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Guild leadership and guild leveling
First off, this isn't one of those posts where I'm a detached observer with no first person experience with the problems of guild leadership. I'm an officer in a raiding 25 man guild, and recently I was the victim of a shakeup. Our Anne Stickney wrote about it for the site, so I won't dredge up the same material. Instead, what I will do is talk about what someone else experienced tonight, and what it has me thinking about: namely, that perhaps it's time that alternatives to the classic GM/officers style of guild leadership were made part of the game's set up. Sure, you can run your guild like a council, or even an anarcho-syndicalist commune if you would like, but said commune would still be a monarchy by the way Blizzard has designed the guild formation process. The reason I bring this up is because of a tweet from Emberdione, who comments here frequently as well as writes on her own blog. It was a very familiar story - her GM had decided he was tired of WoW, and so instead of handing the guild over like a sane person he kicked everyone out. Since it was so familiar to my own recent story, it got me thinking. Why do we still have this one person at the top pyramid structure as the only option for guilds?
World of Warcraft skills in the workplace
WoW players usually spend a large amount of their leisure time in game. It's a shame that so much of what we do in Azeroth doesn't translate well on Earth. I spend a few hours a week farming herbs while digging for artifacts. If I were writing a performance review for myself (I can't stand those), how could I list that? Ability to perform tedious tasks patiently. I don't think my supervisor would be impressed. But most people agree that quite a few skills we acquire and hone in WoW are useful into the workplace. Recently, Neri at Neri Approves! blogged about how being a guild master helps her outside of the game. Warcraft Street's Frinka tackled the same topic, but her angle is gold earning.
Patch 4.3: Guild masters can now be impeached
With patch 4.3 hitting the PTR, a heck of a lot of new information is coming fast and furious. While there's plenty of stuff in there that we've been expecting, there are a bunch of surprises in there as well. One of the most interesting new but unannounced changes: Patch 4.3 looks to bring with it a mechanism by which you can impeach an inactive guild master. What criteria are required to set an impeachment aren't known yet, but a quick look at the code suggests that after a certain amount of time, a guild's second-in-command will be able to take control of a guild set adrift by a leadership vacuum at the top: GUILD_IMPEACH_POPUP_CONFIRM = "Dethrone"; GUILD_IMPEACH_POPUP_TEXT = "Your guild master has been flagged as inactive. You may assume control of the guild. Do you want to remove the guild master?"; World of Warcraft is just a game, and real-life issues frequently come up for guild masters that prevent them from doing their job or indeed even logging on. Given how much effort goes into getting a guild to level 25, this change appears to answer an underlying need for leadership succession. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Breakfast Topic: Have you tried your hand at running a guild?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. It happens to all of us at one point or another. You're riding into Stormwind, perhaps admiring the dragon head that someone has strung up on the gates, and you're headed to the auction house when your eyes light upon the Visitor's Center. Inside, a bright-eyed young hero, very much like yourself, is speaking to Aldwin Laughlin, the Guild Master. Suddenly, you think, "That could be me. I could be in there, buying a guild charter and designing a tabard. I could found my own guild." You dismount, take the first two steps at a bound -- but suddenly, you stop in your tracks. All at once, you stagger under the weight of responsibility. The trouble with starting a guild, you realize, is that once you do it, you actually have to run a guild. Of course for some, this isn't a drawback -- it's a perk! There are plenty of aspiring guild masters out there who have a vision, execute it, and become great leaders. Then there are those of us who consider starting a guild but balk at the particulars; others who create small, friends-only or alt guilds just to have a fun guild name or a guild bank; and many more who are happy to leave the burden of leadership to someone else. Have you thought about starting your own guild? If you went through with it, how did it turn out? Is the guild still around today? If you thought better of it, what stopped you? Or are you still making up your mind? %Poll-56456%
The Daily Grind: Are you a leader or follower?
Today we want to know one very simple fact from you: Are you a leader or follower in game? Are you the take charge, "Follow me into the gaping maw of hell, gentlemen!" figure who grabs the reins of every situation? Do you get disgruntled when a group sits around, twiddling its thumbs because nobody can make up his mind? Are you a guild master, an officer, a raid leader or even a community leader for your game? Do you enjoy creating teams and being the one calling all the shots? Does being a leader even give you a heady rush of power? Or are you a laid back, "You guys decide what we're going to do and I'll do it!" gamer who likes lining up behind someone else? Is it less stressful being a follower because you can just play without having to worry about organizing and figuring things out too often? Is your personality just incompatible with being the go-to guy or gal? Would you much rather have someone take care of the big details so you can enjoy the smaller things in life? In MMOs, are you a leader or follower?
