State of the Guild Address

[Lechuza]

I've noticed, both on these forums, and in Guild chat, some confusion / frustration with people's perception as to what is going on with our guild.

I've been thinking about this myself, and I'd like to share these thoughts with you all. I'm not speaking as Lechuza, the guild member or Guild Officer, but as Rudy, a member of this community who is both very happy here, and very concerned about our future.

My WarcraftRealms profile shows that I joined this guild at level 14, on Oct 30, 2007. As you can see in the report, I have never been in another guild on this server, nor would I want to. Another thing, to those who don't know me well enough to know this, I am too frugal (read: cheap) to spend the money to transfer a character ($25 per character adds up when you have a wife with a hobajillion alts), especially when I can level a new toon to 70 in a month.

Since I've been here, I've enjoyed the company of everyone in this guild, and a lot of great people on the server.I actually joined the guild two months before my profile shows, visiting here from my first server while looking for MSC, a Christian guild I had researched. I went back to my original server and spent my time leveling my dwarf from 40 to 70 there. It took 2 months to reach 70, then I came back here to Blade's Edge and never looked back. As I've mentioned in other threads, I've not always been happy with the server in general. The economy is poor at best, and I find the language in Trade to be really, really unsettling.

Even so, I think of this guild as my WoW home.

When I originally joined, I believe that the guild was raiding. I was just starting my character then, so I could be remembering it wrong. Soon after my return, a large number of guild members left for one reason or another. I had no relationship with anyone yet, so I don't know details. What little I do know, is that most members made the mature decision to put Real Life over this game. If it ever comes to that, I'll make the same choice. After that, the guild didn't have enough people at a high enough level to run any end-game content.

The participation in this guild, and the number of members, seemed to dwindle overnight. I know that the guild leadership was, and is trying to rebuild the number of active members to a point where the guild can, together, enjoy end-game content.

So, with very little experience in this game or this guild, I was asked to join the leadership of this guild. I've tried to help as much as I can, but I can honestly say that I have no idea what to do in this situation.

The first issue I see us struggling with is one of identity. If you ask everyone of our guild members how they perceive the guild, I believe you will get many different answers. Because of that, I believe that we also have many different expectations. This is frustrating, at best, and ultimately leads to dissatisfaction. People leave to find what they aren't finding here.

At this moment in time, I believe that we can describe our guild as a "social / casual" guild. What I mean by that is that we are a group of people who use our guild to chat, be friendly, and occasionally come together to group. We are not progressing past that as a group, and the truth is, THAT'S OK, if that is what the guild wants. Everyone plays this game for their own reasons, and has their own measure of success. Personally, I think that building a great set of friends would be a triumph on it's own merits. On the other hand, I want to see what the developers have put ahead of us.

I would love to see this guild meet everyone's expectations, to be everyone's idea of a success. I don't know if we can, especially if everyone's goals are different. I believe that we need people to express themselves on several key ideas, so we can decide on what we need to do. Remember, there are NO wrong answers here, but a YES or NO response is not acceptable. Neither is "I'd like to have fun / enjoy myself": that is self evident. We need to know what everyone wants. Tell us, in your own words, how you feel about these issues, and feel free to add ANYTHING else in your response.

• Guild Identity
  How do YOU see our guild? Should we stay at this level of progress, or would you prefer to move to higher instances and raids? Why or why not?
• Guild Responsibility
  What do you feel the guild (both leadership and members) should be doing for it's members? What can we (both leadership and members) do differently to provide a better environment?
• Guild Roles
  On the other hand, what should individual members be doing to build the guild up?
• Guild Leadership
  Who would you like to see in or out of guild leadership (since I am not acting in an Officer capacity here, I can't say that this will make a difference. But I think it's important to see what your true feelings are here.)
• Guild Participation
  How can we re-energize the leaders and members of this guild, and what can we do to build each other up and encourage each other, both in and out of the game?

I will put my personal thoughts on these points in a reply following this post.

On a final, and personal, note: I find it difficult to believe that we, a group of people united by a love of GOD, and having so much trouble building a guild that grows and thrives, especially when I see people so full of worldly ideals thriving in this game. We know that the CGA is full of our brothers who are doing just that. Other servers in this game have multiple Christian guilds, and other games have Christian guilds that are thriving. I believe that we can as well.

