Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsOfficers' 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 2 of 2)
Ice Oct 10th 2011 5:58PM
Normal 10mans will live I'm sure.
At least my PC is so made out of wood I cant do any 25mans. Ulduar was horrible 1 fps fest and Tol barad 25 still was. I just cant do it. No matter how much loot they throw to me I wont do 25mans ever again. Not only due lag but I wouldnt be able to stand 24 people running around not knowing what to do (which will happen at start). Thats just me tho.
Skarn Oct 10th 2011 7:24PM
Ah, the lack of "nerfed Firelands" in my first post would have made a difference. I was really just responding to Zura's worry that Normal modes would become unpopular. I don't think that's the case. Though I do think the largest amount of players simply want Easy mode, I also think the smallest amount of players want Heroic. There is a group in the middle there, smaller than "easy" and bigger than "hard" that would like something right in the middle.
Normal is perfect and I hope it's here to stay, along with an easier and a harder difficulty.
Arbolamante Oct 10th 2011 2:50PM
So my bank alt at last can seize control of his guild in which no one else besides (including the GL) has logged on in a year, and without lifting a finger. See, I knew my patient approach would pay off eventually!
terph Oct 10th 2011 8:52PM
I'm actually kind of concerned about the opposite problem. I'm the GM of a friends/family guild that has gone dead. I've been keeping the fires burning and things well maintained. People like to pop in unexpectedly, we've had a few returns recently. After a month or so, everyone left again for another MMO. I'm still actively logging in but I'm feeling tired and need a break. Pug raiding has declined hard on my server, especially as melee DPS and I've got tons of solo goals accomplished. There's no groups recruiting for a ret pally either. Just not much left for me without any friends or a steady group.
I can't really entrust the guild to anyone right now, and as it is I inherited it from the original GM when he took a break. I feel like the only option I have is /gkicking most of the guild and just reinstating when people want to come back en masse. It's a jerk move, but I don't want to come back to WoW in 6 months and find out someone's little brother logged in and took over the guild. And there's a rather sizeable supply of expensive mats in the GV and a pretty decent pot of gold to go with it. I wanted to keep those safe for the next return to WoW.
Whig Oct 10th 2011 3:00PM
Also, LFR tier pieces, while lower level than reg, will activate set bonuses, and mix with reg pieces. 8 more chances to get a set piece a week!
WrecklessMEDIC Oct 10th 2011 3:03PM
The new "Guild Leader Replacement" feature is going to hurt the large casual, social guilds IMO. I can understand where it would be useful in a hard-core raiding guild, but for guilds like mine that don't raid or PvP it's not a good thing. As GM of a 500+ member guild that wants to take a break in December, I'm sorry to say that due to this new feature I will be removing every single guildie while I'm away. The only officers I could trust to watch over my guild are coming with me to play SWTOR which only leaves the random guildies that use my level 25 guild for the perks.
Originally I had planned to just let the guild survive on it's own while we were away, since it's very self reliant. But with this new feature being implemented it's just not worth losing my guild that I worked so hard to build up. And yes, I know it's been possible to steal a guild after the GM has been away for quite awhile but it was a lot less likely.
Whenever I do decide to return I will just rebuild the guild again. But as for the hundreds of guildies hanging out with us right now, it's gonna suck for them trying to find a new guild.
Arbolamante Oct 10th 2011 3:22PM
All you have to do is log in once in that month's time. It's only available if the GL is offline for 30 days.
pepsiwave Oct 10th 2011 3:33PM
You don't need to kick everyone out out of the guild. It takes 30 DAYS of inactivity to trigger the notice. How hard is it to login once in those 30 days. Heck, login every other week just to be sure. Logout and you're all set.
Andre Oct 10th 2011 4:03PM
If you're the leader of a guild in which you don't care what happens to it for 30 days and you can't trust any of the members in it, you're not a very good guild leader...
Quaza Oct 10th 2011 4:08PM
If you often take breaks lasting 30 days or longer, then quite frankly you don't lead the guild, and don't deserve such a rank.
