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Officers' Quarters: The new loot drama
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Take a look at the stats on that trinket at the right. No, it's not the best trinket in the game (or even close) -- but what's remarkable about it is that any spec of any class could make a legitimate case for rolling on it. Add to that the fact that it's a world drop, so it could drop in any random pick-up group, and it's BOE, and you've got the perfect recipe for loot drama. The name says it all, doesn't it: Tears of Bitter Anguish. It's like Blizzard knew how much QQ this item could cause.In this new world of spell power and combined spell/melee hit/crit stats, raid leaders have to make some tough decisions -- and not everyone is happy about it. This week's e-mail is all about the loot QQ. Dear Scott, I am a regular member of a fairly hardcore raiding guild, and have been working as the master looter since BC. Our guild has always has the rule that everyone gets dibs on their armor class first. For example, as a Holy pally, I can't roll on cloth gear unless no clothies want it, the theory being that its not fair seeing as clothies can't roll on plate. While I have had no problem with this, we are running into a problem where there is very little spell mail armor, and so our shamans are feeling a little left out when leather Boomkin gear drops and the lone druid in the raid automatically gets it even though there is very little gear for themselves. As well, when mail does drop they get into arguments over whether it is Resto, Enhance, or Elemental gear, seeing as it looks almost identical. Any suggestions?
Officers' Quarters: Guild control
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.At the right you'll see Blizzard's illustrious guild control panel. Anyone who's been a guild leader has had to deal with this clunky interface at one time or another. I don't know about you, but I dread having to make adjustments there. I've even gone so far as to download add-ons in order to make some changes easier. But today's column isn't about how unfriendly the interface is, but what choices to make. Here is this week's e-mail: Dear Scott, I found your column on Wow insider and it's a very good idea for a column! I recently started a guild on the Haomarush server called The Kings Guard. It's going quite well with decent officers, a guild bank and tabard. Something I do want to ask you about however is the settings on the guild control. I'm not quite sure how much power to give who and to what rank, and also what guild bank depositing/withdrawing rules to set up.
Officers' Quarters: Raiding "blind"
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.As a raid leader, you say it over and over again: read the strat, read the strat, read the strat. More than anything else, reading the strategy for beating a particular boss (or watching a video of it) is the most important part of progressing through new encounters. These strategies are readily available once the hardcore guilds have figured them out, which they typically do before the boss even makes it from the beta server to live. But what if your raid leader didn't want you to read the strat? What if he or she wanted you to learn it the way the beta guilds do? This week, one reader is faced with this situation. Scott: I am a mid-rank member of a fairly small and pretty casual (about 130 members) raiding guild. We had a guild meeting over the weekend and a few topics irked me a little bit. [. . .] Aside from our GL not wanting to appoint a Death Knight class leader [. . .], he insists on "raiding blind." He does not want people looking up strategies on beating the Naxx bosses.
Officers' Quarters: /annoyed
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.All the great new content in Wrath has brought a number of my guild members back to the game. It's great to see their names lit up in the roster again. But I imagine that, in some guilds, players have come back that no one is particularly happy to see logging in again. This week, one reader wants to know how to handle a member that annoys just about everybody. Hey Scott!I'm an officer in a pretty big, casual guild (roughly 100 people). One issue that [. . .] has caused quite a lot of discussion in officer chat and forums alike is a few of our members. These members are disliked by many people in guild, due to their overall behavior, as in repeatedly asking for the same things in chat, and complaining during raids (among other small things, that over time drives people crazy). Now, this have gone on for a fairly long time, and we have come to the place where most officers just want to get rid of them. Problem is, they have not actually broken any of the rules. They are close to at many times, but they never actually cross that line and do something that is clearly against the rules. We don't have a "no annoying people rule."
Officers' Quarters: (Group)
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.With every expansion comes a slew of new quests, many of whom have that word at the end that's both aggravating and exciting: (Group). It's exciting because the rewards are generally better. But it's aggravating because now you need a few extra hands on deck to move forward with the questline.Finding help with these quests is easy when everyone is still leveling. But eventually most of your guild will be 80, and those lagging behind or leveling up secondary characters won't have as much luck finding groups. In a month or two, guild chat across every server will be filled with people asking for assistance. In small, tight-knit guilds, it won't really be an issue. Ironically, it's usually people in the larger guilds who have trouble finding groups -- and we as officers can wind up providing most of the help. This week, one reader wants to know how to prevent this scenario.Hi Scott. I'm the assistant GM of a guild with over 400 members (225-250 accounts), and an issue that keeps coming up is the lack of response for help, either with instances or quests. The problem I have faced personally is that at one point I went out of my way to help anyone who has asked and eventually had to make an alt to hide on. If I logged onto my main I couldn't accomplish anything that I wanted to do since all I did was help others. This also happened to one of my Officers. Then there are those who won't help anyone at all unless there is something involved that they need.
