Category Archives: officers

Officers’ Quarters: Based on true events

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Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press.

This week's Officers' Quarters is going to be a little bit different than the norm. Usually I choose an email and do my best to offer advice and guidance to solve a guild-related problem. In this case of the email below, I didn't think it was worth using for a column. There are many emails that I respond to privately that I don't plan to feature on the site, usually either because they deal with a topic similar to one I've covered in the past or because the answer is relatively straightforward.

Then, about a week ago, I received a followup message from the player that made this situation worth a second look. Below, I'll post the email, my response, and the player's inspiring followup.

Cata has hit and with it, we saw a few server transfers. Our guild ranks have been bursting with new and returning players. As a tank, I've been doing a lot of work to run heroics and rotate players with me so that they can benefit from guild groups but I've noticed most of the other officers are staying in their officer-cliques. I've tried socializing with them and they've become more friendly in the last few months, but I still don't feel comfortable with them, mostly.

A lot of time they will [. . .] go back and forth with banter about incest, rape, genital mutilation, bestiality and other shock-value crap. These people are all my age (25-35) and while separately they can be pleasant, together they are gross and after months of hearing it I decided to ask them to cool the talk in public areas.

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Officers' Quarters: Based on true events originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: Based on true events

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Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press.

This week's Officers' Quarters is going to be a little bit different than the norm. Usually I choose an email and do my best to offer advice and guidance to solve a guild-related problem. In this case of the email below, I didn't think it was worth using for a column. There are many emails that I respond to privately that I don't plan to feature on the site, usually either because they deal with a topic similar to one I've covered in the past or because the answer is relatively straightforward.

Then, about a week ago, I received a followup message from the player that made this situation worth a second look. Below, I'll post the email, my response, and the player's inspiring followup.

Cata has hit and with it, we saw a few server transfers. Our guild ranks have been bursting with new and returning players. As a tank, I've been doing a lot of work to run heroics and rotate players with me so that they can benefit from guild groups but I've noticed most of the other officers are staying in their officer-cliques. I've tried socializing with them and they've become more friendly in the last few months, but I still don't feel comfortable with them, mostly.

A lot of time they will [. . .] go back and forth with banter about incest, rape, genital mutilation, bestiality and other shock-value crap. These people are all my age (25-35) and while separately they can be pleasant, together they are gross and after months of hearing it I decided to ask them to cool the talk in public areas.

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Officers' Quarters: Based on true events originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: Based on true events

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Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press.

This week's Officers' Quarters is going to be a little bit different than the norm. Usually I choose an email and do my best to offer advice and guidance to solve a guild-related problem. In this case of the email below, I didn't think it was worth using for a column. There are many emails that I respond to privately that I don't plan to feature on the site, usually either because they deal with a topic similar to one I've covered in the past or because the answer is relatively straightforward.

Then, about a week ago, I received a followup message from the player that made this situation worth a second look. Below, I'll post the email, my response, and the player's inspiring followup.

Cata has hit and with it, we saw a few server transfers. Our guild ranks have been bursting with new and returning players. As a tank, I've been doing a lot of work to run heroics and rotate players with me so that they can benefit from guild groups but I've noticed most of the other officers are staying in their officer-cliques. I've tried socializing with them and they've become more friendly in the last few months, but I still don't feel comfortable with them, mostly.

A lot of time they will [. . .] go back and forth with banter about incest, rape, genital mutilation, bestiality and other shock-value crap. These people are all my age (25-35) and while separately they can be pleasant, together they are gross and after months of hearing it I decided to ask them to cool the talk in public areas.

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Officers' Quarters: Based on true events originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: Not an officer

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.

Who deserves to be an officer? Guild leaders struggle with this question quite a bit. It comes down to this question: In your guild, does the officer rank exist to reward players or to give them responsibilities? In other words, what is the purpose of the officer rank? Later, I'll talk about the two most common purposes. But first, this week's e-mail comes from a player who feels he deserves a promotion to officer.

Hey Scott,

I've been playing with a group of people for five years now. We've stuck together as a guild for most that time, though we've moved from tag to tag over the duration. I left WoW for a short period while I moved across the country and upon my return found the guild I had been in was disbanded and we had merged with another guild. No big deal, we've done it before. I was an officer in the old guild, but was not promoted to officer status in the new (too many officers, not enough members, etc.). Again, no big deal.

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Officers' Quarters: Not an officer originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: PUGs are people too

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.

As Wrath of the Lich King winds down, interest in the current raiding scene will wane. Members will play less, attend less, or even quit the game until the next expansion draws them back in. More and more guilds will have no choice but to invite PUG players to fill their remaining slots. When PUGs join your raid, loot can become an even more sensitive issue. This week, one player is fed up watching PUGs win loot over fellow guildies.

/salute

I'm writing to you Scott to request assistance or advice with an issue i seem to be having. I'm the offtank for my 10 man ICC guild, we only have 1 wing down, but we are extremely casual. Usually during our runs we will take 1-3 pugs with us as not everyone who signs up for a raid makes it. Here is where my issue comes in. The pug's get to roll on the gear that we guildies have been bashing our heads into a wall to get for the last month, and they WIN!! The GL/RL just hands it right on over like it's a piece of candy. I'm tired of it Scott and I don't know when to put my foot down as an officer and say "enough is enough" and "It's time for a change".

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Officers' Quarters: PUGs are people too originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: Rolling like jerks

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.

Ah, the good, old-fashioned /random command -- where would WoW be without it? It fixes so many problems. It's utterly impartial. It can't be bribed, cajoled, or reasoned with. The /random command is the friend of every PUG raid leader.

