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Officers' Quarters: Filling the void
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Sometimes, real life can catch up to your guild leader. It's a big job that definitely cuts into time that may be spent doing other things, especially if he or she has a family. When your leader resigns from the position, how does your guild fill that void of power? This week's e-mail comes from someone who wants to step up and assume leadership. Dear Officers' Quarters. My guild is jammed. We had some people quit because of RL issues over Christmas, which then saw an outflux of people because we couldn't raid for class balance. So now, we're reduced to doing Kara with 4 paladins, some dps and a singe priest. Our MT burnt out and GQuit and we've gone from exploring SSC to lost and confused. The current GM is [. . .] quite frankly, tired of being in charge. There's another guy who's put up his hand for taking on the role, but isn't really doing anything about taking the load off, so I've volunteered if nothing happens soon. I've never GMed before, so I'm in a bit of a quandary – there are so few resources available!
15 Minutes of Fame: Leadership by committee
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous. At first glance, the tip 15 Minutes of Fame first received from Nocturne on the Khadgar realm appeared to be one of that "Interview my GM; he's the coolest evah!" kind of tips: "very helpful to all players"; "truthful"; "anxious to make compromises that suit all players"; blahblahblah ... But buried near the end of the note, we spotted this little gem: "We have a rotating GM system which sees all officers take a spot in the leader chair! Weird, huh?"Being insatiably curious about anything even remotely "Weird, huh?" -- as well as harboring a voyeuristic fascination with what most people would consider the train wreck of leadership by committee – we hit the Reply button. What we found at the other end: a fun-loving group of European raiders that rotates administrative tasks so that everyone gets the chance to relax and enjoy the fruits of their common effort. We visited with a half-dozen of the officers' cadre to uncover the secrets of their success.
Officers' Quarters: Saving a PuG guild
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Anyone who has an unguilded bank alt can appreciate this scenario: You're in the auction house, minding your own business, when without any warning the whole auction interface goes away, only to be replaced by a guild charter that someone wants you to sign. It's pretty annoying and rude when people do that without asking first. If you're not in a guild, it can happen to you anywhere. Usually they don't want you to actually stick around once the guild is formed, but other people actually send guild invites this way. It's not as bad when it's a noncharter invite, since it doesn't close any of your windows. But it always mystified me that people would recruit like this. They don't know anything about you; you don't know anything about them. So it's not so much a guild as it is a long-term pick-up group. I suppose some of the members must know each other, but everyone else was just scooped up fresh from the Barrens. Do you ever wonder what might happen if you actually joined that guild and stuck with it? This week's e-mail comes from someone who did.Hi Scott --Thanks for the column. Believe it or not, even those of us who don't lead guilds tune in and get some good tips and advice from you. I'm an unashamed noob who suddenly has a guild issue. Here's how it breaks down . . . I got massively bored with my Night Elf Druid after getting him to Ashenvale, and nearly gave up on WoW. I'd only sunk three weeks into the game, and still had another week in the bank, so I rolled a new character. Right out of the gate, I decided to play a more social game: get into more pick-up groups, join a guild, and figure out what these "instance" thingies were all about. So when I was in the middle of a fight and a guild invite popped up onto my screen, I joined immediately.
Officers' Quarters: Gold rush
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Once your guild purchases all the bank vaults you need, your bank will start accumulating gold without a clear purpose for how to spend it. As the donations and requests from members roll in, it's up to us as officers to decide. The author of this week's e-mail is concerned about the way his fellow officers are using the gold.I recently became a low-ranking officer in a guild after demonstrating utility in knowledge, generosity, and helpfulness to my guildmates. When this occurred I decided to take a proactive approach to the guild and began lobbying for a new guild tab to open up to the lower ranking members. Everyone seemed supportive of this until I started digging into the financials. It seems as if the current state of the guild is members deposit, and the main officers withdraw it fairly quickly. For example in the last week or so 11 members (including myself) deposited a total of about 37 Gold while 4 officers withdrew over 50 Gold.
