Sometimes you can see drama coming from a distance, that nagging foreboding feeling that whatever is going to happen next is not going to be good.
I was quite merrily levelling away on my hunter in Un'Goro crater when my peaceful application of arrows to various targets was rudely interrupted by one of my guild members whispering me with a newsflash:
The first guild I had ever joined was about to re-form on my beloved server for the expansion.
Ungh...
... flashback to a few months ago:
I had recently quit the guild over some inconsistencies in leadership and the general attitude of 'if you don't like it you can get the hell out' and shortly after the guild imploded over losing a healer and their MT (once again attributable to poor leadership at it's finest).
The guild leader had transferred off-server taking most of her characters and a few select allies (like her husband and a few friends) with her and for a brief period I thought all would be well with the world.
I would not have to deal with the aggrivation of a guild that was populate with people that harbored some form of fake induced resentment towards me and I would simply not be haunded by the memory of my poor guild choice by having to stare at my old guild tag whenever I went to Ogr.
Peachy... ...
yet there it was... sitting in my chat window like some kind of curse trying to strangle me.
They're back.... and not only were they back they were trying to snag my beloved guild members away from me by savagely recruiting people they knew that had long since moved on to other guilds.
It's one thing to co-exist peacefully and recruit people for your guild via guild recruitment or even (Medivh forbid) over trade but trying to scoop away other guild's members by whispering them directly is a little off the wall.
I wonder how bad it must've been on their new server for them to come back to ours... I wonder if they learned anything in the meantime or if it's just another iteration of a guild that is doomed to fail before it starts...
I wonder what kind of start you can make to a guild by stealing most of your members from other guilds. How can that possibly be good for your PR? Especially if you have a guild whose PR mainly consists of: if you don't like it you can get the hell out.
I am not sure what drama looks like from a distance but it sure looks like it's wearing my former guild tag.
Showing posts with label guild. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guild. Show all posts
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Aberrance arises!
Last weekend was one of those prideful moments that you tend to get if you play a game for long enough. I am now the proud owner of a fully operational 2-man guild called Aberrance overflowing the already huge pool of new guilds on my server.
Perhaps this is no achievment, but there's a sense of accomplishment after you spend a few hours recruiting signatures, designing a tabard and laying out the guild basics, so I wear the guild tag with pride.
I never thought I would try myself at guild leadership again after having been there and done that in a few games too many but Aberrance will provide a set of challenges that I am more than willing to take on.
Primarily this guild will start out as a small two man operation. Me and a faithfull rogue friend will take on Azeroth with the goal to either two manning or soloing most of what is considered 'old content' extending ourselves to include outland once the expansion hits.
Azeroth is full of places that I haven't explored and as my last foreys into Sunken Temple, Stratholme, Dire Maul and others have shown the challenges are significant for one or two people.
You may be able to outlevel and outgear the instances in Azeroth quite easily, but taking them on by your lonesome or with anything less than a full group can still be an amazingly challenging and fun experience.
So Aberrance is born... a vision to re-discover the old world, a vision to find all those fun little trinkets that have long been forgotten and a way for even the most real-life addicted person to come to wow and know they have something to do without having to pre-plan everything days in advance.
In due time I am hoping that Aberrance will evolve into 'the' guild for the average working (wo)man.
Catering to those that have limited wow time, are unable to pre-plan wow raids, simply cannot afford to spend 4+ hours in an instance or are tired of endlessly raiding the same places over and over again. Maybe even those that just need a mental break from the hustle and bustle of their 'real guild' activities and those that don't take the game as serious business.
Focussing on a loose schedule of random instance runs in Azeroth combined with a bit of healthy PVP and the multitude of other activities people pursue in WoW I feel Aberrance will fit nicely in that large gaping chasm of people that raid full time and those that don't / can't.
A freeform guild is born. Whether we will last the distance or even be able to recruit more people is beyond me but there is undoubtedly fun as my last run to stratholme will be happy to demonstrate:
Cannonball Runner
Priceless...
Blogging wise I don't expect much to change, I will highlight some of Aberrance's exploits every now and then and hopefully be of some encouragment to those always stuck with the thought whether or not they could solo X.
Perhaps this is no achievment, but there's a sense of accomplishment after you spend a few hours recruiting signatures, designing a tabard and laying out the guild basics, so I wear the guild tag with pride.
I never thought I would try myself at guild leadership again after having been there and done that in a few games too many but Aberrance will provide a set of challenges that I am more than willing to take on.
Primarily this guild will start out as a small two man operation. Me and a faithfull rogue friend will take on Azeroth with the goal to either two manning or soloing most of what is considered 'old content' extending ourselves to include outland once the expansion hits.
Azeroth is full of places that I haven't explored and as my last foreys into Sunken Temple, Stratholme, Dire Maul and others have shown the challenges are significant for one or two people.
You may be able to outlevel and outgear the instances in Azeroth quite easily, but taking them on by your lonesome or with anything less than a full group can still be an amazingly challenging and fun experience.
