10 Reflections About 120 Days

Matticus, GM of Conquest, posted his reflections on the first 120 days of the guild.

Here's some things I'd like to add about the experience. If it feels like fanboi jibber jabber, well, maybe it is. Bottom line is that the guild has been able to deliver on what is stated in its charter, which is a decent way of measuring success as an organization.

And since I took the leap of faith to transfer servers and join the guild based largely upon how strongly I agree with the mission stated in the charter, I'd say its been a pretty big success for me, individually as well.

Lets take a look at some specifics from my experience so far:

1) Bringing Like-Minded People Together. The biggest thing I enjoy about the guild is that we all have a pretty similar approach to our shared hobby. I think the charter, plus the general tone and expectations from the Matticus blog, make it very clear to applicants what the atmosphere will be like in the guild. Many people would not enjoy it, which is perfectly fine and hopefully those players find an environment suitable to their tastes. The most toxic thing to any group is when members have dramatically different expectations, and Conquest does a very good job of providing an environment consistent with its charter.

2) Successful at Progression. Conquest members signed up to defeat content, and we have accomplished that at the T7 level and are well positioned to continue to do so in T8. We do not aim to be server- or world-first, but we do aim to progress steadily and efficiently in a reasonably limited number of hours per week. "Reasonably limited" by our definition, your definition may vary.

3) Minimal Drama. It is a funny thing to consider how much press the Wayne situation received in the blogosphere (player who geared up very very quickly and decided to stop playing until T8). That is perhaps the single example of "drama" in the first 120 days, if you even want to call it that. The team reacted seamlessly and continued progress.

4) Recovery from main tank hack. It is awful for a player to have his account stolen from him. I hope he's doing well IRL, because he is a good person and we miss him. On the flip side, it is awful for a guild to lose their main tank. It is a testament to the strength of the organization (and the new MT's versatility and skill) that we adapted very quickly to such a big loss.

5) Healthy Turnover. We lost only a single raider due to differences of opinion, and the situation was handled by the leaders, members, and the departing player in a very mature fashion, allowing the guild to continue progress and the player to leave with zero bad blood between us. Any other turnover in the raiding team has been reasonable and mutually agreeable.

6) Efficiency. We start on time. We end on time. We waste little in between. One of the biggest things I appreciate about the officers in Conquest, that I was never able to provide for my raiders in my old guild, is an outstanding ability to deliver on the schedule. We all benefit from the time efficiency of the raids. Can we improve further? No doubt, keep pushing those limits.

7) Staffing. Conquest does a good job of maintaining a proper sized raiding pool. To ensure you can handle turnover, hacks, sickness, real life, and at the same time also stick to the schedule, you need to have the right number of raiders. Too many and you've got unhappy bench warmers. Too few and you've got late starts and canceled raids. It is always a dynamic balancing act and the guild has handled it well.

8) Vibrant Forums. One side of the guild that the public does not get to see is the level of engagement the team has on the forums. Lots of conversation involving a wide player-base, ideas, critiques, strategies, and even social threads having nothing to do with WoW (Oh noes! You mean you guys are both friendly with each other AND able to constructively criticize raid performance/strategy at the same time? Inconceivable!)

9) Loot Council. This one is probably the most subjective, and each player's opinion is his/her own. IMO, it is working exactly as advertised. Whenever possible, loot is rewarded in a way that will provide benefit to the guild. Whether that means it goes to a toon that will get the biggest benefit, or to a toon who's player reliably shows up on time ready to rock, or to a toon that specializes into unique and weird roles for specific situations (Sarth+3, here's looking at you), there has been a very good distribution of loot, which is a testament in part to the LC, but more importantly to the type of players that are in the guild. More often than not, raiders actually work the loot out among themselves with no need for LC involvement, and when LC needs to decide the outcome has been generally effective.

10) Blunt Feedback. I wrote about the style of very direct feedback from the raid leadership. If you like sugar to coat your pills, you would not enjoy a progression night in our raid. However, if you have a thick skin and like examining and improving your own performance with the help of those around you, even if that means you need to accept responsibility for your action...nay...specifically when you need to accept responsibility for your action. It'll be blunt, but it'll usually be right, and if you think they're wrong for saying you messed up, you better have some hard data to back your claims, because our RL sure know how to interpret a combat log and he rarely misses something. But if you do have evidence to support your position, they're all ears.

All good?

I'm sure there's more positives to write about, but you're probably getting nauseous already. Along the way, there's of course been hickups.

There was the Wayne situation, which really only was important because it was the first bump we hit.

I've had small nitpicks with the LC along the way, some of which got written up for the public here, and some of which were addressed in private channels. End result is small tweaks leading to a stronger operation, rather than silent resentment leading to total collapse.

Having your main tank get hacked is traumatic, especially right in the middle of progress through Sarth 3D. That was a massive challenge, definitely slowed us down by at least a week on the encounter, but was handled well by the team.

I wrote about a leadership mandate (shoulders and helms getting polished) that was premature in my opinion. Good intent, less good timing. But that's just my opinion, others in the guild have commented to me that they appreciate the leadership pushing hard and pushing early.

Are there any other issues?

Bottom Line

There might be other challenges, mix-ups, fumbles or whatnot that Ive written about or thought about along the way.

But the important thing to take away is that I can't remember them or they're not lingering because they came up, they were dealth with, and they're gone now.

Real life, hacks, nerfs, patches, guild policies, who said what to whom or who got offended by what on vent, silly wipes, educational wipes, achievements, dead bosses, epeen, recruiting, you name it. Things come up in any group activity.

That to me is the true sign of a healthy organization, the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and continue on with the mission.

One Example of Guild Reputation

What follows is basically just a story of selling two titansteel cooldowns, with a little guild-ego stroking mixed in. If you find that boring, /shoo


Reputation is a tricky thing. It takes consistent behavior observed over a period of time to build a positive reputation, and a single bad event can crumble what takes months to build.

This holds true for individuals, families, small groups of people, and even large corporations.

Companies spend enormous energy trying to build up their reputation or brand value. Its brand value alone that lets Tylenol charge more for the exact same pill that your local pharmacy sells a generic version for dirt cheap.

A Business Deal

Although I enjoy reading about the economic practices of Goblins, I'm definitely not one myself.

I make my wow-gold by gathering while I'm out and about doing what ever it is that I'm doing. And "what ever it is that i'm doing" is often daily questing, which only further divides my activities from the efficient gold/hour numbers that Goblins are capable of.

However, even I recognize the value of a daily cooldown.

Smelt Titansteel

I should probably be using my Titansteel cooldowns to save up mats to boost my gf with an epic shadow priest mace.

But, I'll deal with that when I get to it, and I'm about 20 blacksmithing points away from needing to worry about that.

In the meantime, there's always somebody willing to pay good money for a cooldown.

One such fella barks on /trade, he and I arrange a get together at the Dalaran forge.

Badda bing, badda boom, he's got his steel, I've got my gold. Smell ya later.

But then a happy moment comes along.

Oh, cool, titanium

The uber gf was out and about doing whatever it is that girls that play wow like to do, and she's a miner, and came across a titanium node and mined it.

Go you!

Wait a tick? I thought titanium required 450 maxed mining. When did you ding that?

This morning

Ah, gratz. Wait another tick? Wanna make some gold? (digital pimpin', ftw)

My happy customer from just moments ago, as it would turn out, is interested in one more Titansteel.

So she scoots back to Dalaran, he trades over the mats.

Like a Bat out of Hell

And what he sees next is....the toon he just traded a hundred or so gold worth of mats with...she bolts like a bat out of hell out into Dalaran.

WTF? or at least that's probably what was going through his head as he trotted off to follow her.

You see, having just dinged 450 that morning, she hadn't trained to smelt titansteel yet. And in a brain fart, rather than just talk to the mining trainer right here, she decided to wander deeper into the city.

So I reassure him what she's up to, so please don't worry.

Respect

It was his answer that made the ape-subroutines ingrained in my genes smile....

I'm not worried, I respect your guild. I dont think she'd stiff me.

And she didn't. Two seconds later, she's trained up in steel, he's got his product, she's got her money. Smell ya later.

