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Officers' Quarters: Revisiting my Mists wish list
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. In January 2012, I wrote up a wish list of improvements to the guild experience that I wanted in Mists of Pandaria. We're at the point now in the expansion's life cycle where all major features have been revealed. The next big additions to WoW will come in patch 6.0. So let's look back at what we got in Mists and what we're still waiting for. Wish 1: Treat legendary items as guild rewards, not player rewards. Status: Granted, in a way In my original list, I wrote about the drama that legendaries created in guilds and wished for a way to reduce that drama. I suggested that a legendary item should be bound to the guild that helped a player to earn it, rather than the player. Instead, Blizzard took legendaries in a direction that no one expected: they created a quest line that anyone could complete. In doing so, they took away the drama factor. They released officers from the burden of deciding who would receive a legendary and who wouldn't. For most guilds, this has been a welcome change.
Officers' Quarters: 5 arguments for guild halls
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. A few weeks ago, a Twitter user named Quentin Charton asked Ghostcrawler whether WoW could eventually have guild housing. Ghostcrawler's reply was "We worry that guild housing is only content for the guild leaders." If implemented properly, I think guild halls could be a home run for WoW. Here are five reasons why. 1. Guild leaders and officers deserve in-game rewards. Ghostcrawler doesn't want to create content just for guild leaders. My question is, why not? Leading a guild is not easy. It requires making sacrifices, both in-game and in the real world, since it takes time and energy. Don't guild leaders and their officers deserve a few small in-game perks? I agree that the entire guild hall experience shouldn't be for officers only. However, a guild hall could have a special place in it for officers. You could call it something simple like, say, off the top of my head . . . the "Officers' Quarters." This location would have a few small bonuses for them, like a flask vending machine you can use once a day (like Blingtron). Such a perk would be a welcome thank you to the players who make all the best group content in WoW happen.
Tomorrow's EverQuest II update brings three new raids, guild achievements
The folks behind EverQuest II took to Twitter today to reveal more details about tomorrow's big update. Raiders had better polish their gear because the update will be bringing three new raids to the table. Two X2 raids will take place in Wurmbone's End and are referred to collectively as Nox Incessit, and one is tuned to be on the easier end of the scale whereas the other is intended to be a real challenge. An X4 raid will take place on the Dreadcutter and the devs stress that it is a hard mode raid in which "the final boss is designed to be the most difficult encounter in [the] game!" Guilds will also have a lot to work toward, as the update is adding over 150 guild achievements that cover content from all of EQ2's expansions. The devs state that every guild will start with a "clean slate," meaning that achievements will not be rewarded retroactively. This first set of achievements is raid-based, and for a guild to earn one of these achievements, at least two-thirds of the raid group must belong to the same guild, so it's time to rally your friends and go for glory, honor, and of course, precious intangible internet points. Remember Norrathians, the update hits tomorrow, so head on over to the game's official site for all the details you need to be prepared.
Officers' Quarters: Faster leveling through bribery
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. Rewards can be powerful motivators. But what is the right way to reward members for leveling the guild and earning guild achievements? This week, a new leader asks just that. Hey Scott, I'm a newly established guild leader with hopes of having a decently successful guild. You see I've had my hand in a handful of guilds ranging from the most casual to the semi hardcore and then in ranks ranging from your run of the mill raider to substitute guild leader. From what I noticed in my experience is that most guilds have tons and tons of members that either pvp or raid and it seems that only the few named personnel only show up to check raid times (if any) or to do the occasional battleground. What I want to accomplish with my newly establish guild is some sort of incentives for work towards achievements or overall leveling of the guild. My officers are just down right stumped and I am looking at you for a piece of advice maybe. I guess to sort of elaborate more on what our goals are is that I'm looking at just making a casual raid/pvp guild that not only rewards its players for achievements but for progress in leveling the guild. What do you suggest? Sincerely, Wet Behind the Ears GL
The Daily Grind: How would you balance a guild perk system?
