These past two months I’ve been all over the place.  There were various games, a plenitude of communities, and a swarm of  guilds of which I’ve dipped my toes into.  It has been quite some time since I’ve been able to experience first hand the strong effects of differing leadership styles which populate internet gaming.  And here we were, simply listening to my one man (and girl) show about our lonely guild management troubles.  “DIVERSITY!” the people cry, “LET US SEE FREELY!”

IRL Guild Officers

-Close knit leadership team, or exclusive guild clique?

I’ve recently had the joyous opportunity of becoming included in a guild ran by IRL (In Real Life) friends.  If my recollections do not evade me, I would say there were 40 members- 8 of which holding the officer position.  Progression was fairly current and the gear was prevalent in the “group” of IRL friends, as I’ll now refer to them.  Now rather than turning this into a grand ole story time and risk upsetting the few of you who hadn’t thought to pack their blankets, I’ll cut to the nitty gritty of my observations.

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I’m still off doing that wacky Ph.D application thing, but I wanted to throw this out there.

It’s not all raids.

Every now and then, it does help to kick back, relax and give out some money for nothing. At least once a month a run a guild event that’s got nothing to do with a raid, and gives out at least as much money if not more. I thought I would share these events because it’s cute and because you really want to spend time with your internet friends and not just advance your character and bounce to a better server…right?

First things first, money or prizes can come from the guild bank or from a personal stash. The set up of your guild depends on how much you want to offer. I’ve seen guilds give away mechanohogs and those nifty 20k gold mammoths. I’m not quite there yet. I give out a thousand gold in cash money to first, second, and third and then probably rare pets because we seem to like those. Give away anything, get creative. Hell, give away your officer team for a night of whatever heroics the winner wants. Give them the ability to take an under geared toon to a raid you’ve got on steamroll.

Now, onto the events.

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With MMOs continuously giving us larger and expanded content, it is hard to form a skilled group of players who will show up and perform to set expectations.  Upper echelon guilds have taken years to build and mold their member-base to produce the efficiency that most can only dream of.  In the lands of world firsts, complete PvP destruction, or even wipeless runs, you will be required to find people who not only meet the game’s expectations, but also your own.  Eventually we may come to the conclusion that those in our guilds may not be able enough to complete such a task.  What if many of these short-skilled guilds came together to form a union though?  Could an alliance between multiple sovereign groups produce results and maintain a successful demeanor?  Perhaps.

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Part 4:  Leapfroggers

One of the few joys of leading a guild is feeling that “rush” when everything goes right and you meet one of your goals.  The enthusiasm exuberated from your members provides a euphoria which surpasses just about anything else the game has to offer.  Whether it be downing that boss after weeks of attempts, finally stabalizing a core group of solid players, taking that PvP zone once and for all, obtaining that long sought after piece of gear, or simply reaching a certain member cap, meeting set goals greatly improves guild morale around the board.

What happens when during the midst of your celebration and rejoice, things take a huge step backward?  Unforseen events will always happen; You can’t predict them.  Let’s say that this event was conspired and planned beforehand?  A player swooped in, took advantage of your guild’s current needs to suit their own, and took off for greener pastures.  Say hello the the “Leapfrogger”, also occassionally known as a ‘Guild Jumper’.

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Every now and then, you come across someone who is playing…in a really interesting way, possibly to the detriment of the raid.  Or the heroic. Or the dungeon. Or the BG. Whatever it is, they aren’t pulling their weight and when you’re trying to get somewhere, it’s got to be a team effort. That means the team has to bring everything they’ve got.

Rather than accuse, it’s often better and nice to offer suggestions. You can’t hold someone’s hand, but you can point them toward
the resources to get what they need. Call this your cheat sheet for a handful of common issues.

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Tue, Oct 13, 2009

Hey Sedge,

Here’s one for you.  Recently my guild had a member return to the game after a few months on break.  He was a good member typically, helpful if not too talkative or generous.  Here’s where it went bad.  Apparently after a few BG’s (not guild pre-mades) where he had a losing streak, he felt it necessary to exclaim the deficiencies of the Alliance within /Trade chat.  Complete with profanities.  One of our officers happened to be in /Trade at the time and asked him to stop. Response was to the effect of, “You cant tell me how to behave.”  Discussion became heated and led to guild member removal.  Said member then logged on to an alt, told us all that he hoped we failed and how basically we were all chicken excrement.

For a little background, we are a mostly casual guild that does some raiding 1-2 nights a week as a guild, maybe every other week or so.  But many of our members raid much more frequently as PUGs.  We try to make sure that members of our guild are not “those” pugs, so that if someone needs a fill in they have no doubt that if they pick one of our members they will not be sorry.  (Skills may vary, but the attitude won’t).  We have a list of guild rules that prohibit flame wars within Guild Chat, but never thought to extend it to General or Trade.

