Our guild did'nt have the best of beginings, and like most guild formations, they are either created by a break up of a guild or a reformation of one from previously. Ours was born from the ashes of a feud around the officers, GM and guild member pockets, otherwise known as cliques' I had experience of leading a guild previously, but we only played the game to socialise and enjoy some world pvp in Astranaar previous to TBC, we didnt aim for Molten Core, or Dire Maul. We were around level 30-50. Our social group joined another guild, prior to the creation of TDD, which is where we pick up this record of events from.
Officers
Our first officers evening was guildless, we stood about Stormwind cheese shop discussing between 10 members what we where going to do. I was asked if I would be the GM of the guild, but I made it quite clear I would have officers of my choice. Loyal folk who I had grown to know well throughout my gaming and those that I thought each having a quality (whether you would consider them good or bad personally) where a quality that assured a balanced argument no matter what the subject was, and have that argument on a mature level without a stigmatic level of Ego. This took some months to balance out however, we started with 4 officers, but with some real life issues and disputes both in and out of the game 1 retired and moved onto another guild, and today has returned. But was replaced in consideration of the circumstances of the previous leaving (IE too close to RL in issues), so we picked someone outside of the RL circle so to speak.
Knowing your officers as well as you can do, in RL and ingame is a careful balance of too much and too little can cause long term aggro within your officer chat and guild decisions, AND cause aggro outside of the game too.
You also need to know that your officers are reluctant to lead your guild too. The right frame of mind is "I will support you, if you support me as an officer" not, "I said this last week to XXX and you have gone completely over my head" If you can work with your officers and forgive any mis-understandings, you're guild is more the better for it. You should be able to consider your officers your best mates either in game or out of the game with a trust on the same level as faith! If you can't work with your officers, or they cant work along side with you, who the hell do you expect to follow you as a team, as a guild being lead by a group of disputing non-communicating fools? Start your guild... as you mean to go, and always maintain that team of officers.
Raiding
If you're running a casual guild, what we learned, was having the balance of raider and casuals always in question "Are we raiding too much?" and "are we progressing?" and finding that middle ground of acceptable commitment to raiding. We found that at the very limit, 3 Nights per week was the most we could consistently have a regular sign up without burning the guild out, or our raid leaders.
3 was, and still, is the magic number. (Limit it to 2 nights per week if you want a 25 man raids instead of 10, then you're making a narrower window of raiding opportunity, and always start your raids from Wednesday reset day followed by Thursday night). This seems to work for us on a regular basis. Sometimes the guild will get carried away with progress and commit themselves *by request* to an additional raid night to achieve something. Let it happen, and then bring it back down to the regular nights again straight after, you want folk to request extra raids like this by majority.
But this is the most important thing of all about raiding, DO NOT advertise yourself as a raiding guild, no matter what YOU think it means, will mean one thing only, ....YOU raid...never mind anything else....you "RAID" that’s it, and you know when you've gone wrong is when they login without checking the in game calendar and ask.......are we raiding tonight?
I cannot tell you how many times we have had to fight off mis-informed players who have got through the recruiting net, because someone told them we where a raiding guild, or they mis-understood we where a casual guild first..Raiding second. And to date, this one issue has been our one gripe in guild issues.
What...is casual?
I work 5 days a week, 1 week I finish work at 5:30pm and home for 6pm UK time, and the other week I finish at 4:30pm and home at 5pm UK time.
I eat, I help put our baby girl to bed after a bath, clean up and get ready to settle down by 7:30pm in the evening relaxed and ready to login to warcraft. Raids start from 7:45pm/8pm UK time and I log off by 11pm or, set to finish the raid by 10:30pm earliest (UK time), because like the rest of the world, I have a job to go to the next day, others have children and school/college, and in Europe its 11:30pm.
I login on a Wednesday, Thursday for a raid, Mondays to help anyone needing help with quests or dungeons, heroics or world events etc. So 2 nights of the week I will commit to a guild raid. (We'll have a raid on Tuesday also).
Our raids are buffed, organised, and each member of the raid picks his or her food buffs and flasks from the Gbank tab call...raid buffs.
We have a guild turn over of about 2 members per month recruited, and maybe 1 leaving within that month or two. And we recruit players we feel have a personality that wont clash with the rest of the guild.
I would rather recruit a player who didn’t know everything, and learned by asking his/her guild for advice, rather than boasting it in guild chat, or linking achievements. If someone is really that good, they would not need to speak up for themselves...others would do it for them. And you will see it in /g chat how you notice good people, or good players...
