Officers' Quarters: Patch 4.3 -- An officer's perspective
by Scott Andrews 
Oct 10th 2011 at 2:00PM
Patch 4.3 is shaping up to be the most exciting and feature-filled of Cataclysm. Let's take a look at which features might impact your guild and how you can take advantage of them.
I have located a raid
The Raid Finder is not just for the guildless. Guilds can also take advantage of this new feature in several ways. The first and most obvious is that it will allow your raiders to get practice time on bosses for your own normal-mode raids. Since you don't get locked to the instance using the finder, you can see the mechanics ahead of time and still raid with your guild in the same week.
If you have players who need to get up to speed, you can also use Raid Finder runs as a training ground. New players can learn the fights without wasting time and causing wipes in your normal runs. (Of course, we have yet to see how different finder mode and normal mode will be, but odds are the mechanics will be fairly similar.) Plus you can use the opportunity to address any issues that the player might be having with DPS rotations, awareness, etc.
I can't say how it will all shake out just yet, but I believe the Raid Finder has an incredible potential to help guilds recruit. Encourage your more knowledgeable (and patient) members to volunteer as raid leaders. By showing the members of the raid that you can lead them to success (or at least fail without losing your cool), they'll leave with a good impression of your guild. That in turn may lead to some applications.
On the other hand, if your guild members show up to these runs ready to rage over meters and kick anyone who makes a mistake, then you're not going to find too many people interested in joining.
The key here will be to lead with confidence and patience, helping players to improve their awareness or their performance so that the group can succeed. I'm sure you'll encounter cases where a player is just hopeless, but how you deal with that will say a lot about your guild. Of course, if someone is just being a jackass, the group will be grateful to you for kicking them.
The drama daggers
Legendaries cause drama. This statement has no exceptions, and it will be just as true this time even though these particular legendary weapons can only be earned by one out of 10 classes.
Don't let it happen in your guild. Get ahead of the game and choose which of your rogues will get the first crack at it before you set foot in Dragon Soul. And make it clear what your expectations are for that player once you've made the choice.
Sometimes these decisions can be difficult. In previous columns, I've made recommendations for assigning legendaries.
Take back the power
Finally, there will be an easier solution for guilds with leaders who have simply disappeared and never returned. Prior to 4.3, guilds have had to petition a GM to fix this situation. Soon, the highest-ranked members will be able to take control automatically after 30 days.
Before you hit that 30-day mark, I recommend holding a guild meeting and discussing who wants to take over. If the answer is no one, then you've got a bigger problem on your hands. If the answer is too many people, then you want to make a firm decision ahead of time rather than leaving it up to the chance of who logs in first after the notification has been sent.
If your guild leader has already been gone for a while at this point, you may not want to wait for the patch. It could be a while yet before it goes live.
Sadly, there's still no automated solution for an active guild leader who is terrible at leading.
Transmogrification
For some reason, Blizzard has chosen this ridiculous word to mean changing an item's appearance to match another item. And the only people who will ever actually have to type it in full are Blizzard employees and poor downtrodden bloggers like me. (At least it's still better than "samophlangination.")
If you're looking for a morale booster or want to schedule a fun activity for an off night, running older raids for some juicy transmoggables is a great option. You can also earn some achievements at the same time, so it's a win for everybody.
Unbound chaos
It was bound to happen sometime, and patch 4.3 will be the day that you can actually trade these orbs to other players. Many of the crafted items added in the patch will still require them. If you want to get a head start on gearing up, ask members to stockpile these. You'll still need drops from Dragon Soul, but at least you'll have an ample supply of orbs when you get them.
There's a lot to look forward to in this patch. As with all major changes to the game, however, officers have to anticipate the opportunities they represent and the possible problems they may cause. Best of luck to your guild in 4.3!
/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 1 of 2)
Rawkit Oct 10th 2011 2:28PM
Transmogrification is a nod to Calvin and Hobbes comic strips if I'm not mistaken.
Antheril Oct 10th 2011 2:48PM
You are probably mistaken. It's a real word, that means exactly what they're using it for -- changing the appearance or form of something into something else.
Gimmlette Oct 10th 2011 3:02PM
I've taken to calling it "Calvinize", realizing that someone could mistake my term for a reference to the Protestant religion, although, when the discussion goes...
"I need to run BWL to get those pants to Calvinize."
"Who wants to run Tempest Keep so x can get that staff to Calvinize."
"I'm not Calvinizing anything but my gun."
...it's kind of clear we aren't talking religion...or are we?
minduim Oct 10th 2011 3:19PM
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transmogrify
"First Known Use: 1656"
Caliea Oct 10th 2011 4:36PM
"First known use" doesn't imply "best known use"
Calvin and Hobbes will always be associated with transmogrification in my world :)
LynMars Oct 10th 2011 5:03PM
But the earliest known use generally means the writer got it from somewhere and found a clever way to use it. I mean, I learned a lot of neat words thanks to White Wolf's RPGs but they aren't the first ones to use those terms for their factions and character abilities--they did, however, use them in ways that were mostly correct (some of the Vampire clan choices are still boggling), and so people were introduced to the terminology.
roosterfish Oct 10th 2011 8:16PM
It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Sunaseni Oct 10th 2011 2:16PM
In my guild, the choice of which rogue to get the legendary was easy: we only got one. I'm guessing in many guilds, it'll be even easier; they got none, due to rogues being pretty unpopular as of late.
