Collateral Damage Seeks Rogue: This Could Be You!

Well, I suppose it’s not likely to be you, is it, dear reader, because you’re probably a healer. However, my wonderful guild, Collateral Damage, is in a bit of a bind, and if you know of a kickass rogue who’s looking for a new guild home, please do me a favor and spread the word! I figured I would indulge in a shameless abuse of Matticus’s blog (mwa ha ha) to help my guild out of a bit of a sticky situation.

Collateral Damage has always been light on rogues. Up until now, we’ve had two, but our most consistent rogue has just left the server following his arena team to greener pastures. Vek’nilash is in battlegroup Bloodlust, and I can understand their need for a less competitive (or horde-dominated) PvP scene. However, our other rogue is also taking a little time off to rededicate himself to schoolwork, and that leaves us rogue-less. We’re scratching our heads as to how we’re going to do Illidari Council this week without a rogue to coordinate the interrupts on Lady Malande. It’s hard to lose one of our best players (we’ll miss you, Slice!) and it’s doubly hard when we were so under-represented in his class.

So, please read the following advertising blurb about CD and pass it along to any qualified rogues.

Collateral Damage [A-Veknilash] is a great place to raid. We are looking for a rogue to join our high-quality raiding corps. We have a solid group of longtime members, and we’ve recently killed Archimonde and Illidan, completing T6 content. Our players are friendly, helpful, and respectful, but we are committed to high-quality raiding. Before the expansion hits, we will be farming Illy and Archy as well as taking on the early bosses in Sunwell. Our raid times are Tuesday and Thursday 9:00 PM CST-12:00 AM CST and Sunday 8:00 PM CST-12:00 CST. Check out our website and application template at www.cdvekguild.com.

Our new rogue must be both experienced and geared (we prefer 2 pc+ T6). You must know your class well and play up to the potential of your gear. You must be able to listen and talk on vent. Extra credit for being able to communicate well and call out interrupt rotations. We require at least 2/3 attendance from initiates, though most of our successful recruits have attended 90% or more of raids. Make sure our raid times work for you before you apply!

We are also looking for a personality match for CD. Our raiders are respectful of others, and we have a crazy, silly sense of humor. Our raiders give and take constructive criticism, but we never antagonize individual players. Rather, we work together to be the best we can be at the hobby we all love–endgame raiding.

CD formed Jan 1 and was behind the progression curve for BC, but we have big plans for Wrath. We will be raiding 25-mans at the leading edge of content. We’re not trying for server firsts, because we’re committed to our sensible 3-day a week schedule. However, we plan to start at the beginning, make steady progress, and someday kill Arthas. Our officers have been actively making plans for Wrath, and our first Naxx 25 raid is already on the calendar.

CD uses Ep/Gp to distribute loot, and new raiders have chances at drops fairly quickly.

If you’re interested, contact me in-game (Sydera or Isidora on Vek’nilash) or on our guild website, www.cdvekguild.com. I love to talk to potential recruits! If I’m not raiding at the moment, we’ll chat on vent and talk about whether CD is a good fit for you.

The good news is, dear readers, if you apply to Collateral Damage, you’ll get to deal with me, Sydera, your leafy recruiting officer extraordinaire. I promise I don’t bite–hard. You can drop me a line in the comments or use the comment form–I’ll pop on over to your server for a visit.

My name is Matticus and I approve this message.

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Build Your Own Guild Part 5: Membership

Once you decide what kind of organization your guild is going to be, sketch out rules and policies, and design a leadership structure, you are ready to build up your membership. Ideally, if you have an ambition to start a brand-new guild, you already have a stalwart band of friends and associates to sign your charter. I would go so far as to say that it’s essential to start any new organization with at least a couple of members–it will be extremely hard for just one person to follow the recommendations I’m going to make in this.

1. Get the Word Out

I hate to break it to you, but a guild of one–or even ten–isn’t going to be able to accomplish much. Ideally, you need to bring in a lot of people quickly. How can you do this with a new organization? If I were starting from scratch, I would do the following four things. This set of tips assumes that you want to muster your troops right now, ahead of the expansion.

a. Go through your entire friends list and send everyone a note about your new guild.
b. Advertise on your realm forum and bump it once per day.
c. Start pugging instances obsessively and talking about your guild to everyone you meet.
d. Sponsor and lead open events, like a pug Karazhan, or for the ambitious or more experienced, ZA bear runs, Magtheridon or even Hyjal. The events you lead depend on your level of experience in the current content and the number of members you have at startup.