 

[Lechuza]

Guild Identity
At this time, I believe we a a social guild more than anything. I think many members would like to progress to higher instances, and even raid eventually, but I do believe that it will take a coordinated effort to get us to that point. I also think that the bulk of the work at this time will be on the individual members, since we are in the unfortunate state of not having enough people geared up to "pull" others through a Heroic or raid.

I, on the other hand, would be unwilling to sacrifice the good will of anyone, by forcing someone to respec or reroll, or do anything else that would keep them from having fun. The day this game becomes a job, is the last day you will see me here.

Guild Responsibility
At this time, I feel that our leadership is worried about stepping on people toes, and has compensated by moving to the other extreme, not building enough structure (in the same way that many loving parents do with their own children). I think that we need to coordinate a schedule, to include time for group questing, instances, and getting geared / keyed for higher level raids (Kara to start). I also believe that our guild should designate a banker to GROW our assets as a group, not just relying on individual donations. (For example: using the funds there to buy and DE items from the AH, and selling the reagents for a profit) The Guild Bank can, and should be a resource for everyone, without being a drain on anyone.

Guild Roles
One of the weaknesses that our guild members have is the expectation that the guild has a responsibility to prepare the individual member for higher level / Heroic instances and raids. Larger guilds are easily able to do that, but at this time, we haven't got enough experienced / geared members to pull someone through a heroic to gear them up. At this time, Blizzard has set up many opportunities for characters to gear themselves through Reputation, Battlegrounds , Arenas, Heroics, and Badge Gear. I realize that the Rep or Honor grind is tedious, but this is something that we need to do to start our guild's progress. In order to pull 2 guild members through a Heroic, we would need at least 3 members who are geared well enough (or at least experienced enough) to survive it, and complete it. To do that, we need some people to step up and get themselves geared enough to help others. Tools such as Be Imba can help you see what you can do to improve your character.

Another important thing that we as individuals can do is research. There are many sites that give full walkthrough of instances, and Boss strategies for everything in the game (well, not the latest stuff). A bit of preparation will make a HUGE differences when you are facing a boss.

Finally, a note on alts. I would never tell someone not to level an alt or ten. But I think that many people have not thought it through. The most common reason I hear people say they are leveling a second or third character is to "help the guild because we don't have enough of that class." In theory it sounds good, but in reality, it does not work in a guild our size. Let me explain:

In raids (any instance that requires more than 5 people, at this time, 10 is the normal starting raid size, going to 25 and 40 in old school raids) the people going into the instance are marked by an ID number. This means that if the group does not finish the raid in a single run, they can come back in later and continue from where they left off, without having to re-clear the mobs to that point. If someone from that group goes in with ANY OTHER group, they will also continue from that point, effectively "stealing" the hard work of the first group, and getting the higher level rewards of the end bosses, which is considered the worst kind of "ninja-ing" in the game. For this reason, most raid groups are very protective of their 10 person group, insisting that they only go in together, until the raid resets itself.

Let's say that I've spent the time to level my Hunter (Lechuza) and my feral Druid (Cowthulu) to 70, and have geared and keyed them both to run Kara. Since they are both on my same account, I can only bring one or the other into Kara per raid reset. Our guild is running Kara twice a week, and I've convinced the guild to let me run one per run, allowing me to gear both of them. We have 10 people running Kara, but only 9 accounts. Soon, we have enough people ready to run 2 Kara groups, so I can run each of them in a separate group. Once we have 3 Kara groups, we're ready for larger raids, the 25 man group which will take all three Kara teams, keeping 5 in reserve. Since I've been taking 2 slots, I've effectively cut one raider out of the team. But more importantly, the whole time that I was doing that, I was not allowing another account (player) to gear their toon for when the guild needs them. Now think if 2, 3 or more of us were to do that, or if one or more of us were to raid with 3 or more alts.

In order to run Kara effectively, we need 10 - 15 accounts ready to go (to have a reserve for individuals who can't make it that day), and 25 - 30 to run Gruul's and beyond. For every alt you decide to raid with, you are effectively taking 2 accounts out of participation, your alt, and the other person who could have been gearing themselves the whole time.

Many individuals think that guilds are "elitist" when they ask you to pick a main and stick to it, but in reality, they are trying to spread the wealth (gear AND fun) around to as many people as possible.