Moeru Oct 10th 2011 2:37PM
The problem is everyone who has a geared rogue that was left behind for the last 2 tiers will consider bringing it back for the legendaries, methinks.
Skarn Oct 10th 2011 2:41PM
We've also got just a single rogue, so that was easy for us.
Arrohon Oct 10th 2011 3:19PM
I belong in a large guild with maybe 5+ rogues... all of which aren't geared enough for T11. Our sneaky friends aren't too well liked at this point.
Kuro Oct 10th 2011 4:52PM
Rogue LF weekend raiding group...
Will FoK for Orange Daggers! PST!
Duts Oct 11th 2011 4:56PM
I'm picking the one from Macy's that's a little more on the fuschia side than the bright red. The touch of blue really makes my eyes stand out...oh wait, what were we talking about??
Ashanu Oct 10th 2011 7:41PM
hears a question, how would one go about motivating people to help supply the guild bank with much needed supplies, i have a wonderfully stocked guild bank for my guild, but that is almost entirely the work of three to four people, unfortunately they cannot supply everything for the bank, so i have had to spend gold to keep things like gems, and enchants stocked, its become quiet costly, and i would like to have some of my other members make contributions to the bank. however im not sure as to how to go about doing that, i have said to them that we are low on gems or what have you, and sometimes i have even asked them to help restock the bank, but i rarely get a reaction, and if i do it usually very little( not enough for a 300+ raiding guild). how do you get the message out to people( please dont say guild message of the day, no1 reads that not even me, and im the gm), and how do you do it to were you get real results, and with out offending anyone of cores.
Jen Oct 11th 2011 4:00AM
If you're a raiding guild, I think the best way to go is sell the BoE epics that drop in raids to fund the guild bank. My small 10-man guild has a couple hundred thousand gold - left over AFTER we bought all the herbs and fish we needed for raids.
Zura Oct 10th 2011 2:29PM
I think the future of normal- mode guilds is in danger with raid finder. Heroic mode guilds have players already willing to do same content in hard mode, but what about people who just want to kill end boss to finish story? If I can kill deathwing and get full tier set in raid finder, why try harder version? Also, the next upgrade after raid finder needs to be big upgrade to in- game voice communication. Can't assume all raid finder players have vent.
Skarn Oct 10th 2011 2:42PM
My normal mode guild found all the nerfed Firelands stuff far too easy and far too boring as a result. We won't be doing our standard raids through the raid finder, since it will also be too easy.
Also, we would need 15 PuGs. No thanks.
Arbolamante Oct 10th 2011 2:59PM
Well Skar, good for you. My three-hours-a-week group of people who have jobs, kids, and other complications and therefor almost never sends in the exact same 10 people two weeks in a row and often starts late as we try to pug someone in only got to Rags for the first time this week (got through phase two after about three tries but then a healer had to leave -- helped a lot that about half our team had seen him already on another toon.) We have a lot of folks in our guild who can't routinely make our regular runs because of jobs, school, etc. -- this will be a big boon for them -- and for all out altoholics.
Skarn Oct 10th 2011 4:11PM
My normal mode guild raids 2 nights a week, 3 hours a night. We currently have 11 raid members. Of those 11 members, at least six have kids. Including both of our main tanks, both of our off-tanks and two of our healers. Of the other five, at least three are married, but I'm not sure if they have kids. I and possibly one other raider are the only ones that are un-married and kid-less. Every single raid member, including every parent, has a full-time job as well.
Don't give me a load of crap about how it's "impossible" to raid with kids because I have a full raid that doesn't it every single week. We're adults. We recognize the value of time and have respect for the time that each raid member is contributing. At the same time I also recognize that some people's lives just don't have even that much time for WoW. Is WoW the most important thing? Of course not. Why do we play? Because we enjoy it. Because it's a great way to have some down time and fun with friends. It's worth it to us to take just a few hours out of the week and raid. We LIKE normal difficulty. It's perfect for us. Challenging, but not soul-crushing. Progressable, but not faceroll-easy.
Despite that, nowhere in my first response did I say the Raid Finder was a bad idea. Just that it's not MY preference. If you bother to look through my posting history here, you'll find that I've more than once suggested the need for an "easy" difficulty level for raids. I am in full support of the Raid Finder for those that want to use it. I am just not one of those and neither is my raid group. You will enjoy it? Good for you! Seriously. I hope you have fun. I won't be running in the Raid Finder because, quite simply, it won't be fun for me.
Arbolamante Oct 10th 2011 4:27PM
Fine, though I didn't say "impossible." And I did miss that you mentioned the "nerfed" material. Nuances are not always clear on the internet -- I interpreted your message as "I'm awesome" and it seems I was wrong.