Is it too much to ask of members to not troll in public channels as well?

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I am always wary of guilds that take players with no application process. I mean, sure, if you throw enough crap at a wall, some of it might stick…but then you still have a giant pile of floor crap on your hands.

Whatever, I’m tired. It made sense in my head.

Your method of guild application is up to you. I personally interview all applicants via whispers. I find that easiest, as I’m a WIM devotee and it means I can interview while farming, doing heroics, running a raid, whatever.

But if you want in, here is what you have to do:

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Throughout the course of playing any online game, you’re bound to meet and create friends, acquaintances, and people who you truly enjoy socializing with as if they only lived next door.  As we all know, situations are destined to come about while you trek on through that journey of virtual entertainment.  What becomes of these e-relationships in which we have built?  Do we simply turn off the monitor and walk away from months, or even years spent laughing, teasing, and working with each other?  If things were to take a bad turn, is it acceptable to forget the other person as if they never existed?  These are strange times we live in, with even stranger circumstances revolving around the e-company we keep.  Some light that bridge to old friends afire, and some do everything in their power to retain a connection.  Do you light that match or blow it out?

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I’m sorry sir, but we’ve all taken a vote and have come to the conclusion that you are no longer in charge of this guild.  We are prepared to offer you a handful of options to ease this transition:

1. Promote a member of our choice to GM and play under his/her rule.
   
2. Simply quit the guild and leave it to us.
3. We’ll all quit out from under you and create a new guild (bringing all your members in the process)

We know you’ve worked hard on your guild, and we appreciate that.  Things simply are not working out to our liking, as we enjoy having things go our way.  Simply put, you aren’t in charge anymore.  We are.

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Hear Ye! Hear Ye!  The guild now requires 100 gold coins from each man, woman and child per fortnight.  Any unwillingness or inability to meet these standards will find themselves REMOVED AT ONCE!

That would be rough, eh?  …Or would it?  Requiring a weekly/monthly stipend from each of your members could yield vast guild resources, or a complete mutiny.  As we dive deeper into the world of guild management, more and more situations come up in which there is no right or wrong answer.  The more educated and prepared we are for issues that do arise, the better leaders we end off becoming.  You decide which path you wish to take:  That of English King with your tax demands, or one of a homeless food shelter- complete with moths.

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(I’d like to start this out by apologizing for my silence. I’m in the middle of studying for a GRE subject test, so mostly I spend my days breathing into a paper bag. Once my tests are over, I should pick myself back up.)

Being tough is one of the best skills you can possibly learn as a GM and an officer. Some of my worst decisions came from my inability to say no. Check this for bad judgment.

-Allowing a player who stole from my guild bank back into the guild four times. To be fair, this was the preteen brother of one of the founding officers. I didn’t even throw him out after he cleaned the bank because his father, who is also a beloved member, grounded him. That’s got to suck enough, being grounded for your behavior on the internet. He rage quit a lot, after screaming that he hated us and I finally said no more. This took over two months. It was before I grew a spine.

-Allowing a player to blow up a drama bomb rather than just throw her out. This included her going absolutely ballistic in another guild’s vent. One my officers had benched her for no-showing six weeks of raids and she lost her mind.

Sometimes, you have to be a jerk.

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“A case of Alt-itis?”

Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:56 PM

I’m in a 25 man raiding guild. Lately, most of our members just log on to raid. There are people on our non-raiding nights, but it’s mostly the same people, and maybe half of those people are happily playing alts. We can barely field any 10 man group outside of scheduled 25 man raid times.

I have nothing against alts, in fact, I’m guilty of mostly playing my alt as well, as it’s the character I enjoy playing most at the moment (I would switch if I could, but there’s no spot for my desired role, currently). I pretty much just log on to raid, do daily heroics and try to pug VoA on my raiding main. The rest of the time I’m farming heroics to gear up my alt. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this, as there’s nothing else I can do to improve my raiding main outside of guild raids.

The problem is that I’m not the only one doing this, but not  every body’s main is as geared as they should be. We have people leveling alts when their mains can still use Conquest badge upgrades, or not doing the daily heroic for Triumph badges. The guild leadership (as well as myself, personally) would like to see these members spend more time improving their raiding mains outside of raids.

So I need advice on two things:
How can we increase the level of activity outside of official raid times? And how can we push people to go after upgrades for their raiding mains that they can get outside of guild raids (5 man ToC, Conquest badges, etc) without being too Draconian and basically telling people how to play? I should mention that I’m a former officer, so I also wonder if I’m providing a bad example by being on my alt most times.

Thanks
A concerned member

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