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Officers' Quarters: Lessons from a guild split
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. This week's email doesn't have a question for me. It's the story of a guild with clashing raid cultures. It includes some great lessons for officers about the consequences of trying to do too much. In addition to [our progression team] Team Elite ("TE"), my guild ran 2-3 other 10-man teams throughout MOP. The other teams were not as intense due to differing skills and play styles. However some resentment did build. Some players did have the "greener grass" syndrome and wanted to be a part of TE. So when spots opened up, a handful of them ended up moving over to that team. This was the main reason for the resentment. Other raiders saw themselves as "farm system" groups for the "major league" group. For the record, I was on TE for the first tier only. After I moved to other teams, I really gained the perspective of the other raiders, and I started to feel that resentment as well. I saw a huge shift in attitude from the TE players, even the longtime members.
Officers' Quarters: Shaming gquitters
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. How do you react when players quit your guild? This week's email comes from a member of an EverQuest guild who is dismayed by her officer's aggressive response. Hi Scott, Thanks so much for writing this great column. It has provided me with beneficial insight and advice on many occasions. I don't actually play WoW (I play EverQuest), but the things you write about transcend that. I am currently a member of a struggling guild, which only has a few officers trying to run the show (the guild leader is pretty much absent, and the guild has been that way for years). The newest officer is in charge of recruitment. He does a good job of inviting people, but after experiencing our lack of timeliness and progression on raids, many of them seek greener pastures. The recruitment officer then posts something rather nasty and unprofessional on their application (which is visible to the public).
Drama Mamas: Of flirtations and gquits
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. This week's letter writer is busted. Dear Drama Mamas, I recently had a bit of a blow-up with a guild I used to be in that's really making me feel kinda crappy about myself...and I'm not really sure if it wasn't my fault. Okay, so I was a casual member (i.e, not a raider) in a raiding guild with a female GM who has an....admirer, I'll call him B. B is a core raider who flirts openly and rather explicitly at times with GM (also a raider) over guild chat. GM does nothing to encourage it, but nothing to discourage it either, and as far as I know she's already in a relationship, and she and B live in different parts of the country. She added me to Real ID so we chatted and still do from time to time - I have no romantic interest in her whatsoever since I'm already in a relationship.
Officers' Quarters: Never say disband
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Guilds fall apart. It happens so frequently these days that we take it as a matter of course. They can also be rebuilt, if there's a member intent on reviving them -- but is that always the wisest course of action? This week, one guild leader who refuses to disband is wondering what to do next. Greetings, Scott! Here's the TL;DR version: Raid Finder killed my guild. I want to resurrect it. Here's the Paul Harvey version: A friend and I founded a guild at the outset of Burning Crusade. Our intent was to offer a place for mature people with real lives to be able to experience the raid content that at the time was mostly the domain of the hardcore players. We wanted to be serious about raiding, but more casual about attendance. ... We were never the top guild on our server, but we were fairly successful throughout Burning Crusade. Wrath of the Lich King threw a monkey wrench into our works. It wasn't easy in BC to keep forming 25 man raids, but at least we always knew where the bar was. WotLK's split 10 and 25 man raids gave us a very tough decision to make every time we couldn't fill out a 25 man raid.
Officers' Quarters: When friends switch games
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. WoW has been around for a lot of years, and in that time the game has seen the release of many MMOs hoping to compete with it. When The Old Republic released this past winter, my guild lost a few people. I'm sure we weren't alone in that. With other big MMO releases such as Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World around the corner, WoW guilds are likely to experience more losses this year. This week, one officer has it worst than most: His guild leader and most of his friends plan to leave for Guild Wars 2 when it comes out. (We'll forgive the fact that he's writing about an Old Republic guild.) Greetings, Despite not playing WoW for the past year I do follow your column in the hopes that the advice you offer could be transferred to our SWTOR guild ... My question is: how do you deal with the potential loss of a guild? ... Myself and my guild transferred over to Star Wars: The Old Republic and have stayed there ever since ... Our guild has grown to second on the republic side in terms of server progress, with several server firsts and we have a strong and active community of around 19 people who log in every day (mostly). That was until tonight when a metaphorical bombshell was dumped on me which has made me question whether I want to stay or not.
