Sorry guys, but this week I’m not doing an article. If you were waiting, just an FYI that Dan O’Halloran is planning on doing a ‘Best of Druids from 2007′ article.

It just occured to me, as I prepared to go home and get my son ready to hit the school tonight, that there might actually be some of you that were wondering when my article was going to go live.

If you were waiting… sorry guys. My bad. I’m a big dumb bear.

I’ll be back next week, promise!

I’ve talked about some of the things that’ve gone on within my guild in past posts. We’ve had a little drama, we’ve had a mass exodus because we finally took action against favoritism, and we’ve looked towards the future of the guild.

Legatum Ignavis doesn’t have any kind of soviet ‘5 year plan’, but there is a definite intention in the direction of the guild. The guild leader, the raid leader and most of the officers are actively working towards preparing the guild for 25 man content.

There are a couple of different things in the works to do this.

More after the break…. go ahead, you know you want to…..

Raiding for gearThe first thing is to have weekly ten-man raids in Karazhan, as much of a full clear as possible, to gear up our existing members that want to raid. There was even enough people on this last weekend to have two Karazhan teams running at the same time. We’re also running new content, in the form of dedicated runs into Zul’Aman.

As an aside, those two Kara teams did not include me. We had Zul’Aman on Friday evening, and we spent 5 hours in that instance. We took down the first two bosses with little trouble (although my DPS kitty butt died on the eagle boss, and the rest 9 manned it), but the clear through the trash to boss three, and the many, many attempts on him, took quite a bit longer. By the time it was done, I pretty much didn’t have it in me to do a full-on raid in Karazhan the very next night.

Anyway, so the first thing that is going on is running Karazhan raids each week, with an eye towards getting those that need it gear upgrades, and experience in working together.

Analyzing performance

The second thing that we are doing to prepare, is, as guild leaders, taking a closer look at the raiders’ class specs, gear and installed addons.

We only started with a few people that had strange DPS results, and ourselves as officers so far. Before offering any critique of anyone else, even the most harmless question on gear goals, it’s important for us to analyze ourselves and make sure we are where we need to be.

Towards that end, we are using Recount to take a look at general figures, and WowWebstats will be implemented fully among the officers for an after action report breakdown.

Now, we haven’t actually DONE this WoWWebStats thing yet. Things have just been crazier than a shit house rat around my house, and it probably won’t happen tonight either because I have a meeting with a school to attend, and this during GOP Caucus time! Damn it! But my son is going to start Kindergarten the next school year, and by george we’re gonna be ready!!

I am confident that we as a guild will be able to implement WoWWebStats successfully, because I have this starter guide by Kirk of Priestly Endeavors fame to cling to.

Now, that post is awesome, but it’s not the only kickass guide to using WoWWebStats that I know of. The other one I am of course talking about is the awesome post of The Egotistical Priest.

Sadly, while I am sure there are many more thoughtful and helpful guides by other bloggers, I don’t know of them, and so I can’t plug them here. Or use them, either. I should say that I’d bet Matticus has one, but I ain’t gonna bother asking him now. I’ll look later, but I think between Ego and Kirk, I’ll get it covered.

So, we’re running gear-up raids, and we’re gonna track our stats looking for ways to improve, and we are using Armory to check out current raiders’ specs and gear with the class leads, looking for suggestions on improvements and goal setting. Those are both good areas to work.

But I bet some of you saw me mention having enough people to run two Kara groups simultaneously, and wondered when the hell that happened. And the answer is, effort #3, which is; Membership Drive.

Recruitment and adding new Guild Members

I’ve talked with you folks about guild charters and guild application forms before. You know that I worked on them, I got your feedback on what I had started, and you had lol’led lots when you saw the one I had in progress. I don’t think, however, that you saw what I eventually came up with.

Therefore, for those of you interested in such things, I’ll post the link to our guild website so if you care to, you can go check it out; Legatum Ignavis on Kael’thas (US).

We have a Recruiting and Applications section in the forums with our info. Fairly standard, I think, no attempts to change the world here. You will probably be unsurprised to see that I adopted many of the suggestions and advice offered by Kirk and other readers back when I was talking about Apps. I am unafraid to admit when you all are smarter than I am. Don’t go getting a swelled head, now. The number of folk that are smarter than me ain’t a short list. Now let’s get back to the topic at hand.

We have had some good responses, folks switching servers or looking for a new home, and our numbers have grown slightly.

For the most part, things are going well, and we certainly are getting some fresh new perspectives on progression, and thats pretty cool.

But this is me, right? You know there’s gonna be some crying in here somewhere.

Whining about new members and change

Now, I have diligently read and internalized the three excellent posts that Ego wrote on being both a new member getting along in a guild, and being an old tired guildie dealing with fresh members. If you don’t remember, I refer you to the posts here, here, and finally here. Go forth and read, they be good. Especially fried and served with lemon butter, yum!

Ok, I’m a hungry bear. Sue me.

