officers
Latest
Officers' Quarters: Want loot? Buy us a server
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.As an officer or a guild leader, doing favors for your friends is one thing. The situation described below goes way beyond that. This one just blows my mind. Let's jump right into it. Hey Scott, I'm by no means an officer or leader of a guild but I am a very active raider. We use the EP/GP loot system in our guild; it calculates how often you raid vs. how much gear you acquire and based on that gives you priority when looting. Myself, a raider who attends almost every major raid, and an officer who tries to be there when he can, have both been wanting a certain item to drop. I finally pass this officer on priority and if the item drops it should be mine. Our last Naxx raid the item drops and I put in for it, and suddenly it gets awarded to the officer. I confront the guild leader about this, knowing he is friends with the guy and he gives me a vague answer such as "I'm sorry I know you're pissed at me, but that item has been destined to be his for a long time, I'm sure you'll get the next one." What kind of answer is that?! This is supposed to be a fair loot system right? So I go and confront the officer that was awarded the loot, after several minutes he told me that he had made a back door deal to get that item. He had just bought the guild a new Ventrilo server, and the condition he made to the guild leader was that he gets that item when it drops.
The Wordy Warrior's 10 ways to make your guild love you
The Wordy Warrior has added to their series of "10 Ways..." posts with today's 10 Ways to Make Your Guild Love You. Whereas her first couple of posts in the series were aimed at the rank and file of a guild or raid, aiming to warm up to your raid leaders or guild officers, this one is aimed at those very officers. How do you get the rank and file to like you?As a Guild Leader, I absolutely agree with the points she puts forth, and I recommend this list to any guild officer, especially those that are just getting started with their guild. Over the last four years of being a GM, the #1 thing I've learned is that there are absolutely real faces behind those pixels, and you need to know how to interact with those people. You need to get to know them, you need to try and be a little personal with them, and you should know how to talk to them. Everyone is a little bit different.
Officers' Quarters: Account sharing + officer = bad
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I've covered account sharing before. I gave some details about Blizzard's policies on it and how it could affect your guild. This week, I received an e-mail from someone who found out that an officer of the guild he was applying to shared the account with his girlfriend. He's wondering if he may have overreacted to the situation.Hello ScottI have a question about guild relations (both as part of leadership and as a member) with regard to people sharing account info.I've always had a very strict stance on account sharing, driven by three concerns: it's against the ToS, it opens up guilds to things like guild bank theft, and it breaks the idea that when I whisper a character, I know who I'm talking to (or at least that it's the same entity from session to session). In my relations with guilds, this had lead to considerable friction with other people. As an officer, if I ever see account sharing going on on a member who has access to our guild bank, I demote them and all their alts to a rank without such access. When I talk with the other officers about this, they typically don't see the issue. In some cases, I've found out that other officers have shared account info themselves, between siblings or friends, and don't see it as an issue.
March Guild of the Month: The Holy Crusade of Bleeding Hollow
We are, unfortunately, late in awarding our first ever Guild of the Month winner, but we've got a good reason: when we contacted Nytrok, the guildmaster, he was away in France for the 60th anniversary of NATO, and as an Air Force Corporal in the Canadian Forces, was meeting with the Prime Minister and Chief of Defense Staff. Very impressive! But fortunately, he found the time to send us some information about the guild, and we're glad to award him and | The Holy Crusade | of Bleeding Hollow our first Guild of the Month.For winning, they'll recieve not only a profile right here in this post (check after the break to see why we chose them as winners this month), but also a raid pack from Swagdog.com, which includes a big stack of custom-made guild apparel for them to distribute among their guildies and officers as they see fit. If you didn't win but still want to show some guild pride, Swagdog has hats and t-shirts that can be emblazoned with your guild's name and tabard, as well as your character's name and class logo. Huge thanks to them for sponsoring our content.And of course we're now opening up nominations for the April Guild of the Month. To enter, send us an email (no more than 200 words please) to guildofthemonth@gmail.com stating why your guild deserves to win. Please note that you must be from the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) and age 18 or older, as them's the legal rules, and also note that even if you sent us an email last month, you must re-nominate your guild if you want to be considered again. You can send us the same message if you want (there were a lot of good guilds that we had to pass up because there was only one winner), but we've got to keep everything current, so please re-send. Official rules are still here, and this month's deadline will be midnight on May 7th.