Officers' Quarters: From girlfriend to guild leader
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Oh, boy. Let me sit here for a moment facepalming while I take in what I've just read. It's been a while since I've received an email with this much fail, so forgive me if I ease into it. I'll warn you that the email is long. I've chopped it down as much as I dare. You really need to get the full story to appreciate what happened here. Without further ado, let's jump in: Hey Scott- I've been an officer in this particular guild for a long time and a member for several years and recently things have become very taxing for myself and several officers. A little background on the guild. We are a large PVE/PVP guild on a PVE server. We have around 500 members... It's a crazy collection of hardcore players and newer players... We have several raids going 4 nights a week in addition to pugs and rated battle grounds going almost non stop when raids were not in session. Now the problems in the guild started last fall right before the launch of SWTOR... Our guild leader and his wife had done a great job leading the guild. She was the CO-GL in name only as she really was the leader. Our guild leaders and several other officers and guild members decided they were going to quit... This is where problems started creeping in...
Officers' Quarters: Dropping the drama totem
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Selecting players for slots is always a sensitive situation, whether it's for a Rated Battleground or a heroic raid. That situation can be magnified when other factors -- such as cliques -- come into play. This week, a guild leader finds himself torn between friendship with a member and loyalty to his raid leader after a shaman protests a benching. My guild was dying on our old server, so me (guild leader) and 8 other raiders, who I had been raiding with for 4 years, transferred to a new server. We needed a new dps/healer as a backup and a new tank, and set out recruiting. The new tank has worked out well, but our ele/resto shaman hasn't worked out as well. He's a nice guy, someone who I view as a friend, always shows up on time, often shares volcanic potions with other raid members etc. He's been in the guild now for 2 months and has helped us progress through Heroic Warship, Spine, and Madness. Anyway, last Tuesday, we sat him for H Spine to bring in someone else, and with the 15% nerf, we 1-shot Spine, something he was bitter at missing after spending two weeks with us ... progressing and missing out on the kill. We did a few attempts on madness and looked forward to our Thursday run. On Thursday, we spent about an hour and a half progressing on Spine. Our holy paladin (and also an officer) was getting angry over some in-game stuff and was making mistakes. He finally logged off in frustration and we brought in the shaman and he helped us progress throughout the night (8% wipe).
Breakfast Topic: How and why did you leave your previous guild?
I have no hard data, but my guess is that guild hopping has greatly decreased since the advent of guild reputation and perks. If you're going to leave a max-level guild that you are at least friendly with, you usually have a really good reason. In fact, I think many people stay in guilds far too long just because of the time investment in gathering reputation. But guild levels haven't always been around, and many people who played before Cataclysm guild hopped. I've never been one for bopping from guild to guild. I like to get comfy in a guild and stick with it. Taking time to properly choose your guild helps, but sometimes guilds devolve into places you don't want to be. I've been rather lucky. Of course, the WoW Insider family of guilds is my main home, and it's a rather wonderful place to be.
Officers' Quarters: In the wake of drama, tragedy
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Drama happens in guilds. As officers, we do everything we can to avoid it. Sometimes we make mistakes that set us up for it. At other times, it's simply inevitable. Much of it is stupid and pointless. However, nothing puts it all in perspective like a sudden, shared tragedy. This week, a guild leader wonders how he can deal with this terrible circumstance in the aftermath of a guild-shattering argument. Scott, I have a really difficult problem that I would like your advice, or at least your opinion. This problem is two fold and I will start with the short but serious series of events that have transpired the last few days. I (basically) started the guild a week before Cataclysm. We took off quick and became extremely successful. One of the first guilds to hit 25 on the server (which made me a really proud guild leader). Early in the guilds history, we had a member join our guild, lets call him Eddie. Eddie has an abrasive personality and he tends to insult people. The thing is, hes not and never is being serious. He jokes and unless you spend more than 5 minutes talking to him, you just assume he's insulting you, which he's not. Well Eddie, being new to the guild (that had relatively little officers), hit the ground running and showed qualities of a true leader. He built our raid team, geared people, taught people, and did his job in a way that I've not seen done even as I raided through Wrath. Eddie however joined the military and had to leave for Basic Training. When he left, it was agreed upon that the raid leader spot would be temporarily given to another officer and would be given back when Eddie returned.