In a guild setting, however, using /random for loot distribution only works when you're sensible about using it. When you're not, you open up your guild to some terrible situations. I present Exhibit A:

Hi Scott,

I'm a semi officer in my guild (I get to be in officer chat, but I can't invite people or make policy changes, though I'm asked for my opinion quite a bit). Lately, our guild is just managing to kill the first four bosses of Icecrown in both 10 man, and the 25 man that we have to pug. (We're not a huge guild.) But lately, we've been having some problems with loot distribution. I know I know, that's always the case isn't it?

Well over the past few weeks, we've been noticing some problems with the /rolls we've been doing. In one 25 man ICC, 3 pieces of tank loot dropped, were rolled on, and went to 1 single tank(not even the MT). Problem is, Tanking isn't the role he likes to do. He enjoys healing or DPSing... but because he's gotten the loot, our Guild leader and MT wants him to be the offtank...

If that was the end of it, it'd be easy enough to fix. Get a loot council and be done with it. But, since we PUG our 25 mans, those rules don't apply, and they got worse when one of our healers rolled on a healing weapon, then immediately posted in guild, "Anyone in the raid want this thing for 6K? I need my epic flyer."

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Officers' Quarters: Rolling like jerks originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Drama Mamas: Wake-up call to guild officers

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The Drama Mamas are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. How to handle that sticky situation? Ask the Drama Mamas at DramaMamas@wow.com.

That's it! I've had it. There's a nasty little problem gnawing its way through guilds across Azeroth, and the people who can fix the situation aren't even listening. One simple change would solve probably half of the questions the Drama Mamas receive every week. Even worse, we've covered this matter multiple times before, but certain people (ahem) don't seem to have their listening caps on.

So allow me apologize in advance to our letter-writer this week, because I'm not going to answer his question. (And let me apologize to Robin in advance, too, since she'll be left picking up the actual question.) Instead, I'm going to lay out the underlying situation clearly enough that perhaps a few of the guilty parties will wake up and take notice.

Guild officers: listen up.

Hey Mamas: With my current guild we've been hitting ICC-25 regularly since its release, but I've noticed we've been hitting a wall lately. Sadly, "the wall" isn't Putricide or Blood Queen or any of the bosses, for that matter. The wall is the guild itself. We've cleared all non-gated bosses up to Dreamwalker, but now all of a sudden people seem to have cold feet. Our healers are pretty crummy, except for one or two of them (if they show), which has meant that certain fights have been disproportionately harder than others. Festergut is one those. But our guild's failure on Blood Queen, due to the healers' inability to stay on top of the damage, is now preventing us from moving on to Dreamwalker. The rationale here is that if the Queen is impossible for us to get down, then we shouldn't even "waste" time on Dreamwalker.

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Drama Mamas: Wake-up call to guild officers originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: The A team question

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.

The "A Team" -- in WoW, it's not a bunch of guys in a van who help people by . . . shooting other people. Rather, it's your best players grouped together to the exclusion of other guild members. Most guilds don't have the numbers to fill two 25-player teams, so this issue usually relates to 10-player runs. The forming of a 10-player A team can be riddled with drama. This week's e-mail asks whether allowing an A team is the right choice.

I enjoy reading your perspective on guild leadership. I'm hoping you can give us some ideas on balancing progression versus inclusion.

We are an established raiding guild that works on the top tier of content. While we are not a guild that makes server first kills, we steadily progress through the content and see hard/heroic modes on 25 man difficulty. Our raiding core is pretty solid, although there are levels of skill, from very high to adequate. We typically complete the ten man content, and use the ten mans as a base to gain experience on the twenty five mans.

Our problem mainly rests on the makeup of our ten man groups. One school wants to have the maximum number of people get in the ten man groups. This school spreads our best players among multiple groups. All of the groups have some success, but because there are weaker players included, these groups usually hit a wall on harder fights (Heroic Anub or the Wing Bosses of ICC). There is a lot of frustration on the part of our best players when this happens.

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Officers' Quarters: The A team question originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: The fall surge

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Back in June, I wrote about surviving the summer, when raider interest wanes and many players go AFK for weeks on end. Now that fall is back in full swing, all those players are back. Many guilds find themselves with a renewed roster of raiders clamoring for suddenly limited slots. This week, one reader asks how to handle all the extra bodies.

Scott,

I lead a casual raiding guild. We have 1 25-man a week and about 3 10-mans a week including ToC 10 and Ulduar 10. I don't force anyone to raid. I tell them that they can sign up for whatever they want but if they sign up and don't show up, then they are penalized.

My problem is that since I allow anyone to sign up and I don't have set groups, what do I do when I have more people signed up than I need?

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Officers' Quarters: The fall surge originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: Ragequit fallout

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

If you've played WoW long enough, and if you've raided enough, odds are you've wanted to quit your guild right in the middle of a run at some point. Some people actually go through with it. I'll never forget the night many years ago when our raid's main tank quit the guild and zoned out of Onyxia's Lair while he was tanking the boss. Yeah, that guy had some anger issues . . .

But what happens when a guild leader ragequits in the middle of a raid? Read on to find out!

Hi Scott,

A friend and I started a guild about 5 months back. I assumed the Co-Gm role, led the raids and recruited quite a bit. After a slow start we ended up making an impact on the server as a stand up crew and were moving into the top rankings for 10 and cracking the 25 man progression as well. The other Co-Gm was very good at handling issues and I admit that was not my strong point. Things worked really well until unfortunately I had an "EMO" moment.

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Officers' Quarters: Ragequit fallout originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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