Category: guild

A Dramatic Day Without Red Haterade

Kurn / / apotheosis, facepalm, guild, mists of pandaria, ramblings

On Tuesday, August 21st, I participated in my third-to-last Apotheosis raid. I went to bed satisfied with the raid, happy with my guild and certain that the guild is well on the way to a wonderful future in Mists of Pandaria, even without me there. It’s gratifying to be at this stage of the expansion, with most of the “i”s dotted and most of the “t”s crossed. Plans are in place, officers are promoted and, soon, I’ll be a fond memory (or a tedious one, if people remember my speechifying and my lengthy forum posts).

I woke up on Wednesday to find the most dramatic thing to do with my guild in the last two years had been discovered while I had been asleep. I woke up to private messages from outraged guildies, to the officer forums exploding, to the general forum exploding, to tweets and DMs…

“Holy shit, who died?” was my first thought.

As it turns out, no one died and the drama was not related to any current raiding member of the guild. There was no issue with loot, no problems with our plans for the expansion, not a peep about our officers, new or old. So what caused this reaction?

For that, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to have to tell you a story. This story is somewhat lengthy and I am not feeling as kind as Jasyla was feeling when she wrote her post, so I’m going to name names.

Once upon a time, we had a kick-ass raider with us by the name of Huntertoga. Yes, he played a hunter. ;) Toga was an officer and a great guy and a great player. Unfortunately, Toga decided to step down. He was tired of the game, burnt out and gave us a ton of notice. So we went recruiting.

We got an application from someone by the name of Innersight, whose name changed to Innerbite, but everyone called him “Inner” and most (all?) of his alts’ names started with “Inner”. Inner was a good app, if a little undergeared, but his performance was pretty great. He had a couple of problems fitting in to the guild on a social level during his trial, so I wrote to him and asked him to tone it down and he did. He was promoted to Raider on February 23rd, 2012, after participating in the guild-first kills of Heroic Yor’sahj and Heroic Zon’ozz.

Inner was a very good player. He took on some of the crappy jobs that others either couldn’t or wouldn’t do, such as focusing the mana void on H Yor’sahj or making sure to break badly-timed grips on Heroic Spine. He made mistakes, just like anyone does, but for the most part, Inner was a solid player that you could count on.

Possibly the first indication that there was a problem with Inner (after his trial period) was when Diablo III came out. He was clearly tabbed out of WoW, playing Diablo III, during raids. I didn’t care if you tabbed out to play if you were on the bench, but not while you were in the raid group. I wrote to him about it, post-raid, and he blamed his inattention on his daughter (despite the fact that we could HEAR D3 fighting noises through Mumble!) and the like. Anyhow.

The next possible indication of “trouble” was that Inner was not remotely compromising about the fact he wanted to play a monk healer in the expansion. It looked as though Apotheosis might have too many healers on the roster at the start of Mists, so I wrote to the DPS who were looking to swap to healers with a private message that included this:

“If there aren’t enough healer slots to accomodate your swapping from DPS to healing, what would you play at that point?”

His response was firm:

“Because I am as set as I am to go back to healing I guess I would go on a bench/waiting list or find another place to raid…=/”

Due to my own plans to leave the raiding scene and the fact we’ll be losing another healer, we dropped this line of discussion because it would be fine if Inner were a healer in terms of group composition.

The next time I had some kind of concern about Inner came shortly after I announced my decision to step down from GM and RL, when we put out a call to the guild to see who might be interested in being an officer. Inner was one of the people who expressed interest. He expressed interest in being the raid leader and if that didn’t work, maybe the new healing lead (assuming Jasyla wouldn’t be retaining that position) and potentially lootmaster, though bank admin would be out for him, due to a lack of organization he felt he could bring to the position.

We thanked him for his interest (as we had with everyone who approached us) and we retired to the officer forums to discuss who we thought would make the strongest leadership team. That leadership team did not include Inner as an officer.

I again had concerns about Inner shortly after we announced the new officers, when Inner let me know that he needed to step down from raiding due to his new job which required a 2+ hour commute. He then changed his mind and said that he could be available for the first half of the raid (from 9pm-10:30pm or so) until he planned to move in early September, then should have full availability again. The officers discussed it and we accepted that, so long as he kept us up to date on the move and such. So Inner continued raiding with us, leaving around 10:30 or 11pm, since we were down to 1-night clears.

The next moment that included concerns about Inner came on Tuesday, July 31st, when Inner received the Heroic Vial of Shadows and was now 100% “best-in-slot”. I’m always a little uneasy whenever anyone gets their “best-in-slot” pieces completed because a lot of people’s motivation comes from loot. Still, nothing really happened at this point, but Inner was definitely excited about no longer needing anything from Heroic Dragon Soul.