Officers' Quarters: Friendly favors
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I'm sure plenty of officers out there can sympathize with the dilemma in this e-mail. The officer who wrote it has recently been promoted (yay!), but now her friends come to her for special favors, intervention with other officers, and insider information (uh oh). She wonders if she can be a good officer without pushing her friends away. (Go easy on this e-mail in the comments. English isn't her first language.) Hello!Since you mostly base your posts on e-mails from your readers I thought to send you one concerning my own current problems (I wouldn't know if people can relate to this).I'm a fairly new (2 weeks) officer in a 25men raiding guild. We have about 30-35 raiders and more social members! I started off as taking over the healing assignments, which led to my opinions about healing setup/healing trials, which led to partly raid leading and then I got promoted. We're only with 3 leaders (the GM and 2 officers-including me) which I think is enough for our guild, people listen. The tasks get done, communication is good . . .But, I'm this kind of person that cares for the people, I want to stand up and have a fair treatment (which happens in my guild). The thing I've experienced thou[gh] with that attitude is . . . I'm friends with a lot of people in the guild, and sometimes that makes things difficult. In these 2 weeks I've experienced several times of friends expecting me to do them a favour officer wise.
Officers' Quarters: Neros and zeros
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I can't take credit for the column name -- it was a turn of phrase used by the writer of this week's reader e-mail. It's a fitting expression, as you'll see. He wonders just how to get people to care again when a guild is faltering. Hey Scott, Thank you for this column, hopefully you and the comment crowd can help me. Over the last few days I've had to watch my beloved guild start to unravel. Our problem is, apart from a few select officers and members, we have too many Neros, content to fiddle as our guild burns, and Zeros, members who don't really contribute anything but a raid spot. Nobody seems to care enough to even sign up for our website. We have had trouble with our loot system, suicide kings, and raid scheduling, and it has caused some key members to seek other guilding opportunities.
Officers' Quarters: Overruled
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Who knows what's best for a guild, its leader or its members? It's an interesting question. The guild leader certainly has the best perspective on all guild issues (or she should, anyway). But it is her job to keep the members happy. So if the members are against something, should you allow them to overrule you? What if you as an officer think the members are wrong? This week's e-mail comes from a reader who did what his members wanted him to do, but thinks he might have made a mistake.Hey Scott. I'm the GM of a reasonably successful guild who have gotten to Sarth 2d and working on 3d in 25 man raids, so there's not a lot left to do. Back in mid January we were successfully [running three Heroic raids] a week. However some classes were very tight and for the 25 man we had maybe 27 signups and not all of the 'right' class balance, but 'good enough' for Naxx etc. We had the opportunity to take in approximately 10 good raiders [. . .] with whom some of us (including myself) had played in the past and [whose] attitude matched very closely to our own. With those 10 raiders there were approximately 10 other people who did not want to raid with RL commitments but still enjoyed playing WoW etc. The Officers were largely in favor of taking them on, our class leaders had some concerns, but generally thought it was a good idea. So we took the idea to the guild as a whole who were largely against the merger.
The best of WoW Insider: March 10-17, 2009
Things are hopping (as always) in World of Warcraft -- we're still waiting for an impending content patch, and the Public Test Realm (or the PTR, as we like to call it) is thriving with huge patch 3.1 changes and game updates. Even if you're not interested in World of Warcraft, the new patch is worth a look over at WoW Insider: our good friends at Blizzard are revolutionizing massively multiplayer gaming with every change they announce. News WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1Everything you need to know about the upcoming patch and then some. If you only click on one WoW-related link today, make this it. New mounts for Horde fishers in 3.1To re-balance the mount outage, Horde will be able to fish up a new mount soon. Full Tier 8 armor sets beginning to emergeAll of the shinies we'll soon be pining for in the game. Ulduar achievements unveiledCheck out what Blizzard has in store for all of the new raid's hard modes. Background downloader active for patch 3.1It begins. Some parts of the new patch are ready for primetime.