So Aberrance is born... a vision to re-discover the old world, a vision to find all those fun little trinkets that have long been forgotten and a way for even the most real-life addicted person to come to wow and know they have something to do without having to pre-plan everything days in advance.
In due time I am hoping that Aberrance will evolve into 'the' guild for the average working (wo)man.
Catering to those that have limited wow time, are unable to pre-plan wow raids, simply cannot afford to spend 4+ hours in an instance or are tired of endlessly raiding the same places over and over again. Maybe even those that just need a mental break from the hustle and bustle of their 'real guild' activities and those that don't take the game as serious business.
Focussing on a loose schedule of random instance runs in Azeroth combined with a bit of healthy PVP and the multitude of other activities people pursue in WoW I feel Aberrance will fit nicely in that large gaping chasm of people that raid full time and those that don't / can't.
A freeform guild is born. Whether we will last the distance or even be able to recruit more people is beyond me but there is undoubtedly fun as my last run to stratholme will be happy to demonstrate:
Cannonball Runner
Priceless...
Blogging wise I don't expect much to change, I will highlight some of Aberrance's exploits every now and then and hopefully be of some encouragment to those always stuck with the thought whether or not they could solo X.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Guild concepts - From cookie to cake
I have been toying with the idea of creating my own guild lately. And while this is mostly due to logistical issues (tired of logging in and out all the time to transfer things from A to B) and a significant bankspace issue (I am too stingy to upgrade to primal mooncloth bags) I figured I would at least try to create a novel 'vision' for a guild.
Part of the issue of finding a guild at least for me is that there seem to be only limited flavors available.
1. The Raiding guild
This flavor doesn't suit me simply because I can make myself available maybe two or three times a week for a raid and due to job limitations can simply not guarantee that I will be online when the raid starts. I don't like inconveniencing people so I am simply not 'raid viable'.
2. The PVP guild
The pvp guilds at least on my realm attract a lot of questionable people generally displaying anything from l33t1sm to just plain bad attitude. PVPers are generally so invested in PVP that raiding anything except maybe an alliance town seems beyond their desire. This is compounded by the fact that my current server has very few pvp guilds. This is not to say I am not interested in PVP as a whole but I gain very little satisfaction from arena-ing (even when I win) and full-time BGing.
3. Levelling guilds
Levelling guilds for a lack of a better name are usually small groups of friends that have banded together to happily level themselves to 70 and then generally aspire to either turn to raiding or invest in pvp. These guilds are a solid choice for me until they make it to the point where they either go full raid or full pvp. These guilds are somewhat difficult to identify... they advertise with having a gbank and a tabard but generally don't state their long-term goals. Which means its easy to join a guild only to find out later down the line that they're heading a completely different way.
Of course at this point you're probably looking at me wondering if mr smarty pants has any better ideas. Well I do... or at least I like to think I do.
So here's a rundown of guild 'visions' I've been toying with, some ridiculous at best, others quite interesting. Guild names were picked randomly for illustration purposes.
For Hire
A guild that specialises in renting out players to other guilds for a set fee per hour. Essentially you set up a list of fees for all the instances/group activities in-game multiplied by a certain value depending on what class they want to hire and what gear level is needed. A Sunwell geared healer (if you can manage to recruit one of those) would obviously fetch a higher price than a kara geared DPS.
Payment would be in advance for a set amount of hours and of this payment a certain % of gold would go to the guild (the royal tenth so to speak) and the rest would be for the player that is being 'rented'.
Rented players for all intents and purposes are considered part of the renting guild and should have rights to roll on loot (with negotiable exceptions).
Warmongers
A pvp heavy guild with a focus on world PVP. Members of the guild should have their PVP flag enabled at all times and engage members of the opposite faction no matter the odds. The single minded goal of this guild would be to revive world pvp, organize raids on enemy cities, challenge the opposite faction to do the same and proliverate themselves as an extremely high profile pvp guild. Ideally this kind of guild would lock down enemy towns preventing quest turn-ins and as a result forcing the opposite faction to react. If the guild succeeds in completely locking down an enemy faction town for the duration of, say, a week (or a combined total of hours within that week) then this event should be celebrated and posted all over the place as if it were a raiding guild's first boss kill.
Arena and BG pvp should be considered a training ground only and visited for the purpose of training in groups and gaining the necessary gear. The focus must remain on world pvp at all times.
Free Form
A guild with no set goals or structure. A public site should be erected where members can answer a weekly poll that determines what the guilds goals will be for the coming week(s). The poll should consist of a random raiding target, a random pvp target and a random item target and replaced once the goal is reached.
Goals are picked at random for example by doing a google search on ner'zuhl and finding a relevant instance, pvp goal and item tied to this particular piece of wow lore.
Free form targets can also include doing a full druid 5-man, collecting 15 random pets, gaining revered with sporregar and whatnot. These targets could also be picked from the achievments list to be introduced with WotLK.
This guild should strive to see as much of the game and do as many 'fun to do' things without forcing themselves into an unreasonable raiding schedule.
Achieving a free-form target will award the participants points that should be listed as a ranking on a public site (with no other benefit than seeing your name there).