If there's one frustration I have with gaming guilds in all the time I've led one, it's the expectation that they be huge. MMOs talk big about wanting a diverse playerbase and supporting a wide variety of players and guilds, but that's like saying you can wear any color as long as it's black. The reality is that small guilds are at a severe disadvantage in most MMO guild achievement systems because guilds are rewarded more for having warm bodies than for any particular skill or success Guild Wars 2, for example, performs random attendance checks and doles out points based on guild activity. The more people you load into your guild, the more points you farm and perks and consumables you can buy. This creates a "rich get richer" scenario for guilds that are already "winning," and eventually, no one will join guilds that aren't maxed out and providing a steady stream of perks to help them "win" even more (as seen in World of Warcraft). Why not go with Lord of the Rings Online's system, which bestows guild perks according to a guild's age rather than its recruiting binges? Should games keep rewarding guilds strictly for their size, or is there a better way? How would you design and balance an MMO guild achievement system? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
A cautionary tale of lockouts and low-pop realms
Imagine if you will that you are in a raid guild that has enjoyed some small amount of success. You've quietly managed to successfully raid your way through each tier of content, and you've managed to snag every realm-first kill of an end boss along the way. Now imagine you are working on a realm-first kill of a boss, wiping endlessly and working on individual performance and tightening up the execution of the fight. Suddenly, another guild grabs that realm-first kill before you do. Frustrating? Yes -- but it's all part of progression raiding. Only this time, it's different. This time, the realm first was taken by a guild that wasn't really a raiding guild at all. The guild that nabbed the golden ring used a method that skipped all progression fights and instead plopped them at the feet of the final boss, the only one whose death counted for that realm first achievement. How would that make you feel? How would that make your guild feel? This isn't a far-fetched situation at all. It's already happened. And it spells a bleak future for low-pop realms and the raiders that diligently work at content -- only to have a realm first taken away due to the cross-realm raiding feature.
The Daily Grind: Should games bother innovating guild systems?
In-game support for MMO guilds has come a long way in the last 15 years. Ultima Online launched without guilds at all, let alone chat, so we tacked our guild abbreviations onto our character names. EverQuest's early months required guild leaders to petition GMs to form guilds. In fact, it wasn't until Asheron's Call that an MMO tried to break away from the "unofficial online shooter clan" mold and provide something different: a monarchy system that encouraged players to form official but dynamic allegiances, which provided an in-game benefit to patrons and vassals alike. But the genre didn't iterate on Asheron's Call's invention, instead preferring to bolster in-game guilds with perks like guild vaults and achievements -- cool stuff, but layered over a static, military style of guild structure with generic ranks. Most MMOs don't allow you to join multiple groups, either (Guild Wars 2 being a notable exception). So today I'm wondering whether you think there's room for innovation in MMO guild mechanics. Should studios design unique and flexible guild systems, or should they just get out of the way and let players decide how to organize themselves like we had to Back In The Day? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
New achievements in the Mists of Pandaria beta
The latest Mists of Pandaria beta build has revealed over 100 new achievements, including about 60 (yes, 60!) related to Pet Battles. If you like your points, I hope you like your pets. There's also mention of a platinum level for challenge modes. Some of the more interesting achievements: Realm First! Pandaren Ambassador This is the first guild realm-first achievement that involves reputation (non-guild), I believe. Guild Hardware - Platinum This one's new to me. Looks like Blizzard's adding a new tier for challenge modes above the gold tier that was previously announced. It's unknown if the rewards previously mentioned for gold will move to platinum or there are new shinies we haven't seen yet. Grand Master Pet Battler / Grand Master Pet Brawler If you were planning on cheesing -- erm, helping your friends with every Pet Battle achievement, might want to think again. Master Pet Hunter Collect all the things! Raise 75 pets to level 25 Once you've collected all the things, fill all the bars! It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
How do you keep your guild busy during the pre-expansion lull?
