QFT.

I'm more or less in the same boat in the OP. Several of us decided we were sick of dealing with all the dead weight and poor attitudes on our old servers, and muddling around while being unable to progress further in end-game PvE. So we decided to found a guild on a brand new PvE server to see if we could put our money where our mouth was (hey, we could do better than this) and build what we wanted.

We have folks that are new to WoW, but were in high-end EQ guilds. We have folks that mostly muddled around in MC and BWL. We have folks that ask "what's a raid?" but are dedicated and have great attitudes. Additionally, I've managed to pull in folks from a few reknowned guilds with the skill to back up their resume.

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It's an interesting group, but yes, you do see a lot of undesirable behavior from everyone. We had folks that seemed to roll purely for the novelty of a "new server" and got cut in the first week or so due to inactivity (if you're offline for 10 days, you're gone -- if real life was in the way, let us know and we can work out readmittance). We had folks who couldn't level at a decent pace (9 weeks to 60, weekly cutoffs -- most folks will be 60 by next week [week 6]), which we used to determine that they'd be unable to meet our raid schedule.

And then there's the other stuff which isn't necessarily cut and dry. People scrutinzing and nitpicking over details in how things were done (i.e. vent channel names), or over other players. We had an officer leave for the weekend since he was the best man at a wedding -- and people trying to call him out on it. We have a healer who broke his wrist... and people trying to call him out on it. We've had folks be outright rude in vent. There's those who can't be bothered to read the forum rules. We had a botter. Folks who ask guildies for crafting reagents, then turn around and sell them on the AH. Folks who cried "ninja" and attempted to make a scene when someone accidentally rolled need on an uncommon in a Level 20 instance.

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We've tried to curtail most of this with policies. I personally hate rules -- ideally everyone would get along and use things such as logic, reason, and compromise to work out problems. Then again, ideally right now I'd be enjoying a soapy romp with Scarlett Johannsen.

Your best bet is to codify some basic stuff in policies. A few lines of text can save you from a lot of hurt feelings, arguments, and drama. Heck, I've found that the bad apples won't even apply -- simply because they know what won't be tolerated.

After that, it's up to officers to nip any nonsense in the bud. It's not enjoyable being the bad guy, but it's necessary to do what you say. Waffling on such action when members are going at each others' throats exasperates things. Sometimes people realize it was all a misunderstanding, and they proceed to get along and all is well. Sometimes you need to crack skulls. It's not enjoyable -- and it's pathetic that there needs to be rules and guidelines for people to play a video game together -- but necessary.

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Not all of the uber-players are bad eggs. Most get along pretty well. The unfortunate thing is -- they're likely happy where they are. When I get someone in from FoH or Fury or wherever, I always wonder why they left. Do background checks, set your expectations, and follow-through, and you'll stand a better chance than you think.

Brick: Merging players like that is going to cause problems regardless of your skill level.

If someone is the most skilled player you've ever seen but is a complete prick you're not going to recruit them
If someone is the nicest person you've ever met but is absolutely terrible and won't help your guild at all you're not going to recruit them (except maybe as a mascot).

So you have to weigh skill vs personality, how is this *not* a balancing act? Yes, there are skilled players who are nice people, but that isn't the case with all your applicants.

Its not a balancing act... because someone can have the whole package.

Praetorian is a good player, and he's also not an elitist jerk...

The key is finding good players, not balancing skill against attitude.

Your attitude check should be INDEPENDANT OF SOMEONES SKILL.

If you weigh gear and skill against someone's attitude when you choose to boot or keep you're taking an extremely risky and dangerous path.

Its like not kicking that asshole in the niche group - if he has to go, he has to go, even if 10 others will follow.

I think you probably have to cut the "top worldwide alliance guilds" a bit of slack. The time you see them is on the WoW forums, like the R&D forums where they constantly get critized about any and everything they do. People troll their DKP sites and post what loot went to who, eventhough they have gone farther than 99.999% of the population in the game. They get their backs up a bit, but that's because the massive amount of Abuse they take.