At this early stage, you may choose not to have an application process and may invite all who are interested. This is not a bad idea when you’re getting off the ground, but it could make raiding difficult later. It’s hard to get people to apply to an organization that doesn’t have a track record, but some people will take a chance if they’re offered a spot in a more informal manner. I advise you to find a middle way and only invite players you or another officer have had a conversation with. You want them to know ahead of time what kind of organization they are joining.

It bears mentioning, also, that prospective members will judge your guild by your behavior and the behavior of your officers. Now is the time to watch everything you say and do on your server–make sure that you reflect your guild’s values in how you treat other players. Now is NOT the time to spam trade channel.

2. Get Friendly With Other Guilds

Alliances between guilds can be formed on the basis of just a few friendly words passed back and forth. My current, very successful guild began when one of our tanks saved one of our healers from certain death in Blade’s Edge Mountains. They got to talking and found that they were both officers in Karazhan guilds with the ambition of moving on to 25-mans. At that moment, the seeds of an alliance were sown.

Alliances and cross-guild friendships have many different uses. You may want to partner up with another small guild at some point and run instances together, even if you keep your two guilds separate. Friends in other–ideally more progressed–guilds can be a source of help and information. For example, many members of Collateral Damage have friends in Cohors Praetoria, a more progressed guild on our server. The lovely people of CP have sold us Hearts of Darkness for cheap and have advised us on many boss fights as we’ve gone through T6 a few months later than they did. Some of their players have even offered to fill spaces in our runs if we need them. In return, CP has used our raid ID at least once to get an Illidan kill without farming the whole instance. These kinds of cross-guild arrangements are golden–they are mutually beneficial, and they tend to leave everyone with a good feeling about the virtual community. In addition, at times we’ve shared information about recruits, particularly about certain bad apples. Ideally, if one raiding guild on your server recruits and later /gkicks a whiny, greedy player, their recruiting officer will inform other guilds about it. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what a player will be like from an application alone.

I urge you, as a prospective GM, to open a line of dialogue to the recruiting officers of other guilds on your sever. It’s a recruiting officer’s job to talk to people–if this person is halfway competent, he or she will be happy to have a conversation with you. Something I’ve done in the past, whether or not I knew much about the guilds in question, was to refer good applicants that were not right for my guild, either because they were not prepared for T6 or because we didn’t have space, to other guilds on the server that happened to be recruiting. I judged these guilds based on their ads and on the players that I knew, and have referred people to the ones that seem like class acts. Especially with the changes leading up to the expansion, there are enough players to go around for everyone. If you get to know some recruiting officers, they will probably be glad to help a new guild out. Established guilds can’t take anyone and everyone who comes their way. I know CD can’t even take all of the good applications. I always try to help anyone who applies to find a new guild home, when I can. If I knew of an enthusiastic new guild that was trying to build itself up, I would certainly point people that way. In turn, I know that many of Collateral Damage’s players have filled spots in other guilds’ T4 and T5 runs when particular classes are needed. If you reach out to others–particularly players that you know are classy, friendly individuals–people will most likely support you.

3. Recruit Creatively

Once you get a few members on the roster, you can fine-tune your recruiting a bit. In order to find players to fill specific roles, follow the 10-step guide I wrote on this type of recruiting. The guide assumes that you already have an existing player base, so you may have to adjust some of the advice to suit the needs of your brand-new guild.

What Do I Do if I Want to Start Once the Expansion Comes Out?

It may have occurred to you that most of the advice in this article applies to those who want to get their guild off the ground ahead of the expansion. It is true that the time is running short, and that you may prefer to start building a membership base during the leveling phase of Wrath. That approach has a set of advantages.

1. Many players may return to the game at that time, and some of those will be free agents.
2. It’s easier to leave a guild during a leveling phase than during a raiding phase, so some raiders will suddenly be free once Wrath hits.
3. Expansions in general are a time of change–some old guilds will implode when it hits, leaving their raiders homeless.
4. Some guilds will downsize to 10-man content, and some of their players will leave.