Officers' Quarters: It's IC in Northrend
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.It seems like quite a few players are in a hurry these days. They're in a hurry to be the first of their class or race to hit 80, or in a hurry to be the first on their server to clear a raid. They use the most effective method of gaining experience over time, ignoring all other options until they achieve their goal. In this environment, the role-players are definitely a breath of fresh air. This week's e-mail comes from a reader who wants to know whether "IC raiding" -- or raiding in character -- will be possible in this expansion.Hello, Scott. I'm a long-time reader, long-time guild leader, first-time send-question-in . . .er.Anyway! I run a . . . not sure what you'd consider 'small,' so let's say small (around 30 people) RP guild on Moon Guard. How feasible would it be for small, semi-unscheduled, IC raids (Naxx10 and other 10-mans) in Wrath? I know it'd be hard to do in fights, but do you think a small(ish) roleplay guild could pull it off?Thanks much!--Maciah Banes
Officers' Quarters: We PvP
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.PvP is a controversial topic in the Warcraft community. For some, it's the only reason they play. With so little PvP content in the game compared to patch after patch of mostly PvE content, they can sometimes feel neglected. Others have zero interest in PvP and resent when their class gets nerfed in the name of competitive balance. As for me, I enjoy PvE far more overall, but I want PvP to be just as fun and rewarding. I'm hopeful that Blizzard will be able to achieve a tighter class balance this time around, even though historical evidence and even Blizzard's own words point to the contrary. So what about PvP guilds? Why aren't there more of them? This week, one reader wants to know if a PvP guild can survive despite Warcraft's raid-focused endgame.Dear Scott, I recently went looking through your past articles, and I'm in need of some help. I'm looking to start my own guild -- specifically, a PvP guild. I know, that seems quite contrary to the majority of guild related issues you discuss, but a guild is a guild, right?
Officers' Quarters: Hired muscle
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Raids after 3.0.2 are far less difficult than they once were. My server has pick-up groups forming for everything up to and including Black Temple. Seeing content these days isn't so much about being in the right guild as it is being online at the right time. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that many high-end raiders are looking more closely at which guilds to join, choosing them more for who their members are than what tier they're farming. This week, one officer is wondering whether or not to relax his application standards for a few well-geared players who want to join. Is it worth the risk?Scott,I'm the GM of a casual to, what I like to call, medium core (that really sounds way to much like mediocre) raiding guild. Before the last patch we had Kara on farm as well as Gruul's and Mags. We were farming the first 2 bosses of ZA and Void Reaver in TK. Many of us want to begin serious raiding when WotLK hits in a few weeks but we don't quite have the numbers for consistent 25 man raids now.I was hanging out grinding up inscription on my druid when I got a bunch of whispers from different people asking for guild invites and information.
Officers' Quarters: /facepalm
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Sometimes I get an e-mail describing to me a guild leader who fails for so many reasons that I am simply at a loss for words. However, words are all I have to work with here, along with my trusty Picard ASCII (courtesy of Blizzard poster Datth), so I will do my best. I warn you that this e-mail is a very long read. But those of you who want some insight into exactly what not to do as a guild leader, read on! Dear Scott, Around May the more progression-ready members of my casual guild started filling in spots for an established raiding guild doing 10man content with promises of moving to 25man content fairly quickly in order to see the BC raid instances pre-WotLK. One thing led to the other and I ended up gutting my guild of those more dedicated members and all of us joining up with the raiding guild which seems to be usually how these things go. What I ended up discovering is the guild I joined into had been much bigger and more organized at one time but was in its last throes and the person who brought the two guilds together was given the GM role in order to facilitate his, and others, dreams of 25man content. Long story short the raid guild had long since mastered Kara, but always struggled on ZA, and had only barely glimpsed the insides of the 25man instances.
Officers' Quarters: Last call
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.This is it, ladies and gentlemen. In exactly one month, Wrath of the Lich King will be on store shelves. So for all of us raiders out there, the next few resets are all that we'll have to hit Burning Crusade content one last time. As one particular reader expresses, this last month presents quite a dilemma. Do you keep moving forward, scale back, return to old bosses that you skipped, or just take a break entirely?Dear Scott,I'm currently an officer of a guild that has been progressing since forming from Kara all the way to BT, Hyjal. However with the coming expansion there's been a severe split in the guild's opinions towards raiding. It's come down to 4 differences. One, many would like to continue pushing content in BT and Hyjal till Wrath. Others would like to push towards downing Kael and Vashj before Wrath (which we skipped on our way to BT Hyjal). Then there are people would like to cut our raiding days from 5 down to 3 for many reasons to have more casual time before Wrath and the eventual push to 80 and continued progression. And finally there is the group that wouldn't mind stopping completely till Wrath hits to have some time to rest up.
