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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.
The Guild Counsel: Seven New Year's resolutions every guild leader should make
As 2013 comes to a close, it's a good opportunity to look back at your guild's year and remember the success and memorable high points you reached together. For every guild that made it through the year, there are hundreds if not thousands that didn't. There are many challenges to running a guild, and sadly, there are too many potential pitfalls that can cause even the most cohesive guilds to fracture and fall apart. The start of a new year is a good time for guild leaders to make a few resolutions to strengthen their guild and make the coming year more enjoyable for all. Let's look back at some helpful advice from the past year's Guild Counsel as we look forward to 2014.
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.
The Guild Counsel: Making the most of holiday events with your guild
The holidays might seem like a good time to lay low and take a break, but they can actually be a great opportunity to get ahead, particularly for more casual guilds. The arrival of holiday events means that players can relax and enjoy the short-term change of pace, but with the right approach, those limited events can help your guild boost its finances and its morale at the same time. Let's look at how even the most casual guild can benefit from holiday events in this week's Guild Counsel.
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.
The Guild Counsel: All's fair in love, war, and MMOs
When we're playing MMOs, we're in a virtual world, but we're also playing a game, and as in all games, there are rules to follow. It's one thing for an individual player to break the rules, but when that player is part of a guild, it can have a ripple effect that affects every other member. Guild leaders are in a tough position when it comes to rule-breaking because knowingly allowing someone to exploit could make the guild complicit in the process. And when the banhammer strikes, it could come down hard on the entire guild. How much responsibility should a guild leader have over players who bend or break the game rules? Let's consider a few points in this week's Guild Counsel.
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.
The Guild Counsel: Survive the holidays with these fun guild events
The holiday season can often mean that things slow down in the guild. Members have their hands full with gift buying, holiday events, and travel to visit family. That slowdown is OK. Guilds should encourage players to take a little time off, while recognizing that it'll be harder to organize and run larger guild events like raiding or PvP. But just because things get quiet doesn't mean the guild can't have a little fun and merriment. In this week's Guild Counsel, let's look at some memorable events that are easy to run, bring the guild together, and leave everyone with a smile.
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.
The Guild Counsel: How to lead and still have fun
Leading is hard. Whether it's a sports team, an office of workers, or a guild, there are many challenges that all leaders share and make even the toughest person want to walk away. And because running a gaming guild is less of a job and more of a hobby (or at least, it should be!), it's hard to get good people to step forward and run things. We're all here to have fun in game, after all, and if leading a guild detracts from that, it's not surprising that some shy away from it. But running a guild isn't always about taking power and making hard decisions. In fact, there are plenty of successful guilds that have rejected the top-down mentality. Can leading a guild really be that easy?
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.
The Guild Counsel: Revisiting the Guild Turkey
A couple of years ago, we looked at a few ways that guild members can turn a guild into a nightmare, creating all sorts of drama and becoming the official guild turkey. Being in a guild can be a challenging experience as it is because you have dozens if not hundreds of people under the same roof, with many different objectives and ways of seeing things. But there are some members who amp up the drama and excel at creating tension. Everyone has a bad day here and there, but some players have more than their fair share. Let's look at a few guild turkeys for guild leaders to be careful of inviting in this week's Guild Counsel.
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).
The Guild Counsel: How to keep your guild from disintegrating when you need a break
Let's face it, everyone needs a little MMO break from time to time. The open-endedness of MMOs gives a lot more freedom than a fixed-content single-player game, but after a while, that freedom begins to feel grindy. For a guild leader, taking a small break is a dicey prospect, and many leaders have returned only to find that the guild they carefully pieced together and managed is now empty and defunct. The thought of losing the guild has even led many guild leaders to press on and continue playing even though their hearts aren't in it. Can a guild leader take a vacation and have a happy guild upon returning? This week's Guild Counsel suggests a few ways to do just that.
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.
The Guild Counsel: Is shared interest in an MMO enough to justify a guild?
It all starts out so innocently. A few friends are casually chatting and realize they all are excited about an upcoming new MMO. Maybe a group of gaming bloggers connect over their shared appreciation of a certain game. Or even here at Massively, readers notice that there are many others who share their positive impressions of a game's launch. Next thing you know, someone suggests that it would be a great idea to start a guild, and the roller coaster begins. Forming a guild based on a shared interest in a game doesn't guarantee success, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It does come with its own unique set of issues to address early on, however. Let's take a look at these connoisseur guilds and how to make them work in this week's Guild Counsel.
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.
The Guild Counsel: How guild meetings can help your guild
I know what you're thinking after reading the title of this week's column. Why in the world would anyone want to have a meeting in-game when many of us spend our days in meeting for our work? But holding a short guild meeting every so often can actually help curb guild drama, boost morale, and bring your guildmates closer together. The relatively short time spent bringing the guild together can pay off later on by reducing time spent on drama created by miscommunication, low morale, and frustration. In today's Guild Counsel, let's take a look at why you should consider holding a meeting and how that guild meeting can improve your guild overall.
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.
The Guild Counsel: How to handle the horrors of conflict
With the arrival of Halloween, I'd like to revisit an all-too-common nightmare scenario: handling guild conflict. We've looked at how to treat complaints before, but what should you do when those complaints balloon into full-fledged clashes? Guild leaders dread dealing with conflicts, to the point that it deters many players from giving guild leadership a try. But even if strife is inevitable, it can be made less painful. Let's take a look at how to steer through the choppy waters in this week's Guild Counsel.