It sounds great, right? The only drawback to starting your recruiting drive when Wrath hits is that with everyone leveling at the same time, you may not be able to distinguish the kind of player that you want from the herd. If you pick up lots of players as they level, it will be hard to tell who will be able to make a commitment to raiding. This is in some sense an unavoidable problem for a new guild. My advice is to plan for continuous recruiting. Bring in more people than you think you will need, and sort out the difference between raiders and non-raiders once you actually start tackling 10 or 25 man content in the expansion. And yes, if you do general recruiting early in the expansion you may have to draw some distinctions in your guild roster between raiders and non-raiders, but that, dear readers, is a topic for a different entry in the series.

Happy recruiting!

The Care and Keeping of Recruits

One of the best bosses I ever had was fond of saying:

“Expectations without support erode trust.”

My beloved guild lets me handle pretty much anything to do with Priests, without making me be an actual officer. I do the recruiting and the interviews, I give input on Priest-related loot council and raid spots, and make the recommendation for full membership. I appreciate the respect and autonomy my Raid Leader and Officers have given me, and in return I make sure that our Priest-corps is always prepared to do the best we can.

Sydera recently wrote a great article on how to recruit a healer, and the 10th step hit home: Follow up:

Your guild has a new healer, and you are the person she knows best. Serve as her mentor, and check in with her often. If the guild isn’t happy with your recruit’s performance, be the one to explain why. If it seems that the guild is a good fit, be her champion when the officers vote on whether she should be promoted to full member.

This is so unbelievably true, and I think is a huge reason that some guilds experience high amounts of recruit turn-over. They can get players in the door, but one or two epics later, they’re gone again. The reason seems to be that the new raiders never really found a warm welcome, or a sense of belonging - just a lot of high-pressure to perform with little feedback and even less help. Here’s how I avoid turnover with my recruits, and help them realize their Priestly potential.

Set Clear Expectations

This process starts in the interview. Be explicit with your expectations - gear, consumables, punctuality, and attendance. I tell Holy recruits that I’m looking for a Priest to take my place. I want them to out-heal me, to be more familiar with the class and fights than I am, and to teach me a thing or two. If they accept that challenge, I tell them I will help them gear up, adjust their UI’s and learn the fights - and invite them to my guild.

Give A Sense of Structure

Tell them what the Raid schedule typically is. Sure, they may know that you raid M-Th 6-10 server, but if you know that Monday is guaranteed to be a progression boss with no Trials in attendance, tell them. If you don’t know exactly what’s on the menu, at least give them the options for the next day. It could go something like this: “We’ll probably raid Sunwell tomorrow, so be prepared for that. If [Paladin] can’t come, it’ll be BT. You’ll be required for BT, but may have the night off if it’s Sunwell.” That way, they can plan ahead - they may need time to farm shadow resist gear, or different consumables. They may need to adjust their dailies for more repair bill or respec money. Be courteous, and give them the information they’ll need to make a good impression.

Make Yourself Available

Let the recruit know when you’ll be available for last minute questions before the raid. Seek them out, and ask them what assistance they need - not if they need assistance. (A subtle but important difference.) Remember, you’re the recruiting officer of the big, scary progression guild - and that can be intimidating, even if the night before you told them to seek you out.

Make Sure They’re Really Prepared

At this point, you know their gear is okay from the interview. But raid-prep can get glossed over. Typically, I ask specific questions about a few things:

Do you have enough elixirs, flasks, and mana pots?

Do you have enough food?

Do you have enough cash for repairs and/or respecs?

Do you have enough reagents?

I also make sure that I’m clear about my definition of “enough.” Their old guild might have been okay with 10 elixirs and 20 candles. I carry full stacks of 3 kinds of elixirs and 200 candles. Don’t get me started on food, pots, oils, and flasks. The idea is to avoid any lack of communication that could result in your recruit being singled out as unprepared. You know what the expectations are, but they do not. Help them. Personally, I always bring enough consumables to a recruit’s first raid for both of us. If they forget anything or need anything, I want them to ask ME in a whisper, not the raid in vent. These small things matter, and a recruit who is nervous over something as minor as reagents will not perform at their best. Help them make the best first impression they can.