Sure, we're not talking about world-changing stuff like the brand value of Google or Nike, but the guild's reputation did keep things calm in a situation where the customer might have started crying "NINJA!!!"

Its all about respect, and it looks like we're doing something right.

Personal and Guild Quickies

Its been a few days since I sat down to write a post, and quite a bit has gone on in WoW. Lets take a look at some Guild and some Amava quickies:

*) Amava - Revered for a few more hours: Tuesday morning, I woke up with the plan to ding exalted with Sons of Hodir and Walrus Guys before heading out to work. Upon loading WoW, I discovered that they took the servers down 2 hours earlier than normal. Will have to wait for this evening. I'm 750 away from Hodirs (hallelujah) and 990 away from Walrus Guys, meaning I'll have to do a grand total of 4 quests to ding 'em both.

*) Guild - Faster and Harder: Conquest pushed the raid speed this week, clearing all 25-person content in 2 nights of three hours, including a progression kill of One Drake Up on Sartharion. Technically, Archavon went beyond our 3 hour limit, but Alliance didn't have control of Wintergrasp until 15 minutes after our scheduled end time.

*) Amava - Questing galore: Killed some time blowing through the last 40 quests in Howling Fjord. Lots of cash, a fair bit of rep dinged exalted with Valliance Expedition (???). Yay me.

*) Guild - Vacation: We're on vacation. No formal raids until 2009. We'll see who's logged in and maybe kill stuff anyways. We're getting used to filling in spare time since we're clearing the raids so fast. Two Drakes Up will probably have to wait till the new year.

*) Amava - Cooking: I've been checking Rokk in Shatt city pretty much every day. I've done all of his dailies a million times. But since they implemented achievements, I've not gotten Smurfberries. Finally he had Smurfberries for me. Nostalgic flight through Zangarmarsh, Hellfire, and Netherstorm. /cry

*) Guild - 10-person Naxx: During some off time, 10 of us went for it in Naxx. Cleared the joint in 3.5 hours. Although no alcohol was consumed, the more relaxed atmosphere felt a bit like the good old days of drunken kara. Did Four Horsemen with only 2 Healers, although we needed a third for Kel'Thuzad. I can haz new helmet, leaving only one melee wep (blue) and one trinket (green) as non-level-80-epic gear.

*) Amava - Amphitheater of Joy: Needed only 5 quests to ding off Zul'drak. Having no idea what the Amphitheater is about, I just took the quest and tried to solo it. Was actually going fine when 4 alliance guys jumped in to help. Made quick work of all 5 quests, and I totally love the sound fx of the audience and stuff. Good times.

*) Guild - Gear Per Capita: I have no idea how or where to confirm this, but a few guildies mentioned that some such data mining service is reporting Conquest as the best geared guild on the realm per capita. Does this mean that we just don't have many social members and alts? Or is the Loot Council truly doing a rock solid job of landing the right gear in the right hands? Discuss.

*) Amava - Winter Clothes: Me and the Uber GF went ahead and got some winter clothes, 3 pieces of red each. She tailored one piece for each of us, I bought one piece for each of us, and then we farmed. The Nexus, me and my gorilla at level 80, and her on her level 73 shadow priest (she's 75 now, w00t). Easily cleared almost all of Nexus, including a very NOT easy fight against the boss lady who drops the hat.

*) Guild - More with the Speed: A couple of us went into Heroic UK for the daily. Tried to see how fast we could go. 27 minutes.


I'm sure there's more, but its all that's coming to me right now. I feel a Performance Improvement Plan post coming.

When is the right time for change?

Immediately following our first Malygos-25 kill, the Officers made two separate but related announcements:

1. We've proven we have sufficient gear to clear all Heroic content currently available (except for improving for achievements, and doing Sartharion with more than zero drakes up). Loot Council will now push towards rewarding raider behavior over gearing up underperformers.


2. Shoulder Inscription and Head Arcanum will be inspected and are expected.

To summarize my initial reaction, a quote from the absolutely fabulous Mr. Wolf of Pulp Fiction fame...

Let's not start [blanking] each other's [blanks] just yet.

The content of the message is spot on. Addressing under-performance and rewarding attention to detail is the right thing for a raiding guild.

The timing of the message is premature. Fresh off of our first kill is not the time to alter our approach, strategy, or policy.

Not premature by too much, perhaps only 2 or 3 weeks, but untimely nonetheless.

The Right Message, The Wrong Time

Celebrating success is one thing. Becoming complacent is another thing. Resting on laurels is yet another.

Making changes to continue future success is the right move.

Sure, we cleared all available Heroic raid content in three nights, totaling roughly 7.5 hours of actual raiding. Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, Archavon, and Malygos. Good job by us!

That said, there is considerable room for improvement. We can do it faster. We can have fewer incidental deaths. We can eliminate the occasional wipe. We can hone our team cohesion in preparation for new raid content, whenever that gets released.

Improvement is good. But is a few hours following the first full clear it the right time to announce changes?

[disclaimer] Although its impossible to be 100% objective in these matters, the following analysis comes out of consideration for the overall raid, and not my own personal situation. Strangely enough, I think the new concepts actually have my toon come out a little better than before the announcements, so the position I present here is from the perspective of the Guild, not the raider formerly called Amava. [/disclaimer]

Let's Explore: Changing Loot Policy

So we now know that the raid has the collective stats to get the job done. At the 80,000 foot level, we could never get another loot drop again, and we'd continue to clear the dungeons. And through increased familiarity with the encounter and our teammates, we'd actually clear the dungeons faster and with fewer deaths, etc. Without a single piece of additional gear to the team.

Until new content is released, gear will only widen our margin for error, allowing sloppier play to result in the same number of boss kills.

That said, we all know that loot will continue to be important. Nobody is fully kitted out in "best-in-slot" gear. Only a few players even have a single "best-in-slot" item right now. Even if not "best-in-slot" there's tons of upgrades out there to be had.

Moving the looting policy towards rewarding raider behavior over leveling the gear playing field is premature. We need more time to determine what is causing a differential in the contributions of each individual player.

Confronting under-performance is tricky. Lets look at DPS only, because that's my comfort zone and its also relatively straight forward to measure.

• Are your numbers low because your gear is inadequate?


• Are your numbers low because you are slow at targeting (spam /assist [MA], ftw)?


• Are your numbers low because you remember how threat capped we were in TBC and so you throttle your output?


• Is your spec wacky?


• Are your glyphs good choices?


• Attack rotation sloppy with lots of wasted global cooldowns?


• Is your gear A+ but your enchants C-?


• Is your DPS low because you're dead 80% of the time?

On the flip side, maybe your DPS is high simply because you play a totally OP class/spec and you just drink beer and roll your face on the keyboard to top the meters? We don't know anybody like that, do we?

The players need a few more weeks of farming Naxx/OS/Archavon, and hopefully repeating the Malygos kill and then farming his @ss.

Let's Explore: Inscription and Arcanum

When improving your toon, there is a massive spectrum of details to consider. That's a big part of the first M in MMO.

Followers of this blog get an inside view to the improvement plan I've been following. Hopefully every level-capped toon has some sort of plan, regardless of how formal or how detailed. Might be as simple as "I like PVP, I want [item X], so I'll run 10 AV's for honor and 30 WSG's for marks to get it" or "I like fishing and want to get the Dalaran coins achievement", or might be like my plan, or maybe even more detailed and thorough. Takes all kinds.

For my plan, I've got a specific goal in mind (improve my DPS in a 25-person raid environment) and I've narrowed down the massive spectrum of options out there to a specific 5 steps that I focus on, and continuously update as my situation changes.

The items that make it to the short list are chosen based upon a variety of criteria: Benefit vs. Effort, Dependence on the Random Number Generator, Availability of Adequate Substitutes, etc.

The top five items provide the most efficient upgrades to my toon given the time I have to put in.

When leading a guild or raid, you want to have raiders who proactively and independently manage their own performance.

Do you want to micro manage?

Lets take a look at one item in my improvement plan....

Argent Crusade offers an outstanding Hunter DPS chest piece at Exalted. I have not been fortunate enough to get a chest piece out of any of our raids. So I wear the AC tabard in all Heroics I run, leaving me 1.5 heroic runs away from Exalted as of Sunday evening.