Collectors
As the name suggests this guild is all about collecting stuff. Members should be encouraged to research the various wow databases for unique, rare or just plain interesting items. This information should be posted in the forums and much like a freeform guild would do runs should be organized to make sure that everyone has the listed items.
Forums should allow for members to have personalized checklists so they can see what they have already and what would be interesting to get next.
Collectors should spend a significant amount of time at capital city banks to show off all the things other people don't have.
Anything from gear sets, darkmoon cards, vanity pets, unique trinkets and even rare craftables should be considered collectable.
Achievments could be listed on a public site showing off all the goodies players have via the item's icon symbol next to their name.
That's 4 ideas right there... with more in the back of my head that I will avoid mentioning here simply because this post is long enough as it is.
Do you have any guild ideas you would like to add? Or perhaps you like one of the concepts so much you wouldn't mind me going into more detail?
Comment away
Part of the issue of finding a guild at least for me is that there seem to be only limited flavors available.
1. The Raiding guild
This flavor doesn't suit me simply because I can make myself available maybe two or three times a week for a raid and due to job limitations can simply not guarantee that I will be online when the raid starts. I don't like inconveniencing people so I am simply not 'raid viable'.
2. The PVP guild
The pvp guilds at least on my realm attract a lot of questionable people generally displaying anything from l33t1sm to just plain bad attitude. PVPers are generally so invested in PVP that raiding anything except maybe an alliance town seems beyond their desire. This is compounded by the fact that my current server has very few pvp guilds. This is not to say I am not interested in PVP as a whole but I gain very little satisfaction from arena-ing (even when I win) and full-time BGing.
3. Levelling guilds
Levelling guilds for a lack of a better name are usually small groups of friends that have banded together to happily level themselves to 70 and then generally aspire to either turn to raiding or invest in pvp. These guilds are a solid choice for me until they make it to the point where they either go full raid or full pvp. These guilds are somewhat difficult to identify... they advertise with having a gbank and a tabard but generally don't state their long-term goals. Which means its easy to join a guild only to find out later down the line that they're heading a completely different way.
Of course at this point you're probably looking at me wondering if mr smarty pants has any better ideas. Well I do... or at least I like to think I do.
So here's a rundown of guild 'visions' I've been toying with, some ridiculous at best, others quite interesting. Guild names were picked randomly for illustration purposes.
For Hire
A guild that specialises in renting out players to other guilds for a set fee per hour. Essentially you set up a list of fees for all the instances/group activities in-game multiplied by a certain value depending on what class they want to hire and what gear level is needed. A Sunwell geared healer (if you can manage to recruit one of those) would obviously fetch a higher price than a kara geared DPS.
Payment would be in advance for a set amount of hours and of this payment a certain % of gold would go to the guild (the royal tenth so to speak) and the rest would be for the player that is being 'rented'.
Rented players for all intents and purposes are considered part of the renting guild and should have rights to roll on loot (with negotiable exceptions).
Warmongers
A pvp heavy guild with a focus on world PVP. Members of the guild should have their PVP flag enabled at all times and engage members of the opposite faction no matter the odds. The single minded goal of this guild would be to revive world pvp, organize raids on enemy cities, challenge the opposite faction to do the same and proliverate themselves as an extremely high profile pvp guild. Ideally this kind of guild would lock down enemy towns preventing quest turn-ins and as a result forcing the opposite faction to react. If the guild succeeds in completely locking down an enemy faction town for the duration of, say, a week (or a combined total of hours within that week) then this event should be celebrated and posted all over the place as if it were a raiding guild's first boss kill.
Arena and BG pvp should be considered a training ground only and visited for the purpose of training in groups and gaining the necessary gear. The focus must remain on world pvp at all times.
Free Form
A guild with no set goals or structure. A public site should be erected where members can answer a weekly poll that determines what the guilds goals will be for the coming week(s). The poll should consist of a random raiding target, a random pvp target and a random item target and replaced once the goal is reached.
Goals are picked at random for example by doing a google search on ner'zuhl and finding a relevant instance, pvp goal and item tied to this particular piece of wow lore.
Free form targets can also include doing a full druid 5-man, collecting 15 random pets, gaining revered with sporregar and whatnot. These targets could also be picked from the achievments list to be introduced with WotLK.
This guild should strive to see as much of the game and do as many 'fun to do' things without forcing themselves into an unreasonable raiding schedule.
Achieving a free-form target will award the participants points that should be listed as a ranking on a public site (with no other benefit than seeing your name there).
Collectors
As the name suggests this guild is all about collecting stuff. Members should be encouraged to research the various wow databases for unique, rare or just plain interesting items. This information should be posted in the forums and much like a freeform guild would do runs should be organized to make sure that everyone has the listed items.
Forums should allow for members to have personalized checklists so they can see what they have already and what would be interesting to get next.
Collectors should spend a significant amount of time at capital city banks to show off all the things other people don't have.
Anything from gear sets, darkmoon cards, vanity pets, unique trinkets and even rare craftables should be considered collectable.
Achievments could be listed on a public site showing off all the goodies players have via the item's icon symbol next to their name.