Raid Mechanics

Most guilds are pretty good about making sure recruits get a run-down of how the fight is done - even with a basically similar strat, most guilds have a few quirks that should be explained to avoid confusion. What gets missed are the details of how your Raid works overall. Make sure your new player knows any extra channels they should join (class channel, healer channel, etc.), what officer gives out the target-assignments, and how to bid for loot (& whether they’re eligible.) It’s not as big an issue with DPSers, but for healers, give specific healing assignments. “Heal Joe” may mean something to you, but if “Joe” is really Joeblaze, the Warlock tank in Group 4, that could make a difference. Also, if you’re in a situation where tanks are passing aggro - think Netherspite, Hydross, BloodBoil, or Kalecgos - and calling on vent, make sure players know to say their names. “I’ve got it!” wastes time, but “Stefizzle, taunting” means new healers don’t have to guess whose voice goes with what ‘toon.

Give Feedback

I’ve made my position on meters pretty clear. They’re a very visible part of my UI. One of the biggest reasons is that I’ve noticed the best way to improve performance is to give timely feedback, whether positive or negative. With Recount open at all times, I can tell if my new CoH Priest is using CoH 84% of the time, and not using ProM at all. More importantly, I can tell him how to modify his style to improve, right now. I can also quicky find out how much overhealing is going on, whether the right targets are being healed, what was responsible for killing someone, and any other information that allows me to analyse my recruits’ performances. (Personally, I also set the recruit as my focus - I pay attention to their casting bar, spell rank, timing, target, health and mana levels.) Creepy? Sure. Relevant? Absolutely. Telling a DPSer that they need 10k more output to catch up with the mage above them, or a healer that another 3k will top that Shammy… gets results. They work harder and faster. When they do well, I’ll also link the meter in the appropriate channel. Nothing makes someone’s day like showing them in the #1 spot to the whole raid. (I usually just link the first or second spots to avoid high amounts of spam.)

Back Them Up

Sometimes, bad things happen. Players die, raids wipe - and in the spirit of fixing it, we all look for the cause. Be an advocate for your recruit. It’s easy to blame the new healer for the Tank’s death, but if you know the real problem was something else, speak up. What are sound reasons coming from you may sound like excuses coming from them. On the other hand, If the problem really WAS the recruit, you can help them fix it.

When They Struggle

Even the best applicants can turn out to be lackluster players. Be prepared to talk to them, either 1:1 or with your Raid Leader, about their perspective on the problem, and possible solutions. Provide resources outside the game for them to peruse and soak up information. In the end, if they’re not a good fit, or not talented enough to keep up with the content, you’ll both be able to make the best decision - no waiting to “see if they get better” or whether they just need “a little more experience.” If you’ve given them the help, environment, and resources they need to be successful, you can part company on good terms - and they, with a full understanding of your expectations, may even be able to refer other players who would be a better fit.

And you thought the hardest part of recruiting was finding good players! The thing to remember is that different personality types thrive in different environments. Personally, nothing will make me perform better than a situation where I have to fight to prove that I’m the best - provided that once I’ve done so, the achievement is recognized. Others seem to need a bit more coaching, and relatively well-defined requirements and goals. Tailor your leadership style to their needs; don’t force them to conform to you. Just remember that although their job is to impress you, your job is to make sure that they know how to do theirs.

Luv,
Wyn

Shameless Abuse of Publicity

 

My beloved guild is currently 2/6 Sunwell.  Although our guild is medium-sized, our raiding core is pretty small. In fact, we have no spares for any of our classes. This is becoming problematic as we work on our progression through Sunwell - vacations, changing class schedules, work promotions, etc… all seem to interfere with raid time. And frequently, if two people can’t make it we’re left without an optimal set up. It’s frustrating to bring in alts or undergeared casual members for progression nights.

So what, you ask?

Well… my fearless Raid leader asked me to help with recruiting. So here I am, recruiting with the best resource I have: You!!

Although some classes are spread more thinly than others, we are looking for strong, full-time players of every class. We figure we have a spot for at least one of each, in a regular rotation.

A little about my guild:

• We are <Them>, of Nazjatar-PvP-US. We raid M-Th, 6-10 Pacific Time. (Sundays are flexible.)
• We are 2/6 Sunwell, with Felmyst making excellent progress.
• We are relatively hardcore, but certainly know how to have a good time.
• We use a modified Loot council, with DKP for tie breakers.
• Thrall is our homeboy.