Officers' Quarters: Time for another rant
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.In my first rant last year, I called out all the officers who, in the dark times before Wrath went live, resorted to rampant poaching -- rather than alliances -- to keep their raiding guilds afloat. Today I am going to rant about nonofficers. And specifically, against my better judgment as a contributor who would like to continue writing this column for WoW Insider, I'm going to rant about some of the people who obviously read this column and have written me to ask for advice. I appreciate the fact that you think of me as someone to turn to for help. It's certainly flattering and I have tried to give you the best advice that I can. However, I have been trying to answer a lot of e-mails over the past week and I see the same type of complaint over and over again. I won't use a real e-mail as an example, because I don't want to embarrass anyone, but the gist of these e-mails goes like this:Hi, Scott.I am not an officer in my guild. I am a member who attends raids and earns loot. But I don't like a decision the officers have made, or I disagree with the way they run the guild. How can I change the guild to be the way I want it to be?Sincerely,Concerned Player
15 Minutes of Fame: It's all in the planning
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. Playing WoW is an exercise in organization. You need to organize your bank, you bags, your gear, even your talents. You need to plan which dailies you need today, which factions you're grinding and where you need to farm for what. Oh, and don't forget to check your banker and update your auctions.Legend of the Alliance from Eonar-EU has ridden methodical organization from scratch to the top of the PvE game. The two-year-old guild has climbed from a chatty, rag-tag gaggle of newbies to a lean raiding organization thanks to careful planning and guidance. We visited with GM Loverose about the guild's history, its custom web site functionality, and the mature, methodical leadership that has steered its course.
Officers' Quarters: The hard-mode mambo
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Arriving with the upcoming 3.1 patch, Ulduar will be ground zero for hard mode raiding -- complex encounters rewarding the best loot in the game, presumably a hardcore raider's dream. There's only one problem: Hard mode is hard. Some people don't like hard. They like easy. Easy bosses, easy loot, and everybody wins, right? But other players enjoy a challenge. This week, one reader wonders how he can get his guild to dance the hard-mode mambo with Ulduar's finest. Hey Scott,With the release of Ulduar on the minds of most players, I thought this might be a timely question that ties in a current issue our guild's been having with what I see becoming a serious problem for us in the new 3.1 instance.The current problem:After clearing all available 25-man content and having it on farm for over a month, a line seems to have been drawn in the proverbial sand. Half of our raiders consider multiple drake Obsidian Sanctum the next step in guild progression. However, the other half seem to be content farming the content that is "easy" for us and are happy not logging on when we schedule attempts.Furthermore, whenever we do get enough people for a "progression" raid, we run into the same problem. After a few attempts (I have seen as few as 2), we inevitably get the one or two raiders planting the seed of doubt."We don't have the DPS for this.""Our healing is weak."
Officers' Quarters: Topping the charts
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.According to wowjutsu.com, more than 25,000 guilds in the world are better than mine. That's rather disheartening in an objective sense, but I also have no idea how they get their info or determine these ranks. (The info also appears to be a bit outdated.) Despite our abject failure in the rankings, somehow we seem to be doing just fine. We're adding new recruits at a steady pace, raiding frequently and successfully, and having plenty of fun doing it. So 25,000 is a large number, but it's just a number. Does your guild care about their worldwide rankings? This week's e-mail comes from a frustrated raider who thinks his officers put too much emphasis on climbing up the ranks.Dear Scott,I've had a few issues with members in my guild lately that I feel put too much importance on guild rankings. I'm sure you are aware of the sites like www.bosskillers.com and www.wowjutsu.com. I see these sites as sources of controversy, others see them as a sense of where they stand on the realm and in WoW in general. We have officers trying to push our guild into doing fights, EoE 25, when we haven't even done EoE 10 yet. Naxx is still a constant wipe fest, with many of the easier achievements not yet complete for a majority of the guild. We have a lot of under geared people that still run around in Heroic and SSC, yes SSC, gear but that doesn't matter to them. We beat Kel'Thuzad one time so we are ready in their eyes. We would leave bosses up in Naxx so we could go spend the night wiping and never be able to get around to getting a full Naxx clear.
Officers' Quarters: Dual spec, double loot?
