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Officers' Quarters: Forging alliances for Mythic raiding
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 the wake of Blizzard's announcement that Mythic raiding would only support 20-player raids, 10-player Heroic guilds have been left wondering how they will adjust. This week, one guild member wants to know how to manage a successful alliance with another 10-player raiding guild. Hi Scott, I'm a member of a small 10-man heroic raiding guild. We have been worried about the changes to raiding that are coming in Warlords of Draenor, since we are a very close-knit guild of friends. Most of us have been raiding together since early Wrath. We haven't been looking forward to recruiting 10+ more people, so we were thinking of resigning ourselves to running the new Heroic (current Normal) content and hoping not to get bored or lose too many members to other guilds. We recently received the offer of a guild alliance from another 10-man heroic guild on our server.
Officers' Quarters: The raid-aholic
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 this week's email, a raid leader has grave concerns about his guild leader, who puts personal performance and volume of raiding above the good of the guild. Hi Scott I'm a co-raid leader of a fairly successful raid team. Our guild leader describes himself as a raid-a-holic. It was something we used to tease him about but I'm now concerned it's becoming a problem. He has never taken his turn sitting out on standby like the rest of us. He'll only ever accept being put on standby if it's farm night, and he doesn't need gear. My co-raid leader and I try and be absolutely fair on the confirms. When the GL was our top dps, it was an easy excuse to take him often, and then we didn't have to rock the boat. Recently for the first time ever we standbyed him on progress night. That night there was just no other option unless we wanted to be grossly unfair and that was just a step too far. So we were fair and we standbyed him. As soon as he saw the calendar he went mad and started posting in /g, in /o, on battle tag status, on his twitter account which doubles as the guilds (where he posts all our kill videos), that he hoped we wiped all night, as the kill wouldn't count if he wasn't there.
Officers' Quarters: Gdivorce
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. To lead a guild effectively, its leaders have to be on the same page. In this week's email, a guild's founding officers have a fundamental disagreement about the direction of the guild. One of them wants out, and she wants to take her half of the guild with her. Hi Scott, here's a little question: A few years ago, my boyfriend and I started our own guild, mainly for the extra storage space and to share profession materials between our characters (we both have plenty of alts). A few months ago, we decided to turn it into a raiding guild, invited a few friends who then in turn invited a few more friends and so on. Then our first disagreement happened.
Officers' Quarters: My roommate is a slacker
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. As a guild leader, it's never easy to tell someone that they aren't pulling their weight. What happens when that person is your roommate? hey Scott. few months back, me and my dad revived our old guild, and it went soo good! within weeks our ranks were swelling with people, having a good time etc then we started raiding, all was well untill we started progressing properly. one of my raiders (Bob for this story) has an itemlvl of ~563 yet doesnt pull his weight as dps (Mage) he tends to slack if he thinks he can get away with it, threatens to get angry etc if people keep complaining about his damage. heres the real issue. this raider is my roommate and longtime friend.
Officers' Quarters: The guy who won't run back
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. What kind of monster never runs back after a wipe? This week, a guild leader is pondering his options after one of his raiders fails to grasp the teamwork aspects of raiding. Hi Scott! In June of 2013, I formed a guild with a few close wow friends, all who were part of the guild we were previously in which fell apart. The guild has prospered. We started off as a Flex only guild and have come along way since, currently 13/14N. Nine out of the ten raiders are great apart from one, an officer and one of the original members of the guild. He's a good skilled player but his attitude has left me speechless quite a few times. He has rage quit raids before because we couldn't raid till normal raid time. He has threatened to rage quit raids because he was subbed out to give another raider a chance at loot. He challenges every new tactic we have for a boss. If you don't share his opinion well, ill just say he's headstrong! He never runs back in after wipes either. It got to the stage where I was sick of him but I just couldn't bring myself to do anything about it. He followed me to the new guild and trusted me. I know now that that was stupid to do. I let it go on too long and it has led to some drama.
Officers' Quarters: Helping a tween tank
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 is from a guild leader in a delicate situation. One of his younger raiders is holding the guild back, but he doesn't want to upset her. Her highly protective father is also a member. Heyo Scott! My problem comes in the form of a raider who's enthusiasm and dedication are impressive, but who's ability are not. I'm Co-GM of a guild that's been together for about a year. In that time, we've gone from only having one or two people on all day to regularly having 10-15 at any given moment. We raid 10-man normal and Flex mode, everyone in the guild who can make it to raids regularly is happy with the situation, and even those who leave for greener raiding pastures always leave behind their alts because they just enjoy the community so much. The problem is that we are slowly bleeding away some of our best raiders due to our lack of progress.
