If you were tasked with changing something about your guild, what would you change? I am having issues at the moment with my guild and their method of raiding and ranking players. So I’ve decided to paint a picture on how I want to see raiders treated. This would be my raid charter.
Raiding Purpose: We raid because its fun. The moment it stops being fun, we find a way to make it fun again. Blizzard has created tons of great content for raiders. This includes awesome scripted encounters (which everyone should get a chance to see), new awesome gear, and achievements to wear as badges of glory for our accomplishments. This guild is raiding with purpose of completion, not server firsts. We are not going to stay up hours after raid was supposed to finish or raid night after night to try and get a kill before anyone else. Leave that to the people who don’t realize this is a game. That’s not saying that we aren’t going to challenge ourselves. That simply means we are going to realize our limitations not beat our selves to death for little or no results.
Raid Nights: Raids are not mandatory but increase your chance to be a regular invite. I don’t want people feeling that they have to attend raids or never be invited. We will make sure everyone who wants to raid will get a chance. This is extremely important to me. Even if you don’t fit into our “top 25 raid slots” I want to go way out of my way to see that you get some time in raids. Gearing you up is important to us because you may be called upon to fill a role should one open up on any given night. We should raid 3-4 nights a week. These will be our 25 man raids. Three nights is probably enough to push through at a reasonable speed. If we can’t finish our goals in four nights then we should reality check and start working on gearing up our lesser geared players. On off raid nights players are encouraged to run 10 man raids. These will help you find extra gear and learn the basics of the 25 man fights.
Raid Focus: We will always start with our most difficult instance first. If the fights proves to be too difficult after two days of attempts, we will revert to running older raid content in an effort to better gear players. There is no fun in wiping all night when gear is the issue. If skill is the issue, we give it our best shot for awhile and then try something else until we can fix the skill issues.
Raid selection: We will choose raiders based upon who signed up, who showed up, and who deserves it. Deserves is a very subjective word. When used in raid choices, it factors in who will balance the raid (meaning we need enough tanks/healers/dps to be successful), who has been showing up ready to go, and who hasn’t had much raid time. I don’t want bench warmers. I want everyone to progress their characters. I want to rotate in players so that we don’t have a core clique that cripples the guild when someone leaves. I’ve seen this happen with too many guilds. I expect you to know the fights in any raid we do and I expect you to do your job and do it well. If you are the one person messing up over and over again on a fight, be prepared to be swapped out for someone who has done their homework.
DKP: There is a million different systems for DKP and which we use is not super important. DKP in its simplest form should reward those who put the most into it. Those who show up all the time, win with us, wipe with us, and demonstrate good sportsmanship will have the DKP to show for it. Those who can’t devote as much time will still receive DKP for your efforts. DKP is meant to be spent so there will be checks and balances to keep people from hording it for one item. There will always be a better item and in the mean time you should be spending it on several good upgrades instead of one great upgrade. DKP will be awarded to everyone who is ready and able to raid. This means being on location, fully repaired, and with raid materials (food/flasks/pots) the moment raid starts. Raiders will be chosen from those on sight ready to go. If you are not chosen to go, you still are awarded DKP for being prepared and DKP for every hour you are ready on standby. Standby can be on your main, an alt, or even outside of WoW as long as your response time to zoning in is < 5 mins from contact. After some thought, I’m not sure “DKP” is something that I’d care to do in regards to some arbitrary number that decides if you get loot. I’ve been part of a loot council system now and think that’s the way to go. All the above about being ready to go when needed and rewarding those who put in the most effort still stands. I just don’t feel keeping track of DKP numbers is really worth it and systems like that are very flawed.
Raid chat and Vent: I don’t always wear headphones and I will assume that others don’t either. This means what is being said in vent, and what is being typed in chat needs to be filtered. Some of us have very young children around and they don’t need to be subjected to “locker room” chat. Even those of us who don’t have others to be concerned about don’t need to hear the F bomb dropped every other sentence. If you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandma, don’t say it here. And if you would…well your grandma isn’t in this guild so don’t share. Its ok to have a moment but if salty language is all you speak then be prepared for a global mute.
Guild openness: This is not a raid item but is important for anyone that is to be a guild member. If you have any concerns or comments with how the guild is run, share them openly. This isn’t an invite to challenge guild leadership but it is an invitation to speak your mind about anything you feel is unfair or isn’t working. I would much rather know that my guild mates believe our guild is heading in the right direction then to be frustrated with our methods. If we can’t fix the issue perhaps this guild isn’t a great fit for you and we’d like to help you find one that will work. This could include references on other guild apps on your strengths and achievements while with our guild.
Thats all I have for now…I’m sure I’ll tweak it a bit with insight from your comments and file this away should I ever get any crazy ideas to run a guild (unlikely).
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Aurdon, you describe my ideal guild right here. I get the feeling you have to be some kind of WoW-celebrity like Larisa or Matticus to be in one though.
/sigh
First time here, and i plan to share this with my guild leadership (I'm an officer) and the leaders of a guild that I raid with frequently that is having some growing pains…thanks
Wow thanks. Thats about the best compliment I could get on a post. I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to share. I hope it helps you guys out and if you can think of things I should add, the list is probably never complete.