A little about what we want:

• Experienced T6 Raiders, preferably AT LEAST 4/5 Hyjal and 7/9 BT. (We’d really rather have Sunwell-experience, but obviously we’ll gear up and train anyone that shows good promise.)
• We’re considering taking on all classes.
• Anyone we DO take will NOT BE A BENCH SPOT.
• We’re looking for upwards of 80% attendance.
• Your gear, spec, and attitude should be the best that you can make it. We are NOT looking to simply carry anyone through and give out free epics without effort on your part.

How you should apply:

The guild website is here.  Simply post an application with the format provided in our forums. You get bonus points if you put “Wyn sent me!” at the top of your post. (But don’t put it in the title.)

If you’re a Priest, you get to interview with Yours Truly. Yay!

 

Okay, shameless plug over - thanks for bearing with me. I hope to speak with you soon!

 

Luv,

Wyn

How to Successfully Pick up a GM

Image courtesy of dbking

Making the first move and first impression counts when you’re looking to join a Guild. Excellent Guildmasters (I prefer General Managers) have a way of cutting through the random crap that applicants throw at them. They’re able to translate what applicants say and interpret them in a more precise way. As my Guild’s first line of defense against “R-Tards”, I’ve seen my share of bad opening introductions from players that were interested. Here’s 10:

1. You say: “I can maintain 100% attendance.” GM thinks: “Even if he does make 100% of the raids, he’ll probably afk for a good portion of them.”
2. You say: “I am willing to listen and pay attention all the time.” GM thinks: “Good, because my guild is full of players who do whatever the heck it is that they want at will.”
3. You say: “I’m not quite sure what level your Guild is at in terms of progression, but… ” GM thinks: “No homework or research done and you’re applying for our Guild blindly? If you can’t research Guilds then we can’t expect you to research boss strategies.”
4. You say: “I can lead PvP battlegrounds and form a top notch arena team within the Guild.” GM thinks: “We’re a frackin’ progression guild, not a PvP guild! Besides, this Guild can’t handle more than 1 emo BG leader.”
5. You say: “I’d like to see end game raiding and experience it.” GM thinks: “You willing to die for it?”
6. You say: “I don’t think my gear is good enough, however…” GM thinks: “Nope, probably not.”
7. You say: “There’s not much time left before the expansion comes out, so…” GM thinks: “We’re not a sightseeing operation.”
8. You say: “I’m willing to sit on the bench for a while and stay as a trial if you’re full.” GM thinks: “Great, someone whose not even going to try and compete for a raid spot.”
9. You say: “You’ve made these mods mandatory for use in the Guild, but I don’t think I need them because…” GM thinks: “You can’t even pass a simple test of just downloading and installing mods. How will I know you will do as I instruct during a raid?”
10. You say: “The only way for me to get better as a player is to get better gear.” GM thinks: “A million dollars to anyone who invents a device that allows for strangulation across the internet

The best opening lines to make to a GM or their representative is to say something similar to:

Hi, my name is __________, I would like to raid as a __________ spec and I have experience up to this encounter in the game.

For a much better insight into the application and mental thought processes of GMs, I strongly advise you read Chick GM’s post about the very same subject in more detail.

Post inspired by Guy Kawasaki

More Upgrades and a Plea for Recruits

Killed Kael again and picked up Lord Sanguinar’s Claim. I think it’s arguably the best healing neck right now in the game until 2 dot 4 hits. Right now, I’m in the midst of compiling a checklist of the best possible Priest gear I can acquire before the next patch arrives. Hopefully that’ll be up sometime over the weekend.

Also acquired Breeches of the Avatar last Sunday thereby completing my 4 piece set.

We Need Help

I mentioned earlier yesterday about the right way that players should leave Guilds. We’ve lost two players earlier in the week and I’ve been asked to help find some quality players to help fill that void.

The Short Stuff

Guild: Carnage
Server: Ner’Zuhl PvP (PST Server)
Faction: Alliance
Raid Times: Tu/Th 530 PM - 900 PM PST, Sun 330 PM - 900 PM PST (25 man raid times only. 10 man raid times may vary.)
Progression: 3/5 MH
Apply: On the Carnage website forums, or make a character on Ner’Zuhl and send tells to Blori, Maeve, or Mallet (that’s me!)

