My guild now has close to thirty 80s.
I am raring to get into some raids… seriously, Naxx10 should not be out of reach for us at this point. We have three mainspec tanks with good enough gear to get moving on things, supposedly we have three mainspec healers (though one of them is not very good, and one might as well be imaginary for all I’ve seen her online) and a whole busload of dps.
But what’s happening is this: any player with the requisite experience for raid leading is already PuGging it every week. Our GM is, how shall we say it, flaky? and won’t schedule anything, preferring instead some nonexistent state of flow where things magically come together without planning or effort. And I’m not comfortable taking the position of responsibility in a fail = kick pug. Nor, I know, is Naelian, who’s had a bit of a struggle with tanking in heroics… he’s very hot and cold… sometimes we clear effortlessly, sometimes we struggle and wipe. Neither of us want to go traipsing into Naxx with a bunch of TOTC-25 geared DPS and either be carried or kicked.
So that’s where we stand. Looking for suggestions on how to take a very promising social guild whose high level members are vocally interested in raiding, and turn them into a social guild with a 10 man casual raid team. When the leadership’s not very motivated (the GM pugs with the express intent of being carried)… So far our ideas are thus:
1) We’re going to try starting up a guild-o-matic site for the guild, and offer to upgrade it to one of the premium packages if the guild uses it. We are a pretty social bunch, I’m willing to be the forums will be used.
2)If the website is a hit, we’re going to work on procuring a vent server. If guild raiding doesn’t pan out, we can find another use for a vent server. We’re geeky, we can always find a use for a vent server.
3) We’re going to, as officers, stick some guild events in the calendar and see if anyone signs up. Something like chain heroics or a guild raid on Goldshire or something. Just to get the guild used to the idea of signing up for something and then showing up for same.
4) If that’s a success, schedule a raid. Maybe Naxx, maybe Kara. Whatever, a raid.
Does anyone have any ideas on other things we could do? We’ve been in this guild long enough to know that there are a lot of people who are interested and who want this to happen, just nobody knows how to make it happen. Since our GM is too lazy to even name the bank tabs, it isn’t going to be him who gets the ball rolling, so it’ll have to be us.
And as a final question… When do you admit that the guild lacks the proper leadership and find a new one? We haven’t been with our current guild long, but we have very real ties there that would be unpleasant to cut. But I’ve been too hungry for progression for too long to sit still and wait for someone else to get a fire lit under his bum.
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Heres what I would do.
First you need to get the OK from the GM that you are going to set up and 10 man raiding team that separate from him (if he doesn't want to raid regularly or put in the effort). You don't want him to muscle in when he feels like it or make you take people you don't want to ,etc. Set up the parameters early, because you are going in a different direction to your GM. I should warn you now it will almost inevitably end up in a guild split. These things always do.
If hes happy, then set up your forum, which is a great idea, and use it to discuss and lay out what your raids will look like. Theres a lot to discuss. Who will come? You need a healer, tank, dps combination that works. Who will not be invited? Who will get priority on invites? What loot system will you use? When will you raid? What consumables are people expected to have? What gems and enchants are acceptable? These are all discussions you need to have and things you need to lay out so that everyone is on the same page. Also post some tactics for people to read.
In the mean time, start running some guild heroics and get as many badges as you can to up your gear. Do the daily every day. Naxx was doable back at the start with some Heroic Epics and a few Heroic Blues. Its not hard. Badge gear takes you well beyond Naxx, but I would start with that and Obsidian Sanctum and see how they go. You will need your tanks to be crit immune though!
Then just go for it. Start raiding. Don't worry about Kara. Don't worry about wiping. Just raid.
I've tried to post a reply to this about twenty nine times, but intense debate keeps eating it. Hopefully I get it up this time, as it gets shorter every time I rewrite it.
As to your comments: My GM is an inert object. He likes to pug things that other people can carry him through and AFK AV, as long as he gets to do that, I don't think he will notice what the rest of the guild is up to. Its unfortunate that a nice community has formed around him and what I'm sure was intended to be opportunities to ninja the guild bank. If it wasn't for that community, I wouldn't stay. That said, the only way me trying to jump start raiding will split the guild is if we decide we want to do something that requires GM participation, like buy more bank tabs or something. It's totally depressing.