Officers' Quarters: An officer's guide to the /gquit
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Quitting a guild that you've been with for a long time is usually a difficult experience, but it's much worse if you happen to be an officer. An officer giving up and leaving can be one of the most demoralizing events that a guild must endure. In many cases, it sends a message to the members that the leadership is fractured or impotent, and it's only going to get worse. Hence, the opportunities for drama are legion. This week, one reader shares her experience and asks how you can quit as an officer without stirring up too much trouble.I read WoW Insider all the time, and never thought I'd actually send in anything, because I was so happy with my guild. We were a wonderful nice little social guild. We helped each other with instances, some of our higher up members (myself included) would run lower toons through instances when we weren't doing anything else. We were even starting to attempt to break into raiding. I was excited to say the least. I was an officer, and I loved my guild quite a bit. I still love the members. I think they're all very smart, wonderful players. We had a raid set up. Simple, practice raid. Nothing to fancy schmancy. Zul'Gurub. On a Monday we'd all gotten together, and decided that it would be Saturday at 1pm. We're all looking forward to it. We are all excited about it. Then Saturday comes.
Officers' Quarters: Kicking and screaming
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.The past 12 months have been some of the toughest for raiding guilds since WoW went live. When The Burning Crusade launched, the PvE path was riddled with speed bumps: lengthy, complex attunements; massive consumables requirements; subpar loot rewards; fast, punishing trash respawns; luck-based encounters . . . I could go on and on. In comparison, the PvP path was smooth sailing: get your 10 Arena games in and you'll eventually get all the loot you want with no additional farming to cover consumables or repair costs. Run the battlegrounds for the other slots at your leisure and convenience. As a result, raiding guilds have taken a beating as more and more players have thrown in the towel. Gradually, Blizzard has undone most of those speed bumps (while making some of the top-end PvP a little more exclusive). Now, in patch 2.4, it looks like they're really getting serious about bringing guilds back into the 25-player dungeons. They're increasing the amount of gold and loot tokens bosses drop and lifting the attunements for Mount Hyjal and Black Temple. If that wasn't enough, they're also bringing Heroic badge rewards up to par with Black Temple/Season 3 Arena gear. I've got a backlog of e-mails, so I thought this week I'd address two. Both officers are having problems motivating their guilds to give raiding a try. It seems like they have to drag their guildmates into Karazhan kicking and screaming. So maybe the changes in 2.4 will help them out. Let's see if we can, too.
Officers' Quarters: A moral dilemma
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Every once in a while I get an e-mail where I think, "This person has to be pulling my leg." At first, I thought the e-mail below was one of them. As I read on, however, the author's heartfelt anguish over the decision she has had to make convinced me that there really is a guild leader out there doing this. Judge for yourself:Hello there,I'd love your opinion along with your readers opinions on an issue going on in my current guild. I'm an officer of a Horde guild that is still relatively young (3 months) but very dedicated. We transferred from other servers in order to form an off-hours raiding guild. Things were going very well until several weeks ago when I looked at our guild forum and was shocked to find the GM posting character accounts for sale and urging other guild members to buy them! And if that wasn't bad enough a week or so later he decided to buy a current guild member's account for himself and his girlfriend (another officer and the purchased account's owner supposedly wanted to stop playing those characters).
Officers' Quarters: A demanding role
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.As hard as it is to lead a regular guild, I can only imagine it's twice as hard leading a roleplaying guild. This week's e-mail comes from the GL of a roleplaying guild who's feeling a bit overwhelmed with the duties of the job.I've been leading a medium-small RP guild on a European RP-PvE server for some months now. Since this is an RP guild, I can't just tell them to go do Kara on certain times of the week, I constantly need to get them going.The problem is, I'm pretty much the only bureaucrat so far. Nobody's very keen on managing things, also because they lack management skills for the most part. As a result, poor me has to come up with ideas for events, write documents, schedule meetings, occasionally boost everyone, and still roleplay with these guys (or make them roleplay with each other).While I do enjoy hearing about developments while I'm not around, sometimes I feel it's just too much of a burden. In that case what do I do? I love seeing my little hatchlings roleplay, and I love the concept, I won't let it go, still, it's a burden. What do I do? A bottom-up approach? Get a few more officers? More members?--Anonymous of Moonglade RP (EU)
Officers' Quarters: Drawing the line
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.We often talk about our guilds as if they are families. A family would do anything for each other, wouldn't they? The writer of this week's e-mail asks, When it comes to helping your guildmates with real-life problems, where do you draw the line?I've been reading your Officers' Quarters column, and I would like your input. I am a longtime (2 years plus) member of an Alliance guild and also a senior officer in a similar-sized Horde guild. In the Alliance guild, one of the members is a teenager who has also been in the guild for a long time. This guildie, along with his father, are well-known in the guild, but the teen is more known for his offensive and insulting behavior in guild chat and in raids. Several members of the guild have left specifically because of this kid. It's also known that he is on medication for behavioral problems. Despite his unpleasant behaviour, he has not been removed from the guild, which has caused a lot of friction.