That's 4 ideas right there... with more in the back of my head that I will avoid mentioning here simply because this post is long enough as it is.
Do you have any guild ideas you would like to add? Or perhaps you like one of the concepts so much you wouldn't mind me going into more detail?
Comment away
Friday, May 30, 2008
Guildless
So yesterday I decide to take a stroll through the guild forums to see what's new and lo and behold what do I see?
"Bank tabs 2 and 3 are now closed. Contact an officer if you need anything from them." (*not an exact quote)
I wasn't really surprised. Previously someone had snagged a stack of void crystals from bank tab3 before leaving resulting in anyone but officers being kicked out of accessing it.
And apparantly the day before yesterday the GL found out someone that was stealing from tab2 resulting in the immediate closure of the tab.
But in both scenarios it was never adressed how the problem would be solved or if it would even be looked at beyond closing the tabs. So in my infinite stupidity I decided to start discussing the topic on the forums indicating potential solutions and that long term-members should be exempt from being treated like children because new guild members steal from the bank.
Suffice to say that drama ensued. Requesting for some form of clarity wasn't really appreciated and all of a sudden my posts get twisted into being offensive, hostile and even caustic which they were never intended as.
To top things off I get the classical GL private message stating: "If you don't like how I run the guild, get out."
So I did. There's completely no point in being in a guild that doesn't accept constructive criticism and where the leadership isn't willing to discuss anything and especially not their decisions.
The banking matter is closed. The GL issued the all-mighty: Here's a tip, if you want to be able to take things out of the bank don't put them in tab2 or 3. I don't know how this solves the issue beyond inviting people to steal from tab1 but one thing is certain, officers and their cronies don't have any problems because they still have full access. This in essence reduces the lower ranks to nothing but bank feeders who can put stuff in but can't take stuff out unless an officer is online and deems them worthy.
What irks me the most is that there was absolutely no platform to discuss anything in the guild. Decisions were made and we could either accept them or get the hell out. Discussing them constructively or not on the forums was simply not an option. People left continually but no explanation was ever given beyond whatever the guild leader 'thought' why people left.
Unfortunately I do have an opinion... and as such me and my guild were simply mismatched.
I wish them well, although I have a sneaking suspicion that the guild will last exactly until the GL burns out. If you control everything, including the flow of information you end up with a bunch of sheep in your guild. People that are more than willing to follow a strong leader but become incapable of holding a guild together without their mighty leader.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am hopelessly misguided... maybe, maybe... Still, it was an interesting 4 months being guilded. I am sure my alts will appreciate the extra attention (and gold) and I look forward to picking things up from a solo perspective.
"Bank tabs 2 and 3 are now closed. Contact an officer if you need anything from them." (*not an exact quote)
I wasn't really surprised. Previously someone had snagged a stack of void crystals from bank tab3 before leaving resulting in anyone but officers being kicked out of accessing it.
And apparantly the day before yesterday the GL found out someone that was stealing from tab2 resulting in the immediate closure of the tab.
But in both scenarios it was never adressed how the problem would be solved or if it would even be looked at beyond closing the tabs. So in my infinite stupidity I decided to start discussing the topic on the forums indicating potential solutions and that long term-members should be exempt from being treated like children because new guild members steal from the bank.
Suffice to say that drama ensued. Requesting for some form of clarity wasn't really appreciated and all of a sudden my posts get twisted into being offensive, hostile and even caustic which they were never intended as.
To top things off I get the classical GL private message stating: "If you don't like how I run the guild, get out."
So I did. There's completely no point in being in a guild that doesn't accept constructive criticism and where the leadership isn't willing to discuss anything and especially not their decisions.
The banking matter is closed. The GL issued the all-mighty: Here's a tip, if you want to be able to take things out of the bank don't put them in tab2 or 3. I don't know how this solves the issue beyond inviting people to steal from tab1 but one thing is certain, officers and their cronies don't have any problems because they still have full access. This in essence reduces the lower ranks to nothing but bank feeders who can put stuff in but can't take stuff out unless an officer is online and deems them worthy.
What irks me the most is that there was absolutely no platform to discuss anything in the guild. Decisions were made and we could either accept them or get the hell out. Discussing them constructively or not on the forums was simply not an option. People left continually but no explanation was ever given beyond whatever the guild leader 'thought' why people left.
Unfortunately I do have an opinion... and as such me and my guild were simply mismatched.
I wish them well, although I have a sneaking suspicion that the guild will last exactly until the GL burns out. If you control everything, including the flow of information you end up with a bunch of sheep in your guild. People that are more than willing to follow a strong leader but become incapable of holding a guild together without their mighty leader.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am hopelessly misguided... maybe, maybe... Still, it was an interesting 4 months being guilded. I am sure my alts will appreciate the extra attention (and gold) and I look forward to picking things up from a solo perspective.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Guild Loyalty
Loyalty is dead. Not because I declared it to be but simply because it is. When I was a wee gamer during the days of muds and a while after right until the advent of the more modern MMORPGS guilds were so much different.
You joined a guild practically for life, guild hopping was frowned upon and would generally get you permanently unguilded if you did it too often.