When the officers announced they are looking for Arcanum, its mentioned that a handful of Heroic 5-man dungeons serving as Champion for your Arcanum faction can get you to Revered.

True.

Again, as of Sunday evening, I am also 1.5 heroic runs away from Revered with Knights of the Ebon Blade who offer Arcanum of Torrent.

AC Chest offers me a bigger upgrade than the Arcanum.

To provide maximum improvement value to my toon and my raid, assuming I only have time for 2 heroics between now and when the Officers check raiders for the Arcanum, I will be wearing the Exalted chest, and still be sporting the Cenarion Expedition helm Arcanum.

So, in a black and white report spit out of some addon, I will have failed in the eyes of whoever is running the check.

Did I spend my time wisely in pursuing my personal improvement plan? Or should I halt my personal plan and pursue the Officers' plan which will result in less of a benefit to the raid given equal time put in?

As an aside, for me personally, it may be moot, because perhaps by thursday's raid, and definitely by saturday's, I will have both the chest and the arcanum, due to AC Heroics and Ebon Blade daily quests, but its the overall guild and not just me as an individual we're considering here. Additionally, I dinged Revered with Sons of Hodir this weekend, so am well on the way to getting the fully fancy Shoulder Inscription.

Bottom Line

When is the right time for change?

I'm a big fan of tweaking things when you're on top, and not wait for things to degrade before implementing new policies.

But there is more to consider than simply a first boss kill or a specific micro-managed gear enhancement viewed in a vacuum without looking at an entire toon.

Calling all Guildies

alternate title: I can haz traffic

Here I am, checking my email this morning, and along comes the weekly site traffic report.

Seems there's a massive, huge, ginormous spike in traffic this week.

And by massive, huge, ginormous, I mean a couple extra hits. Not like we're talking about BRK's traffic report. Nah, over here, a handful of additional visitors causes a statistical anomaly.

No particular referrer seems to account for the spike, 'cept for Google.

Me thinks its half the guild checking in after the long-standing cone of silence gag order was lifted by a guildie during a raid the other day.

So, all you Kishians (Kishites? Kishiards? Citizens of Kaisei?), welcome aboard. Hope you like the stories, and if you don't, suck it feel free to drop some comments.

Drama = fun, so flame away!

Respect - revisited

In the past month or so, my Guild's DPS is getting better and better. Amava's proper spot at the top of the damage meter is no longer guaranteed. Still there sometimes, but there's some rogues, a warlock, a mage, and the horror, a couple hunters that're all landing at the top from time to time.

Que spiteful reaction called "delete toon".

Luckily, before I follow through and delete my toon, as the Raid Leader, I get to give out assignments, so don't be surprised if you find yourself clicking cubes, banishing abyssals, tanking Krosh, or going without any shammy in your party on the raid following a time when you top the queen. lol. My spite might even go so far as to instruct the paladins to not bless you :-)

Not one to be discouraged easily, I need to find a new avenue through which to inflate my fragile ego.

Without any real conscious effort, I've found myself turning more and more to Guild pride. You've read my recent Respect and Dedication posts. If you go through the past month or so of posts, excluding the occasional rant about void reaver positioning, the general tone is one of pride in the guild, our success, and so on and so forth.

So, lets take a look at the most recent taste of that slice of pie.

There's a well known Holy Priest on the server. We were looking for one more healer. Somebody said that the guy was available to raid. 10 different people in the raid confirmed something along the lines of "he's awesome, lets get him". So the guy's got a great reputation as both a player and a person. I actually had him on my friends list from a run through Scholomance nearly a year ago.

He chooses to not be a regular raider with his guild, and rather prefers to raid PuG style. He's seen nearly every boss fight up to early Black Temple, but being a PuG'er, he's geared similarly to us, T4 with a dabbling of T5, plus badges and the like.

Yadda yadda yadda. Well respected player. Has seen just about every kind of raid group there is to be seen on our server.

Midway through the raid, the normally silent guy begins to whisper me, singing the praises of the team.

He said he's never seen a group that listens and follows instruction this well.

He's never seen a raid where a player can make a colossal mistake, such as running directly at Gruul while setting up and explaining the fight, wiping the team before we even started up, and get a response of "you're a silly goose" from the raid leader and no complaints from the team. Just run back in and kill the boss.

He's never seen a raid where the RL gives an overview of a boss fight for new folks in clear, concise language. He's either seen a leader go on for 30 minutes on farm content telling each player a detailed list of exactly what buttons they are to press at exactly what time, or he's seen a leader just sort of gloss over assignments and just sort of run in there.

So there you go. The latest installment of Guild Pride Week at Amava Knows Aggro.

And, since its my blog and my fragile ego, I'll interpret things how I want to and take full credit for all the things he liked about raiding with us. So there! You can beat me at WWS, but can you beat me at finding things with which to thump your own chest?

NOTE: ok, fine, so I'll share credit with the awesome group of officers and guildies that make up the raid. But what fun is that to write about? Way more fun to be the spotlight-hogging prima donna that I wish I actually was.

Dedication

So it would seem that I'm using blog titles based off of those silly inspirational posters you see all over the walls of corporations across the country. Fun fun.

Let me paint a picture here for you.

Late January 2008.

My guild, made up of a bunch of late comers to WoW, starts venturing into Karazhan.

One of the members of this green bunch of folks was a rogue.

Slowly but surely, we pushed our way through lower and then upper kara.

Eventually, it was time to form another 10-person team and raid side by side.

The guild was massively heavy on DPS, specifically rogues and hunters.

Our rogue friend happens to also have a paladin. He offers to run with the new kara team on his pally, even though he's a big fan of raiding on his rogue.

Since then, the chance to raid with his rogue has been limited. He's been a strong member of that team, bringing leadership, experience of the boss fights, and personal skill with his toon.

As we progressed into 25-person content, he expressed his wishes to run with his rogue I try as hard as I can to fill that tanking spot so he can wear rouge, but most often I've had to ask him to pop over to the pally, which he does without ever complaining.

As we progress as a guild and build up a strong reputation on our server, we've brought on board a few new high quality tanks. This has allowed our friend to raid on his rogue some more, which is nice, although he makes Amava have to push those cooldowns a little bit harder to stay on top of the one and only thing that matters in raiding, namely winning at WWS. lol.

Fast fastforward even further through a couple of 25-person boss progression kills, and you've got our friend raiding on a mix of paladin and rogue.

Ends up watching lots of his guildies get the Champion of the Naaru title, while he's got two toons, each half attuned.

Close, but no cigar. Here you have a team member showing his dedication to the Guild, and enabling us to succeed with raiding. But he's not getting rewarded on par with that dedication.

So last night was his night to shine.

Group up for a sweep through Gruul's Lair. Bring your Paladin, because the more tanks the merrier with HKM.

Spend an hour waltzing with Gruul and company.

Ding.

Swap out the Paladin for his Rogue.

Fly over to Magtheridon to give him a stern talking to.

Ding.

End result for the evening...roughly 14 epic lewtz distributed to the team, lots of Champion of the Na'aru titles bestowed.

And best of all, our friend gets not one, but two toons awarded the title in the same night. And his Pally got a cool sword to boot.

Pretty cool way to celebrate dedication to the team.

But, his Rogue did just barely beat Cube-Clicking-Amava at WWS for the Magtheridon fight, so next time, I think I know who is gonna get magically assigned to clickery. Its good to be the king :-)

Respect

I wasn't sure if I was going to write this one or not. In my head, it started tending towards ePeen-ery. But sitting in an airport gets pretty boring once, before you take off, you finish the book that you planned to read on the airplane.

Respect.

For the Guild.

I'm not sure what happened, but over the last several weeks, it feels like the reputation of my guild, Kishi Kaisei, has exploded.

In a good way.

Everywhere we go, the guild is getting noticed.

Stand at the summoning stone for just about any dungeon or raid in Outlands, and there's people congratulating us on our recent progress, and saying how they've heard that Kishi is pretty cool place to be.

Buying some food for Condoleezza in Lower City, and the guy next to me sends his gratz, referencing a specific recent boss kill.

