Social Guild! Raiding Guild! Casual Guild!
You can see the guild recruitment channel in towns, many folk advertising raiding guilds. Some maybe hard core, some just raiding when they can raid, even if thats every day. Then theres the Hard-Core raiding guilds which,...really dont seem to advertise much anyway, the progressive raiding guilds, Casual raiding guilds, and then theres the social friendly guild. Pretty clear cut isnt it? or is it?
Taking my own experience of running TDD, i think (and quietly hope) that i have seen all manner of player types come, go and stay. We naturally keep those people who wish to stay, and those that leave, leave peacefully or, somewhat with a little drama to make their point. And i cant remember kicking someone of of TDD for a good year +! And while we maintain a reputation of a good friendly well run guild, i wonder sometimes how...
By the nature of word of mouth, TDD is a social guild, however, we do raid with the pupose of progressive raiding, and theres nothing casual about the focus of our raiding, only our attitude towards wipes, and mistakes. We pick up our feet, advise, and try again. The guild is structured and organised enough to use the gold anvil, financed by the Raid Bank and Guild Bank plus dontations from guild members to have debt free repair bills. We are also labelled a casual raiding guild also, along with "end-game raiding".
Week by week, we work with and along side new members (new to raiding sometimes) and develope these players into confident raiders. It takes time, some find that difficult to cope with, when they see the potential of the talent of the over-all guild, and wonder why Ulduar isnt cleared yet. And that largely comes down to every individual members goals, where do they want to be?
My thoughts, as a GM is where do i want my guild to be together, and how happy are they as a collective raiding team working with each other. Socially, there could be problems, and that is the blight of every GM's guild. How do you sort out the social, from the raiding? You cant really, the two come hand in hand, you either like someone or you dont. And then communication of your raid breaks down into them and us!
The trouble i have found with TDD, is not screening enough, or willing to step on action of players you instinctively know, will move on to a more harder core of raiding. This is probably something i need to get back into personally and take over, however the trouble is defining the guild outline of Social, progressive raiding stance, how do you advetise a guild like that ...or do you need to if it already has a reputation?
TDD does have the potential, however, individual members, dont have the same time as dedicated raiders. We have famillies that work, students that study, parents with young babies, and teenagers in their finishing years at school. ....Maybe i should hold a competition for the best Social Progressive Raiding Guild slogan?
I personally have got into an arguement over ventillo as to whether TDD was a hard-core raiding guild. Again, mention of the ability of players within our guild. But take into account that individuals background and previous guilds, shows they where pushing to thier own expectation of what TDD *could be* for their own aims, which isnt a bad thing, if the rest of the guild was able to meet those expectations, but they cant..for RL reasons and commitments. It's at that point you have to consider is this relationship the right one? between the established Guild and the Experienced Individual? There are some months where the guild will *click* in raids and steam through everything without any hiccups, and at those points folk see *potential* to do something more, and push for it. I guess at the heart of things, we do things in..moderation, to balance real-life and gaming hand in hand.
And thats what TDD is good at. And i guess, the biggest advertisement TDD has, its achievements, in relation to other guilds out there on our server