We have a Tabard: I could teach you, but I'd have to charge
Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.It's so nice to run a raid when everyone is up to snuff on their characters and can focus entirely on what their doing. Unfortunately there seems to be at least one person who is not at the top of their game. Either the healer that's standing in fires or the DPS that can't fight their way out of a paper bag. They're not bad people and they mean well, but they are better cheerleaders than raiders. What's a raid leader to do?I like to help people out and give people a shot, but there's only so much that I can do. At some point I have to consider the needs of the other nine or people in the raid over the needs of the single player. I was leading ToC 10 with a Hunter pulling 1800 DPS and the entire raid averaging about 2700. We had a number of wipes, but low DPS was a contributing factor. I called out the DPS saying, "Guys, I really need to be seeing 3K DPS." The 1800 Hunter said, "I don't think Hunters can pull 3K DPS." I nearly fell out of my chair.My first response is to try to offer quick suggestions for how to resolve an issue (this is considerably easier when it's a raid awareness problem rather than a role problem). I feel genuinely awful when I have to remove someone from a raid, but the raid environment is not where one should learn his or her class.
From our readers: Guild Retention
We get lots of email from our readers trying to find their way though WoW. I'd like to take a moment to answer a question about membership retention. This also builds on a previous response regarding the trials and tribulations of starting a guild.Hi I been reading your posts and listening to the podcast and you recently made a new guild. I have a guild with around 140 members and we do some raiding weekly but every time I log off, it seems that people start arguing, and drama just starts building up. I went away for a couple days and when I come back from my vacation, Alot of people have left the guild. Maybe 10-15 people. Now they are stealing my members and have made a new guild. Do you have tips on member retaining and stuff like that, would be cool if you can do a post on that kind of stuff and how you work that out, thanksHello reader,Thank you for the email. One of the hardest things I've noticed about a guild is dealing with a certain amount of churn. Acceptance is the first step. People leave for all kinds of reasons. There will be those that come and go. The stronger you make your core, the stronger you make your guild.
From our readers: Always a DPSer, never a tank
We get a lot of email from our readers who are trying to improve their in-game experience. I'd like to take a moment to address a reader who's struggling to find or make the right guild. Beware of the following wall of text. I started playing over a year ago. Never have been able to find a good guild. I'm a warrior tank. Love it. Even made a second just for fun. Trouble is, it seems all of the guilds that can do anything already have their tanks. I'm really sick of pugging Ulduar and getting stuck on kologarn cause either healers or the other tanks fail. I started my own guild after my leaving my last guild because they refused to let me tank. I couldn't even roll on tank gear as fury when all of their tanks had all best in slots. But my guild is stuck with 36 level 80s who are never all on at the same time... and most of the ones that are on are under-geared or aren't skilled in the least bit. what's your advice?Dear anonymous reader, Sometimes starting your own guild is the answer, sometimes it's not. It takes time, patience, and vigilance to build a raid guild. Be sure to check out Scott Andrew's Officer's Quarters. He regularly addresses the ups and downs of guild leadership and offers practical advice on the challenges you may face.
Player city changes abound in Star Wars Galaxies Update 8
The patch notes for Star Wars Galaxies game update 8 are two posts long and full of information about all of the changes and additions coming to player run cities -- one of the staple pieces of content of SWG.One of the biggest changes comes in the form of a 90 day log in time placed on all citizens of a city. If a citizen does not log into the game for 90 days, their character will be removed from the citizens list of the player city and their house will be eligible for pack up. On the bright side, this will allow city mayors to remove unused buildings and items from their city, should they be cluttering things up. On the down side, each character must be log in at least once each three months.Past that change, other additions include a new guild master elections system, the ability of city vendors to wear bodysuits, a new 69 month veteran reward, and increased experience when in groups.For the full list of changes in update 8, check out the patch notes over at the main Star Wars Galaxies forums.
Tigole hits the forums
Tigole has been busy on the forums today, and that always tends to bring out interesting tidbits about the future of our favorite game. While it is certainly not earth-shattering, the most interesting thing that he mentions has to do with the future of the PVP battlemasters. In patch 2.4 these guys will be put on a pedestal, literally. Much like the auctioneers in many cities, the battlemasters will be placed on a raised platform that is inaccessible to players in order to keep people from blocking them with their character's model. He also hints that Wrath will see even better improvements. This is certainly a welcome change to remove a minor annoyance that is sometimes imposed upon us by our fellow players.Other posts hint at the future of guild banks, the title system, and a possible reward for Wrath's Lake Wintergrasp. First of all, he mentions that they're "exploring" the option to allow guild masters to set prices for items in the guild bank. I know in my guild this would be great for the guild leader, since it would probably save him a lot of time in the auction house and also provide an easy solution to those situations where he gets a valuable item and is not sure how to distribute it to the rest of the guild. I imagine that this could be exploited, to an extent, by guild leaders who might suddenly slap a price on everything in the bank rather than allowing free withdrawals, but that would probably fix itself over time as people leave the guild and/or stop donating to the bank.
The Escapist explains how your guild can avoid a "failure cascade"
So you're the leader of a guild in your game of choice. All is well at first; everybody's having fun. Then, one or two people get upset about something someone said, or the schedule for a raid, or someone's failure to pay the guild hall maintenance fee. You try to contain it, but all hell breaks loose. Each player's departure leads to another's. Three weeks later, just you and two people from your office are still in the guild.The Escapist calls this a "failure cascade" in a new article. The author of the article uses EVE Online as an example as he explains what a failure cascade is, where the term came from, and what kinds of guilds can be immune. The article is particularly interesting because it illustrates how EVE Online's open PvP combat can exacerbate the problem and lead to mass departures from the game.