Telwar Oct 10th 2011 4:11PM
You should probably mention this to your guild members, so they can leave your utter failure now instead of being surprised.
WrecklessMEDIC Oct 10th 2011 7:17PM
I know it's not a popular decision but if that's the way it's gotta be then so be it. All my officers know what's going to happen and I'll be informing the rest of the guild at the next meeting. I won't be able to pop in from week to week because I'll be canceling my account to play SWTOR for longer than 30 days. If Blizzard wasn't planning this feature then it wouldn't be an issue, but if that's what they implement in 4.3 then there's gonna be a lot of people looking for new guilds.
eileenjking Oct 13th 2011 9:29PM
I agree. I put everything in the guild bank. I have farmed for days on end to keep it stocked. I put soo much work into this guild and keeping it's rep. I would hate to go try swtor and come back to find that all my hard work was lost to a random scavenger. Who just picked it dry and booted everyone anyways. I know alot of people in our guild are only there for the perks they say so themselves. I find alot of stuff that are taken out of the guild bank are on AH. So I know people are just using it to make more guild. I can only imagine what would happen if my officers and I went to try the new swtor for a while. Better that I boot everyone and keep the guild that I build from scratch.
WrecklessMEDIC Oct 10th 2011 9:00PM
I think the thing people aren't understanding is I only created this guild for one single purpose:
To create a giant social uber-guild and hit Guild level 25 asap
And we did it. We were one of the first guilds on our server to hit level 25 last spring. That was the only reason I recruited so many people to join us.
Did I use them to further my own selfish goals? Yes.
Are they now using me to benefit from level 25 guild perks? Absolutely.
Will the same people join me when I return? Probably not.
Do I really care about 500+ people I've only talked to in a videogame. Nope.
Will I be able to find 500+ different people to join a level 25 guild when I return? Without a doubt. :)
Ice Oct 10th 2011 4:49PM
4.3 will bring another problem for your guild.
I know many dont want to hear it or acknowledge it but SWTOR and GW2 will come during 4.3..next expansion wont come before those games.
And no, I dont think they will "last week" like most forum users spazz out. They will get you lot of problems possibly when people go to those games.
Another comment - currently we have huge problem on recruiting.
How in the world can we recruit people nowdays? Lots of guilds are now 6/7 heroic so we cant compete. Forums are filled with other guilds probably from their own realms while in our realm theres 4 guilds who are above 3/7..
I have no idea. How to recruit in slow realm at all? We cant compete and people are not ready to faction trans / server transfer or both which is 50 euros.
Elvgren Oct 11th 2011 2:21PM
The Raid Finder will not be good practice. 25 man chaos more likely. You should not count on a 25 man pug to do things even close to the "right" way, to move in concert, etc.
As for Mr. WrecklessMEDIC ... what a selfish prig. Uses 500+ people to get his goodies and then when it's less convenient for him he screws them all over and say "Oh well." His 500 are better off in another guild. You are EXACTLY the type of GM the new feature is aimed at removing.
WrecklessMEDIC Oct 11th 2011 11:02PM
Lmao.... Well I could have booted them all 6 months ago when I got what I wanted. But I didn't. Obviously I'm already aware of the new Guild Leader replacement feature which is why I'm removing them all before they get a chance to ninja my guild. Might be selfish but hey it's my guild. :)
Bob Oct 14th 2011 1:10AM
Is the raid finder thingy not cross-realm? Because if it is, someone please explain to me the validity of trying to recruit players that would need to pay cash just to try it out.
eileenhotlips Oct 13th 2011 9:40PM
I feel that if I as a gm decides to go away for more than 30 days and built up my guild from scratch should not be booted because I went away for so long. I agree 100% with wreckless medic. I worked hard on our reputation and on everything that is in the guild to help others out. Just to have the first ninja take over the guild and boot everyone anyways. Everything in there is my farming. I am throwing a big party and distributing the gold to officers and people who contributed so much to the guild. I just refuse to let some douche take over my guild I put so much time into creating.