Category: guide

How to Recruit, Take Two & Other Updates

Kurn / / guide, guild

I feel as though I sit here every Thursday and apologize for the fact that my Community Management module isn’t done yet, so I don’t have a sneak peek for Module 5: Expansion Planning out.

Well, this Thursday is no exception. Since online communities are sort of “my thing”, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on that module. It’s, er, kind of 30,000 words long so far. It includes actual examples of disciplinary and behavioural issues that we saw in Apotheosis in Cataclysm, as well as how we handled them, which is where the bulk of the wordcount comes from. I copy/pasted several private messages and officer communications (while maintaining anonymity). It’s all so you guys can see how we dealt with these various issues, in detail.

Right now, I’m working on the idea of cliques and how to prevent them from becoming a problem. Like I said, lots of time on this portion alone!

That said, I do have a second sneak peek for Module 2: How to Recruit out! You can find it, and all past and future Sneak Peeks, at kurn.info! I’ll still be updating you guys on the progress here, but every Thursday afternoon, until the guide launches, you’ll find a new Sneak Peek at my new site. :)

What else is going on? Oh, yeah! I was on this week’s Realm Maintenance show! I talked a bit about my guides, but mostly about Kurn’s Guild Spotlight, a short video I do every weekday where I shine the spotlight, if you will, on various guilds. I’m always taking submissions, so if you’re recruiting, plug in your guild details here for consideration for a spotlight of your very own. :)

And THEEEEEEEE Matticus sent me a whole bunch of questions about blogging, so that interview is up at his site.

So that’s what I’ve been up to! And now, back to my Community Management module and cliques…

Introducing Kurn.info

Kurn / / guide, guild

I made a small announcement over on Twitter last night, in which I said that I’m going to be launching a new website Soon™, kurn.info.

All that’s on the website right now is basically a signup for an annoucement mailing list that’ll let you know when things change over there; when I launch the site, when my Guide to Being a Kick-Ass Guild Master is released… and when my other guides are released.

Other guides?

Yup. In addition to the Guide to Being a Kick-Ass Guild Master, I plan to write one for raid leading, one for being a role officer in a raiding guild and one for being a great raider.

All of these guides will deal primarily with logistical issues, common problems and will have very little to do with how to increase your DPS or how to defeat an encounter. These upcoming guides will largely focus on issues that have to do with raiding. (While I draw on raiding guilds as my experience for the Kick-Ass GM guide, that one isn’t restricted to raiding guild advice.)

So with all this in the pipeline (well, mostly still in my head for the other three), it only seemed logical to branch out and get my own domain that a) isn’t hard to spell and b) isn’t a subdomain of a guild that I haven’t played with in over seven months. Something to do with me seemed appropriate. When I saw that kurn.com was taken but kurn.info was available, it just made sense, you know? That’s what I’ve always done as a blogger, provided information. So it was a perfect fit!

For right now, it’ll just house the guides and such. As for the blog… Well, it wouldn’t be too hard to implement 301 redirects to the new domain, but I have a lot of work to do on the new domain and a lot of writing ahead of me, so I don’t imagine that’ll happen anytime soon. For the time being, at least, my posts will stay here. :)

So all that stuff is exciting.

I’m also excited about my Guild Spotlight project. If your guild is recruiting, fill out this form and I’ll consider doing a Guild Spotlight on your guild. Guild Spotlights are short videos showcasing your website while I talk about interesting things about your guild and your server and you can watch all of them in this one handy-dandy playlist! While I’ve only focused on US guilds so far, this is the world wide web, and it’s the World of Warcraft. I’ll spotlight guilds in other regions, too! If your guild is recruiting, don’t hesitate to let me know about it. :)

Sneak Peek 5 — Officers, Take Two

Kurn / / guide, guild

As I mentioned last week, this Community Management section of the guide is killing me. It’s huge. And it’s slow going. So no, Module 5 (expansion planning) isn’t finished yet. It’s not even quite STARTED yet. So after asking on Twitter, I settled on looking at Officers again. Last time I did that, we looked at Rebuking Officers. Today, we’re going to look at a couple of requirements I personally have for promoting officers. (The full guide has five requirements and this sneak peek gets you two of them.)

Promoting Officers
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/officers-sneakpeek2.pdf

Other topics to be covered include: the remaining requirements to be promoted, replacing officers, demoting officers and more.

If you still haven’t read my other four sneak peeks, do check them out!

Picking a Server/Faction, Setting Goals & Timetables and Schedules
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/startingaguild-sneakpeek.pdf

Building Community, In and Out of Game
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/communitymanagement-sneakpeek.pdf

Rebuking Officers
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/officers-sneakpeek.pdf

Posting your Recruitment Post
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/howtorecruit-sneakpeek.pdf

And don’t forget to tune in to YouTube every weekday for another edition of Kurn’s Guild Spotlight! Submit your guild for consideration now!

