In the interest of Full Disclosure

My previous post may have led the casual reader to believe that my guild has lost the ability to even take out someone like Baron Rivendare. Let me lay that misconception to rest.

In a concerted effort, we achieved a guild first of unlocking the first TWO chests in Zul'Aman last night. It was awesome to still have three minutes left on the timer as the second boss went down.

We hurriedly cleared to the Dragonhawk Dude, but only had about five minutes left by the time we got all the way there and so took a more leisurely stab at him.

I'm not saying our slump is over, but I'm happy to report this piece of positive news.

Progression Blues

I normally don't make the sorts of posts that just report on "what I did this week," but today I'm going to because I'm seeing it as symptomatic of a new expansion looming.

While we normally raid fairly well, the last week or so, we've just not been nailing it as normal. Here's the recap:

• Fridays we do (at least) the first boss in Mount Hyjal. I wouldn't say we farm him, but he generally goes down. Usually we have to wipe on the first attempt and get him the next time. We had epic fail on Friday and never got him down.
• Saturdays we do Serpentshrine. Lurker is on clear farm (although it's still a long fight) and we've gotten Morogrim to under 1/4 of his health. This week we had 16 people show up for the raid. *cancelled* Some went to finish a Kara from earlier in the week, others swapped to alts, I did the daily heroic.
• Sundays is generally a Black Temple Trash clear up to and maybe including first boss. Not enough online a fresh Kara was started
• Mondays we do Zul'Aman. We're generally very, very close to second chest. This time a wipe on the Eagle made sure we didn't even try for the second. And some untimely disconnects precluded us from doing the Bear. I went a did the daily heroic.
• Tuesdays we farm Gruul's & Magtheridon's Lairs. An hour in each and we're usually done. I was excited for this raid because I was slated to get my Champion of the Naaru title. Two and a half hours later Gruul finally was defeated. No need to mention that Magtheridon never happened.

So, what is it? Content we know well and have done easily in the past is giving us problems. New content is eluding us either because we don't have the folks online or can't seem to muster the strength to conquer it. Is it just pre-expansion depression? I wish I knew.

If I don't get my Naaru Champion title soon, I'll scream.

Loot Distribution

There are two generally accepted theories about how to distribute loot in raids. Granted, leaving the loot set on Group Loot will be a way to distribute (roll if you need, pass if you don't, one enchanter roll greed for DE purposes) will work. But you're going to hurt peoples' feelings if that's how you choose to do it.

So apart from the chaos that erupts from Group Looting, the choices are either a DKP system (of some sort) or a loot council. These each have their advantages and disadvantages. As you begin running 10-man dungeons, it may not be necessary to make a selection about how your guild will hand out loot; however, by the time you hit the 25-man content, this had better already be decided.

DKP and such systems result in a quantitative approach where "points" are awarded at determined times (usually start of raid, after bosses are downed, end of raid, and perhaps after some amount of elapsed time) which can then be used as currency. Systems exist where only points matter and the loot is bid for auction style. Another popular method is a method to add your "points" to a random roll. The amount of points each person in the raid has is well known (usually posted on a website) and raiders can generally gauge their "purchasing power."

The qualitative analog to DKP is a loot council. This usually consists of the raid leader and some guild officers having a conversation about where dropped loot should go. The loot council can make microscopic adjustments to reward attendance and make sure the loot does the "most good" for the guild as a whole.

In the end, a decision needs to be made about whether your guild prefers a qualitative or a quantitative approach to loot. I'm a big fan of DKP systems. With everything out in the open as far as everyone's purchasing power, raiders can form a reasonable expectation about loot they may get.

However, and this is potentially the controversy, you shouldn't fiddle around with the system and put restrictions on it. Such reasonable requests as limiting the number of items that can be won in a single instance or preventing non-guilded raid members to participate in looting can be very detrimental to the DKP.

A Story - In this story there are only four characters. You must use your powers of imagination to see how this would work for 25 players. Additionally, the loot would not be beneficial to every member of a raid (like it is here), but here you must use your imagination as well, I'm afraid.

Once upon a time there were four characters, Throm, Tigerlily, Beamline, and Crouton. Of them, the first three are in a guild together that uses DKP. Crouton is not in the guild but is sometimes invited to their raids to fill a spot and has built up some DKP. The particular system they use allows the entire DKP total to be added to the roll. If (and only if) the roll is won, half of the winners DKP is subtracted from their total. Going into their raid, Throm has 20 points, Tigerlily has 200 points, Beamline has 15 points and Crouton has 50.

