Posts with tag boundaries

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.

When you're both the guild leader and the raid leader of a guild, everyone looks to you to have all the answers. This week, one such officer finds himself tanking for a second, newly formed raid team. He wants to know how he can help without becoming the default leader of the team.

I have a question I would like discussed and I'm sure others are having similar question. I have what I consider a social raiding guild. ... I come from a history of progression raiding from MC onwards and raid leadership since the 15 man UBRS days. My main is Wumper-Saurfang and my guild is Carpe Jugulum. ... We have our midweek (more serious) team, Thursday night team (recently started SoO) and a social Flexi raid on Saturdays. Physically we have too many for a single 10 toon raid, and not enough viable raiders for a 25 toon more serious raid.

My question is how do I bridge the learning gap in the Thursday raid without becoming a leading participant of the raid? We have a new team that has started with a positive intent, a clear charter and rules. From the midweek (more serious) team we provide youtube guides videos for fights they are coming up to, visual class guides, discussion threads of tactics, approaches and role based discussion. We stream our fights for members to watch (and they do) when we're not recording for guide creation. If I am to get involved in the raid, because I am the GM and raid lead and would be tanking on my second bear, I will wind up taking a lead role within the raid. Currently I fill in as a reserve tank as required.

We all come to moments in our lives where we have to make big decisions. The consequences of these choices can change our lives completely, and often the agonising debate over a particular decision can stretch out for months.

Similarly, the characters we shape and nurture in WoW can face tough choices. Which talent tree to specialise in? Which equipment to focus on? Should game time be spent levelling alts, progressing in the endgame or ranking up in PvP?

Worlds apart, you may say. Working out whether to kill some imaginary elves or imaginary dragons is a completely different ball game from wondering whether that promotion is really worth the new commute. Yet recently, while concentrating on an important real life decision, I found myself retreading extremely familiar territory. In fact, when distilled to the pros and cons, it turned out identical to a recent choice I'd had to make in WoW.

Putting aside any discussion of the complexity of WoW, and how one can become invested in the game, I found it fascinating to realise I had already tried and tested an important decision from my real life by making the same choice in Azeroth. So next time you're arguing over a point of raid leadership, or pondering PvPing, bear in mind you might find your thought processes useful later!