Officers' Quarters: The right stuff
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Think you've got what it takes to be an officer? The author of this week's e-mail does, but he wants to know how I figure out who is fit for the position. I've never really talked about it before, so now is as good a time as ever. Here's the e-mail:Hey Scott,Just wondering what the criteria is (for you at least) about becoming a guild officer. I once was one in my old guild, but after some drama we disbanded, and I've been with a new guild for quite a while. I'm extremely interested in an officer position. What do you think?Raliant
Officers' Quarters: When your mate is a member
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.This is going to be a tricky week for me, since my girlfriend reads this column. Like most subjects, I'm not claiming to have all the answers about this, but in this case I'm really clueless sometimes. I'm wondering how other guild leaders and officers out there handle it. So this week, I'm the one providing the question! Dear Readers: How do you deal with having a significant other in the guild -- especially when he or she isn't an officer?Thanks!Scott
Officers' Quarters: A dangerous gift
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.It's the holiday season, and for many players that means extended periods away from Azeroth as we spend more time with family and friends. If your characters are a critical part of your guild's success, you may be tempted to give another player access to your account so they can help the guild in your absence. It's a generous and noble gesture, but in the big picture it's a dangerous gift to give. I would urge everyone to be a Scrooge and keep your account info all to yourself. And this week's e-mail shows why:What do you do as a guild leader, when you have two or three different people in your guild that have, in the past, shared accounts, and then one leaves the guild in an ugly way? Or at all?Especially if one has guild bank access?I know that, technically, sharing accounts is against the EULA, but among young teens it seems fairly common . . . especially in raiding guilds, where if a raid is short a priest, JohnnyX may have access to another guildies' account so he can bring the AFK player's priest on.What do you do if one leaves? The other two accounts are mostly played by the owners . . . but if the toon comes online, but the player isn't on a voice chat application, how do you know it is REALLY the owner, and not the player that left? Worse yet, what if the player had been booted?Is it right to remove other people from a guild because they have shared their account with someone else?
Officers' Quarters: Two heads > one
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I sometimes envy those two-headed ogres. Imagine if you could fill out your tax forms and play Warcraft at the same time. Hmm, has anyone actually done that? This week's e-mail comes from a pair of players who want to start a guild as co-leaders. Can a guild survive with two GL's running the show?I have a question or two I'd like to ask you, oh great guild master guru. My friends (RL) are all going to reroll on another server because most of them are new, while I have two 70's already. My friends count a total of around 6, maybe a 7th if he decides to join us on retail instead of private servers. We will start a guild of course and one of my friends (who has a 70 already) and I will be the guild masters. I will be the raid leader and such and he will be the PvP leader. We came to this agreement mutually and have decided that we will be each other's counsel. A small system of checks and balances, if you will. Our main reason for choosing ourselves is because of our extensive experience and we get along together, not to mention work like a well-oiled machine in almost all situations. While this will be our first time actually leading the guild, we have both been officers in several different types of guilds and we have sort of an inkling as to what we need to do.My question is: Is this bipartisan (excuse the loose word usage) leadership a good idea? And could you give us some tips on starting/leading a guild? Just the vital things! :D
Officers' Quarters: A case of the blahs
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.From time to time it seems like most guilds go through a period where the officers just sort of lose interest. For whatever reason, they reach a point where they can't find the motivation anymore. This week's e-mail is from a guild member frustrated by her officers. I'm in a "casual" guild where casual means we don't have any military policies about raiding. However, we do raid Karazhan and much of the guild is interested in some light progression at least along the 10 man instances (and heroics).My guild, I am a member, not leader or officer, is suffering the blahs. From my perspective it seems like we have a few issues. The guild leader has lost interest in the game and doesn't log in much and the officers pretty much run the guild in lieu of the GM. However it seems like the officers are kind of burning out too, but don't really want to turn over any of the power to people with more interest.