The next time I had concerns, though, came a week later. Inner was now suddenly interested in running a GDKP run on Eldre’Thalas. He wanted permission to use the guild name/etc and basically have the support of the guild. We said sure and he sent me a really, really long document he’d written with rules/etc, but it read more like a pitch to our guild to participate, rather than rules of conduct for a GDKP run. I was concerned because I thought that Inner would start up this idea and then bail when he had no more interest in it, leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths about our guild. Still, I was going to edit this document and give him advice/etc about how to organize it, but had a lot of time due to the fact that it would only be happening way after Mists of Pandaria had launched.

Finally, on Tuesday, August 14th, Inner had signed up for that night’s raid, but was a no-show. What we call a no-show is someone who signs up as “Accepted” on the guild calendar event for the raid, but then doesn’t show up at all, without letting us know via forums, PMs, twitter, email, text, etc. I kind of figured he was done (BiS and all, you know?) but I wrote to him anyhow:

“Hi Inner,

You missed the raid tonight, Tuesday, August 14th. Serrath had let me know that you had told him in Mumble that you would be available tonight, yet you never logged on, from what I saw.

You were last on the forums today at 5:10pm ET, which would have been plenty of time to let us know you were unable to make it. There were no PMs sent, nor any emails or anything of the sort that I am currently aware of (as of 12:15am ET on Wednesday).

While emergencies do happen, and I hope nothing of that nature has happened, it really needs to be underlined that we need to hear from you as soon as you know you can’t make it. While we certainly had enough people to sit virtually anyone we wanted, not showing up is not acceptable, as people are relying on you, a raider-ranked member of the team, to adhere to your commitments towards the team.

I’ve CCed Serrath (incoming raid leader) and Slout (incoming ranged lead) on this note. Please use the reply to all link to respond to all of us when you do so in order to let us all know what your circumstances were with regards to missing tonight’s raid.

Again, I hope everything is okay, but I also hope you recognize that you’re an important part of the team and we need to know ASAP if you’re going to be unable to make it.

Thanks,

Kurn”

This was his response on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 15th.

“Hey all,

My life has gone almost beyond control at this point.

Reason for missing raid without notification:
Last night on the way home I got rear ended (and might I add how amazingly this indiviual fit a driving stereotype…lol) and I made impact with 2 other vehicles… no one seriously injured but my car is totaled. I ended up with bumbs and scrapes….and needing new pants.

Unfortunately I am going to be stepping down as a raider from Apotheosis. If you need me to leave with my toons, I understand as well. Just a few reason below:
We just found out child #2 is now on his/her way into this world.
My job is starting to cost me nearly 80 hours a week and I simply cannot sustain.

I still am very interested in Mists… but will likely not be on any normal scheduled raiding team (hopefully this will change over time). I am going to try to contact some old work buddies and RL friends and see if they are still running one night a week raids back on blackhorn. If this is the case I may be leaving ET in pursuit of a 1 weekend night a week raid schedule.

I will await a response before posting anything publicly to the guild. I just want to make sure you don’t mind me posting. I would like to say my goodbyes and thanks.”

Serrath, our incoming raid leader for Mists, replied:

“Oh my gosh – first off – I’m glad that you’re ok! Secondly, congratulations on the incoming baby!!!

I understand that you will need to step down from your current raider position. Regarding Mists, I apologize, but we will not be able to accommodate an unreliable raid schedule. Once details are hammered out and you’re in a more comfortable situation we would love to have you back in the community.

If you’d like to say goodbyes in your own thread, you are welcome to do this. At some point in the coming days we will bump down your rank in the guild to Member where you’re welcome to stay. Please let me know if there’s any questions you have or if you need anything.

Thanks,

Serrath”

Literally half an hour later, Inner posted this on our guild forums:

“Hey all,

Unfortunately I am going to be stepping down from Raider in Apotheosis. My RL responsibilities are tipping the free time scales. Working nearly 80 hours a week now and we just found out baby #2 is on the way!!! =)

I do want to say that I have learned an amazing amount during my time in Apotheosis and I hope for nothing but the best for you all in the future. I have no doubts you will continue to be as successul as ever.

As for Mists… I will have to wait and see how things go in RL go. In the begining of Mists I will most likely be trying to find a 1 weekend night run as I cannot reliably commit any more than that (an old RL friend led an alt run on saturday nights…going to try there). I may or may not stay on server due to this…=/

All in all… a true thank you for everything you all have helped me achieve and bringing me into the Apotheosis team. I will still exist and am always willing to help with anything I can.

