Posts with tag scheduling

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.

Scheduling raids at a time that's convenient for everyone on your team is one of the toughest parts of raiding. No matter whether you're flexing or taking down Heroic Garrosh, it's an obstacle that every raiding guild has to overcome. But what can you do as the guild leader when you can no longer attend your own guild's raids?

Hello Scott,

I don't know if you've heard THIS one yet! Short and sweet.

Normally, when players and raid times don't fit, the players just go find another guild with raid times that do fit. No hard feelings and I wish them luck.

But, what is a Guild Leader of a dedicated raiding guild to do when the raid times no longer fit my schedule?

Here at the OQ we've heard from a lot of guilds who are being massacred by normal mode Throne of Thunder. This week it's refreshing to hear from a guild that has found unexpected success in Tier 15. They're now weighing a second raid team, but the raid leader has doubts about this expansion.

Hello Scott,

I'm the raid leader of a casual, family centered guild. We have always been on the lower end of the raiding curve, clearing raids only after they have become old content. However most recently we have been progressing remarkably well during Mists.

For the first time our guild has attempted the raid while still current. While only going 3/12 in Throne of Thunder is nothing to the guilds who are now farming heroic Ra-Den, it has greatly lifted the spirits of our guild and it's members; so much so that there is now talk of forming a second raid team.

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.

Adult raiders are free to enjoy a few adult beverages while they raid. This week, a guild leader wonders what to do when a raider has a few too many and ruins a night of raiding. (He also asks about raid scheduling, which isn't nearly as interesting, but we'll talk about it anyway.)

Hi Scott,

Yes, it's me again, Apocalyptic GM, sorry to be bothering you again, but you did such a good job last time of giving advice, that i felt the need to come to you again, especially now that two further large problems have arisen within my guild.

Firstly, the issue of raiding days. Currently i work shifts of 4 on 4 off at night time, which means i am only available for every 4 out of 8 days. We raided fine with this for the last 6 months ... but recently there has been some descent among the ranks, and complaints that people aren't happy with the current raiding days set up, and this hampering our time raiding. Now I could easily change to a fixed raiding days, but that would leave me frequently absent from raids, which is not something i would prefer. And this leaves me in a pickle as to what to do.

As guild master and raid leader I feel I should be able to set up raids to suit me, but then I also feel I should better accomodate my guild.

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.

Guild events outside of the usual raiding and PvP activities can help break up the monotony and get people excited about their guild. This week's email comes from an "event officer" who wants to know, how do you get people to show up?

I am an officer in my guild, and we have been re-evaluating our roles. I am considering becoming the Social Event Coordinator, and I am looking for some advice to get things started. ... My ideas include scheduling nights to do scenarios/dungeons for achievements, old school raids, and probably a pet battle league once people aren't as focused on gearing up for raids.

My questions are:
Do you have any suggestions on how to communicate to guildies that aren't around much that these events are being planned?
Do you have suggestions on how to determine interest before scheduling?
Do you have suggestions on how to encourage participation?
Do you have other event ideas that have worked for you?

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.

For many guilds, the release of a new raiding tier isn't as cut and dry as simply moving on to the new bosses and leaving the previous tier behind. These days, there are a number of reasons to continue with older content: finishing legendary grinds, completing achievements, and downing unkilled bosses on either difficulty. This week, a guild leader feels conflicted about how to approach the raiding schedule with so much unfinished business in Firelands.

Hi Scott:

I'm the guild leader for a medium sized guild. The guild is about 9 months old at this point, and we've had our share of raid member turnaround. Through each generation though, we've gotten stronger. Now that the team is pretty solid and showing up on schedule weekly, a problem has reared its ugly head, and its name is Dragon Soul.

You see, because of the constant turnaround, we were stuck in tier 11 longer than we should have been, and are only now at the point that going 6/7 in Firelands can be done in a couple of hours. We still don't have a Rag kill under our belts. Compounded with that, our Legendary recipient is only in the second collection phase.

But with the new dungeons dropping 378's and Deathwing taunting us, some members of the raid group have voiced in interest in raiding Dragon Soul. One member (who got a Rag kill with another team a couple weeks ago) said he can't wait to kill Rag so we "never have to go to Firelands again." That really REALLY aggravated me, but I kept my cool in Guild Chat.

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.

Alt runs can be tricky things in this age of shared lockouts among raid sizes. No longer can we bring an alt who's saved to a 10-man raid to our main character's 25-man run. Scheduling alt runs can also be difficult. There's only so much time in the week where players' schedules mesh. This week, a guild leader tells the tale of the alt run that caused a firestorm and asks what he can do to resolve the situation.

