Grakmarr

Normally I tend towards the camp of people who feel that one shouldn't (or shouldn't HAVE to) rely on Mods for boss fights - but this sounds like exactly the type of situation that tests that rule. Before your next raid, I would request that everyone attending goes to whatever add-on site you prefer (Curse, personally), and download Deadly Boss Mods, or the equivalent thereof. Right before the cast goes off, any of the good raid warning add-ons will flash a message that says 'Flame Wreath - Do Not Move!' in big impossible-to-ignore-letters right in the middle of their screen. Right now your members that are failing to stand still during Flame Wreath are suffering from one of two problems: Either they just haven't grasped the concept, in which case such an add-on will be of great benefit to them - or they simply don't care, in which case the ball is officially in your court as to how to proceed.

I personally believe that in a situation like this, the more obvious the warning the better. You say you're typing the warning out in /rw, which might not be enough. The add-on will help them out in a big way, but also having/using some kind of voice chat (Ventrilo, or whatever you prefer) would be a major boon. Right now, between the time it takes you to type the warning out (or hit the macro to type it for you, if you're using one) and the time it takes your members to read the message - if they're even looking at it at all - it could be way too late.

If they download a raid warning add-on and they're still not standing still when they need to be - or if they're unwilling to download the add-on, or to spend ten bucks on a microphone/headset so you can warn them verbally when they need to be doing something - then you've got an entirely different problem: They just don't care. At which point you have to decide for yourself whether you want to simply stop trying, recruit new members and sit the ones who don't care out until they change their tune/leave, or keep plugging away at it with the members you have. But if the problem is that they just don't care, one way or the other I'd suggest you find that out as soon as possible, to save yourself any further headache over this. Ask them to download Deadly Boss Mods, and request that they try and find the time to get whatever microphone/headset combo they choose, so that you can communicate faster and more efficiently. Explain to them how much it would benefit the guild, and how much easier it would be to raid with these little conveniences. Add-ons are free, and a microphone/headset combo is less than a month's subscription to WoW.

The ones who won't do this for the good of the guild? They're the ones who just don't care.

Edit: Come to think of it, they wouldn't even need to buy a microphone/headset combo. If they have sound of any kind, they can still hear you. You (or whoever's leading) are the only one who really *needs* the microphone. It'd be nice if they all had it, but as long as they can hear their Raid Leader's advice, it'd be enough to get the message across.

 

Captain Winky

I'm looking for some opinions on another recent development that I'm sure most guild leaders are aware of: WotLK turnover. I didn't achieve my first max-level character until a few months into BC, and I've heard this is a major killer of guilds. What I need to do is turn it from a potential killer into a mere reshaper.

A little backstory: My wife and I started our current guild in June, and thanks partly to the advice in this thread we were able to go from a small base of 5-10 friends to 3/5 3/9 with Vashj dead before the patch. We've now taken down Illidan post-patch, and while not the same, it fulfilled a lot of the raiding dreams our raiders have. We are a fairly casual guild, with three raid nights per week totaling 10 hours. We run loot council per request of our members, and I've yet to hear any complaints about the system we use.

Being in the middle, we attracted a lot of people from various settings, whether the super-casual trying to bump up their game or the super-hardcore wanting to ease up toward the end of BC. We have a very solid core, but I'm starting to get word from some members that their goals in the expansion are going to differ from the guild's status quo. For example, one person is going to be leaving to be in a new guild with his brother and RL friend and attempt to be one of the first to 80 and into Naxx. The way he told me is very respectable, and we discussed it for some time. It's true, and then he asked me the magic question: would I feel free to call on him if we needed him for anything? That got me thinking... no, it wouldn't be quite that easy, would it? There's a stigma involved, even though his reasoning is sound.

The problem here is that regardless of what happens, everything is publicized. Every demotion, promotion, entry, and departure is flashed in yellow text for everyone to see and overreact to. I'm sure I'm not the only one that wishes there were some way to turn it off. We can handle it with the first person, but what happens when we get to the second, fifth, tenth? We have a stable base of 50 or so raid-capable people, and if half of them leave it won't really affect our ability to raid. But the impression that a guild is dying is a hard one to dispel, as is the stigma associated with people that leave the guild, often regardless of reason.