Also, we're pretty set on the basics, everyone I have in mind as 'ready' is either PvP geared enough to handle entry level WOTLK raids or they've been running heroics/TOC already. After kicking around the blogging world for about a year, I definitely know to look for tanks who are def capped.
I myself am in a mix of mostly ilvl200s with the odd ilvl 226 or 187 here and there, but nothing below that.
I think trying to over-organize would be really counterproductive in our setting. Nobody there really has a burning desire to join a raiding guild, and it's not my intent to turn us into one. What I want is a casual guild who will schedule and run the occasional Naxx. We don't need to have an elaborate DKP system, we can need/greed like PuGs do. I want to get them enthusiastic, not bore them with bureacracy. Hopefully it won't cause too much drama, but even causing drama is ok with me if the alternative is not trying at all, right?
I agree with Morrighan, start scheduling stuff and see what happens!
I'm GM of a pretty casual guild, a social guild not a raiding guild at all. We have about 20-30 active level 80 players, but generally 12-16 on at any one time of an evening. Pre LK we raided Kara, didn't get far in ZA and that was about it. We started in Naxx when raiding guilds had been clearing it in one day for weeks – we still rarely clear it in one shot. We need/greed according to main spec/offspec without any drama, have players with families and commitments who need to go afk every now and then, and have an absolute riot. We have trouble with signups some weeks, but we take things as they come and raid when we can. We're getting close to clearing Ulduar and are trying ToC for the first time this week *scaredface*. Casual is fine, taking your time is fine, having fun is the point so try it out and see how it goes! Worst that can happen is you don't get enough sign ups, even then maybe the people who did will be interested in running heroics instead and you can start getting to know each other as players.
You could try scheduling at first one or two heroic 'nights' a week where people commit to running two or three in a row. See if you can get two groups running at the same time, you could compete to see who can get a particular achievement/do it the fastest/have least deaths etc. to get some guild communication and interest going. Just make sure the groups are fairly even so people don't get disheartened
Forums are a good way of figuring out who exactly is interested, who might be interested in trying out tanking or healing. If your officers have access to the guild MotD, put links up there and keep updating it with new information. You could call an in game meeting where you get together and chat about raids and how things could be organised – either through raid chat or vent/voice chat. I'm assuming that you'll just run things by your GM and they'll grunt and forget about it 2 seconds later
LOL, Len, you've got my GM pegged!
Sounds like a plan then, I'm glad your guild runs on need/greed without drama. I honestly don't think we'll be ambitious enough to need more than that, and I hope we can keep any issues at bay.
Aye, the 'trade within 2 hours' thing really helps too in case of mistakes! We have pretty simple rules really:
- roll need for main spec (the spec you are downing bosses with)
- roll greed for offspec (talented dual spec > a spec you can technically use)
- if you win a roll, pass on the next item you would roll on (if no-one else wants it, fine its yours, but it saves bad roll luck meaning one or two people get all the upgrades)
- if you are specced e.g. as holy because the raid needs it not you want to, ask beforehand and as long as it's agreed you can roll 'need' on your preferred spec.
We sometimes use master looter and get people to /roll in raid, saves issues with people forgetting about offpsec and greeding by accident, sometimes we just use the normal system. Generally, as we are a social guild and know each other pretty well people are sensible about passing sidegrades or small upgrades to those who need them more, so it works well
Reading my post back I see where I went wrong. You don't have to make things complicated. But you need to answer the questions. All these things are the things that cause drama when you start raiding, so its better to make a firm decision at the start so it doesn't turn into a problem later.
I've raided in a casual guild as well as structured raid guilds. But different people probably have a different definition of casual. Some think it means they don't have to bother with consumables and tactics. Others think it means they raid less often but need to do all of that. You don't need dkp, especially with 10 mans. You don't need to have a complex set up. But if you don't think about these things now, when your run into a tough boss and you wipe a lot this is the kind of stuff that people look at. And argue about. Emotions tend to run high in a raid. Its all that adrenaline.
The answers can be as relaxed or structured as you want. But if you've thought about them, you don't find your suddenly standing in the middle of a debate. Coz you told people what you were expecting at the outset.
I vote the former. I have no tolerance for people not playing as well as they can simply because they're not "hardcore"… if that means I have to bring the fish, so be it. I hope they'll do their part by not standing in the bad.