How well have your guild made the transition to TBC?

Speaking from experince from a member of a server top raiding guild who almost killed KT and very successful, I'd have to say our transition have been rocky because of our hard push in Naxx during the final weeks. (4 days learning 4H, 3 days learning saph and getting KT to 1% after 2 days, raiding from 8pm EST to 2:30 EST on a week day to make sure we'll have enough time later in the week to learn new content) So the result with 2.5 weeks in is 1/3 of the guild simply quit the game, another 1/6 of the guild is playing casually (a few of them are still 66-67 or so >< ).

What was holding the guild together for so long was the common goal of finishing Naxx. Now that is gone, the guild is faltering since we're a hardcore raiding guild, people put personality conflicts aside to raid. With out progression all the tension that seemed minor before are finally coming out. Cliques are forming and we all know cliques are kiss of death for any progression guild. Frankly I don't see immediate resolution unless we start to recurit again, which I don't think we are doing right now. I am certainly more than concerend.

Losing 1/3 of your guild at the same time the raid cap drops from 40 to 25 does seem like it has the potential to be very convenient. As for the change in attitude of your 'casual' players, I think it's too early to be concerned. WoW has been out for 795ish days now. I think at 15 days into the expansion, they're well within their right to enjoy the game for a while longer before going back to the job of raiding. On that note, at 15 days into the expansion, I hope you haven't exhausted all the pre-raid content.

Relax, enjoy the new content, and wait a bit before becoming too concerned about a return to what many people thought was the least enjoyable aspect of the game (having to raid to see new content).

Yeah, I know that feeling. Ereet groups peeling off, disillusioned raiders, and friends unable to play with each other because on one hand they want to raid, and on the other they don't want to leave other friends behind to join the ereets. It's a problem that's not easily reconciled between the two factions that exist inside what I imagine to be most guilds. The one faction that likes to be blaze into new content, and the other faction that enjoys the social atmosphere of a guild and guild events. Blazing through new content is easier with a slim merit based raid group, but shitting all over people that you've played with for 2 years to do it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

We're in a very similar situation. Group of friends who started a guild and picked up a bunch of people so we could raid. Now that 5 is all you need, the RL friends naturally group with each other, and this of course pisses the other guildmates off, which fortunately are mostly the guildmates we don't want anymore, anyway.

I think a lot of the officers wouldn't mind just joining a bigger guild and not worrying about the responsibility anymore, but the problem is we've got over 100 people, some of which we'd really like to keep raiding with. We're also worried that in order to take raiding seriously we're going to have to recruit again, and trying to run and administer 25 man raids with a 100+ guild seems like a nightmare.

biggest problem i've found is a lot of people are currently equating "skill" and worth based solely on how fast you've leveled. If you were a shitty player before yet took time off work and got to 70 first playing 20hours/day, all of a sudden you just went from being a shitty player to being part of the "gang". 5 of 10 man raid spot? no problem. Others who once were the backbone of the guild that didn’t level like maniacs are now shoved aside in favor of the fast levelers.

Core groups are forming with mediocre players, while strong players that got left behind become frustrated, quit and look for other guild opportunities. So basically what is ruining our guild is not 25 man raid caps or cutting down the guild size, it is the "race to 70" that fucked it all up.

The problems listed in this thread are one reason why our guild isn't rushing anyone or forcing anyone to level or get keyed at a set pace. Our belfadins are still leveling up, and will need to gear up in Outlands, and get keys, before we can handle any raid content with the right class composition. I know there's a huge emphasis placed by some people on "World Firsts" and "Server Firsts" but that's not us, and I'd be safe to say it's not the majority of guilds' focus.

Call it "casual" if you want, but the game is meant to be enjoyed. And hey, if you enjoy being the first through everything, then I hope you're in a guild that tries to be as well. And if you don't, then I hope you're in a guild that doesn't. :)

Cliques are rapidly forming within my guild. There was one core grp made of some of the officers, and my grp who have been doing guildfirsts for every instance as we progress. Our 2 groups have sort of intermixed, as we are the ones with enough BS gear, and the levels to do the higher end stuff. There a few solo loaners who have stayed near the top of the leveling curve, i really don't know how, and many people lagging behind.

Trying to avoid the drama llama, for some unstated reason (what was Diosparde's old thread titled? Coup d'etat stories?), the entire effective officer core of my previous guild transferred servers. Pals were welcome to come with. It helped that free server transfers happened about the week of the expansion launch. I'm not sure whether this is a best case, or a worst case scenario, but whatever the case, it's my case.

That's not helpful feedback, I'm sure, but it's completeness to say. Before my departure as GM, I modeled the ZG/AQ20 runs as how to handle the transition - that it was important to split everyone viewed as an alpha equally between teams, so that A team and B team attitudes wouldn't arise. I had an overgeared alt (retired progress regression relic) that I could always pop in to the other raid if my team emerged alpha, so both teams could claim they had the GM's personal attention.

I'm seeing something like this happen leveling - and I feel that's what other responses are like, as well - so I hope to start doing integrating runs. As soon as more people hit the instances a 70 can run meaningfully (sorry, non-Heroic Ramparts) with the people still leveling up (66-67 CoT: Old Hillsbrad, woo), I hope to break our crazy dynamic group (feral and moonkin switch hitting between DPS, healing, and in my case, tanking) into two group parts (moonkin->resto will result in 2 tanks, 2 healers, easy to slot in any 3 for running two instances).

I'm not sure how useful that'll be, let alone as a framework for handling a larger guild (now that I'm a part of a smaller one, test cases are hard to come by), but it's my thoughts. I certainly hope they're helpful.

I disagree with this. Running unseen 5 man content with gear at or behind the difficulty of the instance is ideal for identifying who knows their shit.

There are a couple of relatively unskilled people who took time off work/don't work and got to 70 in the first wave of players. They stick out like a sore thumb and our 'core group' doesn't have them.

I disagree. In my guild, core groups currently exist because they existed in our previous guild, not necessarily because a particular group hit 70 first. People who took their time and aren't 70 are taking it hard simply because they feel left out (who wouldn't? you can't play with them and thus are left out...). Once they get over that, level to 70 and start playing with the group again, it'll work itself out naturally. The big problem would be losing people who somehow feel disenchanted that people didn't "wait" for them, instead of just sucking it up and leveling.

In the meantime, I'm trying my best to have people "mix it up" with 5-mans, but I don't expect much success in getting people to work together outside their RL friend groups until we start raiding (soon, thank god).

Regarding people's views on skill related to level, I personally remember who tore it up in our raids at level 60. I don't expect 10 levels to magically change anything.

My biggest gripe is handling a 10-man dungeon with a 1-week lockout in a guild crafted for 25-man raids, but that's probably a topic for a different thread.

Aye, i'm following the same basis, although for Kharazan i'm going with a Feral Druid and a Restoration druid due to the lack of a Shaman, at least until the guild is as comfortable with the encounters as I am from beta. Having said that, I follow the ethos that TBC is to be enjoyed rather than powered, and a lot of the guild did not transfer with us from Ravenholdt, as such only a handful of members have any TBC experiance prior to live. Sure, this means TACO and the other big guns have already hit Kharazan and we will be several weeks behind (only 2 of 4 70s are attuned and 1 of the unattuned has rerolled a paladin for the guild), but people will have enjoyed the content in its entirity.

Although, for 25 man, DPS is still king, at least until we hit the more interesting aspects of Magtheridon's Lair, Kael'thalas, Vasjch and or course Hyjal.