One Year of Conquest

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Conquest celebrated its one year birthday several days ago. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since the guild’s inception.  We’ve had our share of high points and low points. Some days it was difficult to get through a raid. Tempers were flaring, players would be upset. Other days, we worked as a relaxed but cohesive unit where we exhibited an aura of unstoppability.

It wasn’t without it’s lessons.

Things I learned

You can’t keep everyone happy: If a player’s happiness depends on a course of action not in line with guild goals, then they should just be released. They won’t be satisfied anyway and there’s no sense in keeping them chained by doing things your guild isn’t doing. Whether it’s super hard modes or PvP or so forth, they’re better off finding an organization that aligns with their desires.

Recruiting is a constant: Real life will intrude on the lives of people and it could keep them sidelined indefinitely. Don’t believe for a moment that your roster is ever going to be complete. The ideal roster is one where all 25 players show up every raid without being affected by anything going on in their life. Unfortunately, that isn’t reality.

People will come and go: Not everyone is going to be in for the long haul. The team I took down Kel’Thuzad with is different than the one which eliminated Yogg-Saron. Anub’Arak was knocked out with a different crew as were the hard mode variants within Trial of the Crusader. Nothing permanent is set in stone. I think there’s about 7 players who entered Naxxramas with me who are still actively raiding to this day.

Follow through: Always make an effort to follow through on everything you say or else it will come back later. It’s fine if you fail, but at least you tried. Believe me when I say there’s nothing better for progress than a GM or raid leader who has the resolve to replace underperforming players and has players to replace them with.

Things I should have done differently

Care more about 10s: Having three groups of 10s that were capable of clearing out ToC 10 and 2 groups clearing out ToGC 10 added a lot of firepower to our raid. For whatever reason, it was something that never occurred to me. The groundwork is already being laid down for multiple Icecrown 10 groups.

More time: Sometimes it just seems as if we didn’t have enough time to set out to do the things we wanted to do. With 9 hours, you can only do so much.

Achievements: This one’s a bit difficult to go for as not many others share the sentiment about achievements. I supposed if we had more time, it’s another route we could’ve taken to help keep ourselves busy. But with 9 hours, the focus was placed moreso on boss kills than anything else (which is understandable).

As long as I continue to blog, I’m certain the guild will still remain for another year. To hell with the naysayers who said when I first started that I’d crash and burn and wouldn’t last a year.

10 thoughts on “One Year of Conquest”

  1. Happy Birthday Conquest

    Wish you the best of luck in ICC. I’m curious, do you think 9 hours will be enough for it with the number of bosses/thrash in there?

    Reply
    • @Nigel: Once we get that place on farm, I think it can be cleared in about 6-7. The first few weeks will be spent learning and practicing all the boss encounters. There isn’t an overwhelming amount of trash.

  2. Happy birthday Conquest. 9 hours you say? We do 12, and then another 4 for my ten man. Lately it’s been more than enough time as we end up wiping for 4 hours on hard mode stuff just to keep us busy till ICC comes out. >.<
    I'd rather have 9 hours right now lol.

    Reply
  3. Cool post 🙂 Always interesting to hear about other people’s experiences with their guilds. I totally agree with your observations, especially the “can’t keep everyone happy” and “people will come and go”. It’s a fact of life with guilds and you just gotta relax and go with the flow sometimes, letting people do as they please. Not point getting stressed if someone moves on or gets a little upset. I’ve run enough guilds in my time to know that it’s never possible to make everything perfect 🙂

    Oh and happy birthday 🙂
    .-= We Fly Spitfires´s last blog ..Buying Gold Is Like Sex In The Victorian Era =-.

    Reply
  4. I’m very glad to hear about you working toward laying multiple 10s out. I have a soft spot in my heart for a good 10 man raid that will never be filled by the big groups of 25s.

    I also think that 9 hours is about perfect for a raiding guild because it gives a lot of time for off-peak side runs, but still gives plenty of time for the progression-minded players to enjoy themselves.

    Here’s to another year!
    .-= Professor Beej´s last blog ..The Twilight Saga: A Boy’s Perspective =-.

    Reply
  5. Congratulations on your first birthday! Great to see that you are learning from your experience – and willing to acknowledge that you didn’t do things perfectly, but you are trying to learn from that. So many GMs just can’t do that.

    Best of luck for the next 12 months!
    .-= Saresa´s last blog ..Why You SHOULD Follow Me On Twitter =-.

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