One of my favorite people to read online is a fellow by the name of Pjammer on Livejournal. He's smart, funny, and a gifted writer, and if you are not sobbing by the end of "King of Masochists" then you are pretty much a terrible person. But another great entry is "The 16 Essential People In Your Life," which lists such valuable acquaintances as the Computer Security Guru, the Wolf, the Consigliere, and (most importantly) the Best Friend. Pjammer, quoting Harvey Mackay, correctly notes that 2 am is a bad time to make new friends. These are the kind of people you want in your life as early as possible, and to exercise a positive influence on its course.
My realm's seen a number of guild instability issues of late, which is something most of us have come to expect with an upcoming expansion. I've found reason to mull over how the virtual world differs from the real world with respect to friendship, backstabbing, greed, betrayal, honor, and how people choose to handle their problems. In my considered opinion it doesn't differ at all, and your experience ingame is largely determined by the network of players assembled around you, whether that alliance is a recognized one in the form of a guild or simply a more informal group of friends.
So, from my own experience and with a hat tip to Pjammer, these are the people you want in your posse for the best possible experience in the game:
The above screenshot is a little hard to read, and for that we apologize. But it comes from Diablo of Stormscale -- apparently they had a healer who /afked in the middle of a raid for about 30 minutes, and when he got switched out of the raid for a Resto Shaman got a little testy. He says he's going to go do his dailies while he adds up the "pros and cons" of staying with the guild, and the GM solves his problem fast: "Here's the con." /gkick.
We have to admire that kind of quick decision making. After the break, more stories of guild drama and woe, and some good news, too -- downed reports and recruiting notices. Make sure to send in any guild news you see to wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and click the link to see this week's GW.
I've just rejoined an endgame guild (my Hunter just recently hit 70), and while I used to run Heroics pretty often on my Shaman with my old guild, my new guild is much smaller -- while I like them a lot, they aren't as much into running instances as I am, so endgame instance runs are few and far between with them.
So I'm left to PuG Heroics on my own, and I'm having the same problem deviate_delight is: getting into PuG Heroic groups isn't proving to be easy. I'm a good player, and my gear is pretty good (OK, to be truthful, it's probably a little low, and I just need to keep running non-Heroic stuff a little more until I get luckier with loot drops), but for some reason, I'm having a tough time making my way into Heroic groups.
So let's put the question out to you readers: any advice for players like me and d_d on how to start Heroic dungeons without guildies to run with? Anyone have a strategy for getting a good, regular Heroic group together, or how to make it so that Heroic runners seek you out when they need a DPS (or tank or healer or whatever you are)? Heroics are great places, full of good loot and badges and all kinds of things that can help immensely with the endgame, but with the wrong people, they can really ruin your day. How can we get a group that works?
Consider yourself lucky if you've never seen the sight above before -- it's the sign of a former guildleader yanking everything out of the guild bank (including all the stuff above and a good 12,000g) and transferring off to another server. Good times. This is why I usually keep all of my Hearts of Darkness under my mattress at home -- the banks just aren't safe.
This isn't the only guild leader ninja we heard about this week, and it's definitely not the only messy drama -- there's lots more right after you click the link below. Don't forget to send in your tips about drama, downed and recruiting news from around the realms to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. We really appreciate it, and lovers of drama of all kinds do too.
There's a ton of asking going on around this site lately -- between "Ask a Lore Nerd" and "Ask a Beta Tester," you guys are asking more questions than a two-year old who just learned what "why" means. But this column, Ask WoW Insider, is the O.G. of Ask columns here on the site, and unlike all of the other Ask columns, we put the question back to you readers. Chippen of EU Doomhammer sent in this great question this week:
We are having a discussion in our guild whether alts have priority on loot before guild members and we do have different views on this. Some say that an alt is an alt, and need to wait to be geared up, while others can't really see the problem. What is a main and what is an alt?
I suppose a main is the...well...I don't know. The first character I created? Or is it the character I play the most? Or is it the character I want to play the most and also enjoying playing the most? When does an alt become a main, and is it possible to swap between the two?
If you're asking me, I'd say it's definitely possible to switch mains (I've done it a few times) -- your main is currently the character that's getting the majority of your playtime, and the one where loot matters the most to you. Some guilds ask you to declare a main, so that they can make a clear distinction for passing out loot, while other guilds just have players switch alts depending only on what situations require what.
So let's show up those other Ask columns and give this great, open-ended question out to you, our dear readers: what is a main and what is an alt? And what's the difference between the two?
If you've got a question for our readers to be posted right here in the original Ask column, be sure to send it along to ask@wowinsider.com. And there's lots more Ask WoW Insider, including this question on abusing the /roll, and how to make friends and influence raiders on a new server.
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
I'm not sure how, because I usually avoid the topic around "civilians," but the subject of Warcraft came up a few weeks ago as I was speaking with a co-worker in my department. I don't mean my glamorous position blogging for WoW Insider that has made me a globally recognized household name -- in this case, I'm talking about my corporate, Clark Kent job. When you talk about the Lich King there, people think it's some kind of organic fast-food restaurant.