People were invested in their guilds, would rise up to pick up tasks, throw themselves with dedication at whatever roles they got and were generally 'happier' people for it.
Sure there was drama, sure guilds fell apart but there was very little motivation to get up and leave a guild unless it was completely non-compatible with your playstyle in which case you wouldn't have joined it in the first place.
WoW seems to be the complete opposite. People join guilds as long as they feel like sticking around and will happily switch if they even get as much as the prospect of more short term gain. The people that want power generally only seem to want it so they can clean out the bank before they leave...
Just the other day we had someone leaving to join a 25 man raiding guild. Now I know for a fact we are knee deep in kara and have good relations with another guild that's past kara but has manpower issues so it stands to reason that we are maybe a month or two away from doing the first 25mans ourselves.
And here is exactly where my understanding ends.
Why would you choose to leave a guild in which you have already built up good relations and a decent name for yourself, where you have a solid if not guaranteed chance to end up on the raiding roster for kara and 25-mans in the future, for a guild that offers you the chance to raid a 25-man now but in which you have a decent chance of dropping right off the raiding roster if you're not good enough.
It's practically guaranteed that someone will know you're a guild hopper and as a result you'd be hard pressed to find any real support in the new guild you're in. In which case you sacrificed your good reputation with an entire guild for a single 25-man raid.
Maybe my views are skewed... or completely outdated. But I really don't see why anyone would pursue short-term goals if you can work towards getting a better position in the long run instead.
You joined a guild practically for life, guild hopping was frowned upon and would generally get you permanently unguilded if you did it too often.
People were invested in their guilds, would rise up to pick up tasks, throw themselves with dedication at whatever roles they got and were generally 'happier' people for it.
Sure there was drama, sure guilds fell apart but there was very little motivation to get up and leave a guild unless it was completely non-compatible with your playstyle in which case you wouldn't have joined it in the first place.
WoW seems to be the complete opposite. People join guilds as long as they feel like sticking around and will happily switch if they even get as much as the prospect of more short term gain. The people that want power generally only seem to want it so they can clean out the bank before they leave...
Just the other day we had someone leaving to join a 25 man raiding guild. Now I know for a fact we are knee deep in kara and have good relations with another guild that's past kara but has manpower issues so it stands to reason that we are maybe a month or two away from doing the first 25mans ourselves.
And here is exactly where my understanding ends.
Why would you choose to leave a guild in which you have already built up good relations and a decent name for yourself, where you have a solid if not guaranteed chance to end up on the raiding roster for kara and 25-mans in the future, for a guild that offers you the chance to raid a 25-man now but in which you have a decent chance of dropping right off the raiding roster if you're not good enough.
It's practically guaranteed that someone will know you're a guild hopper and as a result you'd be hard pressed to find any real support in the new guild you're in. In which case you sacrificed your good reputation with an entire guild for a single 25-man raid.
Maybe my views are skewed... or completely outdated. But I really don't see why anyone would pursue short-term goals if you can work towards getting a better position in the long run instead.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Guilds and intrinsic sub-structures
Ok ok the title was a little far fetched and made to be a little bit complex sounding but this post will actually be about guilds and various sub-structures in guilds so it's not completely off base.
The whole thing was brought on by one of our guild's resto shamans deciding to respect enhancing and skip town. The primary reason was that he didn't have enough to do as a healer. There was no real reason for him to leave because no one would've complained about him being an enhancing shaman for as long as he liked.
Still we're not here to judge the little bastard for his decision but to take a look at how to deal with the constant flux of members especially in the healer and tank department because well... I've never heard of a DPS shortage.
People will leave guilds. Reasoning is not important, some are selfish, some get a life, others are just burnt out or looking for attention but people will leave.
Assuming that you can't prevent people from leaving a guild the only realistic thing you can do is make sure that the gap that's left by the person leaving is filled as good as possible.
Sure you can ask people to respec, but more often than not this has it's own downsides: People playing a spec that they don't enjoy, people feeling 'forced' to do things they don't want to do and so forth and so on.
This doesn't leave much room for anything else except to work with new healers and train them as fast as possible but also leaves the possibility of motivating to provide healer/tank alts once in a while for the occasional raid / instance.
Sounds good, but too vague to actually be useable so lets see if we can come up with a basic scenario on how to make things work by looking at some very simple motivators.
1. Levelling is easier in a 'guild' group (or at the very least is generally more fun)
2. Levelling is more pleasant when at fixed intervals you have guaranteed upgrades
3. Motivation improves if there's other people taking an interest in your progress
4. Motivation improves if there's other people working on your progress (for example sending you pieces of gear while you are offline)
5. Character building is easier if there's someone who can lay out a basic guideline on how to do things
6. Character building is more pleasant if there are clear goals involved.
Properly motivated people will have more fun levelling, will be more likely to return whatever assistance they may have gotten and will generally be positive about their outlook on the guild.
Ok... all things that are still very obvious so lets dive a little deeper on how these various levels of motivations can be achieved.
