There is something about high end, hardcore, raiding guilds. Something that instills a sense of political maneuvering in it's members. When ex-hardcore raiders join my "casual" guild, they rarely voice their opinions in the open. They find the group of technically proficient players and join that group. They begin complaining about mistakes and poor decisions of others. They don't point out errors or problems publicly in the forums. It's all hush-hush, and "I don't want to rock the boat."
Like we can't take it. We'll be offended. That someone else is a good player with good ideas. Instead of "Hey man, try doing X and see if your DPS goes up.", we get snickers behind people's backs.
Jerks.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Agendas
When your guild is small, everyone is friends. You know everyone because you play with them and things are kinda normal. As the guild grows, that goes away. People form cliques and you end up with people who just won't even group with other people. And the guild leader is often stuck in the middle of everything. I get to hear everyone complain and mock everyone else. Even when I agree, I know I'm going to have to deal with the personality clashes at some point. It means playing the game with people in the guild is a constant reminder of how much the entire guild is a society. A group of people who enjoy spending their free time playing the same game, and still manage to build walls between them and others.
I don't really care that someone else made you feel bad. I don't care that they did something and now you feel left out. I don't care that someone said something offensive and someone else stopped playing the game and we lost a valuable player. I'm not here to make sure everyone gets along. I have a hard enough time getting people to understand the DKP system, or how signing up for a raid works. I have to make sure people's forum access is set up right. I have to talk to people who applied to join the guild and make sure they are not jerks. I have to check the bank and make sure we didn't have a bunch of stuff stolen. I have to write down policies so people stop asking me questions over and over. Of all the things that the guild needs done, at what point did you think the guild was kindergarten and you needed the teacher to make Billy stop calling Suzy names?
I don't really care that someone else made you feel bad. I don't care that they did something and now you feel left out. I don't care that someone said something offensive and someone else stopped playing the game and we lost a valuable player. I'm not here to make sure everyone gets along. I have a hard enough time getting people to understand the DKP system, or how signing up for a raid works. I have to make sure people's forum access is set up right. I have to talk to people who applied to join the guild and make sure they are not jerks. I have to check the bank and make sure we didn't have a bunch of stuff stolen. I have to write down policies so people stop asking me questions over and over. Of all the things that the guild needs done, at what point did you think the guild was kindergarten and you needed the teacher to make Billy stop calling Suzy names?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Axiom #1
Nothing you can do as a guild leader is going to "fix" a systemic problem.
People rolling on loot they shouldn't? DKP! Right? It will help. But it won't stop someone from dumping their last five weeks of hard work into the toilet for an item that won't do them much good.
Getting bad people in the guild? New recruiting policies! Right? Sure, it helps a lot. Suddenly you have less morons coming in and less annoying people. But, every so often, they still get in. He seemed like a perfectly normal person for six weeks, then ... drama bomb! You need dogs posted outside your guild to sniff out the terminators. If only it were possible.
No matter the problem, no matter the novel solution, you're never going to get things down to zero problems. You reach a point where the added policies and systems to finish off the last 10% of the issues take 90% more work. I'm sure most people stop at the 20/80 mark.
People rolling on loot they shouldn't? DKP! Right? It will help. But it won't stop someone from dumping their last five weeks of hard work into the toilet for an item that won't do them much good.
Getting bad people in the guild? New recruiting policies! Right? Sure, it helps a lot. Suddenly you have less morons coming in and less annoying people. But, every so often, they still get in. He seemed like a perfectly normal person for six weeks, then ... drama bomb! You need dogs posted outside your guild to sniff out the terminators. If only it were possible.
No matter the problem, no matter the novel solution, you're never going to get things down to zero problems. You reach a point where the added policies and systems to finish off the last 10% of the issues take 90% more work. I'm sure most people stop at the 20/80 mark.
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