It's become something of a cycle over the years: An expansion is released, servers are glutted with players eagerly devouring content. As the expansion goes on, patches are released with more new content to play. But eventually, all good things must come to an end -- and when the last patch of an expansion is released, guild leaders have to contend with players who get ... well, flat-out bored, really. With nothing left to look forward to until the next expansion is released, it's hard to keep a guild entertained. As far as my guild goes, we keep ourselves amused by going back and completing old achievements or clearing old content. Any raid mounts that we may have missed along the way are picked up for all. In between that, people run old-world raids on off nights for transmogrification gear and other achievements. But in every guild I've been in, there's always a lull at the end of expansions. Once you've beaten that final boss and dinged that last achievement, what do you do to keep your guild entertained when the expansion is drawing to a close?
7 wishes for guilds in Mists of Pandaria
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. For officers, the improvements and new systems that Cataclysm brought to guilds were a game-changer in many ways. The sweeping changes to raiding that came with it brought on some difficult challenges. Fortunately, WoW does not stagnate. The Mists of Pandaria expansion gives Blizzard a chance to add new features, make important changes, and improve on what the developers gave us in Cataclysm. Here's my personal wish list: 1. Treat legendary items as guild rewards, not player rewards. As guilds in WoW have matured over the years, I've heard from officers less and less frequently about loot drama -- with one huge exception: legendaries. Every legendary in the history of WoW has caused problems for officers. For some, the legendary drama itself has become legendary. It's time to change both the reality and the perception of these powerful items.
Officers' Quarters: Cataclysm's benefits for guild organization
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. As I predicted back in the summer of 2009, Cataclysm changed WoW's guilds and the guild experience more than any other expansion in the game's history. Many of these changes were a boon to officers, but even the positive changes sometimes had unfortunate drawbacks. Other changes were not as welcome. Let's look back and see how each of these shifts in game and guild design have affected us as officers over the past year and how Blizzard could improve them in the future. What we didn't get Every expansion has its list of announced features that don't make the cut. Two guild features that eventually got the axe were guild talents and guild currency. Despite arguing in favor of guild talents, replacing them with universal perks was probably the right move for Blizzard at the time. With all the other upheaval that guilds had to endure during Cataclysm, choosing talents would have been one more unwelcome source of stress for officers. However, I still believe that providing us with more in-game ways to distinguish one guild from another is desirable and good.
Breakfast Topic: How hard are you working on guild achievements?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. The guild leveling system is both interesting and annoying at times. There are some fun and interesting guild perks, as well as some obscure ones. Whether fiercely gathering, fishing, cooking and crafting in an attempt to reach the guild totals, or running around killing every critter in sight, there is no shortage of work to be done to accomplish all the guild achievements and access all the guild perks. Some people dive headlong into them, and others just take care of their own toons -- and whatever comes is just a bonus. The idea of having every race/class combo at 85 and at least honored with the guild to get an extra bank tab is frustrating. Seriously, how many dwarf mages have you seen running around? On top of that, the caps for guild rep each week leaving you just a few points shy of that next rep level can be disheartening. I have leveled a human hunter to 85 and am currently working on a dwarf rogue and gnome priest. Other guildies race-changed to worgen or the new race/class options, and we are down to being only a few short. I have taken my main out and killed hundreds of critters, fished in endless numbers of pools, and between my alts, I skin, herb, and mine. My guild as a whole took the fishing to get the fish feast recipe as a major endeavor, as well as making flasks for the cauldron recipes, having everyone get their flasks made by elixir-specced guild members. My guild certainly teams up to push achievements hard. So how hard are you working toward the guild achievements? Which ones are you focusing on the most? Is your guild teaming up to push out the achievements? Or are you busy being a lone ranger?