During this conversation I started talking about my role as a guild leader. While I was explaining it, I realized just how much of this role I've applied to situations in my office life. Wouldn't a company value this type of training? The author of this week's e-mail asks just how to present your guild leadership experience to a potential employer.
It's not easy to be the GM/officer/leader in a successful guild, regardless of how you define 'successful.' We work hard to keep drama at a minimum, create an environment where our members are comfortable and having fun, recruit new folks, 'fire' bad seeds among many other duties and obligations. All while developing our own toons, often to be on par with the best of the rest.
To me, that sounds like a great resume builder for the real world. Employers are looking for that kind of leadership, discipline, and knowledge.
And yet we play World of Warcraft all the time. You wouldn't think this tiny little tell, above, would cause a guild to rupture apart, but in fact it did exactly that -- Runforyalife sent this tell to someone, they posted it on the forums, and the next thing you know, the GM had kicked Run right out. For his part, Run regrets what he said (we think the GM is a little testy, and whoever posted the tell is at fault, too), but there's a point to be made here: even the little tells you send in game can cause big trouble.
All this drama and more after the break. We've got good news too, though: there are guild downings aplenty, as well as a few recruiting notices (though it seems recruiting has slowed down with the Wrath beta in full force. If you've got a tip, send it to wowguildwatch@gmail.com as always. Click the link below to read on.
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
When World of Warcraft launched, a guild was a chat channel, a tabard, and some very basic UI features like ranks and the message of the day. It's nearly four years later, and very little thus far has been added to the game to help guilds. So far we've gotten one major feature: guild banks. It was almost absurd that banks weren't part of the feature set for guilds when the game went live, and the hoops guilds jumped through to stash and distribute their important items were equally absurd. So while banks were a welcome addition, I wouldn't call their implementation a step forward so much as a step to catch up with what's adequate.
Now we're getting calendars -- yet another essential feature that should have been part of the UI since Day 1. I don't want to sound unappreciative. I'm hopeful that this feature will be sound enough to use and I'll be thrilled if we can dump Guild Event Manager or Group Calendar for something that's built into the software (with a grateful farewell /salute to the makers of those mods!).
But in terms of running a guild using in-game features, we're still in bare-bones territory here. Is it possible that Blizzard has more surprises up their sleeve for officers in Wrath? Here's what I'd love to see them implement:
Larisa over at The Pink Pigtail Inn mused on an interesting question the other day: Should you pay for the wipes you cause? Her feeling is not only that you shouldn't, but that the mere fact of offering to pay is offensive to her, like offering hush-money or a bribe. Instead, she says, apologize quickly and confess what you did so that others can learn from your mistakes.
I agree with the idea of the mistake-maker apologizing and confessing immediately. This technique also works in real life situations. (I wish it was heeded more often in politics, too.) Further, I vigorously disapprove of ham-fisted reactions from over-zealous raid leaders or guild leaders. Overreacting by /gkicking people (as one of the commenters related) in normal guilds is completely ridiculous. (If you joined a guild who wants to make world's firsts or server-firsts, then you know what you're getting into.) If you are the raid leader then you need to take responsibility for the team you put on the floor. In life, work, politics, and gaming, the buck stops with leadership. Leaders need to pick the right team and remind people who they know are not as experienced or strong in the particular raid situation about tactics, strategy, and common mistakes. Or else they need to chill the heck out. In fact, from a certain point of view, it's not the person who caused the wipe who should pay repair bills: it's the raid leader.
Other commenters on Larisa's post offered different payment plan ideas. One suggested a tax on all the loot acquired in the raid. Another suggested that before the raid even begins, raiders should pay an ante to participate, thereby socializing the costs of what might happen. Of course, there is the ever-popular solution of letting the guild pay for repairs afterwards, too. But as another commenter pointed out, repair bills and buff flasks for a 25-man raid can run a guild nearly 400G per run. My feeling is that as long as everyone goes into the raid knowing those taxes are being imposed, it sounds like a fine idea. Or, realizing that mistakes are going to be made, even by the most experienced and savvy players, we could all act like we realize that raising gold is as much a part of the game as raiding, questing, or grinding, and suck up our own repair bills, regardless of who caused the wipe.
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Bleak is the word I would use to describe the current situation for raiding guilds. For many guilds, activity and recruitment are at all-time lows. It's becoming harder and harder to cobble together enough people to run anything these days. Must we simply endure? Is there no hope for us until Wrathlaunches? Will we officers respond to this crisis with moral fortitude -- or weakness? Will I actually use boldface to call out our officer community on their behavior? Find out after the break! But first, the author of this week's e-mail relates his own guild's experiences.
Hi Scott,
My name is Dmitry. [My guild is] a casual raiding guild made up mostly of people over 20, who either go to school, or work, or both, many of whom have kids. This is all taken into account and we have a very strong RL-before-WoW stance.
Unfortunately the past month or two has been really hard for us. Our MT was gone for 3 weeks because of a new job, lots of people went on vacation because of the summer, others stopped playing as much to spend more time with their kids, etc. After having guild firsts on Mag, Hydross, and Lurker in 3 weeks in June our guild has started to go backwards, having trouble taking down Gruul some nights.
