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by Scott Andrews 
Aug 29th 2011 at 5:00PM
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press.
Word went around this week that one of my server's long-time 25-man guilds would be switching to the 10-man format. It's a phenomenon that has become more common recently. For many guilds, fielding the number of quality raiders needed for the larger size has grown more difficult over the past few months.
Part of the reason is likely the drop in attendance during summer. Some of it could be the game's declining subscription numbers. We also can't ignore the fact that 10-man versions of Firelands bosses are, in most cases, significantly easier to beat.
This week's email comes from a player whose guild has also made this decision. In the process, he's found himself without a slot.
Hello Scott,
I am a raider in a casual/raiding guild with a bit of a problem . . . I joined this guild after running with a couple of it's members in my first pug once I hit 85. Things were really quite amazing at first, the guild runs were so well run and actually fun, which was something I rarely experienced during ICC. I was usually in the top 3 in damage on most bosses, knew my role, never had any issues with other raiders, always showed up prepared and did what I could to help the guild. Then my problem arose.
One night during a raid, I got a call that a relative was in poor health. When the raid ended, I whispered the raid lead that I may not be on the next week. The relative passed away.
My in-game problem arose when I logged in for a minute that first week and found an in-game mail from an officer admonishing me for not accepting/declining for raid on the calendar and asking "if I didn't want to raid, what the hell was I doing in the guild?"
As you can imagine I was shocked, saddened and more than a bit pissed-off reading it. After taking a minute to make sure I didn't say anything I'd regret, I whispered the officer asking why he sent the message. He said "to get me to raid" (at this point I'd missed 1 raid and had been on for probably 15 straight prior). I told him I'd messaged the raid lead about it and informed him why I hadn't been around to elaborate on when I'd be back. I told him that the in-game mail was out of line and got an apology from him. I then suggested re-thinking the wording in the future.Hi, Disappointed. I see two issues here. First, you're still aggravated by the officer's mail. I think you need to let it go. He clearly didn't know the reason why you missed the raid, or he never would have been so harsh.
So now, even though this had been a great guild to run with, my thoughts towards it are somewhat soured. Then to top it off, while I'm gone the guild decides to focus on 10's . . . I now find myself a "standby" raider since they'd formed the new core-10 while I was gone. My question is twofold.
1) Am I wrong to still be perturbed with the guild officers or was their handling of the situation as crappy as I thought it was?
2) Do I stick around and see if things improve and I get back into raids or do I move on? While I was still able to run a BWD pug this week, I don't want to just be able to run T11 content forever.
Interested on your take on this,
Disappointed
The mail issue
Was his mail insensitive? Yes. Was it unwarranted, given that you'd only missed one raid? Probably. Consider yourself fortunate, however, that the officers are so proactive about attendance. It makes a big difference in the long run that attendance is expected and absences are noted, particularly toward the end of each tier when so many players are burned out on the content.
To me, it's not worth carrying a grudge over. He did, after all, apologize.
The real problem is the lack of communication among the officers. Clearly the raid leader didn't pass along the message. That is an issue the officers need to address for the future. A simple forum post could have let everyone know what was up with you.
The raiding issue
The second issue is of course the decision to run 10-man raids from this point forward. My recommendation is to speak with the raid leader about this. Ask him if any player rotations are planned or if they are just going to bring the same people each week.
If it's the former, then you should get a fair shot at going to raids at least some of the time. If it's the latter, then that's probably a mistake on their part, because people like you who are left out in the cold are going to quit the guild. Then when one of the core team members drops out or no-shows, they'll be screwed because they won't have anyone to replace that player.
It's not fair to make people sit on standby every week in the event that one of the "full-time" raid members can't make it. There has to be some kind of consideration or rotation in place. Based on how your raid leader plans to deal with this issue, you'll know whether it's worth sticking around or not.
The only other solution would be to ask the officers if you can start up a second raid group. It could even be a partial alt run with players from the other raid. Of course, you or someone else in the guild must be willing to schedule, organize, and lead those raids.
In the end, if you do decide to quit, quit because they aren't offering you the opportunity to raid, not because of an unfortunate misunderstanding.
/salute
Recently, Officers' Quarters has examined how strong new leadership can create a guild turnaround, the pitfalls of promising more than you can deliver, and lessons learned from Scott's own guild demise. Send your own guild-related questions and suggestions to scott@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
dj.clayden Aug 30th 2011 4:24AM
Which fight in Firelands are you doing with 3 tanks? They all require 1-2 on 25 man. Shannox can be done with a 3rd, purely as a safety measure, and a Prot Warrior dpsing makes Beth'Tilac easier, but that's the closest you get to using 3 tanks :)
Switching from 25-man to 10-man in my opinion is one of the most potentially destructive things that can happen in a guild, for a multitude of reasons, and it is not easy to have enough geared/reliable tanks for a 2nd 10 man when you've only had 2-3 in your roster for 25s.
