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The Guild Counsel: It's time to meet your fellow guildmates
While game conventions are usually focused on video games, panels, and really cool fan-made costumes, one of the best parts of going to a con is meeting up with fellow players. And for guilds, an opportunity to finally put face to names is a major moment. While players might shy away from guild meet-and-greets, it's actually a terrific opportunity to strengthen ties and cut down on the potential for drama in the long run. More importantly, it's an important step toward making gaming seem less "weird" and more like any other "normal" group activity or shared interest. In today's Guild Counsel, let's take a look at why guild members should come out from behind the computer screen and attend a guild meet-and-greet.
Breakfast Topic: How well do you know your guildmates?
I used to have guildmates -- but now I just call them "friends." We abandoned the "guildmate" tag somewhere along the line a few years ago, after it became apparent that we all preferred adapting our gaming to our group size rather than our group size to our gaming. That's not to say we're not open to the idea of new people. But the people I play with on an ongoing basis across multiple games don't call each other "guildmates," even though we've never met in real life. We're on Facebook, in IM, and on TeamSpeak even when we're not gaming together. We're just "friends." I've known some pretty nice guildmates who made great "game friends," though. I learned all the details and odd little things about them that you do when you spend entire evenings with people on a regular basis: the nicknames they call their family members and pets, what they like on their pizza, what they studied in college, what time they get up for work. Even so, we never developed that crossover bond that leads to offline friendship. I removed their cell numbers from my contacts list once there was no longer a need to see if they could fill in on an off night or to let them know to come quick, the world boss was up RIGHT NOW! Still, I can't even imagine being in a guild where the only thing I knew about my guildmates was their character names. Simply unimaginable. How well do you know your guildmates? Are they merely nice people you game with, or have you built a toasty little internet friendship? Not a few guilds make a habit of annual or even more frequent real-world meetups (like The Incredibles, above). Have you ever met your guildmates? How well do you know most of the folks you play with?
Faces of BlizzCon: Guildmates tighten bonds at BlizzCon meetups
Couldn't make it to California for the convention? WoW Insider takes you behind the scenes at BlizzCon 2011. Face time -- it's an indispensable part of the human equation of forging bonds and getting on the same page. Friendships that used to rely solely on guild chat and forums deepen under the influence of voice chat, Facebook, and instant messaging. Today, we know our guildmates better than ever, but nothing can replace coming face-to-face, shaking hands, trading bear hugs, hanging out over days' worth of gaming and dinner and drinks ... and of course, endless discussions about WoW. We talked with three of the many guilds that met up at BlizzCon 2011: Fail Squad, a 10-man raiding guild celebrating its first anniversary; Chatcon, a group of players who came together via chat room with a common goal of handling trolls on the official Blizzard forums; and Crisp, a U.S. top 100 raiding guild bonding in game over hard modes and out of game over BlizzCon drinks.
Guild Counsel: The dreaded guild meet-and-greet
You've played together for months, even years, and now it's finally time to put a face to the name. Yep, it's the dreaded guild meet-and-greet. Summer tends to be a popular time for guild meet-ups, since the nice weather and flood of game conventions bring ample opportunity to get together. But meeting up with guildmates can be a hectic and somewhat stressful time. Even though online bonds can be as strong if not stronger than real-life ones, that final hurdle of meeting in person is daunting. You've probably seen the parody of The Guild's luncheon, with Tink surreptitiously sneaking in, Codex nervously trying to play host, and Vork passing out laminated copies of the guild agenda, but with some planning and thought, guild meet-and-greets can be a lot of fun. In this week's Guild Counsel, we'll look at some dos and don'ts when it comes to meeting your guild.
The Guild Counsel: New Year's resolutions
This past year for me has been the best year of my guild-leading life, primarily because I'm surrounded by terrific players who are also terrific people. We've had times when key members step away from raiding, and immediately I'll have several members volunteer to roll up new characters to fill the void and meet class needs. We've had issues, as all guilds do, and we have had disagreements, but I'm guilded with people who are classy enough and level-headed enough to understand the big picture and give the benefit of the doubt. As I raise my glass to toast my guildmates, I also look forward to next year. As guild leaders know, you can never rest on your laurels, and I have several New Year's resolutions. Read on to see what I hope to accomplish, and then share your resolutions for 2011.
The Classifieds: Back for more
The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including your shout-outs to perpetrators of Random Acts of Uberness. They came, they went ... And now <There and Back Again> is -- well, back again. This Thorium Brotherhood (US-A) guild, formed specifically to quest its way through a farewell tour of vanilla WoW Alliance content from start to finish, has hit the level cap, marked its territory and is preparing to launch a similar effort Horde-side. "After starting with over 100 members who joined us (in most part due to your article!), we ended up with around 35 who stuck through to the very end," reports GM Mistigris. "Lots of adventures along the way! Foot races through Stranglethorn, marches through Dalaran, cooking contests, random dungeon madness, tons of visits to the NPC that turns off XP ... We did ZG and Karazhan at very close to level cap, and there is a robust kernel of folks who are gearing up for 80th heroics and raiding." Time now for the flip side of the coin. "We're going to nest within <Imminent Rueage> on Thorium Brotherhood (US-H)," Mistigris continues. "Our starting date is Saturday the 24th of July -- starting zones and guild invites galore! Level cap for the day is 12th; we'll be gathering the following week at Crossroads for our first 'official' event." If you've been looking for just the right way to wrap up the pre-Cataclysm era, look up <Imminent Ruage> and give all things Horde-side one more for the road. We've got plenty of other news from around the WoW community this week, as well ... So let's crack open The Classifieds.
World of WarCrafts: Behind the incredible Incredicon
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself; email lisa@wow.com with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations. Required reading for this week's post: Setting an Incredibles standard for guild meetups Synopsis <The Incredibles> of Boulderfist (US-A) sets the standard for designing WoW-themed guild meetups, with custom-designed collateral including an Oscars-style golden statuette volunteer award, picnic decorations, over-the-top publicity posters, game-themed menus -- even custom-designed, WoW-themed beer labels. Evidence See the gallery below. %Gallery-97242% Want to learn more about that golden bird? Click past the break for more details about the incredible Increddy award.
15 Minutes of Fame: Setting an Incredibles standard for guild meetups
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft personalities of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. It's not uncommon anymore for guilds to hold regular, real-life meetups. Even entire house party weekends aren't too far off the radar among groups who really relish the game and one another's company. But the bar set by <The Incredibles> of Boulderfist (US-A) is simply ... Well, it wouldn't be stretching things for the sake of a play on words to say the IncrediCon event has set the bar incredibly high. There's not a detail of these gatherings that's not related to World of Warcraft: picnics, banquets, over-the-top publicity posters, hotel welcome packages, game-themed menus -- even custom-designed, WoW-themed beer labels. (Talk about tossing one back with the guildies ...) The pièce de resistance of each year's event, however, is clearly The Increddy, a golden statuette (à la Oscars) awarded to a guild volunteer or leader for service to the five-year-old group. We'll be featuring the Increddy and the dizzying array of other items created for Incredicon-related fun in next week's World of Warcrafts (previously planned for yesterday, but bumped so we could serve up some WoW-inspired menus for your Fourth of July celebration). This week, we talked to Increddy crafter and guild officer Theraven, pulling together our conversations into a Q&A-style look at the incredible Incredicon meetups.