And here's my personal favorite, what with my being an ego maniac and all.

PuG a run in Mana-Tombs for some LC rep.

The leader invites in the fifth player. I've never met the person, and his guild isn't one that I work with.

Shortly after joining the group, he's all...


"You're Amava? Raid Leader for Kishi?"

Yep

"I've heard about you. It's a pleasure to be running with you."

Thx. and stand up, boy, I'm not the Pope.


It was just a strange feeling.

Made me pretty proud of the team. We've been working really hard to keep some momentum to our raids through out the summer. And now that school started back up, even more issues getting players. And with the patch on the horizon, even harder.

But we've been getting the runs together. And been pushing through the bosses.

I bust my ass to try to keep the environment fun but focused. Find the right players. Not waste too much of everybody's time. Never make anybody feel bad for messing up. And at the same time, not let over-underperformance slip too far.

It is nice to get some feedback that its actually working.

And then it got me to thinking a little bit about the progress the team has made lately.

In the WoW community, it feels like you get two schools of thought...

Hardcore: If you're not in Black Temple or Sunwell, you're a scrub.

Casual: Another Kara canceled, maybe we'll kill Maiden next week.


But there's a middle ground of guilds who have made it through Kara but not all the way to end end game.

And for us in the middle, its hard damn work. And we're pretty damn proud of doing a good job with it.

If the response we've gotten from the community on our server is any indication, it would seem that there's a lot of players who don't quite fit into either of the extreme categories, and they respect the accomplishments of guilds, members, and leaders who can get the job done.

But, we're not in Sunwell, and I don't have a bear mount, so I must be a scrub ;-)

Tough Decisions

As an officer in a raiding guild, and as a raid leader, you sometimes have to make tough decisions. Specifically related to "who is in and who is out" of any given raid. Blizzard tells us we can only play with 10 or 25 people, and therefore, we are forced to choose.

Living in a casual guild, its not been too bad. We raid 3 nights a week, we have no attendance requirement. Up until recently, we had trouble filling in a 25-person raid. The hardest decisions have been which players to invite from out of guild to fill in missing slots. Sometimes, when faced with 7 Hunters online and wanting to raid, I've had to force myself to say NO and ask a player or two to sit out. That's about it.

But success begets recruits.

There's aparently a large void on our server of guilds progressing through early 25-person raids. And there is a massive demand for players to get in there before Wrath or the pre-Wrath raid-killing patch.

Our recent progression over the past 2 months has brought with it a giant spike in potential new recruits.

And with that, comes the tough decisions.

It starts with who to accept into the guild, and who will not receive an invite. Especially "fun" when a potential excellent fit says that they'll only join if their friends (who, by the by, happen to play Hunter, Hunter, Rogue, and Hunter) are allowed in also. Actually, those guys make the decision easy, but I digress.

We've reached the point that I might actually have to ask several players to sit out for wednesday's Void Reaver fight. We've reached the point that if all our tanks show up, I'll have to ask two or three to sit, depending on what bosses we'll be pushing towards.

Strange feeling.

Then there's Zul'Aman.

The Officers discussed the issue, and there's two things regarding ZA for the guild. The first is that there are many players who have never done ZA and want to get in there, and secondly, those who have been doing ZA for a while (while the other players were still doing Kara) want to try for the Bear Mount.

So the tough decisions.

If a Bear Mount is going to be a reality, we have to form the A Team. We need two sturdy, situationally aware tanks, one who is good single-target and one who is good AoE (think Warrior & Paladin). We need two healers with brass balls, one good at single-target healing and one good at multi-target healing. We need 6 DPS who can lay the smack down. Anybody farting out 500 dps is gonna have to take a seat. Those DPS'ers need to include at least 2 solid AoE, and all need to have good situational awareness.

I go through the list, and I see 14 players in the Guild who I think would fit those requirements. I can only take 10.

Uggy.

Factor in the fact that we want to do ZA on mondays, so now we're down to 13 candidates.

Factor in the fact that one player's cat mistook his computer case for a litter box, and is pretty much out of commission, and we're down to 12.

So now I've got to tell two of my best raiders that they can't play with the A Team. And, we need them to provide their leadership and personal performance to help the other ZA team be a success.

Tough thing to ask.

Add in the fact that we've probably only got 4 or 5 weeks until the pre-Wrath patch comes out and more or less puts the kaibash on raiding.

And the fact that the only time we killed Halazzi was when we had the server's best geared tank visiting with us.

And the fact that we've only accomplished the first two timed events so far.

Tough Decisions. Tough Road Ahead.

The bear mount looks pretty cool though.

Its our JOB to make Command Decisions

Sure has been quiet over here. What's the deal?

Maybe burnout.

Maybe spite.

Maybe summertime.

Maybe pressures of trying to help run a guild.

Maybe annoyances with impatient people.

Maybe jaded feeling from a few recent ship jumpers.

Maybe hatred for Blizzard's Arena queuing mechanism which still has me facing Hands of Adal and Challenger/Rival teams, 6 weeks into Season 4, rated at 1450.

Probably all of those.

I think summer and pre-expansion blues has hit my guild square in the nuts.

We've been raiding 10-man content since January 2008.

We just started raiding 25-man content a month ago.

Some people are adamant about getting their last piece or two from Kara.

Some people rather not visit Kara anymore.

Some people have been farming early ZA for months, and are itching to push further. This would require consolidating more of the Guild's talent onto that ZA progression team. Doing so would leave the remaining players without most of the leadership that keeps the raid together, so we haven't made that difficult decision yet.

Some people are still playing for gear. Gear that has a guaranteed shelf life of no longer than November 2008.

Some people are playing for content. Content that will be rendered obsolete in a few months, nothing more than a passing fancy to be visited by 15 level 80's sometime in mid 2009.

A week ago, we had the best-ever guild turnout of 23 raiders. We had a tough time in Gruul's Lair, but stuck together, tried some different strats tailored to the specific people in attendance. We got the job done and killed Gruul, starting only 15 minutes late, but ending 30 minutes past bedtime.

A week later, Magtheridon on the schedule, only 16 people show up. Combination of vacations, active military duty, ship jumping, new girlfriends who don't let their boys raid (lol, not mine, she's uber. And her Orc shammy is gettin pretty bad@ss), and I think that's it. So no raid. Amava went and grinded some Kuranei rep.

The night following the canceled Maggy, only enough show for a single 10-man upper Kara run. So Amava went and grinded some Consortium rep.

Sorta feels like we're a bit too late in the WoW lifecycle to make a serious push at 25'ers.

Seeing BRK's Aetherial Circle posting that even well established 25-person team is struggling, well, gives me minimal hope for our brandy-@ss new raid.

For the foreseeable future, I think my heart is in Zul'Aman, and I only hope I can convince the officers and members that consolidating talent into a progression team is the right thing to do, and is not meant to be elitist or arrogant or sticking with a clique.

Professional Hockey teams have four lines of offense. Only one group of three players gets to be on the starting line. Only a few players get picked to work on the power play, or to play shorthanded. The coach, with the help of his assistant coaches and team captain, is responsible for making that decision. The guys who don't get selected for the first line sometimes get upset at the choice, but in the end, they realize that on any line, they have an important role to play for the team. And if they truly desire a position on the starting team, they bust their tails during practice, watching game films, studying their opponents, working out between seasons, enchanting their gear lol.

When picking DPS for upper Zul'Aman, difficult choices have to be made. If half your team is only outputting 600 DPS on Nalorakk, Halazzi is simply not an option.

I guess I'm just ho hum at the concept of farming kara, farming early ZA, all the while, seeing that there's suitable talent in the guild to push further if the other officers would just agree that its OK for us to make the command decision to consolidate the highest performers and kill some progression bosses.

Nay, its not OK. Its our JOB to make command decisions.

How not to impress your new Officers

Strange Tidbit of the Day: you are rarely more than 6 feet away from a spider.


Guild trying to get 2 kara runs off the ground on a wednesday night. After some swapping and shuffling, one solid team is formed.

The other team is left looking for 1 more player.

Cant find anybody. Not in the guild, not on friend's lists, not on /who, not on LFM.

So we resort to General spam in Shatt City.