As I mentioned, this problem goes away as the guild grows. Once we have enough raiders to have 2 or more Kara groups, gearing alts would be a great idea. This issue is one of the reasons I decide to learn tanking on a different server.

Guild Leadership
I can honestly say that in every way that I have seen, Yellowjacket is a wonderful, God-fearing leader. The entire team that he has put together seems to be. I do believe that more people need to step up, since there are more roles to fill.

At this time, however, my health issues are making it very difficult to keep a consistent schedule, so I am officially asking to step away from my position as Co-leader. I would offer my services to growing the assets of the guild through the guild bank, and any administrative duties that I can do on an erratic schedule, and would not require an in-game schedule beyond running guild members through instances, battlegrounds, and quests.

Guild Participation
I believe that asking everyone for prayer for our leaders, and for the members of the guild, is of the highest importance. Beyond that, i do believe that success breeds success. If we can help individual members develop their characters, the game becomes more fun (think about it: When you successfully complete an instances, don't you feel better than when you have to call it before the final boss?) I know that we can help each other do that.

 

[Madeline]

• Guild Identity
  How do YOU see our guild? Should we stay at this level of progress, or would you prefer to move to higher instances and raids? Why or why not?
  
  At this point I do see us as a casual guild - we are fortunate when there are 5 of us on and we can run an instance, but for the most part it seems social. I like everyone here and would be happy to do a run through instances to level someone's alt. Why? It's fun for me. Not too many times does a mage get to run around and kill eveything all willy-nilly without dying.
  
  I would like to do end-game content. I am about ready for kara when I get a couple more pieces of my equipment changed. According to the Redeemed site - all I needed was more "to hit" points. Will that happen soon? Yes, but that may give me time to level my healer/druid if that is more needed.
  
• Guild Responsibility
  What do you feel the guild (both leadership and members) should be doing for it's members? What can we (both leadership and members) do differently to provide a better environment?
  
  I think we know each other well enough here and have a good group. I also think it might be a good idea for us (when we are ready) to actively recruit members. When we get new members, giving them bags is a wonderful idea - and letting them know we are here to help. I think power-leveling anyone would be a bad idea unless they have experience with that class and already know it. ( I have seen what happens when someone has a high level character that they didn't level and doesn't know how to play them - party wipes.)
  
  I think when we are getting serious about our first raid, we will need to have our members (accounts) pick a main and stick with that. As you know for me that would be a challenge, and I like Madiera. But for the guild as a whole I would probably go with my healer and just level her to 70, get her geared with welfare epics and run her in raids. Healers are always in demand and I am getting to know that class. I feel that helping the guild is more important and I enjoy helping.
  
  I am not sure about what we can do to improve our guild other than to grow it. We are helpful and like each other - so as I mentioned in another post, we have a good core.
  
• Guild Roles
  On the other hand, what should individual members be doing to build the guild up?
  
  Perhaps we can think about active recruitment and what that means to us. I also believe that slowly building our guild would be better than doing a mad rush for numbers. Getting to know our players and doing instance runs (especially the ones that are low level, they teach us a lot about our class) is great fun and helps everyone learn group dynamics. And it is fun to socialize on those runs as well.
  
• Guild Leadership
  Who would you like to see in or out of guild leadership (since I am not acting in an Officer capacity here, I can't say that this will make a difference. But I think it's important to see what your true feelings are here.)
  
  I would like us to encourage our team of players to hit the forums more. I come here before I play to see what is going on. We can make it fun.
  
  I would also like to make sure we can build strong players (disciples) that can fish on their own. By teaching our own to fish, they will be better prepared wherever they go.
  
• Guild Participation
  How can we re-energize the leaders and members of this guild, and what can we do to build each other up and encourage each other, both in and out of the game?
  
  Perhaps a more activity on the forums with prayer lists, jokes and just engaging stuff. The forums are where we see our people better.
  
  In-game we can do more with our characters - if we all have alts that are lowish, we can do guild instance runs - great for team spirit and just fun. Alt nights or things of that nature.
  
  We tend to enjoy each other's company and I think spending time together in a pre-made for BGs or instance runs is how we can be together. Helping on group quests or anything like that. We have a wonderful sense of humor and guild runs are fun.
  