Officers' Quarters: Ready to abandon ship
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Last week's Officers' Quarters was all about people who complain endlessly to their leadership and what you as an officer can do about it. This week is a bit of a reversal: The officers involved have some legitimate complaints about their guild leader and their guild. They're wondering if they can do anything about the current situation before they all jump overboard. Hey, So, i'm a lower ranking officer of my guild for about 2 years now. My 4 closest friends are higher ranking officers in the same guild. We have been having issues, so many in fact that one letter is not enough to explain it all. Let me try to hit the top problems we're having though. The players in this guild are not good players for the most part. Nice enough, good people even, but you name a standard raid rule, and its broken every night in this guild. Talking over the raid leader? Check. The Guild Master personifies pretty much everything that is bad in the guild...she treats the Guild Bank as her own personal stash, even the highest ranking officers can only access one slot per day from current content materials. She asks for advice in gearing and rotations and then completely ignores it and claims she tried everything she could.[...] And when it comes to raiding, she, and most of the guild are frankly "special". As in, we can not down a fight until the tanks and healers can sustain keeping the raid alive due to superior performance through standing in things, and accidentally toggling enrages. And poor dps [...]. As of now, the only current raid content we can even come close to downing is BH and normal Magmaw. Thats it.
Officers' Quarters: Burnout already?
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. In the emails that I've been receiving lately, I've noticed a disturbing trend: Many guild leaders are finding themselves burned out right now. On the surface, it doesn't make much sense. After all, the expansion is only a few months old. Many guilds are still progressing through tier 11, earning new perks every week, and looking forward to all the great new content that future patches will bring. How can so many guild leaders already be burned out? A few factors are feeding this trend. The first is the insanely long gap between the release of Icecrown Citadel in patch 3.3 and Cataclysm. The Ruby Sanctum was hardly any help to keep raiders interested during this time. Most of the guild leaders who survived that period did so by constant recruiting, merging with other guilds, or working diligently to keep players interested in raiding; all of these are high-stress situations. Then Cataclysm released, and rather than breathing a sigh of relief, these guild leaders now had a whole new ball game to contend with. They have had to ensure their raiders or PvPers were prepared for endgame content in which the gear curve was suddenly much steeper than it had been since the early days of The Burning Crusade. Raiding guilds have had to make tough choices about the size of the raids they would coordinate and how they would deal with gear in the new loot paradigm. Once those guilds made it into raid zones, they found themselves up against bosses much tougher than those in Wrath's first tier and completely unfamiliar to most players -- unlike those in the endless Icecrown runs we knew by heart.
Officers' Quarters: A RIFT in leadership
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. Ah, RIFT -- if you keep up with MMO news outside this blog (or even if you don't), you've likely heard of this new title from Trion Worlds that has recently launched with much fanfare and success. Whenever a new triple-A MMO title releases, a portion of WoW subscribers are always curious enough about the new game to give it a try. Some decide that WoW is better and return. Some fall in love with the new game and never come back. For guild leaders, the issue of other games is particularly tricky. This week, one leader asks for advice on making a graceful exit from his guild so he can try his luck in Telara. Scott, I'm in my second stint as guild leader for what was a huge 40 man raiding guild in Vanilla and is now a small friends and family 10 man guild. [. . .]Wrath was great for us with the accessibility of the content and we all had fun doing most of the 10 man content available. That lasted until this summer when many of us got busy with kids, gardens, vacations, etc and we ended up taking a de facto break while waiting for Cata. With the release of Cata, most players returned to the game and we set out on getting into the new content and trying to fill the gaps that had been left by players who didn't return or moved to other guilds. However, with a raiding model more similar to TBC or Vanilla and the seemingly larger time commitments to get into what is, frankly, not-very-interesting content, things have kind of stalled before even beginning raiding; it's gotten to the point where about half the active membership (myself included) just isn't interested in playing WoW anymore.