Attunements to MH and BT are preferred but not required. if you required gear from Karazhan, we’re not the Guild you’re looking for.

If you are not keyed, we will try to accommodate and key you!

Classes wanted

:

Healers

We have immediate openings for either a Restoration Shaman, Restoration Druid or a Holy Priest. This is a guaranteed full time starting position. We’re currently running our raids with 6 healers. We killed Rage Winterchill and Anethron on Monday shorthanded with 23 players. While the Carnage healing corps might be able to sustain it for a while, the stress and pressure will cause us to eventually buckle. We need a 7th healer to help fill that void. Unfortunately, we’re full on Paladins.

DPS

We have immediate openings for an Enhancement Shaman. Our melee team consists of the most badass warriors and rogues in existence. Our main tank is able to dish out enough threat to convince Roger Clemens to admit to steroid use. Depending on your performance, this could potentially be a full time starting position.

The Long Stuff

About us

Carnage is one of the oldest Guilds on the oldest server in existence. It’s had a long and illustrious raiding history in which the Guild has been known to progress at a steady pace. The only thing casual about our guild is the raid times. Should you apply, you will find yourself in one of the most fun and professional raiding atmospheres. Every criticism will be backed up with solutions and suggestions. You will not be raiding with idiots who don’t know what they’re doing or players who take 30 minute AFK breaks holding up the raid or players who like to hit the damage meters. You will be playing with mature, intelligent, and supportive raiders. We will not nitpick your performance but if we there is a way to improve it, you will know. We will give you a job and if you can do it, great! If you can’t, we’ll try to help you until you do. We want to beat this game and we’d like your help doing it. Ever since the new year started, we’ve been progressing at 0.5 a boss a week. Archimonde is projected to go down by early April with Illidan weeks later.

We get the job done… eventually.

Carnage is LFM SSC and TK

I’m happy to announce that I’ve been asked to help recruit people into Carnage. The past few days have been very rough for us which got to a point where we had to cancel a raid due to key personnel having to cancel at the last minute. We’ve seen a lack of attendance on our sunday raids in the past few weeks.

During my time in Aurora, I was tasked as a headhunter to help look for players to supplement our Guild. Now I’ve been asked to do same thing. I will have to apply my awesome Fantasy Hockey Pool skills to WoW and somehow find some pieces that will help build us into a playoff contender consistent raiding guild.

Here’s what we’re looking for in terms of raiding:

1 Rogue
1 Elemental Shaman
1 Enhancement Shaman
1 Warlock
1 Holy Paladin
1 Resto Druid

Please, no comments on what we “should” get or what we “shouldn’t” get. We like to keep our options open.

Ideal candidates will have:

* A “can do” attitude
* A willingness to wipe to learn new content
* Ventrilo 3.0 (and the willingness to speak up)
* Deadly Boss Mods (latest version)
* CTRA or ORA2 (for raid querying only, you can use whatever raid interface you like)
* Omen Threat Meter
* Minimum Karazhan gear (that is, you don’t need any loot from there)

About Carnage:

Carnage is a high end-game raiding and PvP guild on Ner’zhul. Founded more than two years ago, we are an established guild with very stable membership. Before the expansion, we cleared MC, BWL, and had made significant progress in AQ40 and Naxx. Karazhan is phased out of our raiding schedule, although we still do an alt/main run for fun and some gear. We have all bosses of SSC and 3/4 TK on farm and are working to progress into Hyial and BT. Several of our members also PvP in arena, AB, WSG, and AV on a regular basis.

We utilize a 2 round zero-sum bidding system.

Raiding Schedule (All times in PST):

Tuesdays, Thursday: 5:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Sundays: 3:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Note: We’re very sharp about our raid times. We have several members in the guild that play from the east coast, therefore we do enforce the 9:00 PM end time. Those raid times posted are for 25 mans. There are some optional 10 mans that may happen on the fly.

Interested?

If you think you can contribute to what we’re looking for, head on over to the Carnage forum and put it an application. Make sure you read the Announcement thread on top in the Applications forum and follow the instructions.

Guest Post: Why Do You Play WoW?