Sneak Peek 4 — Starting a Guild

Kurn / / guide, ramblings

It seems a little strange, I guess, to have my fourth sneak peek be from the first module of my guide, but it’s still likely more useful to you guys now than something about expansion planning (which is what Module 5 is all about). Plus, I haven’t actually, you know, written Module 5. The Community Management section I’m currently writing rivals the Recruitment section in terms of length, I swear to God. Anyhow, here’s Sneak Peek 4:

Picking a Server/Faction, Setting Goals & Timetables and Schedules
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/startingaguild-sneakpeek.pdf

Other topics to be covered include: Naming the guild, guild rules, guild structure, loot, community, fighting for your guild members and more.

If you still haven’t read my other three sneak peeks, do check them out!

Building Community, In and Out of Game
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/communitymanagement-sneakpeek.pdf

Rebuking Officers
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/officers-sneakpeek.pdf

Posting your Recruitment Post
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/howtorecruit-sneakpeek.pdf

And don’t forget to tune in to YouTube every weekday for another edition of Kurn’s Guild Spotlight!

Sneak Peek 3 — Community Management

Kurn / / guide, guild, guild spotlight

I’m still working on this module, but hey, I told you guys I’d have another sneak peek for you today, so here it is!

Building Community, In and Out of Game
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/communitymanagement-sneakpeek.pdf

Other topics to be covered include: guild community setup, setting the tone, generating discussion and, the big ones, discipline and community moderation.

If you still haven’t read my other two sneak peeks, do check them out!

Rebuking Officers
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/officers-sneakpeek.pdf

Posting your Recruitment Post
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/howtorecruit-sneakpeek.pdf

And don’t forget to tune in to YouTube every weekday for another edition of Kurn’s Guild Spotlight!

Kurn's Guild Spotlight!

Kurn / / guide, guild spotlight

While writing my guide on how to be a kick-ass guild master, I spent a lot of time writing about recruitment. I mean, a lot of time. My “How to Recruit” module of the guide is over 15,000 words long as of right now. So while writing those 15,000 words, I was consistently reminded of how much I hated recruitment and how crappy it is. And it is. It really is. It’s tireless, thankless, boring, repetitive work that needs to be done constantly and consistently.

So I thought about spotlighting a guild on a daily basis and talking about what their recruitment needs are.

Naturally, I started with my own Apotheosis. I don’t even have an active account anymore, but that guild will always be my home.

Here’s the video I made, talking a bit about what my guild spotlight is and, obviously, shining the spotlight on Apotheosis.

I plan to do this each weekday, so if your guild is in need of recruits, please post here in the comments or send me an email at kurn (at) apotheosis-now (dot) com. :) Be sure to leave me the guild name, faction, server, purpose (PVP, PVE, etc) and website. That last is super-important. :)

Hopefully, this will go a little way in helping out guild masters and recruitment officers, because it is a terrible job. Remember to thank your GM or recruitment officer (or both!) today. ;)

(PS: Don’t forget to download your Sneak Peeks 1 and 2 of my guide. Sneak Peek 3 will be coming out this Thursday!)

Sneak Peek 2 – Officers!

Kurn / / guide, guild

The other day, I put up a post asking for feedback (thank you!) and allowing you all to download my first sneak peek at a section of my Kick-Ass Guild Master guide. More than 300 downloads later, I thought, hey, why not put up another sneak peek?

So, here you go! Sneak Peek 2 is from my Officer module. It’s all about you, as the guild master, rebuking an officer for a variety of reasons.

http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/officers-sneakpeek.pdf

And if you’d still like to download the other sneak peek from my How to Recruit module, you can do so here:

http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/howtorecruit-sneakpeek.pdf

All told, the full guide (which is about two-thirds of the way done) is already over 37,000 words long and covers a variety of situations dealing with setting up the guild (module 1), recruiting for the guild (module 2), officer issues (module 3) and I’m currently working on community management (module 4). Still need to write up how to plan for expansions (module 5) and how to quit without killing your guild (module 6).

If nothing else, this has been a blast to write. Enjoy the sneak peeks and I’ll probably add another one (from community management) next week.

Naming Stuff and Sneak Peek

Kurn / / guide

All righty, I’ve been working on this guide to being a Kick-Ass Guild Master and I find that I need your input on a site name.


survey service

So, please take a second to vote, pretty please! And if you think all of those names suck, please post your suggestions in the comments. :)

And now, here is a sneak preview of a portion of Module 2 of the Kick-Ass GM Guide: How to Recruit. It’s all of Step 3 in the Finding Recruits section.

http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/howtorecruit-sneakpeek.pdf

Enjoy!

