Scott Andrews
Articles by Scott Andrews
Officers' Quarters: 6 tips for officers on soon-to-be-connected realms
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. Blizzard began the process of connecting realms a few weeks ago. After two successful connections, Blizzard is finally picking up the pace. Last week, they announced six more pairs that will soon become one. For officers, the weeks before and after a realm connection will be a crucial time. Here are some tips to put your guild in the best possible position within your newly forged community. 1. Don't wait for the connection. If you intend to recruit from the new population, the time to do so is right after the connection is announced. Players who are looking for guilds on the combined realms will start shopping around immediately. The guilds who are proactive in this phase are more likely to land those players. Visit the other realm's forums and say hi. You can post a recruiting announcement there, certainly, but you can do more than that. Introduce yourself. Ask questions about the realm you'll be connecting to and get to know the players there. Strike up conversations and become someone that forum users not only recognize, but like and respect. They will be far more likely to consider joining your guild when the time comes if they already know that an officer in the guild is a decent human being. You can take that one step further and roll an alt on the other realm prior to the connection. There's no better way to get to know a new realm than to play on it and meet the players there "in person."
Officers' Quarters: Brainstorming future perks
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 from now, BlizzCon will reveal all about the next WoW expansion and the evolution of the game. Guild perks aren't really at the top of anyone's list of BlizzCon announcements, but they are nonetheless a big feature of guilds now. On that front, Mists took away more than it gave us. I'm hopeful that patch 6.0 will be more generous. Here are some much-needed perks that Blizzard could provide. Bait and Switch: While fishing, you have a 30% chance to catch extra fish. Fishing has received lots of support in Mists, but the act of fishing is still deadly dull. Apologies to the last two people who enjoy it, but it is -- by a long shot -- the one thing in WoW I can't bring myself to do. The profession desperately needs an overhaul. Blizzard mentioned back in 2009 that such an overhaul was in the works, but it has yet to see the light of day. Given that fish are often ingredients in feasts, noodle carts, etc., they are a commodity that guilds need. They are also the commodity that most guild members don't want to farm. A bonus to cut down on the time it takes to farm said fish would be very welcome.
WoW Archivist: Spells we've lost
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Back in June, Ghostcrawler identified "ability bloat" as a major issue that he'd like to address in WoW moving forward. GC later confirmed Blizzard's intention to cull spells, but admitted "there will be many tears." Since the tweet, WoW Insider and many others have speculated about which spells will disappear forever and which will remain. While I agree that bloat is a problem, it's not the first time that Blizzard has looked at reducing our endless action bars to more manageable proportions. Many beloved spells have already vanished, along with many strange and pointless ones, too. Let's look back at some of these spells from bygone days. Shaman Most missed: Cleansing Totem In Wrath, the original Poison Cleansing Totem and Disease Cleansing Totem merged to become Cleansing Totem. It attempted to cleanse a debuff of each type every three seconds. Shamans loved this "fire and forget" method of cleansing, but Blizzard killed the spell because they wanted removing debuffs to require the active attention of a player. Least missed: Windwall Totem This totem had a cool name, but the narrowest possible application. It reduced damage from ranged attacks. Only attacks made by bow/gun-type weapons and thrown weapons counted -- not spells. Because wind affects bullets but not fireballs? Weirdest: Sentry Totem Long mocked as "Screenshot Totem," Sentry Totem allowed the shaman to switch camera views to it to keep an eye on a distant location. It had some strategic applications in battlegrounds, but given that it took up the air totem slot, few shamans used it. The totem did, in fact, help players to get great screenshots of boss kills, though. Never forget!
Officers' Quarters: A sleepy 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. Scheduling raids at a time that's convenient for everyone on your team is one of the toughest parts of raiding. No matter whether you're flexing or taking down Heroic Garrosh, it's an obstacle that every raiding guild has to overcome. But what can you do as the guild leader when you can no longer attend your own guild's raids? Hello Scott, I don't know if you've heard THIS one yet! Short and sweet. Normally, when players and raid times don't fit, the players just go find another guild with raid times that do fit. No hard feelings and I wish them luck. But, what is a Guild Leader of a dedicated raiding guild to do when the raid times no longer fit my schedule?
Officers' Quarters: Divided loyalties
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. When guilds shatter, everyone involved has tough decisions to make. This week, a raider is forced to choose between the raid team he loves and the friend who invited him to the guild. Just a few months ago, I decided to transfer my secondary character to alliance on my server, because the only friend I have left who plays had an active guild. I was hesitant to play alliance, but it has been working out fairly well so far. I originally wanted to join her raid team, but they couldn't fit me in. But I was approached by the leader of team two to join their team. I gladly accepted, and we dove headfirst into ToT. Well, last Friday, after we cleared four bosses in SoO, I had to run to bed. After I left, they made the choice to leave the guild. Every single one of them. Now, I don't know the details, save for there had been plenty of behind the scenes drama.