Officers' Quarters: A military solution
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Starting up a new raiding guild is never easy. There's a lot to think about and plenty of competition for those raid-quality players. It's not easy even under ordinary circumstances. Now try doing it while you're on deployment in the U.S. military! That's what this week's reader is facing.Dear Scott,I've been playing since about a year prior to the release of BC and been through many guilds which time and time again failed to meet my expectations of what a raiding guild should be, mostly centered around the lack of motivation. I'm in the military and 6 months ago was put on deployment so I've been "WoWless" for the last 6 months or so. While out here I made friends with some fellow players and after a few conversations I asked if anyone was interested in starting a guild. They liked the idea but no one wanted to spearhead it, well this sounded like opportunity knocking.
Officers' Quarters: Friends or content
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.It's the constant dilemma of the casual guild member. You love the people in the guild, but you know you're going to miss all or most of the raiding experience. It's a particularly poignant decision when you're an officer in a casual guild. That's what one reader is facing this week.Hi, Scott.I have been in a wonderful casual guild for almost a year now. And have been promoted to an officer. I love all of officers/people in my guild and generally have a good time with them and try to organize casual events and things to do. We have been attempting Kara recently, but I don't think we will progress past the 2nd boss before Wrath comes out; however, we are not a raiding guild by any means and I can't really stress that enough.Over the last few months I have started to out-gear a lot of people in the guild and have been considering moving just my 70 to a guild that only raids on weekends so I have a chance to explore some new content before it becomes obsolete. Recently I filled a gap in a Kara guild and after the run was asked to join. This guild would only really need me for weekend Kara runs and maybe Mags. Is it fair for one of my alts (which I am trying to level for Wrath) to take over my officer position in my guild and only use my current 70 for raiding in the new guild, and to help out when needed?
Officers' Quarters: Coup d'etat
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Guild leaders aren't always the most popular people in a guild. Sometimes they have to make the tough choices for the good of the organization, and that can lead to hard feelings. But then there is the guild leader that members hate for just about every reason you can hate someone. One reader wants to know how to get rid of this guy once and for all.Hey, Scott,I joined a great casual raiding guild about 2 months ago at the point where we were putting Kara on farm and moving on to Mags, Gruul and places beyond. Now we're 2/6 SSC and 2/4 TK, I'm class lead for my class, have full T4 and one piece of T5, and we're progressing steadily. But.The GM is a [penis].
Officers' Quarters: Tanks for nothing
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.The Tank Shortage of 2008 -- is it worse than the Tank Shortage of 2007? Over the past two years, few guilds haven't felt the sting of being shorthanded on the front lines. Blizzard's response has been to give us the Death Knight, a class that supposedly will be able to tank with any talent tree. And while many of us are enjoying them on the beta servers, everyone in live is still struggling. As more and more players take a break from WoW prior to the expansion, it's a problem that's only getting worse. In these desperate times, it seems like raiding guilds are taking anybody that can equip a shield or go bear. But even today, some tanks are so terrible that it's just not worth keeping them on the roster. One reader wants to know how to let a bad tank go. Hi Scott, I'm faced with a bit of a conundrum with regards to a warrior in our guild. I'll start from the beginning: I'm an officer and the Warrior class leader in a small PvE guild on Burning Steppes EU, which has been trying to break into 25-man content before Lich King. As we needed tanks we've been accepting warriors with little experience and gear in order to train them up and get them ready for raid tanking. So far we've had good success, with a number of pre-Kara tanks, including myself, now at the level of MT'ing up to prince. (I downed Prince my first night of tanking him :D) Now my problem comes in the form of a warrior who is on trial. He's not a bad tank, at least not in instances. But when it comes to Off-tanking in Kara, he's awful. He's ignoring markings, failing to listen to tactics, and seems to be in a dream world all the time.
Officers' Quarters: Unchart(er)ed territory
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.It's no secret that the game we all know and love is in a period of transition. Many basic assumptions of Warcraft are changing, from the way loot is itemized, to the way buffs work, to the very nature of raiding. Amidst all this change, I decided to update the document my guild wrote to define our basic principles and guidelines. Written in 2005, it was astonishingly outdated. I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised. Someone who stopped playing back when Blackwing Lair was the endgame would barely recognize WoW if they rolled a premade 80 on the beta servers today.We call this document our guild's philosophy. Many guilds call it their charter. However you label it, right now is a great time to reevaluate exactly what your guild is all about and what your basic rules and beliefs will be going into the next expansion.
