Officers' Quarters: Leveling as a guild in Cataclysm
by Scott Andrews 
Oct 4th 2010 at 2:00PM
The weeks after an expansion goes live are a strange time for guilds. After months of working as a team toward a common goal, most members go off on their own to level up through solo quests. Since raiding at the cap is impossible and raiding old content isn't nearly as interesting as questing in the new zones, your guild can find itself strangely fractured during this time. This week, one guild leader wonders how to keep a guild from falling apart during the leveling process.
Scott,
I was a member of a "raiding" guild in The Burning Crusade (they didn't do too much raiding), but I hit level cap a week before Wrath of the Lich King came out. The guild basically came apart at the seams before anyone hit level cap. Then they tried to reform again a little before ToC and nothing really worked out. Now I'm running my own little raiding guild and don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past. What keeps a raiding guild together through the leveling process? I was thinking about putting in incentives in our loot policy for people getting to cap, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. What are some things I should be doing, and what are some things I shouldn't be doing?
Thisius
Hells Vanguard
Sisters of Elune (US)
Thisius, you are thinking ahead to solve problems you don't even have to deal with yet. That's a hallmark of good leadership. Now is a great time to start planning how you'd like to handle the first few weeks of Cataclysm. Here are a few tips and considerations.
1. Have a plan. I can't stress this enough: Don't just let things play out. Keep everyone focused on the goals of your guild, whether that's putting together a functional raid team, amassing enough 85s to run rated battlegrounds, or some other mission.
Before the expansion hits, communicate those goals to your guild along with how you plan to achieve them. Your members will feel a lot better about sticking around if the guild leadership has a plan and is already focused on approaching the endgame.
For PvE, your plan should include the loot system you'll be using, the level of raiding you'll be focused on (10 or 25), and whether you intend to use lockouts to progress or reset them each week to farm the bosses you've already learned. Concerns that will crop up farther down the road can also be addressed now: alt runs, heroic modes, legendaries, achievements, and so on.
2. Organize group activities during the leveling process. One way to maintain guild cohesion and camaraderie is to schedule official nights for group-oriented leveling activities. Set aside at least two nights per week specifically for group quests, dungeons or PvP. Certainly your guild members will do these things on their own, too, but for members who hate to PUG anything or who have limited playing time, it will be helpful to know that they can group up with others in the guild on specific nights.
3. Don't rush anyone. No one likes to be harassed to level faster. Inevitably, some players will go hog-wild, devouring all of Cataclysm's content as if it were an eating contest (and Blizzard apparently wants people to view it that way). Other players will savor each morsel at their own pace. Leveling for the first time in an expansion only happens once for everybody. Don't ruin it. However, you can provide motivation to level quickly.
4. Set a date for the endgame. It doesn't matter if the date is optimistic; just schedule something at max level. Put a raid or other event on the calendar so your members have an idea about when you'd like to get started. It will give them a goal to shoot for and provide a sense of purpose to leveling. Officers shouldn't have to resort to irritating prods.
For a typical guild, I'd give your members 10 to 14 days at least before you schedule the first official endgame activity. You could also poll your members to find out who is planning to level as fast as possible and who is going to take their time. Then adjust your date forward or backward based on that information.
Make it clear that the officers will do their best to make sure that the scheduled event occurs even if they have to find players from outside the guild in order to field a full group. You don't want to give people a reason to level quickly that ultimately evaporates. They'll feel cheated.
Based on statements from Blizzard, guilds may not find success in raids right after hitting 85 without any prep work (like we did at 80 in Naxxramas). However, I encourage you to at least try with whatever you have at the time. Unlike the dungeon finder, raid portals can't tell you you're undergeared. Even if you fail, you'll still learn a lot about that first boss that will help you when you come back with a better-geared group.
Ultimately, you shouldn't need to provide artificial incentives for players to reach the cap. Being the first to experience the endgame is reward enough. On the other side of the coin, don't punish members who haven't made it to 85 yet. Missing the first raids or rated battlegrounds is punishment enough.
