Officers' Quarters: From the mail bag
by Scott Andrews 
Sep 28th 2009 at 3:00PM
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Hello, fellow officers! This week I'm going to try something a little bit different than usual. I tend to focus on one topic that requires a detailed analysis. However, I do receive many more questions that I never feature in the column because they have a more straightforward solution (or, at least, because I believe they have a straightforward solution). So I would write a private reply to the e-mail but never showcase the question here.
I've decided to try an experiment this week and feature several of these e-mails with shorter answers. Even though they may not be the most complex situations, I think the answers will be helpful to other officers. Let me know what you think! Here's the first question.
Too Many Cooks
I was wondering if you could do an article on having too many cooks in the kitchen during raids.
My guild is brand new, 3-4 weeks old, and we run Ulduar 10 and ToC 10 as well as Naxx 25 and Naxx 10 for the new 80s. As of right now, I am my guild's GM as well as raid leader. I have plans in the future to add an official "Raid Leader" to create events and lead some raids although I plan on still leading a few because I really enjoy it.
Right now though, I have a few natural born leaders that attend my raids and it causes some problems.
A couple of examples from last night.
I started the night by running OS 10 followed by EoE 10 to some of our new 80s to get them a little bit of gear. When we start EoE, we had about 5 members who had never been there so I was trying to explain the fight on vent. Now, being a teacher for a few years I feel like I do a really good job presenting information in a way that is clear and understandable to all my "students". Some times, I feel like people who explain boss fights are jumping all over the place and don't put a very good flow behind their thoughts. Well while I was explaining the fight, another raid member kept chiming in on vent and interrupting me and explaining part of the fight or restating what I just said. Eventually I sent him a whisper and said "Hey, raids can only have 1 leader or it gets confusing for people. If you would like to lead this raid, you are welcome too." He responded with "Oops, sorry man. My bad." And I said it was alright and we continued just fine. [. . .]
It was particularly bad in ToC last night because we got to a new fight that I had never actually done but had only read about. So I asked one of the people to explain the fight. He tried to explain it, but every time he would start, this other person would cut him off and start explaining some. Then the first person would try to explain something else and get cut off again. It was really chaotic and confusing to my raid members so at one point, when the person I had asked to explain the fight in the first place started talking again, I cut him off. I said ok, I am just going to read this off the website and then you can fill in any blanks that I miss. He was offended that I had asked him to explain the fight and then I cut him off.
I only did it because things were getting out of control and I was confused so I can only imagine how my other guildies felt. I tried to bring order back into the raid. I did my best to apologize through whispers to the one guildie that I had cut off. [. . .]
Sorry for the very long story but I was wondering if you could make an article on how to deal with too many "raid leaders" in the raid and the best way to go about handling it. From what I can tell right now, there are at least 4 people in my guild that like to lead raids and continue to cut me off and give orders in raids. (Like calling for BL when I don't want it yet.) One of those leaders, I made him leader of our Naxx 10 raids so that he can lead his own raids. We don't have enough members in the guild to fill enough raids to give every one of these leaders their own raids.
Thanks!
Consider yourself lucky! Many guilds have problems finding enough people who want the raid leader job.
Fortunately for you, it sounds like everything has been pretty civilized so far. But you are still in the "honeymoon" period of a fresh raiding guild, so don't expect it to stay that way forever.
You need to establish who's in charge, whether it's one person or a few. That's really the only way to run a raid.
Also, you need to emphasize that the person explaining a fight deserves the chance to finish before other people start chiming in. I agree that the way you present the information is important in order for people to grasp the fight's mechanics. Spouting off a list of abilities in random order doesn't work all that well.
If the explainer says something blatantly false, then someone should correct them. Otherwise, let them do the best they can to explain it. Others can clarify points afterward, but cutting someone off is usually counterproductive, not to mention aggravating to the explainer.
Until you have enough runs for each potential raid leader, I would recommend assigning each person a specific role. For example, one person could explain the fights and also take charge of all combat decisions, such as when to Bloodlust. That person would also determine the pace and the goals of the run. Another person could be in charge of assigning loot. A third person could handle scheduling, forming raids, and replacing people who have to leave.
This way, people aren't as likely to step on one another's toes. You just have to talk with each person and make sure he/she understands his/her role and (more importantly) what is not his/her role. If people continue to cross the line, you may have to urge them in stronger terms or take away their leadership position altogether.
Once you have a broader schedule, you could assign each leader to a given run and have that person handle all aspects. For other runs, they'd be considered a normal raider.