Thanks again… and I will most definitely miss all the fun and success that is Apotheosis raiding.”

Several people chimed in on his thread, wishing him the best of luck and congratulating him on his forthcoming second child. No one was upset, no one was angry. We genuinely wished him well.

Exceedingly short and simplistic form of above: Inner was never the most reliable of raiders, though he was a great player. Still, a lot of us had felt strongly that he would flake out at some point. We certainly had a lot of reason to think he wouldn’t continue raiding us for the long haul, based on the variety of moments that I’ve touched on above.

So the history segment of this is now over.

Here’s what happened today…

I woke up to several private messages and a few forum posts, as  well as many tweets, all indicating something had happened with Inner.

Just hours after his post on Wednesday afternoon, he transferred off the server and Wowprogress notes his departure as of August 17th. That was fine, he had said he might go back to a 1-night weekend schedule. So what?

Turns out it was much more than that.

Inner is now the guild master of a guild named Mercury on Greymane (although, for reasons that will become clear very shortly, better names might have been “Acopyosis”, “Bpotheosis” and “Uranus” — thanks to Rades, Ash and Jasyla for those suggestions).

Inner being the GM of Mercury is not a problem. You don’t want to be part of Apotheosis, that’s fine. He stepped down. He took off. That’s okay. Good luck to you in whatever you do, no skin off my nose.

What presents a problem is the fact that Inner ripped off just about all of Apotheosis’ policies, as well as our application, our raid requirements for Mists and, as if that weren’t bad enough, our recruitment post. You doubt this? Check out this screenshot that still has the Apotheosis guild name in it (first sentence, last paragraph).

As Jasyla said in her post, just about all of our policies, including our application form, were taken just about word-for-word. I’d encourage you to go read Jasyla’s post now if you haven’t already.

Even though this guy has ripped off my words, Jasyla’s words and Serrath’s words, this is not actually what I’m most upset about. I’m not even all that upset by this gem of plagiarism…

I’m angry about the plagiarism, don’t get me wrong, but I think what’s really gotten me wound up is the entire package.

1) Inner tells us he has to step down; work is 80 hours a week, his wife is pregnant, cannot sustain 3 nights a week.

2) Inner leaves, returns to his former guild, becomes GM, aims to start raiding as a 25-man guild in Mists of Pandaria.

3) New version of Mercury has the exact same application and almost the same policies as Apotheosis, most of them taken word-for-word.

4) New version of Mercury has the exact same raid nights and times as Apotheosis — Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday from 9pm ET until 12am ET, with invites at 8:45pm.

5) New version of Mercury even has the exact same recruitment post and is, obviously, searching for every class.

6) As such, our recruitment officer (hi Sara!) can’t very well post right after Inner has in a prospective applicant’s thread — it’s the same post! Much re-writing needs to occur before posting in someone’s thread.

We were all pretty outraged by at least one of these happenings. (People reacted differently to the separate issues.)

On the one hand, the plagiarism is a compliment: We (primarily me, Jasyla, Serrath and Sara) wrote good posts and good policies, good enough for someone to steal. On the other hand, what the fuck, dude? He’s going to continue to raid 3 nights a week in a guild he’s going to run, based on how our guild is run. Why not just stay in Apotheosis? Psycho.

Hence, the suggested names of “Acopyosis” and “Bpotheosis”. (And “Uranus” comes from Jasyla’s post because she’s nice, but picked a planet that basically indicates Inner is an ass. I laughed.)

He had the nerve to come slithering back to our forums and was met with, well,  not the best reception:

Meanwhile, I was asleep. I woke up, found out all this was happening, posted a courtesy post in the officer forum saying “so, yeah, I’m gonna kick his remaining toons and lock him out of the forums, okay?” (to which the responses were a resounding DO IT DO IT DO IT) and did just that. Threw his remaining toons out and banned him from the forums.

Sadly, I had an appointment this afternoon, so I wasn’t able to really get my hate and anger on before I left… and by the time I started composing this monster of a post, things had settled down a bit. Why? Mercury’s website is now gone. The whole domain has been deleted.

I’m almost disappointed.

That said, the recruitment posts are still littered throughout the official recruitment forums. 63 of them. Sara’s going to see if she can’t get a GM to go delete them all before she continues our recruitment efforts, but I’m not optimistic.

They have, however, edited their “main” recruitment post to remove all the plagiarized stuff. Some people posted amusing things in the thread.