Hey Scott!

I wanted some of your lights on a recent issue I'm being faced with. Basically, the point is twofold: misunderstandings and the limits of our powers as officers and GMs.

Here's the rundown: I'm GM of a casual raiding team (Friday/Saturday night, 6 hours of so, two 10 man raids at most) who was originally built to offer those that could not afford to raid during the week an opportunity to raid decently without most of the pressure of attendance. That was a couple of years ago and we've been doing pretty well for ourselves.

Just last week, one of our members (let's call him Hoots) offered an alt raid on Monday night, which was decently successful. The day after, there was an argument with an officer that basically amounted to "we should focus our activities on the weekends, since we're a weekend guild." The argument kinda escalated when another member jumped on the officer, accusing her to forbid weekday raiding, to which the officer freaked out and the argument went off tracks. It went to the officer council the day after, and we actually punished the trespasser (take a memo).

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.

Last week, I received an email asking me for my thoughts on raid size in Cataclysm. As it turns out, I have quite a few thoughts -- three columns' worth, in fact, covering four different categories: gameplay, logistics, rewards and intangibles. My goal is to help officers and their guild members to choose which raid size is best suited for their guild. A week ago, I wrote about the gameplay category.

This week's column will cover two topics that have been linked together throughout the history of the game. From the very beginning of WoW, Blizzard has made a connection between more difficult logistics and greater rewards. Molten Core, Onyxia, and later 40-man raids rewarded the best available gear in their respective heydays. Throughout The Burning Crusade and Wrath, 25-man content yielded the best items. For Cataclysm, this paradigm is shifting.

Let's take a look at the logistics involved with the two raid sizes and the rewards that each size offers.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

The last time I did an officers' patch perspective, the numbers were reversed (2.3). In that column, I talked about mage tables, spell damage being added to healing gear, and the Horde finally getting Fear Ward. It was October of 2007. Yep, a lot has changed in the past two years of WoW!

Patch 3.2 isn't yet up on the PTRs, but it's never too early to anticipate issues or plan for future success. Here are a few interesting changes to the game that might have an impact on guilds as we head into the late summer.

1 Raid, 4 Lockout Timers: That's right, the Crusaders' Coliseum will have four different versions with four different lockouts. The kneejerk reaction to this bit of news on the official forums (is there any other kind?) was generally not one of celebration. The most common complaint was, "Great. Now I have to farm the same five bosses four times a week."

Many players would balk at the thought of "have to" in this context. After all, just because you can, doesn't mean it's mandatory. But in hardcore guilds, the drive to be competitive (and keep your raid slot) can lead you down some strange roads. In some guilds, it is expected that you attend every scheduled raid you can. Some players are getting burned out just at the idea of running the same content four times in a single week.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

My guild's members mostly reside in the northeastern U.S. and Canada. As such, the summer is a great season for us: barbecues, outdoor sports, beaches and lakes, hikes and bike rides -- it's a lot of fun! However, it's also the season where my guild's raiding schedule seems to hang by a thread. And this year is no different.

People aren't online as much. Their free time shifts around completely. Some members hardly play at all. It starts to become difficult to fill raid slots. Sometimes it becomes impossible, and we have to cancel raids for a little while.

On top of everything else, we've been plagued by a string of technical problems this year. It started out with with one of our healers getting all laggy on us for no apparent reason. Then someone's PC was attacked by an undetected virus. Then another one of our healers had their PC die mid-raid. Then a tank's motherboard exploded.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

One of the big annoyances of raiding is finding the right schedule. This time of year is particularly bad for many guilds, as last week's Officers' Quarters column proved. Students of all ages have finals. Working adults are traveling more often or spending more time away from the PC. When you have a small crew, the loss of even one person for a few weeks can mean all your raids are put on hold. This week, one officer wants to know how to figure out a raiding schedule despite some uncooperative individuals.

The tagline for The Burning Crusade is "You Are Not Prepared." Based on what I saw tonight, Blizzard is not prepared for the expansion either. It took me awhile to grab a good screenshot, I started out at 583 in queue, 57 minutes. Post after post on the General forums complaining about long queue times. With the number of people coming back to the game for the expansion pack, what kind of queue times and problems can we expect? Oh well, it gave me time to get a few new raids scheduled. Hopefully people can get logged in when I want to start.