Officers' Quarters: Tips and tricks
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes
Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Hello, fellow officers! For a change of pace I'm going to forgo the usual Q&A format this week. Instead, I'm going to share a few random tips that have served me well in the past. Let's jump right in, shall we?
1. Use the guild UI to keep track of your members' alts.
A lot of serious guilds don't allow alts, or only allow raiding alts. In these cases it's pretty easy to keep track of who's who. But most guilds don't restrict how many alts a player can have on the roster. Eventually you're going to wind up with one of those altaholics who is compelled to roll a character (or two) for every class. It might not seem important to keep track of all those alts, but if that player causes a big problem down the road, you'll want to know exactly which toons he or she plays. Also, it's just handy to see which main characters are available to your party or raid, assuming that player is willing to switch over.
Whenever an alt joins your guild, make sure the officer who invites them puts their main character's name in the officer's comments section of the guild UI. Assuming you've set up your ranks properly, you'll be able to see who's playing that level 12 Draenei warrior or which member is leveling up a Blood Elf paladin to help out with raids.
And speaking of ranks . . .
2. Tie guild bank access to guild rank.
If your guild has a bank, you've probably experienced this situation before. A new recruit joins the guild. A week later, he or she realizes there's a few BOE epics in the bank and puts in a request. Make it easy to tell this person no by setting up rank requirements. You can give your members promotions based on a number of different factors (time in the guild being the most common), but make them earn some trust before you go handing out your bank's best items like Greatfather Winter.
3. The Armory is your best friend.
Ever since it's inception, Blizzard's Armory has been nothing if not controversial. It seems lately that most players have accepted that it's not going away and have even embraced some of the new functionality.
Personally, I thank Blizzard for the Armory site on a daily basis. No longer can players be deceptive about their characters. By looking at a player's spec, gear, and reputation, you can see exactly how well they know their class, what their priorities have been since the expansion, whether or not they're keyed for Heroics, and so on. Is it an invasion of privacy? In many ways, yes. Will I use it to check out someone who applies to my guild? Every single time.
That's it for this week, fellow officers. In the meantime, keep the questions coming -- I'll answer them in the weeks ahead.
/salute!
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!