That's all for this week. Visit the Officers' Quarters next Monday for more leveling tips!
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas and suggestions at scott@wow.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 3)
Vol'naru Oct 4th 2010 2:52PM
Well, I'm certainly looking forward to Cataclysm, and I'm sure me and my guildies won't split.
Irvqwa Oct 4th 2010 2:17PM
With all the guild achievements for Heroics, it almost seems like a good idea for that first scheduled day to be "Guild Run" Heroics. If only to get the guild's average gear up to a point where raiding is possible.
Lissanna Oct 4th 2010 3:08PM
We'll also have to level the guild up to get rewards. I believe that you can get points towards leveling your guild (and your guild reputation) even by running normal-mode 5-mans together as you level up from 80 to 85. So, even as you are leveling before 85, you can still have days scheduled to work together if you want.
Lissanna Oct 4th 2010 3:12PM
Oh, and the guild still has to get together a certain # of people to go back and do the level 60 to 80 raiding achievements together as a guild, so even if you don't have the gear for level 85 raids, that won't prevent you from getting together to do "old" content for achievements!
Astemus Oct 4th 2010 2:18PM
2 weeks is a pretty short timeframe to get 10 or 25 other people all leveled to 85. I mean, most raid teams have around half their players that only have raid times set aside to play, meaning you could have half your raid team sitting at 85 in a week or so and the rest will take 3 or more weeks with only 2-3 nights a week to level.
Astemus Oct 4th 2010 2:22PM
I mean, I was in a very hardcore guild during the vanilla to BC transition and it took 3 weeks for 10 people to get to 70, and a week or two after that to get the next group ready. And we had 40 raiders at that time. Maybe leveling will be faster, but 10-14 days is way too soon in my opinion. Probably not to run a few heroics, but those only require 5, and most guilds have at least 5 people who are going to take vacation and rush to 85.
brian Oct 4th 2010 2:27PM
Well, with the previously mentioned comment about having to gear up for raiding through heroics, two weeks is plenty of time. The first scheduled things will likely be heroics, and by the time you have those 5-10 people geared up enough to start attempting raids, more people will have hit 85 and likely will have already started doing some heroics.
But yeah 2 weeks to schedule the first raid seems a little quick. For a nose-to-the-grind raiding guild though, that's probably about right.
Lissanna Oct 4th 2010 3:10PM
Each guild will need to set their own timeline based on the needs of the guild.
Astemus Oct 4th 2010 2:23PM
What is this I don't even
Obeyfez Oct 4th 2010 2:24PM
I had a meeting with my raid 2 weeks ago about how long we all were going to take to level and be prepared for the first raid attempt. It was agreed that everyone would have 20 days to level to 85 and gear-up, so that on the 3rd Tuesday following the release we would begin raiding new content.
With the recently announced December 7 launch, that puts our start date at December 28, squarely in the middle of most people's Christmas/Winter vacations. I have a feeling, we're going to have put off raiding until the first Tuesday in January.
I'm curious what other people are planning on doing about this now that we know the official release date.
Rapskallion Oct 4th 2010 2:28PM
As a raid lead for a twenty-five man team, I've been thinking about this a lot recently.
With the date set for Dec 7th release... I'm currently contemplating giving folks the holidays to relax and enjoy the content with Jan 4th being the start of full twenty-five raids. Obviously we'll have folks level sooner so tens are available.
I just don't want to rush folks with a two week deadline to level, max professions, and gear up in heroics. However, four weeks is a long time. We're not a server first guild, but we are top ten horde side on a fairly well ranked server (top fifty-sixty server) and don't want to get too far behind in the opening raid.
nymrohd Oct 4th 2010 2:35PM
Agreed. We can run 10mans as soon as the second week (and perhaps even the first), but 25mans I'd rather give everyone a breather and start with the new year. Ofc by then at least some of the core will have all dungeon reps to exalted and best crafted gear.
nymrohd Oct 4th 2010 2:32PM
Heh, we'll have at least one 10man team up ready at 85 with good crafted gear by Sunday the 12th.