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Ever since Ghostcrawler's Q&A session last week, it seems like everyone wants to talk about dual specs, so I might as well give in. A few readers have written me to ask how I will handle loot distribution in this crazy double-speccing future. Does having two easily switchable specs entitle a player to double the loot? One reader details his struggle to formulate a fair and effective system:Dear Scott, As I'm sure you're aware by now, Blizzard recently stated that dual specs are definitely in the foreseeable future. This brings a huge dilemma on raid loot distribution. How do I distribute loot when everyone can use it now? The issue was brought up on our guild's forum recently, and I had not even thought about the possible ramifications til now. Is there any good solution? Let me give a little run down of my thoughts so far.[. . .]One officer suggested that we up the amount of DKP people can earn on a boss and let everyone bid on the item if they could use it in their dual specs. My thoughts were that this would highly inflate the DKP of the "pure" classes seeing as they only need one set of gear so would be bidding on only half as many times as "hybrid" classes. And that would not be fair to those who play hybrid classes but for the sole purpose of DPS. Also, it would open up the floodgates on tier tokens. If everyone had the right to roll on whatever they could use, they'd be bidding on more than one tier token, possibly alienating the newcomers who could afford said token but just didn't have enough DKP to outroll the weekly raider who already has that tier item for another spec essentially making loot distribution less even across the board.
Officers' Quarters: Left behind
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.In the WoW universe, a guild can change practically overnight. Someone quits or a new person joins, and the guild is never the same again. Logging off for a while can feel like traveling through time when you finally return. You take a modest break, do some important real-life stuff, and then you come back to an entirely different landscape. This week, one reader wants to know how to readjust to a guild that's nothing like the one he logged out of just a short time ago. Dear Scott, I am a fairly casual player [. . .]. As such, I am a part of a fairly casual guild without strict raiding rules that was founded by a group of friends wanting to do end game content together during the BC days. [. . . M]y two friends eventually quit WoW altogether for different reasons, and I was left as a senior member to a pretty awesome and friendly guild! I don't mind saying that i was a sort of "character" in the guild, and got along with everyone and entertained with my antics and helped with my knowledge and well-geared toon. Especially through WotLK and its patches I proved myself to be very reliable as an officer and a functional part of our core raiding group (I was about 3rd or 4th highest DPS in guild for awhile). Well, I had to take a trip to visit an old friend of mine for awhile, and informed my guildies I'd be gone for a week or so. Well . . . That week turned into nearly a month, as when I returned home my computer decided to explode and fry its motherboard. So i shipped the computer off, hoping to get it back soon so i could continue to play with my WoW buddies and get the guild further along!
Officers' Quarters: Dressed down
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Sometimes a little stripping can be useful in a raid. I used to do it myself when I tanked with my paladin. Trash just never hit me hard enough to allow me to keep up my mana. I'd remove some gear so I'd actually take some damage and let Spiritual Attunement do its thing. But as a DPS class, you'd not doing anyone a favor by taking gear off. And then you're really not helping your case if you get angry about being "dressed down" over voice chat. In this story lies an important lesson for all of us raid leaders -- but first, the naked truth:Dear Scott, Here's a long one that maybe you or the readers on WoW Insider can help me with. [. . .] We are a relatively casual raiding guild, only doing 25-man raids once or twice a week, and 10-mans whenever we have the people wanting to go. [. . .] We never force people to go to raids or to spec a certain way. Our guild rules are fairly simple, and basically amount to "don't be a jerk." This has worked out for us pretty well. [. . .]With all of this, we were completely surprised at what happened last night while we were doing our weekly 25-man Naxx run. Throughout the night, one of our best members (highest non-officer rank, part of our hardcore 10-man groups, had been around forever) was goofing off a little bit and constantly taking off his gear and wanting to fight naked. This was mostly on trash, and as the raid leader and one of the officers, I would tell him to put his (very good) equipment back on so we could continue. He grumbled a little bit and put it back on, and I figured everything would be fine. And indeed, everything seemed fine through Loatheb, until when we downed him, our member gloated loudly on vent that he had done the fight completely naked. He had used Noggenfogger to become a skeleton so we wouldn't notice what he was doing. I was completely shocked.