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: Stop it with the invite addons
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. I have to admit it: as someone who has been guilded in WoW for nine+ years, and who plays on a decidedly Horde-light server, it hasn't been until the past few months that I realized what a damn nuisance these addons are. I've been playing alts lately, trying to decide what class and spec I want to raid with in Warlords of Draenor. (I'm currently a feral druid, which I may stick with.) Since I'm out of character slots on my home realm, and I've never really played Alliance, I decided to roll some Alliance characters on a realm with a healthy Alliance pop. I didn't know anyone on the realm. And I didn't really want to join a guild, since I wasn't sure how much I would play those toons yet. I had no idea what I was in for.
Officers' Quarters: Humbling Hellscream
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. Garrosh Hellscream, son of Grom, Chieftain of the Mag'har, Warchief of the True Horde, is no pushover when you meet him in battle. Nor should he be, as the final boss of Mists of Pandaria. He can break your raid team's spirit faster than he nuked Theramore. One such team is fracturing under the pressure of Garrosh and his freaky Old God souvenirs, and their raid leader is asking for help. Hello Scott! I am currently the raid leader/GM for a startup guild on a high-pop server. I was able to create a guild, form a raid team, and get them 13/14 very quickly on normal. However, I recently lost my partner tank (I tank as a warrior) due to RL issues, and had a DPS rage quit during our Garrosh attempts. I've converted a dps to tank (he has sufficient gear), and am having trouble finding the right comp/team to get Garrosh down. We rarely wipe on the first 13, but we are having trouble on garrosh.
Officers' Quarters: 8 gift ideas that won't break the gbank
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. The holiday season is all about giving. It's the perfect time of year to hold contests and giveaways. Doing so can be a great way to build morale in your community or attract new players. Giving gifts to your officers as a guild leader is also a heartfelt way to show appreciation for their hard work throughout the year. However, many of the most desired items can cost a fortune in gold. For officers, manpower is often much easier to come by than raw currency. Here are eight items that make great gifts or prizes without bankrupting your gbank. 8. Discombobulator Ray Where to get it: An engineer can learn the schematic in Gnomeregan. Wowpedia has a walkthrough. It also has a small chance (0.5%) to drop from Mekgineer Thermaplugg, the last boss of the dungeon. What it costs: A small amount of gold for materials: bronze bars, silk and wool cloth, and jade. Why it's a good gift: Many players don't even know this vanilla-era item exists. It has a unique and hilarious effect, and you don't have to be an engineer to use it. It's also a devastating item for low level players to unleash in PvP.
Officers' Quarters: Drawing boundaries with a new raid 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. When you're both the guild leader and the raid leader of a guild, everyone looks to you to have all the answers. This week, one such officer finds himself tanking for a second, newly formed raid team. He wants to know how he can help without becoming the default leader of the team. I have a question I would like discussed and I'm sure others are having similar question. I have what I consider a social raiding guild. ... I come from a history of progression raiding from MC onwards and raid leadership since the 15 man UBRS days. My main is Wumper-Saurfang and my guild is Carpe Jugulum. ... We have our midweek (more serious) team, Thursday night team (recently started SoO) and a social Flexi raid on Saturdays. Physically we have too many for a single 10 toon raid, and not enough viable raiders for a 25 toon more serious raid. My question is how do I bridge the learning gap in the Thursday raid without becoming a leading participant of the raid? We have a new team that has started with a positive intent, a clear charter and rules. From the midweek (more serious) team we provide youtube guides videos for fights they are coming up to, visual class guides, discussion threads of tactics, approaches and role based discussion. We stream our fights for members to watch (and they do) when we're not recording for guide creation. If I am to get involved in the raid, because I am the GM and raid lead and would be tanking on my second bear, I will wind up taking a lead role within the raid. Currently I fill in as a reserve tank as required.
Officers' Quarters: 20-man misconceptions
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. Several weeks ago I wrote an article about how Blizzard could help guilds make the transition from 10-man heroic to 20-man mythic raiding. The comments on that article were eye-opening to me. In the interest of promoting dialogue about the new raiding system and supporting the guild officers who will make it work, I'd like to clear up some misconceptions. Who deserves extra rewards? Many commenters expressed the opinion that hard mode raiding and the best loot in the game are reward enough. No extra rewards are required. For your average heroic raider, that is certainly true. But your average heroic raider doesn't have to do much outside of raid times, and then it's mostly just a matter of showing up prepared. The people who deserve the big incentives are not the average raiders.