First response..."tell me the names of each player in the raid or i'm not joining".

Buh bye.

Second response...level 67.

Yeah, why dont you give me your business card and i'll have my people call your people.

Third response..."let me check with my guild.......sorry, i'm not allowed"

Uggy.

New member of the guild, joined a few days ago, logs in. 20 minutes after raid start time.

Better late than never, i suppose, lets go.

Everybody enable in-game voice chat, so I can explain the plan for the night, namely "Dragons Dragons Dragons", tonight's Nightbane and Netherspite night.

Looking at the little chat interface, i see the guy's got no voice enabled.

Says he has no sound card. Also, never been to Kara before.

Sorry, guild policy, gotta have in-game voice capability to listen to instructions. Also guild policy to meet minimum gear requirements for Kara. We can overlook the gear, since the other 9 can carry the load, but the speakers, we really can't do that on a progression night against Netherspite.

New Guy explodes. Totally snaps and begins whisper fight with the GM. On and on about how he might as well leave. KK, don't let the door hit you in the @ss. Three days in a new guild and you snap on your GM over a raid spot? Meh.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that that's probably not the best way to make a good impression and make your Officers want to invite you to future raids.

Sadly, no T1 run, no shot at Netherspite. T2 cleared through Shade, positioning themselves for the Guild First Netherspite downing.

Maybe I should put a 25-man run on the schedule for Monday to sabotage their efforts.

Muwhahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

A Hexed Toon

Guildies say the darnedest things.

I like to use the blog as a platform from which I can share the joys, the sorrows, the successes, the failures, the ins and outs of my WoW experience. Along the way, I cover some of the challenges that a guild faces as it transitions through all the many phases of progression. Some of it may come out as "dirty laundry" type stuff, but hopefully I maintain a constructive tone, intended to help others, or sometimes stray to vent my own frustrations, rarely calling any individual person out, and definitely not by name.

As an Officer, I have many conversations and situations that arise that never hit the press. Sometimes its sticky drama that's in progress, and therefore, I'll hold back until events unfold. Other times its just the mundane day-to-day stuff that comes from trying to organize 40 or so people towards a common goal. Still other times, its so personally insulting to someone involved in the situation that its just better left unsaid. While I reserve the right to blog about wtf ever I want to, I do want my fellow guildies to feel free that I'll respect their confidentiality if it truly is a sensitive issue.

But this one simply baffled me.

Shortly before a recent raid, I get a tell from a Guild member, asking for a moment to talk on voice in private.

Sure, what's up?

We party up and get on voice chat. Being a sharp cookie, I determine from the first word that this member is upset. Extremely upset.

Doing my best to not escalate the level of adrenaline, I try finding out what the problem is.

Slowly but surely, I determine that the problem is related to gear.

Still trying to calm the member down, I find out its also about our Gruul's raid.

Ok, I find myself becoming intrigued, because I really want to know the issue, but am having a tough time following the story.

The difficulty in communication appears to be only blurred due to anger and being really riled up, and although you can't be sure over voice-only communication channels, I have no reason to believe the person was drunk or high or some such, although the level of agitation would easily be explained by intoxication.

I'm pretty sure it was the anger.

This goes on for ten minutes or so, and raid time is ticking closer and closer, with the team really getting antsy to get the big gun invited, so I ask the person to summarize, because I'm having a tough time following.

My character is hexed. I will not be raiding Gruuls anymore!!!

Hexed? You don't say? Please do elaborate.

Ever since level 1, this toon is hexed and cannot roll higher than a 20

Now I'm getting a picture. Seems the player is upset because we distribute loot on a /roll basis, and if you truly and thoroughly believe that your toon is unable to roll higher than 20, your opportunities for gear are statistically limited.

I put on my computer systems diagnostic troubleshooting hat.

Do you have any alts with the problem?

No, I roll 90's and 100's on my alts all the time. This guy cant roll over 20.

Hmmmm. I'm puzzled. Maybe you can open a ticket with Blizzard, because if what you say is true, and there is really a hex on your toon, that would be pretty unfair, and maybe they can patch it or fix it or what ever you do to remove a hex.

I did that, back in my 60's. They said the roller isnt hexed.

ZOMG, I simply must get my hands on that ticket. I'd give anything to see that ticket and be in the room at Blizz when it got processed.

I explain that I definitely understand the frustration that comes with the feeling that one is limited to rolling 20 or less. The Officers have batted around the possibility of exploring DKP or other non-roll loot distribution systems, but have no plans to implement one in the immediate future. We love having you on the team, your contributions as a player and as a friend are without question. I'd hate to lose you due to some hexed dice. If you stick with us, I can promise you that we will continue to progress through the dungeons together, hopefully pushing through Magtheridon, as well as sizable chunks of SSC and TK before the expansion comes out, and you have a solid position on that team. What I cannot promise you, is any loot, other than what our Guild-wide loot policy allows.

I tell ya. I was flabbergasted.

At this point, the member seemed very much calmed down, and listening constructively, so we left off that he and I will monitor the situation for the next couple of weeks, and touch base to see how things have gone.

We shall see what the future has in store for the hexed /roll'er.

And to the guildie in question, If you're reading this, please don't think I'm making fun. I really and truly empathize with your frustration. You feel that your access to loot is less than your peers. That cannot feel good. I'm going to need your help figuring out how we can remove the hex and get your access to loot on equal footing with the rest of the Guild.

The Race to 13

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that most raiders have some competitive side to their personality.

Its what drives us to keep pushing through those wipes, its what keeps us hitting BG's for that next piece of gear, its what makes us curse the Tiki God of Pseudo Random Numbers, its what makes us install Damage Meters.

Taken to extreme, competition can become unhealthy and cause destructive behaviors (aka, pulling aggro in an effort to do max damage and be on top of damage meter).

In moderation, however, it can be a powerful motivator.

The Officers, made up of people from both Team 1 and Team 2, met before Monday's raid for a normal weekly meeting. During the meeting, the topic of WoW Jutsu came up. Since I got our guild added to the scan, and since we nailed Gruul, we've been using the rankings as a motivator to progress. Most notably becuase we've got lots of friends in the guilds that are ranked near us.

Sure, we're not at world first, realm first, or anything remarkable to your casual outsider. But for us, this is the cutting edge of our progression, and we take it seriously.

There is a gaping hole in our Karazhan progress. We never killed Netherspite. In fact, Team 1 only ever faced him once. So Jutsu reports us as 12/13 Kara, while all our rival guilds are 13/13.

To remedy this, along with our general Kara problem of trying to make sure people still get Rep, Gear, and Quest runs in, we came up with the idea that Team 1 will keep running Kara on wednesdays until we kill Netherspite.

So we leave the Officer's meeting and head off to our respective raids. T1 to Zul'Aman, and T2 to second half of Karazhan.

A little while later, Guild chat becomes ablaze with T2's announcement that they just One Shot Nightbane for their first time ever, and their sights are set on Netherspite.

Well, that was an eye opener for T1, to say the least. Even to this day, we struggle on Nightbane, usually killing him but rarely one shotting him. Good job by T2.

As the night went on, they didn't get Spitey down, but they did do pretty well.

So now its on. Its sooo on.

As a member of Team 1, I sure want to be part of that first Netherspite kill, but, I think the members of Team 2 really deserve it. There's no freebies around here though; they're gonna have to work for it if they want that progression kill first.

A little friendly competition to see how fast we can get the Guild to 13/13 in Karazhan.

Pondering Kara

We're at that strange place in a Guild's progression.

You've been running 10-person raids for months. One team is basically done with Kara, the other is still needing lots of gear from there.

You've got 1 night of 25-person raiding going. Gruul getting better and better each week.

Time to add Magtheridon into the mix.

Ultimately, you want Gruul and Maggy in a single night, maybe 2 hours long. But not yet. For now, Gruul is 1 quick night, and Maggy should be given a nice solid block of a couple hours of undivided attention.

The first step is to redo our Karazhan teams.

We've got to get the folks who still feel they need Kara gear into a run that clears all the bosses they need in a single night.

Unfortunately, that is roughly 15 players across the guild. Which means we'll need to mix in an extra 5 players who really dont need anything from kara, but they'll run to help the team out, and also to get badges.