True, some of them kind of ask for it a bit, but overall they're probably good people (at least to each other), and when you read between the lines, you can see that most of them will do anything that is asked of them for their guild. Overall, I've found Horde to be a little bit more "jerk free" than Alliance, but that could also be population imbalance. Who knows.

Ah, I had no idea it was mentioned in English novels. (I hadn't thought of it as particularly cool though--it just means camouflage/costume (costuming? Not sure what the gerund of costume would be) to me. How did Clancy explain it?)

Another thing that I've noticed, often in the past in my guild we would stand some asshat simply because "Well, we need another rogue/druid/priest here." That's also a pretty terrible way to build up a raid... A player who makes the raid feel bad or lowers morale is worse than no player at all. No drama queens. No assholes. No people who think they know everything. Beyond that, you're good, if the people you have also have a desire to improve.

Requoting because at the top end this is the best nugget of advice in the entire thread. Rambo looks like a badass in that bandana, and he can kill shit good, but he isn't going to turn the tide by himself. This game is about teamwork, in the raid, and outside of it.

Mature and dependable players will always win out over the rogue who considers himself god's gift to skill/pvp (you know the type).

This actually happened in my guild. We had a new player come in from a different raiding guild who had the best work ethic and highest level of skill and knowledge of his class by a fair margin, but was such a raging jackass that within a few weeks he was basically given an ultimatum by the officers to either play well with others or find a new home. Happily, he did take the comment to heart and things worked out and now he's a valuble part of our raid force.

To be fair tho, we've had other people who came in with the same attitude and less skill, who got the same ultimatum and couldn't work it out. They didn't last long.

Thanks, I just meant to point out that we might be able to progress a bit faster if we were more cutthroat and replaced some of the people who tend to cause problems, but then we wouldn't be who we are.


Yep...got it from the Tom Clancy book Red Storm Rising ...it was the word the Russian general used to describe his uber plan to deceive the West. I think the word literally translates as 'camoflage'. I've used that nick forever (cs, forums, email, etc), but it didn't exactly fit into a WoW character name, hence my profile being different =p

Quigon, I think there is quite a range of attitudes. The talk here has tailed into that of the assholes. Yes loot whores and assholes who try to ruin the guild/atmosphere are one thing. And for sure those people aren't ones I want around. But what I'm talking about is a guild atmosphere of elitism and arrogance that you're better than other people/guilds out there. So not much eltitism on an individual level, but on a guild level. You can see this to an extent on how pugs are looked upon by most people here and on FOH. Some people would rather cut off a finger than run with a pug, because of the perception of what the average pug is. Although the catch 22 there is that pugs are often the best way to find new people. But each horrible experience with a pug reinforces the divide between your guild/friends and the rest of the people on the server.

Man this is a great thread - amazing how these just pop up and take off.


Pontiac, I'd be careful... the ultimatums generally don't work out. When its attitude, that generally will be there for a lifetime. As praetorian already mentioned, its hard to teach attitude.

I used ot just kick straight up when people were drama whores or assholes... I gave a few people "chances" or ultimatums and it always bit me in the ass. I've gone back to being a tyrant about drama, but our members seem to enjoy the atmosphere it creates in the end... One person can ruin the game for everyone else; you might be shocked how many people quit this game cause of 1 interaction... and 60 members in a handshake problem is a metric fuckton of interactions to deal with.

Ghostz: I agree, but we're also qualifying things. Everyone will blow up; the best leader will have his bad nights and get more upset here or there... but when we're talking about assholes and whatnot, its the type that is like that nonstop, or just gets on people's nerves... or has no concept of fitting in or diplomacy.


Part of the problem here was already mentioned - the anonymity of the internet grossly inflates some people's personalities or egos... and it can turn an otherwise nice guy into a flaming jackass. As long as people mutually respect each other, are mature, and DO NOT DEHUMANIZE the other players, anyone can make it happen.