Eirik Aug 30th 2011 1:02PM
My opinion (and take it with the grain of salt that it deserves) is that a player that decides not to at least idly collect gear appropriate to any role they are willing to undertake is shooting themselves in the foot.
If someone is farming valor points for main-spec gear, they they will likely have the justice points to afford off-spec gear. Training in the off-spec role could be a problem, of course. The question is, how much effort are you willing to put into forming a second 10-man raid group out of the ruins and dregs of the 25 man?
As for the "three tanks in firelands" question, I was ... generalizing from my experience in BWD-25, where the group I was with was running 2-3 tanks depending on the fights. My personal experience in firelands raiding is limited to trash (and the occasional wiping on same), one session of attempting Shannox-25, and several "OMG, we pulled Shannox! Flee!"-10.
Muse Aug 30th 2011 6:41AM
I'd gquit. A guild that has so crappy leadership that not one person on the entire officer team asks if anyone knows why Player isn't around and can someone contact em and ask... yeah. Why didn't Raid Leader point out to Irate Officer that Player had a very justified reason? That's just crap. (And no, "apologising" doesn't make it better, the damage is done, and someone who does something bad once IS going to do it again)
And yes, for such things as close people dying, 24 people really are expected to take the night off and roll their thumbs or whatever, anyone that complains has an empathy problem and should seek therapy.
nieboh Aug 30th 2011 7:02AM
"If you try and defend anyone for giving Disappointed shit for not showing up then you are heartless bastard and no one is going to show up at your funeral. Just sayin."
Disappointed missed a week of raiding. We don't know (and can't know) what else happened that week. Here's a not too unlikely hypothesis:
Their regular raid time came around and out of the 25 people expected, 7 were no shows. The other 18 people sat around wondering where everyone was, whether they were just late for signing up, started bitching about how inconsiderate it was that they didn't notify anyone that they'd be late or gone (at this point maybe the raid leader speaks up and says, "Disappointed did say he wasn't going to be able to make it this week." Or maybe he doesn't).
They're steamed and instead of raiding they start discussing how this has been a downward trend lately and maybe it was just unrealistic to expect to keep doing 25 man content. It gets put to a vote and they decide they're going to a 10 man format. At the end of the night, one of the officers fires off 7 angry letters asking why these people who missed weren't there. Out of these 7, one had a very legitimate reason for missing; when he informs the officer, the officer immediately apologizes.
Now, I don't know anything about this guild. This story I've just fabricated may be miles off from what really happened, but we just don't know.
The problem with letters like this from Disappointed is that we are only ever going to hear one side of it, and even that one side isn't going to be completely objective. Instead it is going to be colored by the author's feelings and impressions about what has happened. In this case both directly (how he feels about the letter he got, and the fact that he got left out of the core raiding group when they dropped from 25 to 10) and indirectly (presumably he is still dealing with the grief over the loss of a family member).
So, long story short: The officer could have been more tactful in his letter to Disappointed. We don't know why the officer wrote such a harsh letter, but he owned up to the mistake when he heard the full story and apologized to Disappointed.
Don't demonize this guy over incomplete data. Just sayin.
blessthemartyrguild Aug 30th 2011 12:26PM
Again they didn't raid 25 man with a 25 man raid roster, it just doesn't happen. If they were trying their officers are to blame. In reality a 25 man raid team should have 30 players at a minimum(generalization here at its best) but in a guild that does calendar invites I would say 34-35 in my honest opinion.
Let me give one example of how having 25 players for 25 man raiding doesn't work....hey guys next month im on vacation going on a cruise ill be gone for two weeks. Then what? You hate the player and don't raid?
Here is what people forget from both sides. Yes this is just a game, however within the game you do make time commitments to other players who set aside time out of their lives as well. In addition it doesn't matter if its a game, a social event, work related etc....a death in your family is more important....your safety and well being is more important...school is more important...your significant other and children are more important. Now you should have the courtesy to notify someone and(this could be one side of the story leaving things out) it appeared the guild didn't have a section of the website set up for missing,nor should they in all honesty sine you sign up for raids.
These are y conclusions and this is coming from the GM and raid leader of a top 200us 25 man guild(so there is where the perspective of it lies). Poor officer communication started the issue, poor officer judgement caused the letter, however the officer manned up and apologized, so at that point that situation should be over...be it gquitting or letting it go. Not showing up for the raid....it seems the guild has an opt in process with the signups and not an opt out like you are expected there post out to let us know when you wont be. Should you leave after going to a 10 man.....HELL YES the leadership of this guild couldn't sustain what they previously promised and as such why will they with it being 10 man? There are more than enough raiders who only want to raid 25 man out there, so again on their end its too much work for them to carry a proper roster what will happen when re novelty of 10 man wears off? Same thing will happen, poor and lazy leadership will persist in 10 mans and problems with leadership that led here will come up again.