We Have a Tabard: Ring the bell, school's back in
by Amanda Dean 
Sep 11th 2009 at 4:00PM
Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.
Drama is not the only issue to cause hardship among raiding guilds. We've seen guilds crumble and fall over new raid content. It seems we've come across another time-sensitive factor: the beginning of the school year. Guilds that have been blissfully progressing throughout the summer may be seeing their attendance plummet.
Remember folks, some things are more important than WoW. Education tops the list. It would be poor form to badger your scholastic members into raiding when they've got homework to do. Students also need a good night's sleep in order to perform successfully. This goes for college students as well as high schoolers, but they may have more flexibility in scheduling. In the end, WoW is just a video game and school affects the present and the future.
Parents may also be feeling a crunch now that school is in session. School time means taking kids to practice, attending sports events, concerts, field trips, and parent-teacher conferences. Plus parents may need more time in the evening for quality time with their little raiders. Just like school, parenting is more important than WoW.
That being said, what's a guild master or raid leader to do? Adjust! It's the start of the school year, not the end of the world. You have some options:
Recruit:
Trust that your raiders are doing the best they can to be there when they can. Having a larger pool to draw from will make it easier to fill in the gaps and keep your guild raiding. When you do recruit, be up front about your desire for commitment, and explain that raiders will be rotated. You may find that Healer X can raid on Tuesdays but is committed on Thursdays. You may be able to declare this a part-time raid spot and advertise specifically for a healer that can play on Thursdays. This may be a more attractive selling point for your guild.
Restructure:
As mentioned before, it's not just kids that are affected by the commencement of the school year. However, it will have a more persistent and consistent effect on the younger generation. This may be a good time to consider an adults only policy, while encouraging your junior members to form up with their peers. The option to run with adults only may attractive to potential recruits. Remember though, that adults may be students and parents, so make sure your raid times and attendance requirements are clear.
Reschedule:
If you find that you have a guild full of loyal people who just have scheduling constraints, perhaps shorter or different raid times would work better. Check with your guild to see if weekends are better. If you have youngsters that need to be in bed by a certain time, perhaps you can shorten your raids by an hour or get an earlier start. Next to loot, I find scheduling to be the hardest aspect of coordination.
Make friends:
We've talked about expanding into larger raid content by combining runs with another guild. This is another situation where this may be the best option. You may be able to break the guilds into two raid teams with opposing schedules.
I see many guilds feeling the personnel pinch right now. With a little creativity the start of the school year does not have to be the end of your guild. There may be some downtime, but with patience and perseverance, you can pull through. Keep up the good work and remember: Some things are more important than WoW.
WoW.com offers a plethora of information on guild leadership and guild membership. Be sure to check out Scott Andrew's Weekly Column Officer's Quarters and keep an eye on the community with Mike Schramm's Guildwatch.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds, Features, Raiding, (Guild Leadership) We Have a Tabard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Phish Tawko Sep 11th 2009 4:08PM
Who needs school?
I've learned everything I know from trade chat.
Jewbanks Sep 11th 2009 4:12PM
I wish our attendance was dropping due to school, but a lot of missing people are returning. Not to complain either but our raid leader is having trouble slotting people that he picked up/stayed all summer. I havent had a problem losing my slot but I see some that I definitely don't approve of. Slotting old friends over people with the gear and experience who have been here consistently for the last few months kinda makes me balk.
It would be one thing if it was building up a rotation of people we needed on the sidelines. However, we have people being pushed into our slotting where we had an excess of that class already.
So far Im just glad it hasnt caused us to back peddle.
Charlie Sep 12th 2009 2:40PM
These kind of things happen all the time. The same issues come up over and over again.
I wish there was some kind of wiki that was devoted to guilds and guild issues. There's a complete lack of guild support out there, from both blizzard (though its being adressed in cataclysm) and from the community at large.
You can go to WoWWiki for lore, EJ for theory-crafting, MMO for news, WoW.com for commentary, WoWHead for gear. There's almost nothing for guilds. Sure we got officers quarters, but Scott can only answer the same question so many times.
If there were to be a hole in the WoW community, it would definatley be guild related.
Netherscourge Sep 11th 2009 4:24PM
I sell WoW gold so I can pay for home schooling.
Neirin Sep 11th 2009 4:43PM
I actually have found that I lose interest in WoW fairly quickly during the summer since I don't have nearly as many people to play with or talk to about it. I mean, I still play with my friends, but it's not quite the same when you're on opposite sides of the country instead of in the same room.