Either way, it's great to have so many options. With any luck, you should be able to avoid (or at least postpone) the all-too-common problem of raid leader burnout.
Better Communication Tools
I run two WoW guilds for RL women and girls (one Horde, one Alliance). We are social animals and like to have guild parties and fun activities. Sometimes these are level specific, like doing a dragon hunt, but often times we want to open the event up to everyone simply to gather together and have fun. We hop on vent, roll for wrapped mystery gifts, listen to all the /silly jokes, down some kegs and wine, etc. On guildie birthdays we hide in lowbie areas and each give away 10g to the first under lvl 20 toon that finds us. We have fun. My issue is that there is no mechanism to invite everyone in the guild to an event. The Horde guild (Goddess of the Horde on Nesingwary) has over 200 toons and the invite feature for events only allows for 100 invitations. So every time we have an all-guild party or event we have to create three events, sending each invitation to a different set of level groups to get everyone invited. I am also bummed that the gmotd feature has been essentially useless for months on end. The Blizz welcome message is so long that it knocks the guild message off the screen at login before anyone has a chance to see it. I essentially have no way to communicate en masse with my guild except for those who are online when I am. Will Cataclysm's guild improvements improve guild communication?
Thanks . . . keep up the good work!
Anne Robertson
Goddess of the Horde (Nesingwary)
Goddess (Winterhoof -- Alliance)
Hi, Anne. Sounds like two great guilds! I salute you for all that effort -- it's tough enough for most of us to run one guild, let alone two.
It's hard to say if there will be better communication tools in the next expansion. I certainly hope so! Blizzard hinted at it during BlizzCon, including a guild news RSS feed in the armory.
Still, all planned features are just that until we actually get them. Blizzard's intentions to overhaul the guild system, as awesome and necessary as they are, are also fairly ambitious. So there's simply no way to know what will actually go live.
In the meantime, I suggest looking outside the game. Find a tech-savvy friend and set up a Web site with forums. Domain names are very cheap, just a few dollars per year, and hosting is about $5-10 per month for a basic site. It's a small real-life cost, but it can foster a greater sense of community. It's also the best communication tool available right now. Players can check it even if they're not able to log in.
Also, are you using the in-game calendar or an add-on? The in-game calendar definitely has some annoying limitations. Group Calendar is what my guild uses for events. I don't believe there is an invite limit (though I could be wrong). Best of all, the addon can automatically invite a large number of people to a group.
The Impact of Faction Changes
Scott,
I wrote to you a few months ago on balancing progress without being a jerk in raid leading. Since that time We've got yogg 25 on farm, started hard modes and lead our faction in TOC. (not that it's too hard)
So I'm turning to Officers Quarters again because I'm extremely concerned about upcoming faction changes and how they will affect guild stability.
Being an alliance guild I constantly hear about how horde racials are better for PvP. Anyone in my guild who is anything beyond a casual pvper is convinced those racials would give them the edge they need to squeak out that next bracket rating, or whatever. Alliance loses WG constantly on my server. Unless we are leading a premade we lose in BG's.
There's an underlying current at least on my server that horde is just "better". There are less kids, they are better at pvp, their guilds are more serious. I do not know how true it is, but the upcoming faction change feature has a good number of my core raiders openly talking about going Horde.
Having been through a server xfer before, I know getting an entire guild to do the same thing is impossible. What can I do to prepare for this? I understand I may not be able to convince them to stay. Should I just recruit in advance? Preemptively replace them in our raid group? Beg them? We are on a low population server and there's not exactly skilled players just laying around ready to be plucked.
Thanks for your time.
This really sounds like a "grass is always greener" scenario to me. And I doubt that most of your guild will actually go through with it.
Switching factions not only costs real money, it also means you're starting over again. Unless most of you make the switch, you don't have a guild anymore. You only have one toon, as opposed to all your alts with their ample storage space and complementary professions. If you switch servers, too, you can only take so much money with you. It's not an easy transition.
If people do make the switch, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them came back in a few weeks after realizing that Will of the Forsaken isn't a cure-all for their Arena teams and that the Horde isn't all that different from the Alliance.
You certainly could remind your members that Blizzard intends to take a close look at racial bonuses and abilities for Cataclysm. Who knows which races will have the overpowered abilities in the next expansion? Changing factions every time an ability is tweaked could get very expensive . . .
