Recovering From a Bad First Guild Date

I issued a Valentine’s day blogging challenge earlier on Twitter. It wouldn’t be fair of me to not participate. Any bloggers are welcome to join in. It’s a fun way for bloggers to throw a Valentine’s spin on their posts. If you do accept the challenge, feel free to e-mail or DM me a link to it and I’ll round them all up at the end of the week. I’m sure you can come up with some ideas if you think hard enough.

1327762_rosesPerformance anxiety.

Nervousness.

Fear.

Intimidation.

Those are just some of the few things any prospective raider will experience on their first “date” with the guild. As much as we love to hear a happy ending to a story, the reality is that it isn’t always the case. Here you are, a  player trying to court your new guild. You want them to love you. You want them to be attracted to you. Why? Because you want to be with them too.

But then you screw up.

You stand in the fire. You eat one too many Shadow Crashes. You accidentally dropped a totem in the wrong place.

For whatever reason, your “date” just wasn’t impressed with you at all. Here you are trying to establish a solid foundation with them but you blew your chances because of some silly mistakes. The question they’re asking themselves: Can you be trusted to not screw up again in the future?

Meanwhile, the question you have running through your head is: Will they give me a second chance?

Probably not. At least, not right away. If you epicly messed up, you won’t have a shot. But you know, maybe that guild likes you just enough for another look. But you have to prove yourself.

Communicate

“Hey, I know I screwed up here, here and here. I’m just a little jittery because it’s my first time here. I’ve watched the movies and I know the abilities, but I guess I was just overwhelmed with anxiety. I know I’ll do a better job next time.”

Sometimes a little reassurance to the guild is all that’s needed. Everyone loves a person who recognizes and owns up to their own mistakes. It’s a sign of a truly mature individual who understands they’re not perfect. Now I can’t speak for everyone, but someone who can see where they screw up without having to be told about it is perfect in my eyes.

Listen

Hear out what the guild has to say. If you’re not sure, ask them what you did wrong so you can try to make amends for it. If you know your DPS rotation is messed up, why are you still following the same bad habits? This is especially true if someone is playing the same class as you. Listen to what they have to say, consider it, and see if its right for you. When they drop little hints about what you can do to be better, listen to it.

If that player isn’t you, then you might just need to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror and make the choice between walking away or dealing with it.

Don’t screw up

You were given a second chance. It’s extremely unlikely you’ll be given a third. Don’t mess it up again by choking. They’ve said yes to you again so you better show up and show them who the real you is. Polish up the armor and maybe shotgun a flask.

When they ask you where the nearest raid is, you can curl your muscular Dwarven arm and go “that way”.

Even though you didn’t make the best of first impressions, you might still have a chance to get into the guild of your dreams.

They want to like you

Last thing I want to impart is this:

No one is out to get you.

The guild that you’re going for, you have to remember that they want you to be the one. They don’t want to go back to the recruitment boards again searching for Mr. or Ms. Right. They’re looking for someone who will stick around for a long time.  You’re here because they think they found a potential match and they’re rooting for you to be with them! They want you to ace it so they can go back to drinks! It’s up to you to either validate or prove wrong that claim.

Speaking of which, we’re looking to shore up our roster with a Holy Paladin, an Elemental/Resto Shaman, Rogue and a Mage. But we’ll look at any other classes though. Come check us out.

7 thoughts on “Recovering From a Bad First Guild Date”

  1. In great agreement.

    Sometimes people screw up merely because they really dont want to. Which is really sad.

    I’m all for giving people a second chance, but a third? That would be pushing it.

    But the thing about your post I like most is the part about recognising you made a mistake and most importantly, to realize that noone is trying to get you down. It’s hard to stand up and say “I screwed up, could you help me”, because it hurts our pride as a person, but most people will embrace your call for help.
    In the situation were they mock you for asking for help… Well they just arent worth your time.

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  2. I cannot agree more with the advice to communicate! It’s not just about letting them know you’re sorry for a mistake, it’s just letting them get to know you.

    When the officers are discussing new apps, you want to be remembered as that cool guy who ran some heroics with Joe, and was talking mage strat with Sue, and was cracking jokes in AB after the raid. You don’t want to be remembered as “Wait, who was he? Oh yeah, the guy who stood in the fire that one time…”

    Even if you’re the best thing since sliced bread, if you want to be a part of a guild, you want to get to know people and make friends, and the best way to do that is… communicate! =)

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  3. True story, I once BOPped the tank with 0 stacks on Festergut on my very first raid night with the last guild I was with during Wrath instead of casting Lay on Hands (tip: don’t ever edit your Clique binds on the fly without making a note of what the new binding for a key spell is). This caused the other tank to get 10 stacks and blow us all up. “What the hell was that?” I asked in the healing channel.

    “Looks like he got BOPped.”

    “Weird!” I said.

    Then I looked at my bars. Why, exactly, wasn’t LOH on cooldown? Why WAS BOP on cooldown?

    Oh, shit.

    “Uh. Yeah, so that was my bad,” I confessed on Vent.

    Thankfully, they were REALLY hard up for a holy paladin. 😉 Oh, and then I helped them get heroic Dreamwalker for the first time, so I think all was forgiven.

    Reply
  4. One of the best things a GM told me during my first raid with them was “I don’t care if you make a mistake, but you better not make the same mistake twice”.

    It’s important to draw a line between “understandably nervous” and “train wreck”. I recommend drawing that link in crayon. It’s less threatening that way.

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