But here’s the thing… every single damn thing Ego says is true. But, the one thing she did not mention is, what happens when a guild is recruiting to begin raiding new 25 man content no one in the guild has seen yet… and the new recruits you are getting are raiders from guilds that have fallen apart, or from other servers that want to hang with their friends. And these new recruits are further progressed than the guild. In some cases, they are MUCH further progressed.

Therein lies a whole new potential for drama.

First, seriously, take the time to read Egos’ posts. They are great, and there is a lot of damn good insight there. I’m gonna actually post them in their entirety in my guilds’ Recruitment page (with full credit given of course) because I think they are well worth everyone reading.

But, yeah. So we have some new members, and as we are just meeting them for the very first time, and trying to get to know what these new folks are like… we are also going on raids with them. And that is opening the doors to a new class of guild drama.

What we seem to have are new members that ACT like they think they know more about the game than anyone else in the guild they just joined, and that tell everyone else what to do during a raid. No matter what class they might play.

Now, I’m sure that, after reading Egos’ posts, it’s clear that good bit of this is undoubtedly nervousness on the part of the new guildie. They want to impress the guild with how valuable they are, by showing how knowledgeable and informed they are, and by showing how much of a benefit they will be on raids.

immediate trouble being, no one likes to be talked down to, ESPECIALLY about their class, or to feel that the new guy is trying to seize control of the guild away from the raid leader.

Falling, as I do, in the “grumpy old bear that has seen way too much guild drama” category, I am always watching new members for signs of asshattery, just as Ego says I would in her third post. I listen closely to those that have run instances with new players; are the new guys nice? Or are they rude? Bossy, or meek, or just funny and cool? Good players? Reckless? Abusive? Patient? What are they like? What did you think? Inquiring minds want to know!

So yeah, I’m watching and listening to what is going on. And I wonder how much of the bossiness we are seeing is coming from an earnest desire to show that they will be great additions to the guilds’ raids… and how much is from an attitude that, and this is how it comes off… that they are the leetsauce because they raided xxx instances, and we are all noobs to be told what to do.

Yeah, you can imagine that I am a bit worried… but time will tell. I know that our guild has strong leadership that doesn’t take shit from anyone, and are also very, very patient. No one is going to fly off at the handle, get pissy, or make some snap judgment. We give folks time, and we’ll see over the course of time if it’s just ‘new to the guild jitters’, or if it’s something different.

Because on the one side of the coin, we have some folks that we know can play well and know their class and their role in raids… now we just need to find out if their personalities will mesh well with ours, and if they will work well with other guildies without being arrogant or abusive.

On the other side of the coin, are new members that may be putting their best face on now, trying to make a great first impression, nice and friendly with everyone… but in time, may, after they get comfortable with folks, turn into abusive asshats. You just never know.

Because when you are adding new players to your guild, the truth is you never really know what they’re thinking. You can put together a charter, you can make a nice application to try and give folks an idea of what your guild is all about so they can decide if you are right for them, and you can welcome them and try and make them feel at home.

But you just can’t tell if the guy that just joined, that is a little abrasive, is gonnna calm down and chill out soon. Chances are damn good they will, but who knows? Maybe this is tame for them (God help us). And you can’t tell if the new guy that is nice and pleasant to everyone right now, is soon gonna relax, feel safe and protected, and start letting his true self come through… and treat people rudely or try and take advantage of generosity.

You can’t tell… but you can hope that everything will work out fine in the end.

And hope that, on the average, you end up with more saints than sinners.

And watch ‘em like a cat!

I’ll end with this one thought.

If someone joins, and they are over the top or aggressive, they talk a lot or seem a bit bossy… that’s fine with me. Because they are putting a lot of their real self into playing, and we can get to know who they really are. We have a much better chance of getting to know this guy, and get a feel for whether this is how they are 24/7, or if they are just nervous and excited, and will calm down soon enough and relax when they start to feel welcomed and secure.

It’s the quiet ones I worry about, the ones that are reserved, and keep to themselves. Most likely they are just nervous, or afraid to say the wrong thing until they get to know folks a bit more by how we chatter on. That’s bad enough, I’d like to be able to put them at their ease and make them feel welcomed, but it’ll get better as they feel more at home. But worse, they might be feeling left out, or shut out of the conversations, and might be feeling like they really aren’t welcome. Without talking with them, and hearing their own opinions, without interaction of some kind, it makes it hard to know if they need reassurance that they’re welcome, or if they’re just feeling quiet at the moment. And when you’re trying to keep all these balls juggling in the air at one time, well… the quiet ones are the ones that we have the best chance of losing because I wasn’t paying enough attention. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and the silent wheel might not be running smooth like you’d think… they might actually be stuck.

Yep, I’m a big old grumpy bear, that’s seen way too much guild drama over the years. I can’t help but feel that change is bad, any change at all. But I know that it’s necessary for our guild to grow, and for more people to have the opportunity to do more than run 5 man instances and dance in Ironforge. While I can’t help but get nervous at strange faces, I gotta just hang in there and trust that it’ll all work out.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about it.