Tigerlily has raided for several months with no gear rewards. In the meantime both Throm and Beamline have received a few upgrades and they spent their DKP on it.

The intrepid four tackle a new boss they've never downed but have a good strategy for finally putting the boss in his place. Lo and behold, the boss finally dies yielding up his treasures. He has three things that everyone in the group wants. The bidding begins on the first, and the tally works out like this:

• Throm rolled a 45 plust his 20 DKP for a total of 65
• Tigerlily rolled a 13 plus her 200 DKP for a total of 213
• Beamline rolled a 90 plus his 15 DKP for a total of 105
• Crouton rolled a 9 plus his 50 DKP for a total of 59

Tigerlily, who has not received any upgrades in months, finally wins an upgrade. Even though she feels a bit guilty she announces her intention to bid along with the other three for the next item. The tally works out like this:

• Throm rolled a 9 plus his 20 DKP for a total of 29
• Tigerlily rolled a 1 plus her 100 DKP (100 were used winning the first item) for a total of 101
• Beamline rolled a 79 plus his 15 DKP for a total of 94
• Crouton passes, saving his DKP for the last item.

Tigerlily wins AGAIN. This time she loses 50 DKP - one half of her current total. Bidding for item 3 opens. The tally works out like this:

• Throm rolled a 35 plus his 20 DKP for a total of 55
• Tigerlily passes. She is beginning to feel guilty and wants someone else to receive something tonight. Isn't she nice?
• Beamline rolled a 90 plus his 15 DKP for a total of 105.
• Crouton rolled a 57 plus his 50 DKP for a total of 107.

Crouton barely edges out Beamline and wins the last item, losing 25 of his DKP in the process.

There are a couple of salient points in there. Tigerlily could quite easily have rolled and won a third item here. She has the same DKP as Crouton in the example, who has the most DKP of any of the rollers. Note also, that even though Crouton is not part of the guild, none of the guild members got upset with him for using his DKP. They all know that Crouton only gets to fill in when they need extra people, thus has limited chances to increase his DKP total. Even though none of the guild members got the immediate gratification of a new item, they know their turn is coming around again. Especially since the boss was defeated once, they can look forward to a string of kills.

I don't want this post to get too much longer. But if there's interest, I can write up something about the opposing viewpoint or give more examples.

Schadenfreude Grows Up

The guild I'm in is really growing up. You may have caught the fact that we downed Gruul for the first time on Saturday. This isn't such a huge thing; plenty of folks have downed Gruul.

What I'm really talking about is the fact that nine days ago we had several monumental wipes and decidedly mediocre DPS on Gruul. I posted about hit rating and spell hit rating last week. Apparently several people took the raid leader to heart and worked on themselves. They worked very hard on getting themselves to the place where they could perform their best. Many folks did respecs from shuffling a few points to wholesale changes to their spec. Lots of people got themselves enchanted with the right things. Tons spent gold swapping gems out in favor of other gems. All in all, a lot of time and hard work was put into getting ready.

And it paid off. Gruul went down pretty easily. DPS was much more consistent across the board. Sure, there are still a few people who need to do some serious work. Sure there is still gear to be obtained. Sure, we're not at 100%. But we're way up from last week.

And I'll share something else too. Even after Gruul's Lair was done and we were farming Karazhan, the discussion was still pretty focused. People were actively discussing the merits of spell hit, spell crit, spell penetration, and so on while we were pulling and dealing with trash. For most of the time I just sat there and listened.

Good Job, Schadenfreude!!

Slash Gee Quit

I've been feeling this coming for a while. I've been pretty disengaged with my (old) guild for several weeks now. In fact, it had gotten to the point where I was playing only my upcoming rogue, Bremmie. I've not done dailies on any of the guys that can for a long time. I've been raiding, but again not with my (old) guild. Really, I was taking up space in both the guild and in the officers corps. It was time.

So Saturday night, I typed those six characters. Of course I typed them about 4 times in a row. Because I have that many alts.

Now, I'm in a different guild that seems to better match what I want out of this game. We'll see.

Guild Progression: Getting to Know You

Great! You've followed the advice earlier in the week and you've recruited people. You've formed your committee, you've asked the questions, you've answered questions. You've finally sent the /ginvite. Now what? I'm here to help.