Ultimately, however, there's nothing you can do except to make your guild the best that it can be so people want to stay, regardless of any perceived imbalances. Preemptive benchings will only create a self-fulfilling prophecy by driving players away.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mutak Sep 28th 2009 3:12PM
Percentage of servers where the Horde believes it's superior to the Alliance: 100%
Number of servers where this is true:
Mutak Sep 28th 2009 3:15PM
Ah...i see. it interpreted my less than sign as html.
Fwiw, that was supposed to be:
Number of servers where this is true: less than 50%
It's just one of those memes that has always been part of WoW and probably always will be, no matter what.
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Sep 28th 2009 3:41PM
I could say the same to you. Hope you wipe on Garrosh once Cata comes out. Have a nice day =D
Ger Sep 28th 2009 4:18PM
UGH! I hate comments like this. Half the Horde players I know would say...
"Percentage of servers where Alliance believes it's superior to the Horde: 100%
Number of servers where this is true: less than 50%"
The thing that all these Horde players and Alliance players such as yourself have in common -you think that you are different from each other. Horde and Alliance are very much the same in most aspects. "Blizzard favors Horde -Blizzard favors Alliance... WAHHH"
Both sides have cool players. Both sides have jerks. Both sides have good players. Both sides have poor players.
Even when I hear someone in my guild make a comment like this I'm quick to jump on it. It's the ultimate in making excuses and QQ. On a personal level, I moved to Horde several years ago to escape the nonsense and immaturity of Alliance... but these days I play both and believe me, the grass is pretty brown-green on both sides of the fence.
Charlie Sep 29th 2009 4:08AM
@Ger
I agree with the people part of the argument.
However, there is something to be said about Racials and population Imbalance.
For racials, WotF is the best PvP racial, hands down. Any edge is still an edge.
For pop imbalance (which is really the bigger reason to switch), the side with the bigger pop has a bigger chance of winning WG. It's still close to 50/50, but its not even.
The biggest incentive to switch (that I see) is for getting into a better raiding guild. I know on my server (burning blade) only 3 out of the top 10 raiding guilds are alliance, and its been that way for a long time. (Horde:Alliance is i think at 1.8:1)
Mutak Sep 29th 2009 12:33PM
Can't say i'm surprised by the downranking and the assumptions that my comment was intended to indicate Alliance supremacy. I've played both sides and i've witnessed the same thing from both perspectives. The myth of Horde superiority persists and it's independent of the "the guys on the opposite faction on my server are jerks" issue. How many times have you heard that "Horde is better at PvP" or "Horde has less kiddies" or just "Horde players are more mature?"
To be honest, i'm not sure why those players tend to be more vocal about its sense of superiority, but it is. I suspect it was originally a defense mechanism because of the population imbalance that existed at the start of the game and continues today out of habit.
FYI my full estimate of reality would look like this:
Servers where Horde is better than Alliance: less than 50%
Servers where Alliance is better than Horde: less than 50%
Servers where Horde and Alliance are about equal: less than 50%
Chris Sep 29th 2009 1:05PM
Both Horde and Alliance players think they are superior to one another, when someone like myself on both ends of the stick have seen this, I can say at the end of the day, we are all human, whether we like it or not, we aren't orcs, taurens, gnomes or dwarves. Another thing is the way Horde treat Alliance players and visa versa, espiecally on the Forums and on Normal Servers, for example, kill an A/H player, usually you get a message from a level 1 saying LOLOLOLOL L2P NUBZ!!!11one11one!, Yet they don't even know who you are, you could have everything in common, but a lot of people are too thick headed to see the other end, it's just the same on both sides. We. are. all. the. same. We play the same game, we play the same raids, the same dungeons, we level the same, we get the same stuff, it's almost like an in-game racial problem,
/un-flame
swampsquatch Sep 28th 2009 3:15PM
To the first letter: I hate when that happens and just like Scott said, hopefully you can make sure the leader is clear at the start of the raid. I hate having to try and listen on vent for boss fights and people are chiming in with all there experience.
Second letter: Awesome you run 2 guilds and they sound like A LOT of fun. The only thing I can think of if you don't want to spend RL money to keep a site going is something like the Google blogger (yourdomainname.blogspot.com). It's free and you can post blogs with upcoming events anytime you want.
Third letter: Unfortunately, contrary to what Scott said, you can't just come back in a few weeks when you realize you made a bad decision. Even though I exclusively play Horde, I know that there isn't THAT much difference between the factions. And if Horde racials are the reason "they dominate" arenas then why would anyone play Alliance if they wanted to pvp? Furthermore, why would they even be in the game if they were so unfair? It is obviously just people making excuses and thinking there is an easy solution if they are losing in PvP.