Officers' Quarters: How a guild dies
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. This column is a special one for me. A reader wrote an email to the Drama Mamas, who passed it along to me as a topic that seemed more appropriate for OQ. When I read the email, it struck quite a chord, because the issue the guild leader raises is one that led directly to the collapse of my own guild. Yes, my own guild is finished, and so I can now reveal what guild I led and why it is now defunct in the hope that others can avoid the same fate. But first, the email: My girlfriend and I are the founders of a casual raiding/leveling guild. It's always been an eclectic mix of people, and it's one of my favorite parts of playing WoW. We're both friendly and empathetic, and people tend to develop bonds with us. We spend time together to the point where they feel comfortable in asking us for advice with serious real-life problems. However, the major problem is that our guild is that it's highly focused around my girlfriend and I. It feels like the only people who can lead a raid are the two of us, for example. People help in other ways, like donating to the guild bank or recruiting, but there isn't much leadership in the guild.
Officers' Quarters: Scorched by raider burnout
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. It's been more than 10 months since Blizzard introduced major endgame content to World of Warcraft, and raider burnout is at an all-time high. In times like this, hardcore players often look to casual guilds as a refuge from the demands of more serious organizations. It's not always a bad thing, as I'll discuss, but sometimes taking in these hardcore refugees can lead to major problems. This week, an anonymous officer tells his tale: Hi Scott, I'm currently an officer in a guild that started as a social/leveling guild, but toward the beginning of this past summer, we had some level-capped players who decided to take on raiding content. We were having a lot of fun at first whether or not we successfully downed bosses because we were finding a way to stay socially active in our social guild. During this period, one guildie and I became de facto raid leaders because we were always there on raid night and always the two who got the groups organized. This was when I also got promoted to an officer position. The problem I'm facing now is that we ended up recruiting a couple of new members who had burned out on hardcore progression raiding and wanted to take a more casual approach to raiding.
Officers' Quarters: It's a secret
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Normally, for the introduction to this weekly feature, I write a little bit about the topic at hand before I post the email that will serve as the focal point for the discussion. This week, however, I don't want to spoil the tale for you before you read it. So, let's dive right in! Hi! I just recently started reading your column, and even bought your book on guild leadership for my husband's birthday. I have a question about behavior as a guild leader, and am curious as to what you think of my situation. I started playing in a family-oriented, RP guild on Moon Guard about two years ago. I joined just a few weeks after the guild's creation, and made quite a few friends among the other members, even meeting my husband through the guild. Sadly, I had to leave the server for a while, due to real life issues with a stalker that was trying to track me through the game. Fortunately, those issues were resolved, and my husband and I decided to rejoin the guild, even though we knew things would have changed. We were welcomed back, and I was even promoted back to a position just under my old one as an officer, allowing me to help recruit as some of our guild members had taken time off. However, my guild leader then did something that hurt me deeply, making me wonder what I saw in the guild in the first place.