Overall, I think the biggest thing here is the “why”? Why would someone say that their schedule no longer permits them to raid, then go head up a raiding guild that plans to raid on that exact same schedule? Why would someone use the exact same application form and policies (except, of course, the important parts about the use of various words that we don’t appreciate in our guild community)? Is it just extraordinary laziness? Stupidity? Insanity?

Of course, finding out “why” would mean talking to Inner. That’s not something I’m prepared to do. He’s dead to me, as many people who have left my guild on bad terms have been, over many years. We’ve blacklisted him in our forums, meaning that even if Apotheosis is still around in ten years and new officers have taken over who have no idea who Inner is, he will never again be a part of Apotheosis.

I think the best thing that came out of this, though, was that it’s a bonding experience for the guild. “Remember that jackass who left and then became GM of his own guild and COPIED EVERYTHING WE HAD?” That’ll be remembered for years, by the Friends, the Initiates, the Members, the Raiders and Officers alike. So much outrage, so much /facepalming and so much disgust.

It’s nice to see that kind of loyalty from the guild. It shows me that the last two years have meant something to others, too, that our community is important to others in our guild.

To the members of Apotheosis: you rock. <3

And to those who have left us… you don’t know what you’re missing. :)

(If you’re interested in joining Apotheosis, as we are recruiting for Mists of Pandaria, head over to our guild website: http://www.apotheosis-now.com/main)

(PS: We could use a great holy paladin app!)

Change and Leadership

Kurn / / apotheosis, baby paladin adventures, guild, mists of pandaria, raiding, ramblings

I remarked on Twitter tonight that it’s awfully strange to go from raiding around 15 hours a week throughout the majority of the expansion to raiding for just over 2 hours a week. It really is strange.

The reason I’m only raiding 2 hours a week is because of two reasons:

1) I’m no longer raiding with Choice
2) Apotheosis is full-clearing 8/8 HM in about two hours

Let’s talk about the first point.

I left Choice just after 4.0 hit.

They struggled a bit in T11 content, mostly due to healing issues.

So I did a stupid thing. I rolled another paladin. It actually came from Matt’s idea to clone myself so I could heal for him and I was like “BUT WAIT. CHOICE NEEDS A HEALER.” So I applied and I started raiding with them in early June.

For over a year, I raided three times a week with Apotheosis and twice a week with Choice. I got a little burnt towards the end, but that’s due to other factors, not playing “so much”. While 15 hours a week for me is probably a bit much, 12 hours a week would have been nice. Anyhow, I don’t regret it. I do not recommend doing what I did (raiding with two progression guilds simultaneously, in essence), but damn me, did I ever get GOOD at fights in Firelands and Dragon Soul! Double the chance each week to refine and better my performances, double the chance to learn how to do something. I got REAL good at Heroic Alysrazor, I was reliable on Heroic Majordomo and basically just knew what I was doing all throughout both those tiers. It felt really good.

Like I said, though, I can’t recommend it. It’s tiring, it can be frustrating and sometimes it’s nice to have a real night off. But I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t do it again, mind you, but it worked well for me.

So why am I no longer raiding with them? Well, after some weeks of being stuck on Heroic Spine and such, combined with weeks of fighting the attendance boss, Choice decided to go to a 10-man format. Fugara knows I loathe 10s, so she basically wrote me off the list. That’s right, I was cut! ;) But I let them know I wasn’t interested in continuing in a 10-man format anyhow, but that I’d stick around for two resets on Wednesdays and Mondays for them, in case of attendance issues/etc.

I did a few solid hours of H Spine and H Madness progression (both on 10m, of course) and good gravy, it totally reinforced how I hate 10s…

That said, I stopped raiding with them last week — and they promptly got H Madness, so grats to them. :)

And now to address the second point: Apotheosis is clearing 8/8 HM in about two hours a week. That doesn’t mean that I’m not still spending a LOT of time with this whole transition thing, though. With me stepping down as GM, Raid Leader and basically the recruitment person, plus Majik stepping down as caster lead… yeah.

We’ve decided that Jasyla will be the new guild master of Apotheosis. Sara will be the recruitment officer. Slout will be the new caster lead. And we’ve gotten Chronis to be the new tank lead (a position left unfilled since Dayden stopped tanking for us back in Firelands).

Sara, Slout and Chronis got promoted on Tuesday before the raid and the raid basically proceeded normally. We’ve got a meeting on Thursday for the role officers and we’ve got some new lootmaster shenanigans to handle on Sunday evening, so I have stuff going on.