Officers' Quarters: Why we lead
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.If you've read my column or our Guildwatch features in the past, you've heard about all kinds of terrible situations involving guilds and their officers. Sometimes, serving as an officer is a stressful, thankless job and everything you try to accomplish is just setting yourself up for more abuse. Combined with real-life pressures, it can really wear you down after a while. I've had some dark moments as a guild leader when I've thought about stepping down and giving it all up. And sometimes I find myself wondering why I've stuck with it for so long. We officers certainly don't get paid for our efforts. We rarely receive any kind of tangible benefit. So why do we do it?
Starting a guild from scratch
I don't think Scott has ever covered this topic in his Officers' Quarters column, but it might be a good one: how exactly do you start a brand new guild from scratch? Actually this is pretty close, but even that column doesn't get to the nitty gritty of bringing a guild from an idea in someone's head, to a group of 25 people raiding successfully every week. It seems such a tough job that it's a wonder guilds have succeeded at all.I have only formed my own guild once, and it wasn't in World of Warcraft-- a group of people I grouped with in another online game thought "Silver Monkeys of Death" would be a good name for a guild, and so, strangers though we were, we paid the fee and grouped up. It lasted about a week. The only way I can see a guild really succeeding is if you have a few people who know each other in real-life to support it-- if you can get a chain of about 10 people who know each other really well (as in friends of friends), then you're on your way to getting a good guild rolling.But other than that, I can't really see it happening. I'm not talking about guilds who move from game to game-- I'm talking about guilds that are supposedly formed by people who've met each other only in game. Is it really possible for a group of people who have only met each other in game to actually form a full-fledged raiding guild?
Officers' Quarters: 2.3 postmortem
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.It's been nearly two weeks since patch 2.3 went live, so I thought it might be helpful to talk about the impact it has had on my guild and get some feedback from other officers about their experiences. What has been the best thing in 2.3 for you? What's just plain awful? Here's my take on it.Thumbs Up: Zul'AmanZul'Aman has been a blast for my guild. Most of us enjoy the 10-player raids better than any other group size, so we were really looking forward to this one. Even though it's a bit of a Zul'Gurub rehash lorewise, Zul'Aman has a different feel to it than any other raid. The bosses aren't just standing there blithely unaware of your incursion. The dynamic trash and countdown timer make clearing the whole raid interesting instead of mindlessly slogging through static pulls to get to the bosses. The difficulty seems spot-on, if a little on the challenging side for Tier 4 guilds (but that's the intention, right?). Done right it should be a relatively quick run with some nice loot and badges for everyone. This raid will be a pleasure to run week after week. I hope future raids are more like this one!Having said that, it's been a challenge scheduling all our raids.
LAPD getting the 'Cops' treatment at all major events
Considering that UK traffic wardens are already wielding handheld camcorders to record their daily activities, it's not too shocking to hear that the LAPD will soon be implementing a similar, albeit more extreme, version of employee recording. In the wake of the "MacArthur Park melee," the department's chief has stated that a camera crew will now "follow officers through major incidents, recording their actions from the early roll call to the after-incident report." Supposedly, this all-seeing crew will ensure that police remain on their best behavior, and moreover, it promises that videoed evidence will always be available in the case of a discrepancy. As if that wasn't enough Big Brother for you, the station has also announced plans to equip a helicopter with a long-range HDTV camera that will beam back images to a command station. At this point, they might as well yank the UK's hovering drones too and save the effort.[Image courtesy of Polizeros]
Officers' Quarters: Pistols at dawn?
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. Most GLs can't handle all the duties of running a guild by themselves. We rely on our officers to pitch in and set a good example. But what happens when one of your officers wants to run things differently than you do? That brings us to this week's question: I'm the GL of a small, up-and-coming guild. We started the guild with the full intention of having fun while accomplishing our goals first and foremost. The guild was started by myself and several friends of mine from real life. Well we started to expand and have since tripled our numbers. This has also tripled the amount of drama that has occurred as well. But, the main focus of this drama has come from one of the lead officers who is the newest edition to the rank. He's arrogant, pushy, quick to snap and his judgement isn't exactly what I would call favorable in given situations. But, and here's the main problem: he is also someone I've known for several years in real life.