Matticus’ Note: I posted a small, but brief plea yesterday for help with my blog. Leiandra has helped me answer my plea. My exams conclude on the 15th of December, therefore my personal posts will be drastically reduced while I’m busy raiding cramming for my finals. But I don’t want to leave my readers hanging. I’m looking for some guest posters to help me for the next week or so. If you have your own WoW blog, chances are I’ve read it or ran into it. This is a great opportunity for you to expand your viewership and receive exposure. Your posts (if I like them) will appear here and on Curse. Simply drop me an email (look right) and we can work something out. I spend 2 - 4 hours a day blogging and I cannot sustain that kind of effort for the time being. Anyways, here’s Leiandra!

With Matticus being busy with finals, I volunteered to help him out with a post or two so that he could hopefully pass his classes :). Just a few, quick comment about me for those that don’t read my blog: My mage’s name is Leiandra, and I am a Guild Master for a raiding guild on the Bronzebeard - US server. I’ve been in guild leadership since I first starting playing MMO’s (only with the release of EQ2), and have been playing Wow for about 2.5 years now. I’ve been the GM of Primogeniture for about 2 months now, but have been part of the final decision making process for much, much longer.

The latest inspiration for this post comes from a recent person that I have been recruiting. Most of the Bronzebeard raiding guilds tend to start around 5 or 6pm server time. Our raid times start at 8:30, so we get a lot of people that want to join because of work shifts or just general night owls (vampires as one of my Raid Leaders calls them). This recent recruit registered for an account on our forums, but never filled out an app. He then contacted me in game to find our more about our guild. His work schedule had changed and he wouldn’t be able to raid with his current guild, hence the conversation he had with me. He sounded like he was interested, but told me he had to think about it. A few days later, he told me that he just wasn’t being fair to us, because he would only raid with us until his work schedule changed. I thanked him for his honesty, and we put each other on our friends’ lists in case we ever needed anything.

A few nights back, I needed another member for a 5-man run. He was online, and I asked him if he wanted to come. After a fairly successful run in which he did a great job, I was curious if he still maintained his loyalty to his guild. He told me that it was really only one raid leader that he was still loyal to, and that person was actually okay with him leaving. He filled out an application on our forums, and then again, decided that he wanted to stay with his guild.

Some people might consider this frequent changing of one’s mind quite annoying, but I completely understood. Sometimes people move on from the game. Sometimes people change guilds. The only thing that’s constant is that each guild will change. I think the successful guilds generally roll with those punches, adapt, and move on. But when is it right for you, the individual player, to move on?

To answer that question, it takes some deep introspection on the part of each individual. Questions like “Why do I play WoW?” should be addressed. What is most important to you? Is it important to be with friends? Is progression your big thing? Are you just in a guild that nobody is online when you are? Sometimes there’s drama or fights… that can happen to. Do you just want to play solo for awhile? How much are you going to regret leaving your guild, if at all?

When I first starting playing Wow, I did so to play with my best friend and his brother. The three of us started a guild because we were tired of random guild invites. The guild grew as RL friends and relatives joined us or transferred servers. We were never huge, but at our height, right before the expansion, we were getting in to Zul’Gurub. A lot of us also PUG’ed and participated in other guild raids in almost all of the dungeons (I think Naxx was the only one not on our lists). With the expansion, and me being a night owl, a few of us decided that we’d break off into a more structured raiding guild and have more than just one guild run per week. It was a difficult decision to leave my guild of friends. I knew a few of them would come with me, and hoped others would follow. We had all been together for so long that I knew I’d still talk to them often, and hopefully group with them regularly as well. Well, the grouping thing hasn’t happened as much as I had originally planned, but I still talk to most of them nightly. My priorities, at the time of our new guild, were based around progression and seeing new content. I have a whole list of new, online friends, and I enjoy being in the guild I am.

My priorities are aligned with where my toons are and the guild they are in. Sure, there are ups and downs. It’s not like I always get my way, even as GM, but I’m happy where I’m at. Are you? Is it time to move on? Is there something better on the horizon, but maybe you’re just too scared to make the change? Or are you exactly where you want to be with the people you want to be there with? I hope most of you can answer “yes” to that last question. It’s just a game. Have fun. Be happy.

So did you like what you read? Then head on over to Leiandra’s blog. While you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe to Leiandra’s RSS.