How do you all plan to handle friendly departures in your guilds, or even not-so-friendly ones? I know this will vary depending on the individuals involved, whether they be leaders or members, but even those of a pretty solid maturity level tend to do a double-take when the yellow text pops up. I've seen the guild warfare that can erupt from a perceived exodus, and it's not something I want to see again, much less in a guild I helped create. I think that a bad attitude toward departing members hurts those who leave as well as those who stay. But having never gone through the expansion turnover firsthand, I'm looking for advice or anecdotes from those who experienced this with the BC transition, or have already started seeing it now in their guilds.

For my part, a guild meeting has been called tonight to discuss the transition, and my wife and I will be stressing that this is not a bad time for this kind of reshaping, that it will happen and we need to accept any changes that come about without changing what the guild stands for. I want to dispel the stigma associated with leaving on good terms, because it's better to have non-guild allies than ex-members.

Thanks for any input.

 

Kandir

The advice I'd give to you is much the same type of advice I'd give to a guy friend who just suffered through his first hard break up with a girl he'd had a long term relationship with:
"There's more fish in the sea"... *manly pats on the back*
"She probably did you a favour leaving now and not later on"

How to handle it? Just keep your cool and don't let it get to you, man. In months to come, you'll forget all about their departure, more or less. And well, let's face it: the sentiment "let's try to stay friends" is a noble one, but we both know it's usually just the same old BS uttered to make each other feel better about the breakup and not necessarily something that's to be taken too seriously.

Use this transition to redefine yourself and make clear what your goals are for the future period/expansion and you'll come out on top. Take charge of the situation and show confidence about where you're headed, because there's nothing more sexy than a guild that knows what it wants and is willing to fight for it.

Lastly, be careful with your upcoming recruitment so that you don't make any hasty decisions on your rebound, else you might end up with a fair amount of loot whores and drama queens which you have to wake up to in some months to come. You've got standards, after all.

 

kieff

The things the keeps guilds going time and time again have been proven to be guild masters if he doesn't have some degree of respect and control over his officer or his players then the guild will eventually die, making a guild takes time you need to have patience especially if there is a infrastructure gap as most servers do with most people being in sunwell and others in early SSC then it is hard. Speaking for my guild master himself he spend hours per day online getting the guild from karazhan to kaelthas under a month and clearing swp considering we stepped into BT the day before it was released. A guild master's worth is measured in his leadership and people will push their best if he can lead a guild well. The bottom line comes to treating people equality in a guild regardless of what policy you have if it is a dkp penelty then make sure it is implemented if it is a yell senselessly on vent kind of thing then go for it but also remember at the end of the day you play this game to have nothing more then fun, and I have sadly yet to see many guilds who can progress be focused without swearing, cursing or senseless blasphemy in the raid in fact i only saw 1 if you can achieve that then you are a good leader. you are not measured by your victories but by how you handle your failures.

 

Tel

As a (not great) guildmaster, I would agree that the GM and Officers of a guild have a HUGE part to play in ensuring your guild stays focused and committed to the task at hand.

I know from personal experience that by me pushing and going completely over the top in terms of preparation and commitment, then others start to do the same. It sets a standard by which you can measure the rest of your guild. As I was (for a long time anyhow) the guild's top DPSer it mades it a hell of alot easier to tell the DPSers 'step up your game guys - you're not doing enough damage'. Had I been performing poorly, it would've been a lot more difficult to say that without coming across as a hypocrite.

I know I've pushed others to start preparing for WotLK too, just by talking about all the preparation I've made to power level my DK. People started PMing me asking about what I'd done regarding potions, gear, levelling guides... And over the past few days I've started seeing other people doing the same, and comparing it to me. (pm's like "how many flasks do you have, I've got 19, do you reckon that'll be enough?).

Now obviously YMMV from guild to guild, depending on the way you're structured, but I'm very much a firm believer in leading from the front. I know my officers feel the same, and as a rule will make sure they go the extra mile in terms of dps, healing, tanking, general preparation and attitude. We take pride in being good at what we do and this in turn sets the bar for the rest of the guild.

In terms of 'telling people off for making mistakes' I'm very harsh on my guild. Sebudai is my hero in that respect, I'm probably just as offensive, and have probably upset a fair few people in the past with it. The only reason it works for our guild though is everyone knows thats how I am. If you screw up, you'll know about it, probably in a sarcastic way. However, its very very rapidly forgotten, and if it was over the top apologised for. The guild understand me, and the way I lead, and are just as quick to take me down a peg or two if I screw up as well.