Patch 4.1 PTR: Heirloom guild tabards aid reputation gains
From the very moment guild reputation and guild leveling were implemented, players have wanted some of their reputation gains to spill over to their alts. Why should your alts have to level their reputation if they're in the same guild as your main? In patch 4.1, Blizzard still isn't allowing your reputation to spill over to your alts, but it is implementing the Illustrious Guild Tabard and the Renowned Guild Tabard. These Bind to Account tabards are likely purchased at revered (Illustrious) and exalted (Renowned) reputations with your guild, making leveling additional characters through guild reputation that much easier. Additionally, assuming you get to keep the item upon leaving a guild, it should make the re-leveling process that much easier. Losing your exalted guild reputation for one reason or another and ending up neutral in your next guild can be a painful, painful thing. These tabards will help soothe that pain. Judging by the sell-to-vendor prices on Wowhead, the Illustrious tabard will cost 125 gold and the Renowned tabard will cost you 250 gold.
Breakfast Topic: What makes a guild great?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. With the advent of Cataclysm, Blizzard has dramatically improved guild functionality in World of Warcraft. We have an updated guild UI, new rank options to allow guild masters more control, guild reputation, guild vendors, guild levels, and guild perks. It's fair to say that the guild is more important to the WoW experience than ever. It stands to reason, therefore, that players expect more from their guilds than ever before. The new expansion is also a huge time for guild recruitment. Lately, you can't step into trade chat without being bombarded by guild advertisements. Maybe you've been shopping around for a new home, or maybe you're a recruiter trying to bring new players into your own guild. Either way, you probably know what you like -- and what you don't like -- in a guild. Personally, I love my guild. It's a mixture of everything I enjoy about WoW: raiding, PvP, achievement hunting, and altoholism. We put personality before GearScore and encourage new players to raid with us so that they can learn and get better. However, that's not everyone's cup of tea. Many hardcore raiders would get frustrated if they had to put up with less experienced group members, and many guilds prefer to focus on one type of content (raiding, PvP, leveling, roleplaying) and hone their skills in that area. So what's the magic formula for you? If you're in a great guild, what makes it awesome? If you're searching for a new guild, what are you looking for? What stands out for you in guild advertisements, and what do you think is the best way to recruit players to a guild?
The OverAchiever: The good, the bad, the ugly, and the weird
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we reminisce on that auld lang syne ... that nobody really misses. It occurred to me recently that we've never really done a retrospective piece on achievements. Sure, we've rounded up stuff like entertaining achievements and evil achievements, but we've never really looked at their impact on the game as a whole. There's an article in that, but it won't be this one. New Year's Eve is tomorrow, and I'm in the mood for some brainless fun. While I was writing this article, a number of the achievements that came to mind were the product of tier 7 raids, and I think I know why. Wrath raiding achievements were the first time Blizzard had experimented with their inclusion in raid content, and the implementation occasionally had some bizarre results. There was also the pressure cooker of having to finish Glory of the Raider before the rewards disappeared (a very belated announcement), and there was never that sense of urgency with Ulduar or Icecrown achievements. Anyway, let me know what you think.
Officers' Quarters: Critter Kill Squad tips and tricks
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. Strangely, the guild reward that players seem most excited about in the early days of Cataclysm is not the Kor'kron Annihilator or Golden King but the Armadillo Pup. We all have a long way to go to earn the mounts, after all, but we can all help earn the pup whether we're running Heroics at 85 or leveling a new character. This noncombat pet is unlocked by earning the achievement Critter Kill Squad and getting exalted with your guild. Ending the carefree lives of 50,000 critters seems like a monumental task, but smart guilds can take advantage of some special tactics to earn this achievement in no time. Let's take a look at how you can earn this adorable pet for your guild.
Officers' Quarters: The guild achievement controversy
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. Less than 24 hours after Cataclysm went live, Blizzard announced a major change to the way guilds would level up in the brand-new system: Guild achievements no longer provide experience. The change came as a shock to many players. Typically, major shifts in design philosophy such as this occur during beta or even earlier. However, as Nethaera explained, the beta did not provide an accurate picture of guild experience from achievements because most characters were templates without their own achievement history. It seems shortsighted that Blizzard did not anticipate a rush on guild achievements, particularly in the early days of the guild leveling system when there are so many juicy perks to unlock. Not to mention, achievements were the only way to get around the daily experience cap and powerlevel your guild. If anyone should know the lengths that players will go to in order to reap rewards, you'd think it would be Blizzard. As it turns out, the game's developers somehow did not see this coming and, unfortunately, the timing of the announcement could not have been worse.