Officers' Quarters: Allow me to rebut
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.There's only so much a blogger can take before he has to set the record straight! Two of my August columns -- and, oddly enough, even some columns I wrote back in January -- all managed to stir up a bit of controversy last month. Some of my readers made very good points, some were flat out wrong, and some grossly misunderstood my intent. I'd like to address them one by one. First up is Auz from the excellent blog ChickGM.com. She respectfully disagreed -- albeit vehemently! -- about my columns from early in the year about what to look for in a potential officer and what types of people to avoid promoting. Here's what she had to say about my criteria in a nutshell:Don't create strict rules or boxes for your leadership. Some of the best leadership is done outside of conventional thinking and wisdom. To quote myself; "If you do what everyone else is doing, you'll end up where everyone else is."
Officers' Quarters: Number crunching
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.It's a question on many officers' minds right now: is 10 greater than 25? It's a question that would send any math teacher into a rage-fueled lecture about integers and number lines. But as we know, leading a guild isn't always about quantity -- quality is important, too. With the ability in Wrath to see all of the expansion's raiding content alongside just 9 other people, this question of numbers has become a legitimate issue. Some guilds who had success at the 25-player level may opt to keep it smaller this time around. One reader wants to know how to make the switch.Scott, I am an officer in what has been a fairly successful guild. We built a great team and led it from Kara, through SSC and most of TK, and into Hyjal and BT over the past several months. But the intense effort that it took to go so far in such a short time completely exhausted me and the other officers. Along those lines, we read with great interest Blizzard's announcement to create a 10-man raiding scene. (I also note, although it might be inappropriate to do so on wowinsider, that a forum poll on mmo-champion about 10 vs 25 raiding resulted in many more people saying they were interested in the 10-man option, with lots of comments from leaders about similar burn-out!)
Officers' Quarters: Padding your resume
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I'm not sure how, because I usually avoid the topic around "civilians," but the subject of Warcraft came up a few weeks ago as I was speaking with a co-worker in my department. I don't mean my glamorous position blogging for WoW Insider that has made me a globally recognized household name -- in this case, I'm talking about my corporate, Clark Kent job. When you talk about the Lich King there, people think it's some kind of organic fast-food restaurant.During this conversation I started talking about my role as a guild leader. While I was explaining it, I realized just how much of this role I've applied to situations in my office life. Wouldn't a company value this type of training? The author of this week's e-mail asks just how to present your guild leadership experience to a potential employer.It's not easy to be the GM/officer/leader in a successful guild, regardless of how you define 'successful.' We work hard to keep drama at a minimum, create an environment where our members are comfortable and having fun, recruit new folks, 'fire' bad seeds among many other duties and obligations. All while developing our own toons, often to be on par with the best of the rest. To me, that sounds like a great resume builder for the real world. Employers are looking for that kind of leadership, discipline, and knowledge.
Officers' Quarters: My pre-Wrath wish list
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.When World of Warcraft launched, a guild was a chat channel, a tabard, and some very basic UI features like ranks and the message of the day. It's nearly four years later, and very little thus far has been added to the game to help guilds. So far we've gotten one major feature: guild banks. It was almost absurd that banks weren't part of the feature set for guilds when the game went live, and the hoops guilds jumped through to stash and distribute their important items were equally absurd. So while banks were a welcome addition, I wouldn't call their implementation a step forward so much as a step to catch up with what's adequate. Now we're getting calendars -- yet another essential feature that should have been part of the UI since Day 1. I don't want to sound unappreciative. I'm hopeful that this feature will be sound enough to use and I'll be thrilled if we can dump Guild Event Manager or Group Calendar for something that's built into the software (with a grateful farewell /salute to the makers of those mods!). But in terms of running a guild using in-game features, we're still in bare-bones territory here. Is it possible that Blizzard has more surprises up their sleeve for officers in Wrath? Here's what I'd love to see them implement:
Officers' Quarters: My pre-Wrath rant
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Bleak is the word I would use to describe the current situation for raiding guilds. For many guilds, activity and recruitment are at all-time lows. It's becoming harder and harder to cobble together enough people to run anything these days. Must we simply endure? Is there no hope for us until Wrath launches? Will we officers respond to this crisis with moral fortitude -- or weakness? Will I actually use boldface to call out our officer community on their behavior? Find out after the break! But first, the author of this week's e-mail relates his own guild's experiences. Hi Scott, My name is Dmitry. [My guild is] a casual raiding guild made up mostly of people over 20, who either go to school, or work, or both, many of whom have kids. This is all taken into account and we have a very strong RL-before-WoW stance. Unfortunately the past month or two has been really hard for us. Our MT was gone for 3 weeks because of a new job, lots of people went on vacation because of the summer, others stopped playing as much to spend more time with their kids, etc. After having guild firsts on Mag, Hydross, and Lurker in 3 weeks in June our guild has started to go backwards, having trouble taking down Gruul some nights.