I think everyone who's run an instance and a raid has been in this situation -- you wait all night for a Karazhan run, it fills, so you decide to go run a heroic or some other five man, and then a few minutes in, you get a whisper: "Someone left, and we need a healer! Are you still in?"
Sigh. An embarrassment of riches. So now what do you do: ditch your newfound 5man group for the raid you originally wanted, or stick with the group you signed on with, passing up the original raid? Neither way is very smooth -- either you disappoint the folks you're with, and look like an elitist raider, or you tell the raiders that you're already in a group and run the risk that they won't ask you again. So awkward -- it's like choosing a social circle in high school all over again.
Usually, the best course of action I've found is to cover yourself before you leave either group -- jump into LFG or ping the guild for a replacement before you leave anybody behind. Short of finding someone to fill in for your fill in, the next best option is probably to explain yourself well and promise help next time -- hopefully the group you're with will understand that raiding is fun and/or the raiders will understand that you couldn't wait and keep you on the list for next time. Any other ideas for getting out of an instance pinch like this?
We'll be straight with you, Guildwatch readers. Your intrepid blogger has been at E3 all day, writing like mad, and not only that, but is now surviving on his third day of sleep deprivation. So this week's Guildwatch is a little shorter than usual -- we still stayed up to get it out, and there's still the drama, downed, and recruiting news that you'd expect, but we realize that there may not be as much of it.
Worry not, though -- next week, after your intrepid blogger has returned home and refilled his sleep meter, we'll have an extra long edition of Guildwatch, and all of the tips sent in (to wowguildwatch@gmail.com, if you want to send us one) that we didn't get to will be published. Thanks for putting up with us, enjoy this week's GW right after the break.
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and get mad purpz. Today, we look at what happens when a raider moves guilds.
In a previous Ready Check, I posted about some of the problems many Sunwell raid guilds have been experiencing, ranging from member attrition and an unsatisfactory recruitment pool to divided aims and skill levels within the guild itself. This column will look at the aftermath of some of these issues, nearly a month later.
A suggestion from commenters that was overlooked both by myself in said column, and by those of us discussing future options within the guild, was simply to break for the summer if summer was taking such a hard toll on us. However, in a guild where a core of members are very active and want to kill Kil'Jaeden whatever it takes, an enforced summer break would likely have caused more key players to leave for other guilds. This might work if you aren't so close to 'beating the game' or if other alternatives aren't viable, however, so I wanted to quickly touch on it as an option that I'd omitted previously.
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Last week I talked about the problem of filling raids, as TBC winds down and summer heats up. But some people are lucky enough to have the opposite problem: Too many people want to go, and there just isn't enough room for everyone. That's what the author of this week's e-mail is facing.
Scott:
I'm in a guild that's been progressing quite steadily in T6 content now that no one needs attunement for them. We got 4/5 Hyjal and 3/9 BT quickly, and while we've been a bit stymied on Archie we're getting to the point where we'll have him down soon enough.
The problem is, well, not much of a problem really for, oh, 25 of us.
You see, we're one of the two real raiding guilds on our server, Alliance side at least. The rest of Alliance is fighting their way through T4 content and just starting their way on the T5 stuff. But the serious raiders love to join up with our guild, a lovely thing for the most part.
Of course, this means that we've usually got 35 people on a raid night wanting to run. A few too many.
Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week Nickiter writes in: Hi WoW Insider -
Until tonight, I was the GL of a raiding guild - a new guild, to be sure, and not terribly accomplished. But, after a night of listlessly wiping on The Lurker Below, I gave up.
Maybe I don't have guild leadership in me, maybe I do, but that's immaterial.
What I'm asking of WI and your sometimes kind, sometimes harsh, but always vocal readership, is what do I do now?
I'm a Protection Warrior in T5-level gear, aka the least in-demand class in the game for guild recruitment. I also have a Hunter... which I'm not even going to bring up.
I love raiding... PvP is a diversion, at best... What have those of you who've been in this situation done?
Reroll a Resto Shammy and find a guild to Brain Heal for? Quit 'til Wrath? Something else entirely?
Thanks in advance for your input.
- Nickiter, Smolderthorn (H)
I'm pretty much going to throw this out to the audience -- you're having problems I couldn't even dream of having, but I'm sure you're not alone in. Plus, I thought it was a good question even if I couldn't throw some snark in.
So, bring it, boys (and girls).
Got questions? Don't wait! Send them to us at ask AT wowinsider DOT com and your query could be up in lights here next week.
I've just rejoined an endgame guild (my Hunter just recently hit 70), and while I used to run Heroics pretty often on my Shaman with my old guild, my new guild is much smaller -- while I like them a lot, they aren't as much into running instances as I am, so endgame instance runs are few and far between with them.
There's a ton of asking going on around this site lately -- between 
If you've got a question for our readers to be posted right here in the original Ask column, be sure to send it along to ask@wowinsider.com. And there's lots more 
Larisa over at The Pink Pigtail Inn mused on an interesting question the other day: 
I think everyone who's run an instance and a raid has been in this situation -- you 
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