Soteria Sep 28th 2009 4:52PM
Yeah. When it comes to explaining fights and such, you just have to be firm. I think the GM did mess up when he took over explaining that fight in TOC after he had designated someone else to explain it. I would have said something like, "Folks, ____ is explaining this fight. If your name is not _____, shut the heck up until he's done. Feel free to make comments in raid while he is explaining it."
The advice about giving people roles is good. Our GM did exactly that to good effect--he assigned a loot master, a healing lead, various class leads, and the main assist (who calls for bloodlust).
nieboh Sep 28th 2009 7:36PM
@Soteria: I agree with you, the poster should have taken charge. At the first interruption I would have called out for silence from everyone while the fight was explained. At the second interruption I would have taken charge of Vent and muted whoever was speaking out of turn and sent him a whisper that he would be off mute when the first guy finished in case he had anything to add. It's bad enough trying to listen to and comprehend a new fight over vent, but with people talking over each other it's nearly impossible to follow.
That said, I generally prefer when the strat (or at least the bullet points) are typed out in raid chat. Easier to see everything and refer back to it during the encounter if need be.
Jiyambi Sep 28th 2009 10:03PM
@nieboh, my guild also has multiple people with leadership personalities, myself included. One thing I do to help me get my say and feel useful is offer to type very short summaries of what the raid leader is saying in vent into raid warnings. I feel like this helps the new players hear the details and get the most vital parts lodged in their memories.
cspenn Sep 28th 2009 3:16PM
We use the free Ning.com for our guild web site. Yeah, there's ads and stuff, but hey, no cost and you can do quite a bit with it.
Example:
http://knightsofancientwar.ning.com
For our guild, Arathor-US-Alliance.
Jan Sep 28th 2009 3:17PM
I stopped reading at "horde racials are better for PvP". Every Man For Himself ftw!
lemur Sep 28th 2009 3:25PM
And the gnome Escape artist isnt too shabby either.
Charlie Sep 29th 2009 4:11AM
I would trade Every Man for WotF any-day.
(In my specific case i would be swapping a +haste on use effect for something that broke charm, sleep, and fear effects that didn't share a CD w/ my trink)
tgrhwke Sep 28th 2009 3:31PM
Guild Message of the Day (GMotD) is viewable at any time by looking at the bottom portion of the Guild tab in the Social window.
Raz Sep 28th 2009 4:42PM
Yeah, but at the same time, getting a guild to actively look at that on a daily basis can be pretty difficult. I try to take a look as often as possible to make sure I don't miss anything, but usually I can only remember to do it once a week. It's very easy to forget that it's there.
DwarfWithGun Sep 28th 2009 5:22PM
^~~ truth for those that dont like to scroll up past blizz' system message
@Anne
it should probably be mentioned that the in-game calendar allows multiple types of events to be posted, including *invites* and *signups*
yes the *invite* event forces you to invite everyone individually, and limits you to 100 individual PCs. this event type is probably best used for closed or inter-guild events as you can set specifically who is invited and therefore can see the event on the calendar
the *signup* event is guild-wide, every character in the guild can see it and is free to sign up, and even those that dont sign up can still see it on the calendar
clundgren Sep 28th 2009 3:30PM
I have toons on both sides (like many of you I'm sure) and I always find it funny that the exact same complaints are heard on both factions, with the words "Horde" and Alliance" simply reversed. Last night, when horde lost a WG (which we usually dominate) one player kept spamming raid channel about how WG was unbalanced and Blizz favours alliance.
As far as racials for pvp go, there are advantages and disadvantages, but the human racial "Every Man for Himself" is pretty top tier.
Overall, I would recommend staying where your friends are. None of the racials are game-breakers.
Jonathan Sep 28th 2009 7:51PM
Oh god, it's maddening how bad some people whine in Wintergrasp. Every day, I find myself reminding some idiot how Blizzard is not "out to get us" because of Tenacity. These same people cry all through every single battle, same crap every time:
"OMG just got one shotted by a warrior"
"wtf y does that mage have 80K health. unfair!"
Then again, I shouldn't be expecting much of them. These are the same people who take up twelve of fourteen vehicle slots by stacking cats on the front door while those of us who know what we're doing try desperately to actually get around their incompetence.
(For the record, I find tenacity overall useless. Having 140K health on your ret Pally isn't going to help you much when you don't have enough people to hold down more than one vehicle shop at a time)