guide-to-officers
Latest
Officers' Quarters: Mind the gap
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. In my opinion, it is Blizzard's biggest failure when it comes to WoW: the Gap. The Gap between the last major content patch of an expansion and the next expansion is always far too long. The Gap is always extremely difficult for guilds. The Gap kills momentum and morale. The Gap disintegrates rosters. Why does it happen every single time? Honestly, I have no idea. The Gap bores and disappoints everyone, but at least we're used to it. We don't like it, but we expect it. However, if your guild has never faced it before, like the one in the email below, it can cause something of a panic. Hi Scott! I'm not an officer in my guild or anything, I'm just one of the players that's been around since Burning Crusade. It's a long time to have a guild running, but we're running into some issues and I'm not sure how to handle them, so I thought maybe you'd have some advice. Our guild is a progression raiding guild, but we don't work super hard at world firsts or anything like that -- we take our time and clear the content with the goal of clearing it before the next tier and the next expansion comes out. In Burning Crusade, we managed to clear Sunwell just before Wrath launched. In Wrath, we managed to just squeak in a heroic Lich King kill before Cataclysm came out. Sounds good, right? Well ... now we've run into a problem, and it's causing the guild a little strife.
Officers' Quarters: When you're asked to pass on loot
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. At one time or another, all of us who play WoW long enough have been "asked to pass" on loot. Usually it all works out OK. Either you pass or you don't, and everyone goes about their business. However, the situation is bursting with the potential for drama -- as we see in the following email. Hello Scott, Great blog, I'm relatively new to WoW (joined my first and current raiding guild in the beginning of Cataclysm) and have due to some unfortunate situations become guild leader. I had to learn and adapt quickly and your blog has helped me a lot. Recently, I had to deal with a situation that seemed very dramatic from my PoV and needed my attention as GM. The guild was doing a more casual Dragon Soul run. We normally have raids for raiding members only and we use EP/GP there. This run was set up and led by an experienced raid and guild leader that is part of our raiding team. I did not personally attend -- normally I would lead raids. They used the Roll system to distribute loot. However, there were a few members of the progression raiding team that attended this run. Some of them still interested in some rarer normal drops. While it was not required, it seemed to be common behaviour to pass for these main raiders when they needed an item. At some point, an item that one of the main raiders actually needed dropped, and was rolled on. This is where it starts.
Officers' Quarters: Regime change
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. In sports, I think one of the most difficult tasks of all is taking over for a superstar at a key position -- the backup goalie who gets called upon when the starting goalie is injured, or the relief pitcher who steps onto the mound with a lead. In WoW, one of the most difficult leadership tasks is to take over a guild from a trusted former guild leader. The talents and contributions of your predecessor are on everyone's minds. Expectations will be high, and if you fail, you'll be letting your friends down. You could destroy a community that's an important part of people's lives. The pressure is enormous. This week, a brand new guild leader asks for advice. Hello, I've recently been promoted to Guild Master of a very large social guild after being an officer for over a year. As you know, although the change-over is friendly and I'm trying hard to make it as smooth as possible, there's quite a bit of work that's going into it.
Officers' Quarters: 9 warning signs that your raid leader is bad
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. A good raid leader is the heart and soul of a successful raiding guild. Guilds have been made and broken by these stalwart, savvy, and thick-skinned individuals. A great raid leader is a truly special asset that all guilds seek but few are lucky enough to find. The rest have to settle for whomever is willing. Unfortunately, while willingness can be difficult to find in and of itself, the role requires so much more than that. Those who fail at it often do so in spectacular fashion. Others are less obvious in their failure, and their raiders suffer for years as a result. How can you tell your raid leader isn't managing the job very well? Read on. (Also, before I start the list, I want to note that every single item here is drawn from a real example. I've either experienced it personally or I've read about it in emails from you. This column was actually inspired by an email from RBG Leader. Thanks!) 1. Your raid leader is quiet in Vent. A raid leader needs to be the most vocal person on a raid team. He or she has to coordinate mechanics, explain guild-specific strategies, call out for cooldowns and battle rezzes, warn the raid of impending special abilities, get on people's case when they're consistently messing up the same thing, announce breaks, request suggestions, etc., etc., etc. It's not a role for the shy.