Breakfast Topic: Is your guild looking forward to guild perks?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Cataclysm is focusing on many new things and changes to the old ways of doing things. With guild experience being on the forefront of these changes, it is no surprise that suddenly people are taking more notice of their social environment, as it may have an impact on the game once the grind for your own guild goes live. Having a group whose personnel and personality are on the same page as you might be nice if you're planning on receiving some of the benefits (like mounts, special patterns and bonuses to rezzing) immediately. Some people are very focused on guild perks and have assembled elite crafting and leveling forces or are maintaining the same strict raid teams they've had for a while. Others don't care as much. Blizzard has made it clear that all sorts of guilds can effectively benefit over time from the guild leveling system. Our guild is especially looking toward having enough people to be able to level up quickly, even if we won't have a bulk of our guild XP coming in from raiding achievements. This bodes well, as we've very quickly started taking on orphans from other servers, alts of people in other guilds and raid teams, and people rolling up new characters. Does your guild care about the XP system? Are you a close-knit, small guild that will be leveling up slowly, or are you a large raiding guild that things like mass-rezzing appeal to? Or is your guild looking forward to something else entirely?
Guild experience no longer earned via guild achievements
Community Manager Nethaera hit the official World of Warcraft forums this afternoon to announce a change to guild experience that has been implemented today. Until now, guilds received guild experience for achievements earned. Going forward, this will no longer be the case, and it appears the change is retroactive as well. Any experience previously gained via guild achievements is no more. Nethaera We have decided to remove the added bonus of gaining Guild Experience from Guild Achievements earned. This change will realign Guild Achievements with our philosophy held for normal Achievements, which are intended to be predominantly their own reward (barring the rare exception of special achievements that grant an additional reward.) Previously, the experience reward had been seen as an additional side bonus and not something that should have been significantly skewing the advancement of guilds. During the beta, we greatly increased leveling speed across the board and since most characters were copied from templates, guild experience from Achievements didn't seem imbalanced. It has become clear that an imbalance does exist and should be addressed to ensure that guilds progress at the rates expected within the daily Guild Experience limits. For guilds that are currently above the normally possible experience limit, we will be readjusting it back to the expected limit once more. This will not affect Guild Reputation gains at this point in time. source
Officers' Quarters: The great raid size debate
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. Cataclysm, as you are probably already aware, brings with it massive changes to the raiding scene in World of Warcraft. Certainly the most controversial change is Blizzard's desire, announced in April, to balance and separate 10- and 25-man raids -- namely, both sizes will share the same lockout and loot tables. The 10-man scene, widely regarded as inferior throughout WoW's history, will be designed to have approximately the same difficulty as its 25-man counterpart. Reports from the beta dungeon forums indicate that 10-man bosses are currently much easier to bring down than their 25-man versions, but we can only assume that Blizzard will take steps to even out the difficulty according to its stated goal. In the weeks following the expansion's launch, it will be extremely interesting to see how this whole situation shakes out. These changes will force most guilds to choose one size or the other as their primary raiding focus. As I've previously stated, this is a good thing. Many officers right now, including the one who wrote this week's email, are wondering which size to choose. Officers' Quarters is here to help! Hail Scott, What is your take on 10-man versus 25-man raiding in Cataclysm? Our guild would like to continue raiding 25-mans, but several of the other raid guilds on our server have apparently decided to switch to 10s. Are they jumping to conclusions, or are they on to something? Is this the end of 25-man raiding, and are we in for a repeat of the guild implosions and massive raider unemployment we saw when 40s were dropped to 25s?