Officers' Quarters: Celebrating 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. As Blizzard connects more and more realms, the communities on those realms are waking up, becoming livelier and more social. It's a great opportunity for guilds to make a name for themselves within the newly combined populations. Last month I offered advice on how guilds could leverage the upcoming connections to add new members and establish a positive reputation. This past Monday, Blizzard connected the realms Llane and Arygos. The guild Spectacular Death on Llane took advantage of the opportunity and threw a realm connection party. Their guild leader wrote to me to share their experience: I'm Gimmlette, the guild leader of Spectacular Death on Llane. Prior to the start of Blizzard doing these server connections, you posted a column suggesting things a guild could do to make themselves known when servers get connected. One of the things suggested was a server connection party. I posted the column to the Officer's section of the guild web site, which we have dubbed the "Executive Washroom", and we decided a party is what we'd do. I thought I'd share some photos from that party. We connected with Arygos on Monday. We announced the party upcoming two weeks ago and when Blizzard announced the connection date, we went back to the server forums with a date. We opted to have the party the day after the actual connection, to make sure things were okay and to run tests on trading things with people from Arygos.
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).
Officers' Quarters: How Blizzard can help guilds adjust to 20-man mythic raids
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 week has passed since BlizzCon, but the arguments over mythic raiding's single 20-man size have not abated. BlizzCon has always included controversial announcements, and it seems that the raiding changes were destined to become the big one among 2013's batch. It's easy to understand why. For current 25-man Heroic guilds, they have to choose between cutting five players from the team or making a bunch of people sit on the sidelines. It's not nearly as bad as the 40-man to 25-man transition, but it still stings. Heroic 10-man guilds, however, will have it much worse if this change goes live (and it very much seems like it will). It's too early to make sweeping changes to your roster, but rest assured in the future I will cover different strategies for making that transition. For now, I'd like to talk about what officers and raiders should ask Blizzard to do to help us adjust. Now that this decision has been made, however, Blizzard should not stand idle in this process. They can make this transition easier on guids.
Officers' Quarters: Officers of Draenor
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. BlizzCon 2013 gave us a glimpse into WoW's future. As officers, it's never too early to plan and adjust for the evolution of the game. Let's take a look at the some of the issues that could affect your guild next year. No new perks It appears that guilds will remain capped at level 25, which also means no new perks. In the systems panel, Blizzard said that they don't see the point of piling on perks. They said, "The system accomplished what we wanted it to accomplish." That's good news, in a way, for smaller guilds or people who plan to start new guilds in the future. For those of us who hoped for more, it's a bit disappointing.
Officers' Quarters: Creating a casual raid 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. This week, a former officer gets sucked back into a leadership role in a new guild. After a bad experience with her previous raid team, she's debating whether or not to bring casual raiding to her new home. Good morning Scott: Early this year, I wrote to you about a problem I was having with a fellow healer in my casual raid group. Since writing to you, and receiving your awesomely helpful answer, I tried to work with the guild. I worked with the troubled healer to get their overhealing numbers down, educated and trained the raid leader, trained replacements, and finally stepped down - both from healing and from being an officer. I just couldn't find happiness there. But I was happy with my decision. In late 5.3, ready to progress towards something new, I found a new server and faction changed my characters. At a friends request, I parked myself in a new guild to help level it up. Said friend accidentally mentioned my previous officer and raid experience and the guild leader promptly bumped me to an officer position... and has been asking me to start and lead their (very casual) raid team.
Officers' Quarters: Tanksplosion
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 good tank is a precious resource to a raid team. Few players want the responsibility and the pressure. Those who not only want it, but thrive in it, are rare indeed. This week's email asks, what do you do as a guild leader when your tank goes off the deep end? Hello Scott. Im a long time reader and I have implemented a lot of your suggestions in my own guild and it has helped sort out many of the issues, but I once again find my self at a crossroad and I have many doubts on which road to pick. In many of your blogs, you talk about the behaviour of one member within a guild, that is having a very negative effect on the guild as a whole, and Im sorry to say, that my problem concerns one such individual. [...] This guy is our guilds main tank, and he does suffer from the old: "I'm a tank, so therefor I AM GOD!" complex, but we can deal with that, since it has been contained to his tanking and not spread to the rest of the guild. That was untill a few months ago, when things suddently took a turn for the worse.
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.