Officers' Quarters: Never say disband
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. Guilds fall apart. It happens so frequently these days that we take it as a matter of course. They can also be rebuilt, if there's a member intent on reviving them -- but is that always the wisest course of action? This week, one guild leader who refuses to disband is wondering what to do next. Greetings, Scott! Here's the TL;DR version: Raid Finder killed my guild. I want to resurrect it. Here's the Paul Harvey version: A friend and I founded a guild at the outset of Burning Crusade. Our intent was to offer a place for mature people with real lives to be able to experience the raid content that at the time was mostly the domain of the hardcore players. We wanted to be serious about raiding, but more casual about attendance. ... We were never the top guild on our server, but we were fairly successful throughout Burning Crusade. Wrath of the Lich King threw a monkey wrench into our works. It wasn't easy in BC to keep forming 25 man raids, but at least we always knew where the bar was. WotLK's split 10 and 25 man raids gave us a very tough decision to make every time we couldn't fill out a 25 man raid.
Officers' Quarters: 6 ways to market your guild's website
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. To officers, a guild's website is invaluable. It's the one reliable method of communication that we have with our members. It's far more flexible than any guild UI feature, and it will never be pushed out of someone's chat window by Blizzard's messages like the guild message of the day constantly is. It's the one place where we can post something and guarantee that everyone in the guild is able to see it. There's just one ongoing problem: getting members to visit the website on a regular basis. This week, a guild leader asks how to accomplish that. Hi Scott! First, I'd like you to know how much I enjoyed your Guild Leader's Handbook. I reference it every now and again when issues threaten to crop up, and it helps a lot! I'm one of two GMs of a small raiding guild on Spinebreaker-US. One of our guild's biggest issues this expansion has been a lack of interest in the guild's website, which my Co-GM pays for and maintains. His WoW background includes several guilds that each had thriving out-of-game communities through their guild website's forums. We've tried to replicate this, but we don't seem to be succeeding.
Officers' Quarters: Better guild building
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. Creating a successful raiding guild is no easy task. It requires a lot of up-front planning, a lot of hard work, and perhaps a bit of luck, too. If you are able to get it off the ground, there's no time to rest. Your work has just begun! This week, a player struggling to start a guild -- after taking a somewhat unique approach -- asks for advice. Hello, I just recently decided I wanted to be a guild master of a raiding guild. I spend several days making sure that it was something I wanted to do. I am currently trying to recruit raiders on the server Ursin (a low population server). My friends told me it would be a good place to go because the demand for raiders would be high. They created characters on that server to help me out, but haven't logged on in a week and don't log on their other characters except to raid in their other guild. I am currently using a recruiting macro in trade as well as on the server forums with no luck thus far. I was wondering if you had any tips for me that could help me out during this process. Thank you in advance for your time.
Officers' Quarters: When friends switch games
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. WoW has been around for a lot of years, and in that time the game has seen the release of many MMOs hoping to compete with it. When The Old Republic released this past winter, my guild lost a few people. I'm sure we weren't alone in that. With other big MMO releases such as Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World around the corner, WoW guilds are likely to experience more losses this year. This week, one officer has it worst than most: His guild leader and most of his friends plan to leave for Guild Wars 2 when it comes out. (We'll forgive the fact that he's writing about an Old Republic guild.) Greetings, Despite not playing WoW for the past year I do follow your column in the hopes that the advice you offer could be transferred to our SWTOR guild ... My question is: how do you deal with the potential loss of a guild? ... Myself and my guild transferred over to Star Wars: The Old Republic and have stayed there ever since ... Our guild has grown to second on the republic side in terms of server progress, with several server firsts and we have a strong and active community of around 19 people who log in every day (mostly). That was until tonight when a metaphorical bombshell was dumped on me which has made me question whether I want to stay or not.