BUT, that then limits Zul'Aman runs, because we need some of the 20 kara-bound players for that raid.

Bottom line, we'll either need to put ZA on hold, or we'll need to tell some players that they have enough Kara gear to move on. Sure, they don't have every piece of gear they want from in there, but, clearly, the team is capable of moving forward, so not everybody will have every piece before we retire a dungeon.

How do your guilds make these decisions? When is it time to move on and leave a dungeon behind?

Have Loot, Will Travel

I'll start off with a lil scenario, that maybe serves as an analogy to some current on-goings...

/begin imagination

Imagine you work in a technical field. In most technical fields, they have certifications. Officially recognized industry organizations set the standard baseline of skills and knowledge for any specific area of subject matter. Screening for the certification is typically in the form of a multiple-choice test. If you want the certification, you pay a monetary fee, take the test, and when you pass, you now have a new title on your resume. It is not uncommon for an employer to pay the fee for an employee to take certification exams, or even pay for training that will prepare an employee in the subject matter.

Companies are happy to pay for the training and certification process. The company benefits from having a more proficient workforce, and the employee benefits from having additional skills, and the pride that comes with achievement.

One thing you'll often see in technical workplaces is that shortly after a person gets a new certification, they generally look for a new job, maybe with their current employer or not. If the career move is internal to the firm that paid for the training and examination, then it is regarded as a win-win situation for both parties. If the employee leaves to go work for another company, their former employer tends to feel used.

/end imagination

So, this isn't a Java blog, its a WoW blog. So what's the point?

Well, in WoW, we don't have an officially recognized industry organization that sets the standard for skills and knowledge, but we do have the Armory. Armory establishes the baseline of your stats and also specifies bosses that your toon is guaranteed to have killed.

Also in WoW, we don't have companies that pay for training to prepare an employee in subject matter. We have guilds. Guilds that accept "uncertified" players, who's Armory stats are in need of help. Guilds help their players "train", via Heroics, helping farm mats for craftables or enchants, and raids.

Players take certification exams when they fight bosses that drop Tier pieces. Tier pieces become soulbound to your toon, you log out, and instantly, the Armory bestows upon you a new level of certification.

And, on either side of the analogy, its not uncommon for people with new titles, or new T4 sets, to go looking for new employers, or guilds.

I just never expected it to happen so fast.

How's this for a timeline:

Invite Player to Guild

Run Player Through Heroics

Run Player Through Karazhan

Progress with Player Through Early Zul'Aman

Progress with Player Through Gruul's Lair

Elapsed Time: 3 Months

Kill Gruul.

Reward T4 Loot.

Receive Whisper "we gotta talk, im out"

Player /gquits

Player is Member of #2 Guild on Server

Elapsed time: 18 Hours

Whether it happens in the workplace or in WoW, it leaves the people who helped train you, gear you up, with a sour taste in their mouth.

In the end, you gotta do what you gotta do, I let go of my spite, I wish you the best of luck, and focus my efforts on gearing up your replacement.

Visitors and Respect

When you visit the house of a friend of a friend, how do you behave? I'm willing to bet that you don't tell the Mrs. how to cook her roast, insult their couch and drapes that don't match, and kick their dog.

So why do people join another Guild's raid and yap all night long about everything you're doing wrong?

If you're such a tasty morsel, why aren't you already locked into this dungeon with your own guild?

In our two nights of 25-person action so far, we've been able to field between 20-22 raiders from our Guild. The first night, we allied with another guild, and they happily provided sufficient players to round out our raid. Our second night, that other guild actually only had a single member online that we knew of, so we had to fill in a few slots off of friends lists.

And one of the players told the Mrs what he thought was the best seasoning for a roast, shared the fact that our neither our couch nor our drapes follow any sort of conventional wisdom of interior decorating, and our dog ran off whimpering.

Its strange, because, quite frankly, he was right about the roast. It's been dry and tasteless, but none of us knew of a better way to cook it up. The couch does look silly, but that butt groove I've worn into it is just too damn comfy. But the dog? Come on, there's no need for the kick.

It was more in the delivery of criticism or ideas. Maybe too blunt, maybe too much of an edge of arrogance.

Some decent ideas that I incorporated into our strategy.

Some decent ideas that I did not incorporate, and provided reasons why the ideas wouldn't fit with team.

Some marginal ideas that I did not incorporate.

Decent personal performance in his role in the raid.

It was the way he shared his ideas, just rubbed the team wrong. When a guest in someone else's house, you should feel free to speak your thoughts, but a respectful tone is a Good Thing.

Overall, I'm happy he was part of the raid, due to the few good ideas we did incorporate and his own personal performance.

But, please, for your own good, and the enjoyment of all those around you, pretty please, with sugar on top, work on your delivery.

On Becoming a 25-person Raid Leader

The Guild ran our first real attempt at 25-person content this Sunday. Prior to the raid, the other Officers asked me to serve in the role of Raid Leader. I normally serve as an Assistant Raid Leader, mostly helping out with boss fight planning and strategy. The change was intended to off-load some of the weight from the Guild Master who is our 10-person Raid Leader, and allow him to focus on personnel issues during the event.

Hearing this news and then leading the raid for the next few hours left me with a variety of feelings and emotions that I'd like to share with you here. Hopefully these reflections will be useful to anybody aspiring to be a Raid Leader or anybody participating in a raid with a new Raid Leader at the helm. Or maybe I'm just setting myself up for you veteran raid leaders to say "L2Lead noob".

This post is long, but I truly think there is a big need in the community to improve the 10->25 person transition, even with WotLK allowing you to raid everything with 10 people. Here's a table of contents if you'd like to skip some sections:

• My Initial Reaction


• Assembling the Team


• Party Organization


• Pep Talk


• Delegation of Leadership


• Strategy and Planning


• Execution


• Looting


• Overall Atmosphere


• Conclusion

My Initial Reaction

Log in. Insta-invite from the GM. Other officers already in party. They tell me that they'd like me to be RL. They explain that the move is to divide the responsibility of managing the raid and managing the various personnel issues that might crop up along the way.

This immediately filled me with mixed emotions. I completely understand the importance of dividing up the leadership role. The burdens placed upon the leader can be immense, and trying to shoulder it all alone is too much. The move from Assistant Raid Leader to Raid Leader, and the move from 10-person to 25-person environment became overwhelming. All of a sudden, I went from "Guy who chimes in on boss strategy, pace setting and wipe analysis" to "Guy in the driver's seat with the entire Guild depending upon his leadership". I was scared.

At the same time, I was flattered by the decision. I do know that in pressure situations, I can have a strong command presence, and it felt nice to have built up that level of respect with my friends. I wanted to live up to that respect and make sure I balanced between knowing when to listen to others for input and ideas, and when to take action.

Assembling the Team

Still nervous as all h3ll at my new role, I started sending out invites. I ended up making a chart on a piece of paper where I laid out lines for the WoW Wiki recommendation of 5 tanks, 7 healers, and 13 DPS. Starting off with the Group Calendar sign-up sheet, I began inviting and writing names down.

It became immediately clear that we had 6 Hunters sign up. Only one Mage and one Warlock. I like to have redundancy in roles, and the High King Maulgar fight has very specific requirements for a Warlock's enslavement/banishing abilities, and a Mage's spell steal ability. We had one of each and I wanted more redundancy in case of emergency.

We had one player who has a well geared Rogue and a Paladin, with both a solid Healing and Tanking set of gear. His preference was to play his Rogue. I approached him about using his Pally, in either healing or tanking, which ever he wanted. I hugely appreciated how accomodating he was in switching over to his other toon. That definitely helped the raid get moving.

I was reluctant to roll with 6 Hunters. That is too much concentration in one class, so I discussed with the officers. We decided to go with 5 Hunters, and we would arbitrate the outcome via a random roll. I was not participating in the roll since I was needed as RL. Another Hunter was not particiating in the roll because he is the Expose Weakness Hunter, and his utility to the raid is vital. It was akward trying to explain this to the group, that they would have to roll to see who is out, while I myself would not be rolling. I tried to lay it out as diplomatically as I could, but truely felt like garbage at asking the lowest roller to drop out.