The Classifieds: Coming out of the closet edition
The Classifieds is a weekly roundup of news from around the WoW community. Your host for this week is the ever-so-shadowy Fox Van Allen, filling in for a vacationing Lisa Poisso in exchange for an undisclosed sum of pirate treasure. As always, if you have guild news or a Random Act of Uberness to share, send it in to TheClassifieds@WoW.com. If there are 50 ways to leave your lover, then there must be at least 100 different ways to leave a guild. There's the middle-of-an-argument /gquit, the log-on-in-the-middle-of-the-night-so-no-one-sees-you /gquit, the passive-aggressive /gquit, and of course, the I-illegally-sold-my-WoW-account-on-Craigslist-to-buy-a-ten-year-old-dirtbike /gquit. I think I have a new favorite, though: The tauren-trapped-in-a-night-elf's-body /gquit. Milkmenot (Boulderfist [US-H]), formerly Slimbones (Uldaman [US-A]), wrote one of the most creative goodbye notes to his guild that I've seen in a long time: I have a confession I need to make, it's something that has been bothering me for quite some time and I need to get it out there. I've been having these feelings. It started out just around town in Dalaran when I would see this Tauren going by. Our eyes would meet, just briefly, and all these feelings would well up inside. I'd try to follow her, intrigued by her curves and horns, but then she always goes into that Horde-only area and I would get booted out. So I'd hang around the entrance there just hoping to sneak a peek. The rest of the goodbye note -- and so much more -- is available just after the break.
Officers' Quarters: Emotionally invested
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. When you're frustrated with your guild, it's tempting to jump ship. But sometimes it's also difficult to let go. This week, one officer asks, can you be an officer in one guild and a regular member in another? Dear Scott, I am Raid Officer in a casual raiding guild. I attend the most raids and am one of the highest output players on each raid on all my characters. I am one of the most active, hardest working Officers in the guild. We have always been lenient with who is allowed to raid -- we have some healers who do less than 50% output of other healers who are similarly geared, we have DPS that do less than half of what they should be doing (with "casual" expectations, I don't expect everyone to do 10k DPS but 4-5k is low for a well geared player in ICC with the buff). Even members of our A-team have been slacking a bit. Many players don't pay attention to the leaders in Vent, don't react well to constructive criticism of their gear, spec etc. PUGs are further progressed than our guild is.
Guildwatch: No tabard, no loot
Some stories of drama on the realms aren't directly guild-related, but they're just too good to pass up. The one above is just such a story -- one of our tipsters was just flying around Azeroth one day when a conversation in General caught his eye. One unlucky Time-Lost Proto-drake seeker ran into his very own Griftah, and ended up with 425 less gold and a very "unusual" toy item. That story and more in this week's Guildwatch, which starts right after the break. If you have downed, recruiting, or drama news for us, feel free to send a tip in to guildwatch@wow.com, and you might see it here in the future. Read on for more!
Officers' Quarters: Ragequit fallout
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.If you've played WoW long enough, and if you've raided enough, odds are you've wanted to quit your guild right in the middle of a run at some point. Some people actually go through with it. I'll never forget the night many years ago when our raid's main tank quit the guild and zoned out of Onyxia's Lair while he was tanking the boss. Yeah, that guy had some anger issues . . .But what happens when a guild leader ragequits in the middle of a raid? Read on to find out!Hi Scott,A friend and I started a guild about 5 months back. I assumed the Co-Gm role, led the raids and recruited quite a bit. After a slow start we ended up making an impact on the server as a stand up crew and were moving into the top rankings for 10 and cracking the 25 man progression as well. The other Co-Gm was very good at handling issues and I admit that was not my strong point. Things worked really well until unfortunately I had an "EMO" moment.
Guildwatch: System error beep bop
We have no idea why Coridane is so against Warlocks getting made fun of in the game (he must not be a fan of our very own Warlock-hater, Christian Belt), but apparently it's serious -- serious enough for him to kick you from a raid. We do especially like that the need to assault downed Warlocks is actually a system error ("beep bop"): we would just have assumed that was normal protocol. It sure is in our raids.More drama like this, along with downed and recruiting news, in this week's Guildwatch. If you have tips for us, feel free to send them in -- just drop us a note (please keep it short, sweet, and clear) at guildwatch@wow.com, and you might see it here next week.
