70 within a week or two, spent another week gearing up their characters, and then straight dove into Kara while the rest of the Guild lagged behind a littl bit because they were unable to keep up with that pace.

How do I deal with it?

As a Guild leader, you have several options. At this stage of a Guild, Karazhan is now on farm. But the problem with Group 2 needs to be isolated. It could range from insufficient gear, bad players, bad raid leader, etc. Personally, I think the main problem is that the Group sets their expectations way too high and consequently feels bad when they fail to meet them. You need to reassure them that your Group 1 did go through the same problems. They went through the very same frustrations as Group 2 has done.

Shuffle Players

Take a few core players from Group 1 and insert them and see if there is a marked improvement. Maybe the tank isn’t able to sustain that kind of damage. Maybe your healer isn’t capable of healing said damage. Maybe the DPS isn’t delivering. Ideally, instead of one overpowered group and one underpowered group, you’ll now have two equally powered groups with roughly the same skill and power set. Obviously, you can’t expect Prince or Nightbane shutouts immediately. It’ll still take some time. Lower Karazhan needs to be farmed sufficiently before Upper Karazhan be negotiated with (I consider lower Kara as every boss up to and including Chess except for Nightbane, Netherspite, and Illhoof).

Problem with that then is that the Group 1 players will feel a little pressure and frustration. All the hard bosses that they have farmed with ease now present a significant challenge. Zero-day Kara runs are no longer a possibility (Runs that are done in under a day I term as zero-day since it usually requires zero effort). It requires a lot of patience on the part of everyone. If all the players just grind through it and stick with it, then crosshair on Gruul will come next.

Large announcement coming later in the evening… stay tuned