Officers' Quarters: Four lessons from the inauguration
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I have mostly steered clear of politics in this column. Very early on, in the second or third column I wrote for WoW Insider, I made an offhand joke about the current administration that set off a firestorm of argument in the comments section. It really had nothing to do with the column at all, so I found the situation extremely unproductive. I decided I'd never do that again.But I was there in D.C. last Tuesday and I wanted to share some of my observations about how to handle a transfer of power. It's a situation that can come up from time to time in a guild when a long-time leader has to step down for personal reasons -- or in democratic guilds when a leader is voted out. Let's talk about how Bush and Obama handled everything and what we can learn from their example.
Officers' Quarters: Not peons, but just as lazy
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.There's an old adage in sports that's often bandied about whenever someone gets confused about their role on the team: "Players play, coaches coach." It doesn't really work for us ("Officers office, members . . . memb"?). However, it's true that officers are officers and members are members. Members can slack, but officers have to maintain, support, and improve their guild. This week's e-mail comes from a guild leader who's tried everything (short of giant hammers) to motivate her lazy officers, but to no avail, and she's at the end of her rope.Dear Scott, I'm a co-GM of a mid-sized, fairly stable guild that has been remarkably stable and solid over the years. We have a solid group of core members who are active, we've progressed steadily through the WoW raiding content, and we have an active social calendar as well. As far as the day-to-day business and guild harmony go, from where the members sit -- things are really great. The problem is, our officers have been getting less and less responsive in taking leadership, and because of it, most of the work seems to be falling more and more on myself and my co-leader. And as more and more of the work falls on us, and the staff we delegated to help us with it doesn't give us that help, we are burning out badly.
Officers' Quarters: Friends in high places
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Here's another /facepalm situation to complement the one I wrote about last week. What's the first thing you would do if you were suddenly appointed the leader of your guild? Would you talk to members about the direction they'd like you to take the guild? Maybe smooth things over with the other officers who might be a little stung that they weren't chosen to take over? This week's e-mail comes from a raid leader in a guild whose new GL took an entirely different path. Hello there. I wanted to share some issues I'm having with my current guild. You see, I happen to be the paladin Class Master, and one of the raid leaders of an originally casual guild that got some interest into raiding. However, problems started about 2 weeks ago, when our Guild Leader decided to quit the game, due to RL reasons. Since then, one of the other officers took over, being designated by the old GL before he left. The thing is . . . the recruitment policy changed from, you know, applying, getting our "probation" status for a week or so to see how the initiate liked the guild and vice versa, to "Hey, let´s get some of my friends in! They have already cleared Naxx!" (As if it was something like "WOO they beat Sunwell before 3.0!") And not only did they get invited, but also promoted to raider/officer status right away . . . That ticked me off . . .
Officers' Quarters: Riding the pine
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Raids are in many ways like a sports team. Some players are your proven starters. Some are your backups who fill in for the starters. Some are still learning the game and trying to get the right equipment -- they are your practice squad or your AAA team. With enough hard work and dedication, a player can improve his game and become a starter. It's true in sports and it should be for your raid team as well. Otherwise, what's the motivation to work hard?The opposite can happen as well: a player who doesn't perform consistently can be replaced with someone who's playing at a higher level. But what would you do if you were told you're being benched -- permanently -- just because you joined more recently than someone else? This week's e-mail comes from a tank who went from a starter to a benchwarmer overnight, and it illustrates exactly what not to do as a guild leader. Heya Scott, First off, wanted to say I love your article and read it every time I see it. I have a problem with my guild, and am sending you this as possible commentary for your next article. My guild is a fairly casual one with a very strong group of officers that have been together since the beginning of WoW. Needless to say, they have been through thick and thin. I joined with the guild about 6 months ago, and have since made a name for myself being a solid tank and a steady mind. I helped a lot throughout BC raiding and really feel a part of the guild. Then WotLK hit.
Officers' Quarters: Waiting at 80
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Lately I've gotten a lot of e-mail from readers with a similar theme. People ask me, "Should I stick with my guild even though we aren't raiding yet?" They say, "We just lost five members because we haven't cleared Naxx." They tell me, "I hate PUGs, but I can't even run a Heroic with my guild because only two people are 80."They ask me to weigh their guild against their desire to run group content. And the fact of the matter is this: I can't answer that question for you. And I'll tell you why.