WoW Archivist: A rolled-back history of realms, part 2
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Last time on WoW Archivist, we talked about the early months of WoW, when the realms and the servers that run them couldn't handle the avalanche of subscribers that followed the game's release. The game experienced a population surge unprecedented in the MMO genre. Blizzard could not have predicted it and was not prepared for it. The Broken 20 In early 2005, Blizzard was haunted by the number 20. At that time, 88 servers were operational. Of those, 20 of the original 41 servers had recently been moved to new, more powerful hardware, which Blizzard hoped would be able to handle those servers' extremely high populations. Unfortunately, a flaw in the infrastructure caused more problems than ever: severe lag, frequent server crashes, and even more frequent player disconnects. Blizzard's response was to lower the server cap by 30% until the flaw could be identified, greatly exacerbating the queue times. Those servers became known on forums as the "Broken 20."
Officers' Quarters: No leader = no raid?
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. When your raid leader is absent, does your guild cancel the entire raid? This week, an officer is in a guild that does just that. Hi Scott, I've read a lot of your columns and I'm curious if you could offer some advise on how to suggest changes to a GM. Ok, I'm an officer in a guild that is focused on "casual progression" (if such a thing exists). We have regular raid times and dates that the whole guild is aware of, and use the calendar to build our raid groups. For some background, our GM is also our primary raid leader. When he is unavailable to raid, due to work or life, we typically don't raid. We have two tiers of guild officers, one to focus on class knowledge and guild activities, and the other who are raid leaders. The raid leader tier is short in number because some guild members don't want to lead raids and others because our GM doesn't feel they would be a good raid leader.
Officers' Quarters: A sudden tyrant
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. People change. Their opinions and tastes evolve. Sometimes a guild that was right for you in the past is no longer what you want. That's all well and good, unless this person is the guild leader, and they are bringing the whole guild along for the ride. Hi Scott, I am writing because I really need your advice. I am at a point in my guild where I may have to leave and I do not want to. I have been in a guild for over a year and am now the co-gl. We recently server transferred from a low pop server to a high pop server. We have always been a casual 10 man/ social guild. We did pretty well during DS, but due to some ppl leaving the guild/ raid team we had to stop at the beginning of MOP. We could not recruit on the old server and transferred... And this is when the trouble started.
WoW Archivist: A rolled-back history of realms
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? If your low-population realm hasn't been linked up to another one yet, it soon will. This is a drastic step for WoW, but one that should solve the long-bemoaned low-population problem on many realms. When WoW first launched, Blizzard had the exact opposite problem on their hands: realms had far, far too many players. Let's look back to 2004 to the earliest months of the game and remember just what players had to endure -- and what Blizzard had to do to fix it. Uncharted realms The servers that run the game's realms have always been shrouded in mystery. Technical details have never been shared. In a 2005 interview, producer Shane Dabiri deflected questions about the realms hardware: "Well, I really can't get into how we structure or build our infrastructure," he said. "Much of the information is proprietary and complex."
Officers' Quarters: When to give up
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. Guilds are like a living body. A little blood loss now and then is alright, as long as you can replace it. But if you bleed members for too long, the wounds don't heal, the bleeding never stops, and eventually the body goes on life support. So it is with the unfortunate guild in this week's email: Hi Scott Firstly I'd like to thank you for your advise in Officers Quarters and your book. The Guild Leaders Handbook was invaluable when I was made GM. A bit of background of me and our guild. I joined this guild a few years ago as it suited my play style. We were only Raiding once or twice a week and getting through content nicely for a guild who's aim was just to see content. Over the years I made friendships with people in the guild and it's a great atmosphere to be in. I was made an officer and at this stage we had just enough active members to do 10mans once or twice a week. Some weeks we would have to pug 1 or 2 people. This is when we started to lose people. With a guild that has been around for 5 years this month is was to be expected that people would leave the game for various reasons. So I recruited more members to fill the gaps and a few more left the game. At this stage raids again were pug'd to fill the gaps. Newer members were leaving to other guild's due to not having a full raid team every week and more long term members left the game including the guild leader who passed the leadership to me.