Officers' Quarters: How to earn respect as a teen officer
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. Teenagers as a whole have a terrible reputation in online games. In WoW, they are blamed for everything that's wrong with the community. People say they have no patience, they don't know how to play the game, they ruin chat channels with mindless chatter, and they're selfish, whiny, lazy, disrespectful, and entitled. Certainly some of the people who fit these accusations are teenagers. However, not every teenager acts this way, and a good portion of the people who do are actually adults. On the internet, unfortunately, perceptions tend to win out over reality. This week, a teenaged officer asks how she can earn the respect of her peers. Hello there Scott- Our guild currently is going through some major issues at the moment when it comes to who shall be running what when it comes to what is occuring in the guild. ... About a month or two ago, our guild leader ... decided to call it quits for the time being, our guild was going downhill at that time, and people starting to abandon us. We reasonably thought that sooner or later this guild was gonna expire sometime in the future, and that nothing could stop it. However, it came to the point where some of our officers and such managed to pull back the guild together through emails and messages spread across multiple medias. Our guild, in my mind, finally has settled back into what it was before, however without the guild leader to guide us. All of us (the officers) decided to take the role of leader. ... Things were going pretty smoothly.
Officers' Quarters: How to avoid the feeder guild label
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. No community wants to be known as a feeder guild. No raid team wants to see its best members leave for more progressed guilds when they have the opportunity. No guild leader wants to fall victim to poaching over and over again. It's an embarrassing place to be. How can you stop the bleeding and shake the label? Read on to find out! But first, this week's email: Hi Scott. I'm GM of a guild that is not a hard core raiding guild. We have been around since Ulduar and were founded at the break up of a guild that existed since vanilla. ... The founding principle of the guild was no drama and keep it casual. This has crystallised into my own rule as GM: advice for other players is fine if you ask if they want it first. Unsolicited "you are rubbish" comments are not allowed. ... One advantage of the guild is that the atmosphere of advice and support over criticism means that "OMG you Noob" players either change their tune or leave. This mean the relations between guild members generally remain good even after people move on. So on to the issue.
4 lessons from 5 years of Officers' Quarters
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. Amazingly enough, exactly five years ago today -- at 11:15 a.m. on May 7, 2007 -- the very first Officers' Quarters went live on WoW Insider. It was so long ago that I actually used Thottbot links. Since then, yours truly has composed more than 250 OQs. At about 1,000 words per column, I've written enough words on the topic of guild leadership to fill up a large fantasy novel. (Of course, I've also written an actual book on the topic.) For this column, I briefly thought about pulling out the best and worst of OQ to share my personal favorites (and my shame) from the past five years. I decided against it. Maybe some day I'll do that -- maybe right before I hang up my WoW Insider columnist sash -- but that day is not today. Rather, I thought I'd do something more personal. OQ has always been about learning how to do a better job as an officer and a guild leader, both for your members and yourself. During the past five years, I've done my best to give advice on exactly that. However, I've never claimed to have it all figured out. I've also learned a lot, too. On this anniversary, I'd like to share four things that I've learned over the past five years. (Five would have been better, but I'm long-winded.)
Officers' Quarters: From girlfriend to 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, available from No Starch Press. Oh, boy. Let me sit here for a moment facepalming while I take in what I've just read. It's been a while since I've received an email with this much fail, so forgive me if I ease into it. I'll warn you that the email is long. I've chopped it down as much as I dare. You really need to get the full story to appreciate what happened here. Without further ado, let's jump in: Hey Scott- I've been an officer in this particular guild for a long time and a member for several years and recently things have become very taxing for myself and several officers. A little background on the guild. We are a large PVE/PVP guild on a PVE server. We have around 500 members... It's a crazy collection of hardcore players and newer players... We have several raids going 4 nights a week in addition to pugs and rated battle grounds going almost non stop when raids were not in session. Now the problems in the guild started last fall right before the launch of SWTOR... Our guild leader and his wife had done a great job leading the guild. She was the CO-GL in name only as she really was the leader. Our guild leaders and several other officers and guild members decided they were going to quit... This is where problems started creeping in...