0. All guild members should be motivated to have alts on various levels, if they pick up a new class commend them for the effort, offer them some simple crafted gear to start out or boost their coffers with a small offering of 10g (which is a lot to lower level chars).
1. Each and every day assign a few people (volunteers) to help other people level. Compensate them for this levelling activity via some arbitrary reward system (I.e. guild rank, some consumables, recouping the cost of not doing dailies, brownie points, hugs etc.) and some friendly comments for every person they manage to drag through the day.
2. Stop disenchanting BoEs. Bind on equip items can be guild banked, sent around to various people or even saved up. The disenchant value is never higher than the value of seeing someone get an item in their mailbox that they didn't ask for but can use anyway. Should there really be no takers for the items then and only then should it be disenchanted. you're better of losing bankspace and stockpiling items than to DE them. On a side note it is important to keep the guild bank 'clean' from trashy items (useless food, sharpening stones and whatnot) because it gives the impression that it is used as a trashbin.
3. Comment often and in a positive way to someone's progress. If you know someone just dinged tell them good job, take the opportunity to see if they need a hand with a few quests. The point is to at least pretend you care even if you couldn't care less you have to keep up with appearance.
4. Similar to 2, but extend your thought beyond that. Sure you could DE that BoE green or blue but before you do simply think about each item, each resource that you get and are considering turning into enchanting mats / gold. Can someone else use this? If the answer is yes then for heaven's sake pass the item along. If you're low on cash and have been giving out a lot of items approach the guild leader for some form of compensation which can always be arranged.
5. Appoint someone who is knowledgeable about a class to give brief instructions or to be the contact point for class questions. Post the appropriate guides in short versions on the forums and focus on providing knowledge through central places. The forum is an excellent place to display class builds, discuss them and figure out what works. There's nothing more annoying than to pick a new class levelling it to 40 and then figuring out you've been stacking the wrong stats and picking talents that don't do the job as well as others. People should not have to look elsewhere for basic information, basic information must be at hand at all times. Leave the math and the spell coefficient to the elitist jerks and focus on providing basic information on what works and what doesnt.
6. Tell people what they can expect for levelling the character they're levelling. If they won't be seeing the inside of specific instances that they're expecting to get in with their new char make sure they know this and offer them alternative goals. Don't ever let people wonder why they levelled a char to 70. Most people can figure out their own motivation, but add to it whenever you can.
The whole point of a guild is to work as a team on something that looks like progress and have fun doing so. Each and every guild member should be considered one of your alts and given the love that you would provide your alts with. Be that money, items or simply the occasional boost.
Will people abuse this help? Well of course, there are always greedy bastards who don't think beyond their own gain. But those people will eventually be found and removed, or will leave on their own accord.
Wasting 100 BoE items on someone who leaves hurts, but it will also build up a coherent and loyal core of guildmembers and improve motivation dramatically.
Perhaps my lacking wow experience made me draw the wrong conclusion, but in all fairness there really is no point to a guild if the guild doesn't operate as one person (with lots of split personalities).
The whole thing was brought on by one of our guild's resto shamans deciding to respect enhancing and skip town. The primary reason was that he didn't have enough to do as a healer. There was no real reason for him to leave because no one would've complained about him being an enhancing shaman for as long as he liked.
Still we're not here to judge the little bastard for his decision but to take a look at how to deal with the constant flux of members especially in the healer and tank department because well... I've never heard of a DPS shortage.
People will leave guilds. Reasoning is not important, some are selfish, some get a life, others are just burnt out or looking for attention but people will leave.
Assuming that you can't prevent people from leaving a guild the only realistic thing you can do is make sure that the gap that's left by the person leaving is filled as good as possible.
Sure you can ask people to respec, but more often than not this has it's own downsides: People playing a spec that they don't enjoy, people feeling 'forced' to do things they don't want to do and so forth and so on.
This doesn't leave much room for anything else except to work with new healers and train them as fast as possible but also leaves the possibility of motivating to provide healer/tank alts once in a while for the occasional raid / instance.
Sounds good, but too vague to actually be useable so lets see if we can come up with a basic scenario on how to make things work by looking at some very simple motivators.
1. Levelling is easier in a 'guild' group (or at the very least is generally more fun)
2. Levelling is more pleasant when at fixed intervals you have guaranteed upgrades
3. Motivation improves if there's other people taking an interest in your progress
4. Motivation improves if there's other people working on your progress (for example sending you pieces of gear while you are offline)
5. Character building is easier if there's someone who can lay out a basic guideline on how to do things
6. Character building is more pleasant if there are clear goals involved.
Properly motivated people will have more fun levelling, will be more likely to return whatever assistance they may have gotten and will generally be positive about their outlook on the guild.
Ok... all things that are still very obvious so lets dive a little deeper on how these various levels of motivations can be achieved.
0. All guild members should be motivated to have alts on various levels, if they pick up a new class commend them for the effort, offer them some simple crafted gear to start out or boost their coffers with a small offering of 10g (which is a lot to lower level chars).