Officers' Quarters: A runaway success
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. Many guilds struggle to find recruits. The guild in the email below is not one of them. In fact, if you're looking for someone to blame about your recruiting difficulties, you might want to look at these guys. With seven raid teams and chapters across multiple games, this guild leader's problem isn't too few players, but too many. Dear Scott! I am longtime WoW-player (since patch 2.4) and reader of WoW Insider. This site is my favorite place to read news and articles about a game. Most important is that audience of readers is quite nice and constructive. It is always nice to read. This is one of the reason, why I ask for advice here. Currently I am leader of WoW-wing in middle size MMO-community, there are 250+ members. Half of our members play Guild Wars 2, another half plays WoW. Now we experience some growth problem... Initially it was planned to create PvE-oriented guild with at two raid teams at the best. We were recruiting mostly via our blogs. First raid team managed to clear MSV in three weeks in February and started to progress further. More progress, more people came to us. We were not hardcore or even semi hardcore raiders. We raid two nights a week, six hours in total. It is quite casual from my point of view, but seemed like we attracted an attention. Number of members started to increase pretty fast. Before the end of the April we had four raid teams and plenty of socials, who did want to raid, but anyway had a good time in game.
WoW Archivist: Two weeks as a noob in 2004
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? When I took on the WoW Archivist mantle last year, I wanted to tell some personal stories as well as provide in-depth looks into the game's past. My first column talked about an early but extraordinary world PvP experience. Today I'd like to tell you about my first weeks of WoW in 2004, in a very different Azeroth than our modern version, with a very different incarnation of the hunter class. A hunter will rise In December 2004, a hunter stepped forward in Red Cloud Mesa. He was new to the ways of Azeroth, but eager to learn. What followed would be painful. But when the narrator shut up and the hunter proudly accepted his first quest from the Navajo minotaur guy with giant punctuation over his head, this new hunter set forth. He had nothing but a bow and a hope that his trials would forge him into a hero. He would become a hero, many months and scars later. His first two weeks, however, were marked with terror, failure, and shame in roughly equal parts.
Officers' Quarters: Loot system for mounts
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. One situation that officers and raid leaders are frequently unprepared for is a rare mount dropping from a boss. Many times, players aren't even aware that specific bosses drop mounts, because they drop so rarely. Without a specific policy in place, you have to make one up on the spot -- which is not a great idea. One guild just ran into this problem, and they want to know the best system for mounts. Hi Scott, Last night the officers of our 25-man raid group encountered a bit of a dilemma. Heroic Ji-Kun dropped the Clutch of Ji-Kun mount and we, the officers, had to decide how to deal with it. We use the EPGP lootmaster system, but didn't have any rules in place for how our raiders should roll on the mount. After a brief discussion we decided that we would just put a free roll for all players of Raider status and it would go to the highest roller. Other officers began to bring up valid points for the future, the next time a rare mount drops. What sort of requirements should we put on who is allowed to roll on mounts the next time one drops from a boss? Most of the other officers are saying "Raider" status, at least 1 month with the guild, and 90% attendance should be required before we roll. I felt the attendance clause was a bit strict, because it's not a combat item and it doesn't enhance the raid's performance in any way. The others feel that we should be rewarding people for having good attendance, which I feel is a valid point.
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.
WoW Archivist: WoW's first legendary quest line
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Not every amazing weapon is legendary. WoW has seen plenty of great weapons come and go without a single orange letter in their tooltip. But let's face it: legendaries are the most interesting and coveted items in the game. In patch 5.4, many players who have never before been able to equip a legendary item will have their first opportunity, thanks to Wrathion's schemes. The quest line for our legendary cloaks has been the longest and most elaborate legendary quest line to date, spanning over multiple tiers of raiding. But how did it all begin? What was WoW's first legendary quest line? Let's take a look back to remember the legend of Thunderfury.
Officers' Quarters: Last man standing
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. Guild leadership is a tenuous social construct. It's all volunteer. It's based purely on someone's commitment to a community of people, most of whom they have never actually "met." It's based on their continued enjoyment of a single game, over months and years. When you look at it that way, it's amazing how stable and long-lasting some guilds can be, thanks to dedicated and enthusiastic leaders. This week's email, unfortunately, is about a guild in a different situation. It's from an officer who, after a series of mishaps and disappearances, is the last leader left. Hi Scott, First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of your column, it's helped me out a lot in the past. I'm currently one of 3 officers in a midsize guild. My guild has recently been hit by a perfect storm of bad events over the summer. The guild's raid team has seen moderate success since the end of Cataclysm, enough to keep 8 people interested in raiding. However, we haven't been able to fill a raid team since Mists of Pandaria launched. I'm the PvP officer for the guild, but our Guild Master put a horrible new rule in place (disallowing any kind of guild events on Raid Nights) in January that send our entire PvP team off to another guild. Ever since then I haven't been able to recruit and gear enough people to make a full team. All of the issues started at the beginning of June, when our Guild Master started logging on less and less. He'd only log on for raids, but after a few weeks, he stopped logging on at all. In addition to that, one of our 3 officers stopped logging into WoW completely in mid-June. My colleague and I just kept trying to drive up guild activity with events, gearing nights, and raids, just trying to keep the raid team afloat.
