B-Team
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Facebook reveals launch dates for latest Oculus games
Facebook's Game Developer Showcase is now in full swing, and we've been given a little more info on exactly what we can expect from games arriving on the Oculus Quest and Rift platform. Following yesterday's announcement that rapper Timbaland has created a music pack for Beat Saber, Facebook has revealed launch dates for a number of hotly-anticipated titles, including B-Team, Lies Beneath and Phantom: Covert Ops, as well as what's in store for Pistol Whip's "Full Throttle" update.
Officers' Quarters: Expansion team
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. Here at the OQ we've heard from a lot of guilds who are being massacred by normal mode Throne of Thunder. This week it's refreshing to hear from a guild that has found unexpected success in Tier 15. They're now weighing a second raid team, but the raid leader has doubts about this expansion. Hello Scott, I'm the raid leader of a casual, family centered guild. We have always been on the lower end of the raiding curve, clearing raids only after they have become old content. However most recently we have been progressing remarkably well during Mists. For the first time our guild has attempted the raid while still current. While only going 3/12 in Throne of Thunder is nothing to the guilds who are now farming heroic Ra-Den, it has greatly lifted the spirits of our guild and it's members; so much so that there is now talk of forming a second raid team.
Officers' Quarters: B teamed
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 comes from a player whose guild recently made the always-difficult, always-drama-fueling decision to form an A team out of their raiders. Is creating an A team the right move? When you wind up on the B team, what's next? Hi Scott, I'm a member of a medium-sized guild that has been running two raid teams simultaneously up until recently. These teams weren't fixed; group composition was mixed up every week. I rather enjoyed that, as it meant that I got to play and interact with lots of different guild members, and there was little room for cliquishness. However, the other day guild leadership announced that this was all going to change. Going forward, most of the officers will be in a fixed "progression team" while the rest of us will be left to our own devices. There should still be enough of us left to form a second team, but we'd pretty much have to make it work ourselves.
Officers' Quarters: Culture shock
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. This week's email presents an interesting situation about recruiting, loot, raiding, and drama. I'll let it speak for itself. Help Me Guild Master Guru - You're My Only Hope!!! I've written in the past and you've been helpful. I have a doosie for you. My guild has been around for almost 3 years and I've been a guild leader and officer for about 4 years. We're your average run of the mill raiding guild with a little more than half of the heroic bosses down in DS. We're more than just a guild, we're a family. Our focus is on raiding and killing bosses. Our policies and mission reflect that focus. We recently had a discussion among our leadership about possibly absorbing the core members of another guild that's falling apart. They raid with a little more intensity than we do, but we have members that want to raid at that intensity. So there was discussion about having one group raid at that intensity and our other 2-3 groups just mosey along like we've always done. The problem was, the officer from the other guild that I was discussing this with had his own ideas for this raid team that didn't quite jive with us (especially regarding the loot policy). One of our officers was extremely vocal and emotional against this happening. The discussion derailed and that's no longer an option.
NintendoWare Weekly: Mario's Picross, Monochrome Racing
If you've never tested your brain for picross compatibility, you can do so today with the latest Virtual Console game on eShop. Try Mario's Picross and you'll either have an awesome time making little pixel pictures out of number puzzles, or throw your 3DS down the stairs. Good thing the price for replacements is going down! WiiWare offers a novel take on the racing genre: Monochrome Racing (also out on PS Minis), a game that takes place in a fully monochrome environment, in which you must keep your car "charged" and moving with color by picking up items.
NintendoWare Weekly: Super Adventure Island, House, Valet Parking 1989
How timely! One day before Takahashi Meijin leaves his post as Hudson Soft's resident PR expert/hero/mascot, Nintendo has released a Virtual Console game starring Takahashi (or, as he's called here, "Master Higgins"), namely Super Adventure Island. On DSiWare, we get to experience one of the most delightfully random release days since the service started. There's a game about parking cars with an early GTA-style top-down view, an A-Team pastiche, and an episodic House, M.D. adventure game. Examine the full list of releases after the break.%Gallery-124786%
Officers' Quarters: Be careful what you promise
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. Promises, promises. Politicians make them all the time. In fact, many of them get elected based on those promises. No one seems surprised anymore when a politician fails to deliver on a campaign promise, yet our guild members usually expect us to do what we say we will. Could it be that guild officers are actually held to a higher standard? Let's look at this week's email to find out! Hello I am an officer (well one of 2) in a medium sized semi raiding guild We also have a large number of "casual" players in our guild. During LK era, we had 2 different 10 man raiding teams going on. Both groups I took the time to rotate different players out each given week so everyone had a chance to raid.The second group was also made up of some of the first group's alts. This was very stressful on me due to I would take all week to get the groups ready only to have someone say at the last minute would say oh I can't make it 5 minutes before raid started, then I would have to rework the "group composition" in a flurry to be able to start the raid on time. Well during Cata we all agreed we did not want to do rotations and only wanted to do 10 man raids and wanted two solid 10 man groups with the same people every week ( with a stand by if needed), so we could work as a "family" unit and mesh well together.
Officers' Quarters: The A team question
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. The "A Team" -- in WoW, it's not a bunch of guys in a van who help people by . . . shooting other people. Rather, it's your best players grouped together to the exclusion of other guild members. Most guilds don't have the numbers to fill two 25-player teams, so this issue usually relates to 10-player runs. The forming of a 10-player A team can be riddled with drama. This week's e-mail asks whether allowing an A team is the right choice. I enjoy reading your perspective on guild leadership. I'm hoping you can give us some ideas on balancing progression versus inclusion. We are an established raiding guild that works on the top tier of content. While we are not a guild that makes server first kills, we steadily progress through the content and see hard/heroic modes on 25 man difficulty. Our raiding core is pretty solid, although there are levels of skill, from very high to adequate. We typically complete the ten man content, and use the ten mans as a base to gain experience on the twenty five mans. Our problem mainly rests on the makeup of our ten man groups. One school wants to have the maximum number of people get in the ten man groups. This school spreads our best players among multiple groups. All of the groups have some success, but because there are weaker players included, these groups usually hit a wall on harder fights (Heroic Anub or the Wing Bosses of ICC). There is a lot of frustration on the part of our best players when this happens.