1. Each and every day assign a few people (volunteers) to help other people level. Compensate them for this levelling activity via some arbitrary reward system (I.e. guild rank, some consumables, recouping the cost of not doing dailies, brownie points, hugs etc.) and some friendly comments for every person they manage to drag through the day.
2. Stop disenchanting BoEs. Bind on equip items can be guild banked, sent around to various people or even saved up. The disenchant value is never higher than the value of seeing someone get an item in their mailbox that they didn't ask for but can use anyway. Should there really be no takers for the items then and only then should it be disenchanted. you're better of losing bankspace and stockpiling items than to DE them. On a side note it is important to keep the guild bank 'clean' from trashy items (useless food, sharpening stones and whatnot) because it gives the impression that it is used as a trashbin.
3. Comment often and in a positive way to someone's progress. If you know someone just dinged tell them good job, take the opportunity to see if they need a hand with a few quests. The point is to at least pretend you care even if you couldn't care less you have to keep up with appearance.
4. Similar to 2, but extend your thought beyond that. Sure you could DE that BoE green or blue but before you do simply think about each item, each resource that you get and are considering turning into enchanting mats / gold. Can someone else use this? If the answer is yes then for heaven's sake pass the item along. If you're low on cash and have been giving out a lot of items approach the guild leader for some form of compensation which can always be arranged.
5. Appoint someone who is knowledgeable about a class to give brief instructions or to be the contact point for class questions. Post the appropriate guides in short versions on the forums and focus on providing knowledge through central places. The forum is an excellent place to display class builds, discuss them and figure out what works. There's nothing more annoying than to pick a new class levelling it to 40 and then figuring out you've been stacking the wrong stats and picking talents that don't do the job as well as others. People should not have to look elsewhere for basic information, basic information must be at hand at all times. Leave the math and the spell coefficient to the elitist jerks and focus on providing basic information on what works and what doesnt.
6. Tell people what they can expect for levelling the character they're levelling. If they won't be seeing the inside of specific instances that they're expecting to get in with their new char make sure they know this and offer them alternative goals. Don't ever let people wonder why they levelled a char to 70. Most people can figure out their own motivation, but add to it whenever you can.
The whole point of a guild is to work as a team on something that looks like progress and have fun doing so. Each and every guild member should be considered one of your alts and given the love that you would provide your alts with. Be that money, items or simply the occasional boost.
Will people abuse this help? Well of course, there are always greedy bastards who don't think beyond their own gain. But those people will eventually be found and removed, or will leave on their own accord.
Wasting 100 BoE items on someone who leaves hurts, but it will also build up a coherent and loyal core of guildmembers and improve motivation dramatically.
Perhaps my lacking wow experience made me draw the wrong conclusion, but in all fairness there really is no point to a guild if the guild doesn't operate as one person (with lots of split personalities).
Friday, February 15, 2008
Dreadfull
It is done, I have my dreadsteed.
We took a team of guildies into DM the other night together with the lock I had been pushing through the dreadsteed quest. He wanted 125g for the summoning items from me which clearly indicates to me that he's a greedy bastard who doesn't listen. After all I told him not to buy the items because we had a lock who already had them.
But besides the utter waste of 125g on a guild member who can from now one rely on the fact that I won't help him with anything it was a fairly good run. We had a non-resto spec shaman healing, we missed the first 3 pylons and had to run back and in the summoning event everyone died except me but other than that no complaints.
I am now the proud owner of a dreadsteed, finished my final piece of my frozen shadoweave set and barring a few enchants and gems my lock feels pretty done.
Some attunements and whatnot will probably be handy but I'll rely on the guild to set up the necessary runs for that.
Which for me means wrapping up my lock, finishing the guides I have been promising and do a switch to my now lvl 38 paladin who will be fashioned as a protection paladin.
Beyond that I am now having ambitions for a healer of some sorts, probably not a priest or a pally but I am considering a druid or shaman to do these jobs.
Suggestions are always welcome of course.
We took a team of guildies into DM the other night together with the lock I had been pushing through the dreadsteed quest. He wanted 125g for the summoning items from me which clearly indicates to me that he's a greedy bastard who doesn't listen. After all I told him not to buy the items because we had a lock who already had them.
But besides the utter waste of 125g on a guild member who can from now one rely on the fact that I won't help him with anything it was a fairly good run. We had a non-resto spec shaman healing, we missed the first 3 pylons and had to run back and in the summoning event everyone died except me but other than that no complaints.
I am now the proud owner of a dreadsteed, finished my final piece of my frozen shadoweave set and barring a few enchants and gems my lock feels pretty done.
Some attunements and whatnot will probably be handy but I'll rely on the guild to set up the necessary runs for that.
Which for me means wrapping up my lock, finishing the guides I have been promising and do a switch to my now lvl 38 paladin who will be fashioned as a protection paladin.
Beyond that I am now having ambitions for a healer of some sorts, probably not a priest or a pally but I am considering a druid or shaman to do these jobs.
Suggestions are always welcome of course.
Monday, January 28, 2008
No Solace for the wicked
Well I probably would've bet an organ on the fact that Solace would pick up where they left off, boost me through DM and then I would've been +1 dreadsteed and they would've been +1 members.