  You guys are my first christian guild - I searched in vain for one on Arathor, where my first character leveled. I had 5 near 40 and 1 over 50. I deleted all but one because playing there without a group of christians was just too hard. I was even in a raiding guild at one point, but couldn't handle the language and subject matter in guild chat. I really miss it that I play when no one else is awake. Will try to change my sleep schedule a bit, because I miss you guys.

 

[Critforce]

* Guild Identity- How do YOU see our guild? Should we stay at this level of progress, or would you prefer to move to higher instances and raids? Why or why not?

Personally I am a helper, that's my calling. So I really want to do whatever will be of most help to the guild. I would love to see the end game content but if I'm there w/o my friends it's no fun. I would like to see us get to a point where we can run end game content. I rolled a Shaman because it was a very fun class in PVE but I've found it very difficult to be of much help in instances. I feel like the compromises that make a Shaman a 'hybrid' class also makes them not very good at any one thing but kinda good at most things. That's just been my experience so far but maybe I just need gear?

* Guild Responsibility- What do you feel the guild (both leadership and members) should be doing for it's members? What can we (both leadership and members) do differently to provide a better environment?

In order to treat members fairly I think we should adopt and publish a conflict resolution policy. I really like the one that TNP has laid out but maybe I've just been missing ours somewhere. I agree that more activity on the forums would help us get to know each other better and that's always a good thing.

* Guild Roles- On the other hand, what should individual members be doing to build the guild up?

I don't know if this is considered power leveling or not but I am happy to run around behind someones alt or low main, out of group, and just keep them healed up. I think it makes the questing go a little faster when you don't have to stop and eat. If that's a bad thing I'll quit it, if it's not the offer is open to everyone.

I also think it's fair to help someone gear a low leveled character by running them through an instance to get the drops. Again, if that's not an 'ok' thing to do let me know. If it is again the offer is open to everyone.

I think that as a guild we should (maybe we already do?) offer lower members help getting mounts but only on their main. I think we could come up with a reasonable amount that wouldn't put much of a drain on the guild. Maybe I'm way off base.

* Guild Leadership- Who would you like to see in or out of guild leadership (since I am not acting in an Officer capacity here, I can't say that this will make a difference. But I think it's important to see what your true feelings are here.)

I really can't answer this question because I don't feel that I know anyone well enough yet. My only disappointment so far is how sparsely the forum gets used.

* Guild Participation- How can we re-energize the leaders and members of this guild, and what can we do to build each other up and encourage each other, both in and out of the game?

Being in a guild that can use words longer then four letters is still a unique experience for me. Actually building each other up as a guild is a kind of revelation. I would be willing to be part of a prayer team that is designated to specifically pray for the guilds leadership. With the thought that they would help us, as a guild, learn to reach out to others on our server.

 

[Kleburg]

Guild Identity: As for me I see MSC as a causal grouping guild that wants to grow but unsure how (in my opinion) I how that I have pondered over this for sometime . Praying and asking God for direction and know in my heart that He wants us to grow and spread His word along the way.

Guild Responsibility: Helping others to achive thier goals first and then the guilds. This way, I believe, that person will be more able and willing to achive higher goals set out by the guild to perform in Raids and such.

Guild Roles: As an GM I see my role as the guild's role and that is 1) helping out when able, 2) building up MSC to be the best it can be, 3) Aiding others to be the best they can in thier idea of an end game giving them the tools they would need to carry on any and ALL aspects of WOW

Guild Leadership: I see that the leader we have now are working very hard to get everyone to where they want to be. Meaning building up our numbers so we can run higher lvl stuff. With that said The people I have in place are great people and need the rest of MSC's support to make it happen.

Guild Participation: Here is my opinion on what I see as non-participation, when we do set-up to run an instance it takes intirly too long to get going. To solve this if you want to run an instance, bg, or raid and there has been a time and date set-up for it be there on time, repaired, and have ALL the food and drink you need to finish said event. Auwnek is trying to get this done through event forum but I haven't seen much input. That is where we are the weakest to have a strong guild we need input on ALL things that involves MSC. That means, me included, forum activity needs to be better and more input is needed so come guys give it to me. Like Mad said I can't make fisherman out of you if we don't know you don't like fish or something like that.

 

[Lechuza]

I'd really prefer to keep any discussion of the merits of these ideas out of this thread, and keep it to a "brainstorming" type of thread. All ideas are welcome!