I'm not saying it's essential to be a good player to lead a guild (as GM or officer) but it certainly helps raise the bar.

 

Captain Winky

Thanks for your responses, all.

With regard to the above post, we do plan to use Loot Council for 25-man content, but 10-mans will be left up to the individual group leader under guidelines from the officers. Generally, have an agreed-upon system before you start, and remember that with only ten people, it's not too hard for the leader to ensure some level of fairness. You're not going to get a ton of overlap on gear. The random number generator will do a large chunk of the loot distribution for you, even if not quite as much as in BC with some itemization being rolled together. Once we start regular 25-mans again, we will switch over to our usual system for those, modified based on anything we learn in the interim to ensure fairness for everyone.

As for our guild, as I mentioned above, everyone joined knowing that part of our mission statement is that we're a casual guild that raids seriously enough to ensure effectiveness. Everyone that has lasted more than a couple of weeks in our guild has found some common ground with that ideal. We have some people leveling up quickly with quests and instances, while others prefer to do more exploring at the expense of leveling speed. There really is no hard timetable on a return to 25-man raiding, though the week after the new year has been tossed around as a rough estimate. Everyone is very enthusiastic about the idea of just playing the new version of the game, and the majority seem to feel that we can enjoy the raid game again as a guild when we get there. Meanwhile, Vent has been continually filled with people chatting, forming 5-mans, running around mining, talking about specs and abilities, etc. There's been a lot of social interaction, and I think that keeping those bonds intact will keep people learning in preparation for the new endgame.

In any case, 36 hours into the expansion is no time for me to make any conclusions. We'll see how things go as time passes. Thanks again for the comments.

 

Ryanb

I couldn't agree more with the above. On my server, the top horde guilds have been around for years and they've been consistently the top guilds - finishing first or close to first on every boss kill. The funny part is of the 40 people who were there for the server first Kel'thuzad Kill pre-bc, I think two of them were present for the server first Kil'jaeden kill. The common factor? Those two people were the guildmaster and main officer of the guild. It's all about leadership. People are inevitably going to quit, it's up to your officers to deal with that. If you have strong officers then your guild is just going to shrug it off and carry on.

On another note, virtually every problem in a guild can be solved by simply recruiting more players. People not showing up enough for raids? Recruit more - no no - recruit WAY more than you need. In the law of averages, if you need 25 people to raid heroic Naxxramas, having a roster of 50 players gives you a good chance of having more than enough people to run this instance. Johnny can't be bothered to play his class properly and is causing wipes? Recruit somebody to replace him. Billy is complaining about somebody else getting a loot that he wanted? It's easier to just recruit somebody who won't complain than to change the existing loot system.

It's really a matter of how much you want it. If you really really want to be successful in raid content, then you will go through the steps of getting there. If maintaining your "casual" status or not damaging your relationships with friends is more important too you - that's ok too, it just means you actually consider being successful in progression raiding too costly of an investment. Lots of guilds for example want to say that they use a "zero tolerance" policy for screwups. "If somebody dies of fall damage on Archimonde 4 times in a row (or something similar), they should get instantly gbooted." What if that person was your only restoration shaman and your guild only has 7 healers that show up consistently anyway? Would you really remove that guy knowing that without him you very well would not have enough players to continue? Again, this type of policy requires the guild leadership to be able to adequately recruit.

 

Leto

The problem with vastly over recruiting is retention of the second string players.

Who would stay around when they only get into raids when one of the core raiders happens to not make it one day?

If you're constantly rotating people to give everyone raid time, that is inefficient with regards to learning fights and item distribution.


What I've seen that works better is having a core roster, then have a good number of casual raiders who are solid players and well geared, but just don't have the desire to raid 100% of the time. That way if one of the core raiders has to miss a raid, you might be able to fill their spot with a casual raider that night, and the casual raider wouldn't feel bad sitting out the rest of the time.

Rogue at heart.

 

kieff

My old guild actually tried this resulted any many people guild quitting even a few people considered as the core players. The guild is "still" going on but the mass recruitment diffidently killed the environment, they recruited about 4 players more then they need per class to be ready for the WOTLK march, it ended up in 7 warlocks being level 80 within a day or 2 of each other, Mass recruitment is not the answer for me, people don't want to log on spend 4-6 hours per day with you if they are not certain of their spot.