WoW 6.0: A case for dual class dual spec
Please note that this article is 100% speculation! Many people have wondered whether Blizzard may add a fourth spec to the existing classes in the next expansion. They've talked about a tanking spec for warlocks, a ranged DPS spec for paladins, a healing spec for mages, etc. It would be an amazing addition to the game for patch 6.0, and I would fully support it. However, fourth specs also seem highly unlikely. Blizzard would have to implement and then continually balance 10-11 more specs (depending on whether druids get a fifth). That's a big kodo to rein in. It's almost like adding three new classes to the game. We only have a sample size of one, but Blizzard chose not to add another class in the expansion following Wrath's death knight. It wouldn't surprise me if they chose not to during the next expansion, either. With declining subs, if they aren't adding another new class in the next expansion, they need to add a flashy new feature to our existing classes. The next expansion has to get players excited about playing our classes. One new spell per class won't cut it. Talent trees are probably staying the way they are. Blizzard seems hesitant to add tri-spec, and I'm not sure tri-spec is a good thing for WoW anyway. What could this new feature be? The radical new system I'm proposing would not just energize players -- it could also solve one of the game's longstanding problems. I'm going to call it dual class dual spec, or DCDS for short.
Officers' Quarters: When your raiders break up
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 Romantic relationships sure can complicate running a guild. If you lead a raiding guild long enough, someday you're going to have romantic partners who raid together. Sometimes they meet in the game and develop a relationship. Sometimes one convinces the other to raid with them. Either way, when a breakup occurs, it can have a big impact on your raid team. This week, an officer who lost a raider over a breakup is wondering what to do about it. Dear Scott, First off let me say I'm a fan of your column, every time I'm asked for help by an officer or friend I point them to your posts first and my guild even has your blog in our officer handbook. But let me get to the point of this letter, I'm currently an advisor for a small guild of players that moved over from our old guild when they had a fallout with the new guild master (and co-gm). Things have been going well if not great (2 heroic kills ...). However issues relating to guild members dating has often resulted in one of them leaving the guild because the other isn't taking the break up well. Up until the latest one I haven't been around to talk to the member leaving (player A). Sadly I wasn't successful and he still left however I did find that the other guild member (player 1) wasn't taking the break up well and player A just didn't feel conformable in the guild any more. I don't know what to do, I don't want to lose player 1 if I confront her but I don't want lose player A as well. Kre
WoW Archivist: When Blizzard "hated" the Horde
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Which faction does Blizzard love more? For several years it's been all the rage to claim that Blizzard loves the Horde and hates the Alliance. Players trot out the "green Jesus" theory. They show how the past two expansions have focused far more on Horde characters and storylines than on Alliance intrigues. It's true that Blizzard placed Thrall and now Garrosh and Vol'jin in the spotlight over the past few years. Players also look at the shiny new Orgrimmar that the Horde got when the old one burned down, and how Stormwind also took a beating and still hasn't recovered. You can make the case that Blizzard has somewhat favored the Horde in WoW's recent history. But this is so very, very strange to vanilla players like me. Back then, players were convinced of the exact opposite. Players were so convinced, in fact, that some actually wanted a CM to die. In vanilla, Blizzard "loved" the Alliance and "hated" the Horde. Don't believe me? This quote is from a 2005 editorial called "Why the Horde is worse, and how Blizzard could fix it": In the end, I am just a jealous Horde player... It is up to Blizzard to fix this game; I have done all that I can. Either World of Warcraft can be remembered as a great MMORPG, or it can go down as a horribly imbalanced one, like many before it. That's for Blizzard to decide. Let's take a trip back to 2005. On a bus, perhaps. A bus made out of elemental electrical energy.
Officers' Quarters: Inner circle
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. Does your guild have multiple tiers of leadership ranks? Such a hierarchy can help you to organize roles, but it can also cause resentment and infighting. This week, we hear from one officer who's fed up with it. Hi Scott, I am an officer in a medium size level 25 social guild. The guild has been around since WOTLK, has been through the normal ups and downs, but now seems to be in a good stable place with active, happy guildies. The leadership structure is set up with a GM, 3 Council members (GM is one of them), and 5 officers. This is for a guild with about 500 members. For about the past 6 months, the officers have been systematically stripped of more and more of their duties, to the point where all decisions now lie only with Council. Officers have no input into admitting new guild members, except to be able to invite alts of current members. Officers also have no input into decisions on various guild perks we offer, such as Riding Scholarships, assistance with profession leveling, selection of class leaders, membership guidelines, etc. Officer meetings have pretty much become sessions in which Council members take turns berating the officers for not contributing enough to the guild bank, or for failing to motivate other guildies to participate in guild activities.