Officers' Quarters: Dropping the drama totem
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. Selecting players for slots is always a sensitive situation, whether it's for a Rated Battleground or a heroic raid. That situation can be magnified when other factors -- such as cliques -- come into play. This week, a guild leader finds himself torn between friendship with a member and loyalty to his raid leader after a shaman protests a benching. My guild was dying on our old server, so me (guild leader) and 8 other raiders, who I had been raiding with for 4 years, transferred to a new server. We needed a new dps/healer as a backup and a new tank, and set out recruiting. The new tank has worked out well, but our ele/resto shaman hasn't worked out as well. He's a nice guy, someone who I view as a friend, always shows up on time, often shares volcanic potions with other raid members etc. He's been in the guild now for 2 months and has helped us progress through Heroic Warship, Spine, and Madness. Anyway, last Tuesday, we sat him for H Spine to bring in someone else, and with the 15% nerf, we 1-shot Spine, something he was bitter at missing after spending two weeks with us ... progressing and missing out on the kill. We did a few attempts on madness and looked forward to our Thursday run. On Thursday, we spent about an hour and a half progressing on Spine. Our holy paladin (and also an officer) was getting angry over some in-game stuff and was making mistakes. He finally logged off in frustration and we brought in the shaman and he helped us progress throughout the night (8% wipe).
Officers' Quarters: A clash over Battlegrounds
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. It's not often that I get questions from PvP guilds. Your questions are usually quite different from those of raiding guilds, so I'm intrigued whenever I hear from you. This week's issue, however, may be all too familiar to those who raid. Hi Scott - I'm really struggling right now with a Guild member who wants to be included as a member of our Rated Battleground group, but seems to be unwilling to put in the necessary time and effort to become a good PvP'er. Some background...two in-game friends and I run a small, casual PvP Guild on a medium population server. The Guild consists mainly of working adults who PvP for fun. We're a friendly group, not elitists, and are happy to accept people into the Guild who are new PvP'ers, or who choose not to PvP at all. A few months ago a long-term WoW player with almost no PvP experience joined the Guild and decided to start gearing up for PvP. She thought the idea of Rated BG's sounded fun, so we were happy to explain the concepts of acquiring Honor and Conquest Points to her... As soon as she acquired the Resilience minimum, we added her to our twice-weekly RBG sign-up roster. Also, a few of our members took her under her their wings and began helping her do Arenas for points.
Officers' Quarters: Suggestions for drama
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. Some members, whether by their attitude or their behavior, don't give us much choice but to kick them. That doesn't mean their complaints are always wrong. This week, a guild leader wonders whether a recently kicked member might have had a good point about her guild. Hello Scott, First of all, thanks for the awesome and informative blogs! Lately there have been some issues in my guild. The issues have been solved now (I hope), but I'm wondering about something. The member that has been causing the issues has been known for being dead-set on getting a position as an officer. She had been there from the start and each time the previous GL promoted someone to officer, she'd whisper him with words like "Next time you're promoting someone to officer, it's me!" She never got that promotion for obvious reasons. Last week she caused an uproar in the guild about not being happy with there being a 'Supreme Ruler' (the guild leader) and gave the previous GL and another officer an ear bashing about it . . .