Ravik Sep 11th 2009 4:52PM
sucka!
Rob Sep 11th 2009 5:28PM
THis may fall on deaf ears, but i totally agree w/ the authors, make your schooling a priority. You only have one shot, so make the most of it. Every day you will learn something that you will never again have an opportunity to learn. Now I am finished with school and can do whatever I want, but I'm so glad i started playing after my education was done, I probably would have missed alot bc of this game.
danawhitaker Sep 11th 2009 6:22PM
"Now I am finished with school and can do whatever I want, but I'm so glad i started playing after my education was done, I probably would have missed alot bc of this game."
Said by someone who's clearly not a parent. Becoming one of those will have you crying for school days back. Once you have kids, the days of doing whatever you want are completely out the window. That's why I get frustrated with someone in my guild who's in college, and acts like it's the end of the world. Classes are important. Homework is important. I won't deny that. But having a flexible schedule with your classes spread apart means you have time during the day to nap if you stayed up late to raid, especially if you have no job. She's online between most of her classes complaining that she has nothing to do, then at night she whines that she can't stay up with us even though most days during the week she doesn't even have early classes. She poaches guild members who can run late (10 p.m.+) to run with her earlier in the evening so we're left scrambling to fill slots when we're off work and have our kids down for the night. She *could* run at night with us, but makes it a choice not to to basically be a drama queen about the whole thing. The most annoying aspect of it isn't filling her slot - when can usually scrounge up someone to fill her role. It becomes a problem when we're left trying to fill *three* slots because she took two other guildies with her four hours before the rest of us could get on.
Another one of our guildmembers left recently on a hiatus because he's starting his last year of high school and wants to focus on getting into a good college. That's fine. He's not on at all, and by merely being absent he's not a disruption to the guild cohesion when it comes to raids and 5-mans. At least he's not in the game complaining about it all the time.
Eli Sep 11th 2009 5:52PM
Haha, I find it amusing how WoW.com wrote an article like this in june...except about how raiders are going to become more scarce because.... they're not in school and driving kids to practice etc.?
Hell, I feel scarce during the school year when I have work to do, and during the summer when all I want to do is stay in shape for the coming school year.
BTW, I do wish you would distinguish "commitment" from "availability." You use them seemingly interchangeably.
Scien Sep 11th 2009 6:09PM
As a student myself, I whole-heartedly agree with the article. I just started at the beginning of Summer and got to 80 2 weeks before school started. So unfortunately, scheduled raiding is out of the question for the most part =(
I'd like to know though; is PvP easier on one's schedule? Especially with rated BG's coming and what not, it seems like a good way to spend the hour or two I have.
Cyanea Sep 11th 2009 10:56PM
I got really really lucky with a college schedule that doesn't interfere too much with my raiding (the worst of it is being 20mins late every Monday because of a late class ending, but my raiders know that their RL will be late then). I didn't build around raiding, I just ended up lucky.
We're not being hit TOO hard by people going back to school as a good portion of our raiders are slightly older, in that post-college, pre-family phase of life. A couple of our younger members are on the West Coast (East Coast server), so they have no problem staying up late to raid.
Granted, as the school year really starts to ramp up (two weeks in), I'm sure I'll be hurting for time more, but I've always been able to prioritize my time well, so I'm sure it won't be too bad.
Our problem with scheduling is people having to work actually, as our OT has to leave early on Thursday nights for his job cutting that night of raiding short.
Jamie Sep 12th 2009 5:06AM
All I can say is when I was back in university the summer between the years, presented me with an INSANE amount of time, back in the day I was playing stuff like Maple Story & Guild Wars.
I didn't start playing WoW until after I graduated but if I did have all that time to play WoW I think I would have been power leveling like nobody's business, now I look back at my guildies who are spending their spare time in the summer playing WoW all day while I work and I am secretly (and not so secretly) cursing them as they zoom past me getting 3 - 5 lvls a day. ohhhhh!!!!! *shakes fist*
Hëx Sep 13th 2009 2:48PM
Looking for 80's for raiding 10/25 man content. Separate from any guild, not recruiting for our guild. Looking for feedback and people who would like to become "early adopters" of this system. If you have the maturity, teamwork, and attitude to get into raiding; but not the contacts, schedule, or top tier gear, running with us may be a good alternative. www.hex.ms Anetheron US Horde