Luckily, the person who lost the roll stayed online, and 30 minutes later we were unable to find sufficient other DPS so we opened the door back up for 6 Hunters and gave him a new invite. I have great admiration for the fact that he didn't become sour and log off or get angry earlier. I know that must not have been easy to do, so I'm impressed and very thankful.

I started assembling the team 20 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. We spent the next hour getting the right combination of players. This was very stressful, as I was bouncing back and forth between my Armory computer and my WoW computer, trying to maintain a positive atmosphere and hoped that nobody would become impatient at the waiting game.

Ultimately, we decided to roll with 24 players as it was approaching an hour past our start time.

Party Organization

Once we decided to begin, my first challenge was organizing the parties inside the raid. I have zero experience with a party this large, however I have helped our 10-man RL with party composition before.

Having no idea where to start, I just went with my gut.

First, a tank party. I want the tanks to get Tree of Life buff from Druid healers. We have 5 tanks and 2 Druid healers, so one party with 4 tanks and a Tree, and the beginning of another party with 1 tank and the other Tree.

Next up was healing. I wanted the Shadow Priest to be in a party with 4 healers for mana battery purposes, so I created a group for that. I also made sure the Holy Paladin was part of this group so his Concentration Aura would buff the healers.

Very heavy on physical DPS, specifically Hunters, I then went about creating DPS parties.

I know Trueshot Aura does not stack, so I separated the 3 Marksmen. One went to the party with the Druid tank to allow for extra threat generation from Trueshot Aura's increased attck power. I split up the Beast Masters into the two physical DPS parties. I decided to put the Rogues in with 1 BM and 1 Marksman. Then I took the remaining DPS and spread them out as evenly as possible.

Additionally, I tried to converge all Leatherworkers in with the maximum DPS output players to maximize the benefits of the Drums of Battle. I considered putting some in with the Healer group for Spell Haste on heals, but ended up going the DPS route. And we only had 3 drummers, so it wasn't all that hard to decide.

Pep Talk

I kept the dungeon on Heroic to keep people outside. I wanted folks to listen up to what the Officers and I had to say before we started. Not sure if it was a good idea or not, but I was running on instinct at this point.

I gave a brief pep talk.

First, I thanked everyone for coming out and shared some of my exitement with the group.

I tried to set the expectation that while we are striving for some dead bosses, we are so new to this that we might only walk away with a big repair bill and lots of expended consumables. This is exploratory work for us, and that requires patience and gold.

I shared that this is my first job as a Raid Leader and also in a 25-person raid, so I asked folks to be patient as I learned my job.

I reviewed the looting policy.

Finally, I said that Damage Meters were not to be reported out to the Raid, and it is also inappropriate to ask that DM data be reported out. The Guild's official analysis tool is WWS and the report will be made available shortly after the run. Damage Meter reviews during the raid lead to unhealthy competition and aggro-pulling. Careful analysis after the fact via WWS helps us improve.

I wished everybody good luck and opened the door.

Delegation of Leadership

Our guild is fortunate to have an excellent group of Officers.

To help reduce my stress during the raid, and to leverage the expertise of our leaders, I delegated duties to the others.

The GM was handling personnel duties, and I also assigned him as Loot Master.

Our tanking officer assigned all Tanking assignments during the evening, and our healing officer gave out the Healing responsibilities.

The remaining Officer was hugely helpful on morale and fight planning.

My only issue was that I felt I stepped on the Tank's toes too much. I talked to him afterwards and he says it was fine, but I plan to improve how I get out of his way and allow him to run the Tanks.

All in all, it was a fantastic job by the full Officer Corps, the team could not have done such a good job without the contribution of each of the Officers.

Strategy and Planning

This was overwhelming. We easy peasy cleared the 3 trash guys before HKM. Now wtf will we do? Everybody is looking to me for the strategy. I have no idea if it showed through my voice, but I was trembling, requiring a great deal of concentration to remain calm and prevent myself from freezing up under the pressure.

I had read the WoW Wiki page which is decent, but leaves me pretty confused as to specifically what course of action to follow.

I opened the floor to comment from the three people who had seen the fight before. There was much confusion about what to do.

I listened to what they had to say, and also had my eyes on my other computer screen open to the Wiki page.

Ultimately, there were a few conflicting options that people were in support of. Decision time! Which, I suppose, is what I'm here for.

I let the team know that we've got all the information we need, and I laid out the high level plan we would be following. Then I turned it over to the Tank officer to fill in the tanking duties, followed by healing.

I opened the floor for question only. New ideas would have to wait, but questions about the details of the current strategy were allowed. A few good questions about specific duties were asked and answered.

Execution

Time for a little less talk and a lot more action.

Planning is done. Main Tank, please give your countdown and pull.

And ZOMG, how hard it was for me to concentrate on my job. I was very occupied with the overall strategy, and it made it tough for me to now be a Hunter.

Part of it was the chaos of the High King fight, as seen from a brand new set of eyes. Part of it was my own mental composure. I need to improve my ability to split my attention between Raid Leading during combat and my individual job as a DPS'er.

Each attempt was followed by my usual review of what I noticed and my asking if anybody has ideas of (A) what went wrong and (B) proposed solutions. The team as a whole learned very quickly from our two wipes on HKM, and showed tremendous execution in our killing attempt.

Looting

Although I was RL, I assigned the GM as the Loot Master. I wanted it to be clear to the team that you look to me to run the raid, but the GM gives you your pay check.

Looting Policy was explained at the beginning of the run. When the loot dropped, I re-explained it.

We will visit each piece one at a time. The GM will link an item. If you are interested in it, you link in your current item for that slot. If it is applicable to your class and you do not want it, type "pass" in text chat. Limited talking, please, because we want it to be organized so as to not leave anybody out. No saying "oohh, i want that" on voice, because with 25 ppl, I have no idea who just said what. Put it in text.

Once everyone has expressed interest, the GM will give the instruction for who is allowed to roll. Its a mini-loot council. We really don't intend on blocking anybody from rolling, but we want to reserve the right to specify the rollers in case we ever feel looting is becoming unfair, either due to random good rolling or perhaps questionable interest in a piece that might not be appropriate for a player or his role.

Ultimately the looting went well, although there was more confusion than I'd like. The GM did a great job filtering through it all. I rolled for and won the T4 shoulders, which I then felt crappy about, much rather see it go to a Guildie. But I suppose its the first piece of loot I've actually rolled on, basically ever, in a raid setting. In the past, I've passed to allow others to get the loot and spread out the damage output across the team. I think I might have rolled on Garona's Signet Ring the first time I saw it, not sure.

Overall Atmosphere

Throughout the whole night, the atmosphere remained positive.

We had two periods where I thought the climate might change. The first was during the excessive wait while we assembled the team. Luckily most folks entertained themselves with a /dance party, some dueling, and general conversation. The second was when we were planning out the first HKM pull, prior to my deciding to end conversation and pick a strategy.

In both potential situations, nobody complained, and there was only a small amount of angst or whispering to me.

We only wiped twice on HKM, and then twice on Gruul before we called it a night, so I don't think there was much opportunity for anybody to become disgruntled with excessive wiping or repair bills. This is an area that our team has yet to experience in 25-man content, so we'll see how that goes.

I really feel that our approach to ensuring Kara Team 2 was made up of raiders who did it the hard way paid off. Rather than expand into 2 Kara teams by splitting up the veterans and walking the new folks through farm content, we formed a fresh team and let them forge into a salty bunch of raiders who understand the challenges of new encounters, paying for and using consumables, paying repair bills, etc.

Conclusion

Walking into my first 25-person raid in my first job as a Raid Leader was the biggest challenge I've faced in WoW. As if being nervous and excited to be entering the Big Time raids as a participant wasn't enough :-)

I have the privilege of being part of an incredible team, filled with great people, and it is their support and performance that made the night a success.

An after-action-review with the officers confirmed that we have many things we liked about the night that we want to repeat, and the only major area for improvement is getting the team assembled on time, which I suppose is an issue for most guilds.