Oddly enough nothing of the sorts happened. I saw the solace recruiter online a few times and started in with the usual chit-chat only to see him log-off each and every time I started chatting.
Perhaps I overstepped my bounds and said something ignorant (euhm... more ignorant than usual) or they simply got tired of putting effort into recruiting me.
So here I am... level 68... still guildless and on a felsteed... but I still have all my organs.
I am not sure what to make of it all. I guess I will simply wait and see what happens with the whole guild thing. I am in no rush. I have enough other characters that need attention to not be worried about any kind of guilding for a long time.
In the meantime another guild has made me a similar offer... join on a trial basis and we'll help you with Diremaul.
I say spare me the ignorant dribble and adjust your recruitment strategies.
If you want decent recruits as a guild you need to go out and get them. Be social, talk to people and if there's someone in there that seems decent send them a few invites for instances and whatnot.
If they work out ok then send them a guild invite and you'll at least have a decent chance of that person not robbing your guild bank and Gquitting.
I've had a guild in days (and games) long past... recruitment is about being pro-active. Passively spamming messages over public chats doesn't get you any decent people unless you're lucky.
If you want to recruit via spamming to bulk up your member count the easiest thing to do is simply to make a second guild (i.e. the academy). Give people certain goals, have some regular guildies help and train the new recruits and funnel the good ones into the guild.
There's better ways to recruit than to add your spam to that of the gold sellers...
Oddly enough nothing of the sorts happened. I saw the solace recruiter online a few times and started in with the usual chit-chat only to see him log-off each and every time I started chatting.
Perhaps I overstepped my bounds and said something ignorant (euhm... more ignorant than usual) or they simply got tired of putting effort into recruiting me.
So here I am... level 68... still guildless and on a felsteed... but I still have all my organs.
I am not sure what to make of it all. I guess I will simply wait and see what happens with the whole guild thing. I am in no rush. I have enough other characters that need attention to not be worried about any kind of guilding for a long time.
In the meantime another guild has made me a similar offer... join on a trial basis and we'll help you with Diremaul.
I say spare me the ignorant dribble and adjust your recruitment strategies.
If you want decent recruits as a guild you need to go out and get them. Be social, talk to people and if there's someone in there that seems decent send them a few invites for instances and whatnot.
If they work out ok then send them a guild invite and you'll at least have a decent chance of that person not robbing your guild bank and Gquitting.
I've had a guild in days (and games) long past... recruitment is about being pro-active. Passively spamming messages over public chats doesn't get you any decent people unless you're lucky.
If you want to recruit via spamming to bulk up your member count the easiest thing to do is simply to make a second guild (i.e. the academy). Give people certain goals, have some regular guildies help and train the new recruits and funnel the good ones into the guild.
There's better ways to recruit than to add your spam to that of the gold sellers...
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Thanks Solace
Well I came very close to signing someone's guild charter the other night which would've been one of those freaky 1 in a million occurances.
I was flying around fiddling around with my gui (an oddly common occurance lately) trying to get the buttons to where they belong when I suddenly get an invite to caverns of time from someone whom I have been chatting with casually quite a bit.
I figured it wouldn't hurt, I had never been to the Caverns of Time...
and I have seldomly seen a run go so smooth.
The tank grabbed aggro like nobody's business allowing us to open fire pretty much right away. The healer was awake and aware, there was no squabbling about loot whatsoever and the whole instance went by in a flash.
I didn't even get called a noob! I definitely hit the wrong buttons a few times (most notably cancelling out an amped curse of doom *mutters*) thanks to my gui fiddling earlier.
I deserved a reprimand or two that simply didn't come except in the form of advice 'after' the run.
Ahhhhh... that was like having your cake and being able to eat it too...
I'll see if they invite me along again, if so I won't leave my soloing ways behind but at least I'll have a few good people to help carve out the gear it's going to take to actually make soloing content easier.
In the meantime many thanks toSolace. A group of people that shed some positive light on an otherwise dysmal experience with grouping.
Which just goes to show that not everybody in WoW is an arrogant twat.
I was flying around fiddling around with my gui (an oddly common occurance lately) trying to get the buttons to where they belong when I suddenly get an invite to caverns of time from someone whom I have been chatting with casually quite a bit.
I figured it wouldn't hurt, I had never been to the Caverns of Time...
and I have seldomly seen a run go so smooth.
The tank grabbed aggro like nobody's business allowing us to open fire pretty much right away. The healer was awake and aware, there was no squabbling about loot whatsoever and the whole instance went by in a flash.
I didn't even get called a noob! I definitely hit the wrong buttons a few times (most notably cancelling out an amped curse of doom *mutters*) thanks to my gui fiddling earlier.
I deserved a reprimand or two that simply didn't come except in the form of advice 'after' the run.
Ahhhhh... that was like having your cake and being able to eat it too...
I'll see if they invite me along again, if so I won't leave my soloing ways behind but at least I'll have a few good people to help carve out the gear it's going to take to actually make soloing content easier.
In the meantime many thanks to
Which just goes to show that not everybody in WoW is an arrogant twat.
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