What's New with Kurn

Kurn / / apotheosis, guide, guild, healing, ramblings

Hi, folks! I have had a heck of a weekend, first watching my brother (aka Fog) get married and then skipping his reception to fly to Toronto where I stayed overnight before grabbing a flight to Newark, whereupon Daey and Toga picked me up and then I got dropped off at the lovely golf club where Majik was going to get married — and I was a bridesmaid.

I’ll write up a post later, I’m sure, about meeting Daey, Toga, Dar, Kam and all the others, but I’m still exhausted from my 4 airports, 3 flights and two weddings in the span of 72 hours. (Add 11 hours of sleep in that time span to get a really good idea of how tired I still am.) Short version: Everyone was awesome and excellent and the 21 hours I spent in NY were not enough.

Also, I have a short recording from the post-reception afterparty that I will be using in a super special BONUS episode of Blessing of Frost! It is hilarious and I can’t wait for you guys to hear it.

In the meantime, I’m still writing up that how to be a kick-ass GM guide. Not done yet and I’m at nearly 27,000 words for the whole thing. The first module (about actually starting a guild and getting things in place) is just over 5,000 words and I think most modules average 5,000-7,000 words, although the How to Recruit module is almost 11,000 words and I am still adding to it, because recruitment sucks a LOT.

Anyhow, this is really going to be a complex, in-depth, modular guide and I hope you guys will enjoy reading it and learning from it as much as I’m enjoying writing it.

Oh, speaking of the guide… From this weekend’s post-reception afterparty: Dar told me that Daey was telling her that the only thing I need to include in my guide section about loot is “/roll”. Oh, Football. Never change.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this game called Healer that Megs pointed me to. Dar and I were talking about how we missed healing and I said that this game was really the solution to healing without playing WoW. It’s very, very similar to WoW healing and there’s even an Onyxia-type encounter. Dar ended up playing the game on my iPad post-afterparty for like, 20+ minutes and this game is the sole reason she actually wants a tablet now. (I think the game is only available for iPad, not iPhone or any other platform.) Time to start up a Tabletfordar fund. ;) The game is really neat and I quite enjoy it. Check it out if you have a healing itch. (Note, it’s $4.99, but I think it’s pretty well worth it.)

Okay, I should wrap this up as I have some errands to run and, clearly, lots of guide-related and Blessing of Frost-related work to do! Enjoy your 5.3 patch day, folks. :)

Answer…

Kurn / / guide, guild, ramblings

My previous post asked you guys if you might be interested in a guild master’s guide. The results are in — I got dozens of responses and the majority of them said yes, they would be interested in such a guide, and most of THOSE said they’d pay something for it (although prices varied wildly).

As such, I wanted to let you know that I am now officially working on a guild master’s guide. It will be modular, so you can buy whatever it is you need help with most. There will be samples available before you buy and the cost for each module will be very reasonable, with a bit of a discount if you buy the entire guide at once.

What I’m looking at, as of right now:

– Module 1: Starting (or reorganizing) a guild: goals/timetable of events, rules, structure, policies, loot (if applicable), community.
– Module 2: How to recruit: the entire recruitment process, from A to Z (that’s “zed”, Americans), including a sample application and sample recruitment posts, plus where to recruit AND how (and when) to go that extra mile. (Turnover is also included here.)
– Module 3: Officers: how to choose officers, avoiding drama, what to do with underperformers, how much impact officers should have on the guild’s direction.
– Module 4: Community Management: Troublemakers and dealing with them, cliques, morale, fun events, real-life circumstances, guild alliances/mergers, social media, exposure.
– Module 5: Expansions: How to successfully plan for an expansion (this mostly already exist on the blog, but I’d refine it somewhat).
– Module 6: Passing over leadership without killing your guild: How to quit but let your guild live on.

My NEW question to you guys is if there’s something that’s not covered above, what would you most want covered and in which section would you want it? Or does the topic deserve its own section entirely? Similarly, if there’s anything you think I’ve listed that REALLY doesn’t need to be in the guide, chime in.

(Bear in mind that I’m trying to leave raiding out of it entirely for the moment. I have another idea about maybe writing a raid leader’s guide, even a role officer’s guide, but let’s see how this goes, first. ;))

Feel free to let me know in the comments or via email (kurn [at] apotheosis-now [dot] com) if you want to remain more or less anonymous. With any luck, I’ll have a first draft for all modules done in the next two weeks and then sometime after Majik’s wedding (Blessing of Frost listeners, I WILL TRY TO GET HIM TO SING!), I hope to start releasing stuff. So now’s the time to let me know what you really want to see included!