Scott Clark Oct 4th 2010 2:41PM
I remember reading that no raid content was going to be released with the launch of Cataclysm - instead, the first batch of raids would come in the first content patch, 4.1.0. This makes tentative scheduling of the first endgame raid (as a loose deadline to incentivize quicker levelling) more difficult. However, I'm counting on it to help smooth over the difference between the people who want to rush to 85 and those that would either prefer to savour the experience or just can't commit quite as much time to getting there.
Has anybody seen anything either to confirm or to contradict this pacing?
crschmidt Oct 4th 2010 3:00PM
Blizzard has announced in the past that at least two raids would be released at the start of Cataclysm. They have reported that they are doing internal testing of the raids for testing of DPS/healing, and I expect that they're going to be continuing to test these with players in the Beta.
My guess is that some of this may be confusion over the somewhat different way Cataclysm is happening:
4.0.1 -- Mechanic Changes
4.0.3 -- World changes (but no release yet, so no level 85)
Cataclysm release (probably no patch): Levelling to 85, new zones and content, including raids.
I have not seen anything to indicate that raids won't be available when you buy Cataclysm from the stores -- which will be after the changes to the world that Cataclysm brings.
Nina Katarina Oct 4th 2010 2:54PM
There are also going to be achievements for all-guild classic, BC, and Wrath raids and heroics. Schedule a 'race through AQ10' between two teams, or something similar.
Blacksheep Oct 4th 2010 2:58PM
14 days till 85? Yama Hama, I am a guild officer and a raid leader and that seems kinda short. It took me from December through June to level my first toon. The second one was a DK only because I hate leveling and even that took me a few real life months to get to 80.
I was actually thinking when I read the first line that I'd give the guild till Feb. 1 to be ready for lvl 85 raids, that gives people time to explore, level a worgen, have some fun. Christ, all these deadlines and orders, did we all forget the fun aspect? I only started playing two years ago and just walking into new zones mesmerized me. I didn't even know Dalaran existed until I hit lvl 74 (this was in 2009 lol) and a mage popped up telling me I could go to this magical new city. A city which I proceeded to spend 3 hours investigating alone, buying toys and wondering at the portals.
Don't you think with all the changes, exploration of the world and a little break from raiding is good for everyone? I'd still set a date, but man, 2 weeks is not enough.
crschmidt Oct 4th 2010 3:06PM
I think this is just evidence that your playstyle is not the same as the playstyle of many players who concentrate primarily on raiding as the way they interact with the game.
The idea of not raiding for 2 months would be pretty harsh on me personally. I have taken 4 toons from 70-80, and each of them was done within 2 weeks. (The latter were actually much less playtime; Epic flying in Northrend helps.) Blizzard has said that they expect levelling 80-85 to take about the same amount of time as levelling 70-80 did prior to the new flying changes and so on, so I think for many players who are interested in getting to endgame, 2 weeks is a bit quick, but not likely to seem a chore.
I think that for our team, we're going to expect to continue doing things together -- from dungeons to heroics -- each week to practice as we level up. We'll also do guild achievements together, I expect.
Is two weeks ambitious? Yes. However, I'm far from a top-end guild, and I think that we'll be raiding by January 4th, and I wouldn't be surprised if we start throwing together runs before that as people hit 85 and get geared up.
Carson Oct 4th 2010 10:07PM
Bear in mind that a lot of keen raiders have been having a break from progression raiding for many months already, and are itching to get back into it.
14 days is not a long time for people who want to get back into raiding as soon as possible. It took me 17 days to get from 70 to 80 when WotLK launched, and by the time I got there, I'd missed the guild's first kills on every 10-man raid boss except Kel'thuzad and Malygos. At least I got to be there for the 25-man first kills.
jasonacton Oct 9th 2010 12:46PM
That's the beauty of having 10's and 25's with the same loot. Your guild will inevitably have players levelling at their own pace but there will most certainly be 10 players who race to 85 and can start raiding within a week with no pressure for the rest of the guild to catch up.