Through a variety of honest and direct communication, delegation to the other officers, and trying to remain open to ideas and then using judgement on when to take action, I take pride in the job that I did to help the team live up to our potential and have a great Raid.

Guild on Pickup

Not sure if this is an original idea or not, but here goes.

Had an idea for the rarest Bind on Pickup profession recipes, formulas, patterns, schematics, etc.

Instead of binding to the individual crafter who loots it, they could bind it to the guild.

Then give the GM a new interface that allows you to designate two or three players of each profession as the Official Guild XYZ, where XYZ is Enchanter, Leatherworker, Engineer, Jewelcrafter, Blacksmith, Alchemist.

That sort of scheme might lead to additional guild loyalty by individual players.

It also might encourage guilds who run into trouble to actually try to put in the hard work to repair their internal issues, as well as their reputation in the community, rather than disband and form a new guild.

If the crafters faced losing access to those highest level patterns, people might think more about overall guild success and teamwork.

Healers, Healers Everywhere, but not a Drop to Drink

Team 2 is ready to roll. We've put together a roster and posted it to the guild website. All of the Team 2 members are pretty new, but have seen the inside at least once. Only real question that remains is who will play the role of Raid Leader. The players that show the most leadership qualities are officers who are all part of Team 1. For now, we've chosen to not split up Team 1 at all. There are one or two people on Team 2 who might just be leaders in disguise, ready to do a good job if given the opportunity, so its time to give them that opportunity.

And then comes the predicament.

Since life can never be simple, Team 1 now finds itself in a bind. When we started, we had 2 Holy Priests who were generally available for all 3 raid nights, and a Holy Paladin who was generally available for 2 of the 3 nights.

One Holy Priest had a work shift change so he is unavailable during evenings now. Other Holy Priest just began a three month vacation through Asia. He might have availablity for joining an occasional raid, but definitely nothing solid. And the Holy Paladin is on a 2 week vacation as well.

So right at the moment that we are saying the Team 2 healers are now going to run with a real Team 2, is the exact moment that Team 1 is short on some healing.

Funny, eh?

But the officers feel pretty strongly that we need to encourage Team 2 to run and form a team identity and get into a grove of raiding and enjoy some progress. At this point, we're determined to not pirate any of the Team 2 healers, and will make the sacrifice of not raiding unless we can find some alternate healers.
Which then brings me to my own personal dilemma.

I recently was able to get my Resto Druid friend to join the guild. The benefit he brings is two-fold. On the surface, a Tree of Life brings tremendous raid benefit. Innervate, Combat Rez, Mark of the Wild, Tree of Life healing buff for tanks. Below the surface, I know that the person behind the toon has the right drive and attitude to fit in with the team.

But there was this unfortunate incident with Zul'Aman and some cloth healing gear and some subsequent drama. The whole thing is sad really. Two people who both have demonstrated over time that the are really fun and reasonable folks, and loot sort of brought out the worst, causing others to take sides and just make a small mess of the situation.

Fast forward a few days.

After basically coming to grips with the fact that the drama is a bit too intense for him to return to our guild right now, he was nearly immediately recruited by the 2nd most progressed guild on our server. I'd like to see an unguilded Hunter get blindly recruited like that, lol. He ran with them for 'bout a week, and is thinking that they are a bit too hardcore, with pretty strict rules about many different fascets of the game.

Long story short, he's really interested in a second shot with our guild.

So what to do?

We're in need of a healer, or faced with stopping raiding. We have a capable healer available. One who is a reasonable person, but has a semi-tainted reputation over this whole event.

Two of the officers want to invite him back, one does not want him back but at the same time, will be absent for three months. The final officer and GM is on the fence, trying to be diplomatic and keep drama at a minimum while keeping the guild emotionally stable.

As far as the drama goes, its really not been too "dramatic". The people involved have all maintained a relatively mature attitude, and the drama has really just surrounded the bottom line of "is he in or is he out." No hissy fits or hair pulling or name calling.

So how do I help everybody see a middle ground that allows us to continue progress and un-ruffle all the feathers?

The Dawn of a New Looting Age

Randomly dropped, limited quantity loot is so annoying. How much better would the game be if all loot was badge oriented, so team members don't have to feel in competition with one another for loot, but rather cooperatively gathering badges and saving up for stuff? Even if they made it Karazhan Badges redeemable for kara stuff only, Gruul's Badges redeemable for gruul stuff only, etc to make sure you couldn't just farm the lowest dungeon and get the best stuff in the game. Or go crazy and make the badges boss-specific.

But I digress...

Hot of the silliness of drama over some recent loot, we've decided to go with a loot distribution system and discard our current /roll if you want it system.

Not really interested in administering some complex DKP, with which none of our officers or raiders have any experience, we've decided to go with a basic loot rotation.

When we kick it off, we're gonna do a random ordering of the entire guild.

When a piece of gear drops, it is first offered to the player present in the raid at loot-drop-time that has the higest ranking. As long as its equipable (no clothies choosing plate) if that person wants it, for any reason, they get it. Primary raid role, off set, just because it looks cool, whatever. If they pass, it is available to the next higest ranked person present. And so on. If nobody wants it, DE and at the end, everybody roll for shards.

If you take the loot, you drop to the bottom of the list.

And that's it.

Pros

1. Easy for officers to administer


2. Easy for raiders to understand


3. People will actually think before accepting loot, as there's a future consequence to your choice, which is just not there with our current system


4. Fair distribution over time. If you feel you got shorted on a drop, that person goes down to the bottom and you'll have priority on future drops

Cons

1. Infrequent raiders will perculate to the top, and thus will be nearly guaranteed loot when they do show up/get invited


2. No thought given to raid benefit when distributing loot, only individual benefit


3. Might lead to good loot being DE'd in hopes of a future drop. ex: a hunter at the top of the list passing on Garona's Signet Ring from Curator in hopes that Prince will drop Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix later that night. Then GSR gets DE'd, and SBotP doesn't drop, so overall the player and the raid get zero gear improvement from that raid night.


4. Same as in the previous one, excellent off-set gear, which might benefit the guild in different scenarios might be passed on and DE'd

I think that con #1 is semi-moot because (A) infrequent raiders are rarely present/invited to raids where the progression team is trying to get loot, jsut because the content is too hard. (B) it currently seems that new guys get lots of epics on their first or second night in kara, simply because none of the other folks need it, so I think #1 is kinda moot. Except for the one time a rare invite goes out to someone on a progression night and a veteran raider gets pissed that the other guy has priority. Oh well, go sulk in the corner.

The last three cons have the same issue at heart. I really want an epic that is any possible upgrade in any way shape or form to be taken by somebody rather than DE'd. I shudder at the prospect of people NOT taking loot that's an upgrade because they want a bigger upgrade that MIGHT drop at some point in the future. The raid and team needs that improvement NOW, thus allowing us to more easily access that drop that might drop LATER.

I also don't want to have people trying to skirt the system and feign indifference, bluff at passing on an item, in hopes that the officers award the loot, "forcing" the guy to take the piece, without bouncing them to the bottom.

There are a few areas that I'm not fully certain (ambivalent?) about how to handle...

Unknowns

1. Where do new guild members go? Me thinks they start at the bottom. Not sure if that would impact recruiting. But at the same time, a player who would avoid a guild because of feeling like there's a small delay before they're GUARANTEED priority for loot, perhaps its better that we do scare that person away.


2. If we run two teams in kara on the same night, how do we stack the people who take loot and drop to the bottom. ex: Somebody from team 1 gets a drop, so he should go to bottom. Same night, somebody from team 2 gets a drop, so he should go to the bottom. So who goes to the bottom and who goes to second from the bottom? If we have to keep track of the exact timestamp of the drop, I just might snap.


3. What to do about off-set gear that gets passed, or gear that's an upgrade but gets passed on in hopes of a future drop? I hate to see epics get DE'd, since all we get is some crystals (and therefore gold) from that. Crystals and Gold can be obtained from a variety of sources. Epic drops can only be obtained via welfare from boss kills, and come randomly at that.

So does anybody have experience with entry level DKP, or even a system similar to this one? I'd love to hear about different ways that people have introduced basic loot rules, what the process was like, how did the guild react to it, what drama evolved out of it, etc.