You have a website for your guild right? Awesome. Get the new recruit signed up for the website right away. If there is an approval process, see if there's a guild member on who can kick that off. Getting them with a login/password to the website is critical at this point. I've been in too many guilds where the website isn't all that crucial. And thus new members don't often find out about the site right away or go there and find it under utilized. If you can make this your first official business with the new guy (or gal) you'll drive home the importance of using the site.

Hopefully your website is also just chock full of juicy tidbits and posts. If not, it might be a good idea to appoint some "seeders" who will go out and post some starter topics. Make them just a little bit controversial. Nothing gets a board moving like some debate. In addition to active boards you should have posts that are marked "sticky" somewhere near the top. Each post where it's relevant should include links. They should list things like required guild addons to the WoW client, required voice communication addons, special configurations for the addons, the IP address of your voice client, the password for anything that needs it, basically anything the new member needs to immediately become an active member of your guild.

In another section you should have a link to your guild charter. If you don't have a charter -- WRITE one. Stop what you're doing right now and go write it. I'll give you a few.

Done. Good. Somewhere close to that, you should list the officers and class leads (if you use them) in your guild. It's also a good idea to have a suggestion with consumables for raiding or instancing, who in the guild can make them, and who in the guild will make them for little or no money.

A buddy system for new recruits works wonderfully. Introduce them to their assigned buddy. If there's no one else available, you become the buddy by default. An introduction to the key guild people and his or her class lead can go very far at this point to making them feel welcome.

Ask if there are any questions again. Some have surely popped up.

On your end, you probably have some administrative work to do as well. If your guild uses officer notes or public notes in a particular way, set them up for the new guy.

If it makes sense and there's the right mix of folks on, organize an appropriate level instance run immediately. Nothing assimilates a new guy to your guild better than IMMEDIATELY driving home the point why he just switched guilds.

Most of this is common sense. Treat them like you would a guest in your home, and they'll soon feel at home in their new home.

Guild Progression: Filling out the ranks

It's time to expand your guild by recruiting. Maybe it is because you're finally ready to start raiding in Karazhan. Maybe it is because you've got Karazhan on farm and are ready to start ramping up to the 25-man raid instances. Maybe it's just because you can never find a tank (or a healer or a mage or a rogue or...)

Whatever the reason is, you need people. You need them now. But you don't just need a warm body. You need the right warm body.

There are a couple of things you can do to help.

1. Clearly define why you are recruiting. Do you need more healers? Do you need just more people? Is your goal to raid, pvp, instance, etc.?

2. Form a committee of your leaders who will be responsible for recruiting. It sucks to do recruiting all by yourself.

3. Write a list of questions which you will ask ALL potential applicants. Focus on things like other guild memberships, why they left their last guild, their goals in the game, their playing schedule. Keep in mind that recruiting someone who only wants to PVP when you're recruiting to fill a raiding schedule is not a good fit.

4. Be aware that the question "Why did you leave your last guild?" will most often lead to a skewed version of the actual events. Don't be afraid to ask clarifying questions. If they respond with, "I could never get a group" ask them to elaborate. You might follow up with "Were there just no other toons at your level?" or "How did you try to engage that guild in grouping with you?" I've seen people leave my guild saying they could never get a group. And I know for fact that they rarely said anything in guild chat about looking for a group.

5. Treat this like a job interview. Have potential members interviewed by several people. It is the best possible idea to include the class lead responsible for the potential member (if you guild uses class leads)

6. Be ready to answer questions. The interview is merely a dialogue-it should work both ways.

7. Especially ask interviewees if they have any objections to downloading guild required software (addons, voice communication, etc.)

8. Know when to stop the interview. By your third question, you probably have a pretty good idea about whether this person will "fit in." Don't be afraid to ask a few more clarifying questions, but when you've made up your mind, stop asking questions. If you've already decided "no" its a waste of your time. If you've already decided "yes" but continue the examination for 45 more minutes, the interviewee may have decided your guild is not for him.

9. Know when to stop recruiting. You should only recruit when you need to. If the need for tanks is filled, don't keep recruiting them. :o)

10. Take advantage of various means of getting the recruiting word out. Blizzard realm forums have recruiting sections. Wowinsider has a weekly column. Wowwiki has sections on recruiting. If you have a guild website, post the information there. And don't neglect the tried and true /lookingforguild spam.

Now. You've got a guild full of the right warm bodies. How do you integrate them into your guild? For that, tune in later.