Players and People, It is easier to learn to be a good player, "good people"..Now, there's the gem in the crown, and you should build your guild from that small insight of information, if you're building a casual guild.
Our first officers evening was guildless, we stood about Stormwind cheese shop discussing between 10 members what we where going to do. I was asked if I would be the GM of the guild, but I made it quite clear I would have officers of my choice. Loyal folk who I had grown to know well throughout my gaming and those that I thought each having a quality (whether you would consider them good or bad personally) where a quality that assured a balanced argument no matter what the subject was, and have that argument on a mature level without a stigmatic level of Ego. This took some months to balance out however, we started with 4 officers, but with some real life issues and disputes both in and out of the game 1 retired and moved onto another guild, and today has returned. But was replaced in consideration of the circumstances of the previous leaving (IE too close to RL in issues), so we picked someone outside of the RL circle so to speak.
Knowing your officers as well as you can do, in RL and ingame is a careful balance of too much and too little can cause long term aggro within your officer chat and guild decisions, AND cause aggro outside of the game too.
You also need to know that your officers are reluctant to lead your guild too. The right frame of mind is "I will support you, if you support me as an officer" not, "I said this last week to XXX and you have gone completely over my head" If you can work with your officers and forgive any mis-understandings, you're guild is more the better for it. You should be able to consider your officers your best mates either in game or out of the game with a trust on the same level as faith! If you can't work with your officers, or they cant work along side with you, who the hell do you expect to follow you as a team, as a guild being lead by a group of disputing non-communicating fools? Start your guild... as you mean to go, and always maintain that team of officers.
Raiding
If you're running a casual guild, what we learned, was having the balance of raider and casuals always in question "Are we raiding too much?" and "are we progressing?" and finding that middle ground of acceptable commitment to raiding. We found that at the very limit, 3 Nights per week was the most we could consistently have a regular sign up without burning the guild out, or our raid leaders.
3 was, and still, is the magic number. (Limit it to 2 nights per week if you want a 25 man raids instead of 10, then you're making a narrower window of raiding opportunity, and always start your raids from Wednesday reset day followed by Thursday night). This seems to work for us on a regular basis. Sometimes the guild will get carried away with progress and commit themselves *by request* to an additional raid night to achieve something. Let it happen, and then bring it back down to the regular nights again straight after, you want folk to request extra raids like this by majority.
But this is the most important thing of all about raiding, DO NOT advertise yourself as a raiding guild, no matter what YOU think it means, will mean one thing only, ....YOU raid...never mind anything else....you "RAID" that’s it, and you know when you've gone wrong is when they login without checking the in game calendar and ask.......are we raiding tonight?
I cannot tell you how many times we have had to fight off mis-informed players who have got through the recruiting net, because someone told them we where a raiding guild, or they mis-understood we where a casual guild first..Raiding second. And to date, this one issue has been our one gripe in guild issues.
What...is casual?
I work 5 days a week, 1 week I finish work at 5:30pm and home for 6pm UK time, and the other week I finish at 4:30pm and home at 5pm UK time.
I eat, I help put our baby girl to bed after a bath, clean up and get ready to settle down by 7:30pm in the evening relaxed and ready to login to warcraft. Raids start from 7:45pm/8pm UK time and I log off by 11pm or, set to finish the raid by 10:30pm earliest (UK time), because like the rest of the world, I have a job to go to the next day, others have children and school/college, and in Europe its 11:30pm.
I login on a Wednesday, Thursday for a raid, Mondays to help anyone needing help with quests or dungeons, heroics or world events etc. So 2 nights of the week I will commit to a guild raid. (We'll have a raid on Tuesday also).
Our raids are buffed, organised, and each member of the raid picks his or her food buffs and flasks from the Gbank tab call...raid buffs.
We have a guild turn over of about 2 members per month recruited, and maybe 1 leaving within that month or two. And we recruit players we feel have a personality that wont clash with the rest of the guild.
I would rather recruit a player who didn’t know everything, and learned by asking his/her guild for advice, rather than boasting it in guild chat, or linking achievements. If someone is really that good, they would not need to speak up for themselves...others would do it for them. And you will see it in /g chat how you notice good people, or good players...
Players and People, It is easier to learn to be a good player, "good people"..Now, there's the gem in the crown, and you should build your guild from that small insight of information, if you're building a casual guild.
People are more human than players.
If those stats show the majority people leave TDD to join End Game raiding guilds, or stop playing. In the "guild circle" of relations, TDD is considered to be one of the "best" casual guilds on Khadgar with feedback from Ex TDD members applying to End Gaming guilds.
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