Officers' Quarters: Desperate appointments
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. It's certainly no rare situation when a guild leader has to scale back his or her time due to offline obligations. The right thing to do is appoint someone who's willing and able to cover your own slack. But what if that person isn't even an officer? This week, a guild member wonders whether it's time to panic. Hi Scott! Recently I joined a re-roll guild that has been around since the first of January. The premise of the guild is simple: new members can only join with a level one character and must level up within the guild without the help of outside resources. For a while, this worked out well. Everyone became fast friends and the guild grew to be called "the fam." But now we are approaching another month of "re-rolls," and drama has reared its ugly head. Our GL just announced an impending life change and since then he's been markedly absent from our roster. One member posted on our forums noting that activity had declined, and another responded with suggestions on how to improve the current state of affairs. A few of the officers replied agreeing and disagreeing with various points, but the general consensus was that the members were not happy with things as they were. Before I go any farther, it helps to understand the... unique, way in which our officers are appointed.
WoW Moviewatch: Mage v Lock
Mage v Lock is the newest video from Swathe Productions. This is what they say about the video themselves: Thanks to Christian Belt of WoW Insider, The Daily Blink webcomic and the WoW forums from whom we drew some inspiration for this machinima. Please note that if you don't play a mage or a warlock you probably won't find this as entertaining as you would if you did. This video might feel a little rough to some folks, but hold out until the end. It's all building up to a punch line. That punch line does kind of put our relationship with our raid frenemies in a humorous light, so it's all for a good cause. My hat's off to Swathe Productions for another fun video. I'm obviously a huge fan. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Officers' Quarters: 6 qualities of a successful raiding guild
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. Recently a reader asked me, "What do raiders typically look for in a guild?" My initial reaction was to balk at the question. All raiders have their own preferences and pet peeves. What possible common factors could there be? However, I realized I was approaching the question from the wrong angle. Players might not agree on the details, but there are essential qualities that every raiding guild should strive toward in order to attract and retain members. Below, I have outlined six. 1. Stability A stable roster led by stable leadership is the ideal situation for a raiding guild. It's also incredibly difficult to maintain. Life, drama, and boredom can poke holes in your roster and your officer corps at any time -- and there's often little you can do to anticipate or prevent it. The best way to establish stability is by gathering like-minded players who find value in accomplishing goals as a team. Commitment is much easier to earn when your members are on the same page and enjoy raiding together.
Officers' Quarters: Guild transfer anxiety
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. One of the biggest decisions a guild can make these days is whether to stay on a struggling server or transfer to a new realm. The risks are substantial, and the benefits aren't guaranteed. This week, one guild member is asking for advice about transfers and also about whether or not to accept a promotion to raid leader. Hey Scott, Recently our guild hit a fairly major bump and we're attempting to sort everything out. While I have no doubt that we as a guild will make it though and continue back to HM progression; its a excruciating slow process recruiting and we are losing players who are impatient to continue raiding the way they like . . . It was decided that as we were not picking up recruits on our server, and that our guild had obtained a reputation as a guild that gears players for the top 200 guilds while just being short of it ourselves. While we know we would lose some of our good players who have ties to the server, it was decided mostly by top officers that our guild should server transfer to a higher populated realm. In addition from the enthusiasm of those same officers it seems as if this is something that will happen.
Officers' Quarters: Rock bottom
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. Guilds in WoW are a precarious fleet at this moment. With player activity stagnating, many guilds are like sinking ships. They survive only if their officers can bail water fast enough by replacing the players they've lost. Fickle players are quick to jump overboard and swim to a guild with fewer leaks, only to find that their new vessel isn't quite as watertight as it first appeared. Today's email is from a guild leader whose hull has hit rock bottom. She wants to know whether to dredge up the wreck or shop around for a sturdier boat. Hi Scott, I am the leader of a guild that sadly has no more active members. My fiance and I started it to try out Cata raiding at our own pace with people we knew IRL but at the peak of the guild activity we could only get about 7 people together and getting everyone motivated to get their item level up high enough to attempt a raid was even tougher! I love playing a mage but found myself rolling a paladin and gearing up to be what the guild needed...tank or heals. I eventually got super burnt out with lack of effort and took a break from the game. Recently I have come back to a dead guild.