But all I’m thinking, now that we have a solid launch date and an equally-solid end-of-raiding date, is that “hey, there’s one more lockout done. Just five to go.” We’re going to stop raiding for the expansion after the reset of September 4th is finished. Since we’re clearing in two hours or so, that means just five more Apotheosis raids.

It’s sad. I mean, it’s good, but it’s sad, too. Not exactly bittersweet, but I’m making a huge change in my life by not being a GM and not raiding in the expansion. It’ll be a good thing for me, personally. This job… well, this hobby, really, has become a more-than-full-time job over the last couple of years. Two years ago, I was psyched and excited about rebuilding my guild and bringing my people back home to Eldre’Thalas.

Now, I’m kind of sad that I won’t be a part of the guild’s future success. I’m kind of wistful that I’ve already accomplished most of the game-related things of which I’ll be proudest. There aren’t any real new adventures awaiting me in Mists of Pandaria. I’ll level Kurn to 90 (may not even bother with the paladin, to be honest!) and see what fun can be had, but no more raiding seriously and, most dramatically, no more leading.

Dramatic? Yes, it’s a big change. I’ve been leading stuff since April of 2006, with a short break while in Choice and a shorter break in a guild with my RL Friend the Resto Druid. What the eff am I going to do with myself with no one to lead? With no goals to strive for?

I’ve always called myself a reluctant leader. I’ve always said that if a group is being led well, I’m more than happy to follow. I used to mean that, but I’m realizing, more and more, that people are usually, in my opinion, doing it wrong. And that means that I feel obliged to step up. I strongly feel that even if I wanted to continue raiding in Mists (which I don’t), I wouldn’t be able to stay in Apotheosis, because my mouth would get me in trouble. (ETA: Not that I think that the new leadership team is going to do badly — quite the opposite — but because I was ALWAYS biting my tongue in Choice, even when things worked out well for them and I’m not sure I could bite my tongue if I disagreed with the leadership in Apotheosis. Which I don’t even know would happen.)

I need to let go. I need to let the new leaders of the guild do things the way they want to do it and be thankful that anyone is crazy dedicated enough to take up the job that I’m leaving. I’m sure I’ll be able to do that, in the coming weeks. With just five more lockouts, it’s inevitable that more and more responsibility will shift from me to the other officers. (ETA: And so far, things have been pretty smooth. I don’t anticipate much in the way of drama or issues.)

And soon, it’ll be time for me to be demoted to the dreaded Member rank, which people are only ever demoted to (or grandfathered into).

Yet, there’s so much to do between now and then. And lots of blog posts to write. :) Stay tuned!

PS: I’m doing a Holy Paladin Roundtable with Megacode, Joe Ego, Ophelie and Chase Christian this Saturday! Email Mega your questions at: healingspec (at) gmail.com!

How to Prepare a Raiding Guild for Mists of Pandaria: Steps 3 & 4

Kurn / / apotheosis, guild, mists of pandaria

Yup, it’s that time again, time to help you figure out how to prepare your raiding guild for the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion! If you haven’t done so already, please do read Steps 1 & 2, as I will be referring to that post quite a bit.

It’s taken a bit of time for me to get things going here, because I had my own decision to make and so I’ve been working behind the scenes with the officers (and without them, too) with transitional stuff. That’s a whole OTHER step, though. ;)

So what did I do after asking for people to send me a private message on our forums?

STEP 3: Response Compilation and Preliminary Analysis

I collected their responses in a spreadsheet. Here’s a version specifically for readers of my blog that maintains some privacy for my guildies while still sharing how to use the Google Docs comments. (I added some notes as comments in my original document that I’ve removed from this version, but some are still in use.)

My initial results included three people not returning: myself (I raid as Madrana, so that’s how I’m listed in this), Majikmarine and Cinderhaze. It included two people who were unsure about returning: Ashfrost and Hitoku. There was also one person who did not respond at all. I also didn’t ask our Initiates for their responses (that will happen at the time of their promotion, if they pass their trials). I did ask other Apotheosis members if they would be interested in raiding with us in Mists. Two said yes, Mabriam and Sturm (both are actually former raiders and Mabriam has actually re-applied and is now an Initiate with us).

So I looked at the list and saw:

Tanks: 4 (2 bears, 1 monk, 1 prot pally)

Healers: 8-9 (2 druids, 1 pally, 2 priests, 2 monks, 1-2 resto shaman)

DPS: 10 (worst case) to 16 (best case, with all MAYBEs turning into a YES, interested non-raiders working out and the DPS Initiates remaining in their roles after passing trials)

So compiling all the information is Step 3. Go browse the spreadsheet, look at the comments by highlighting over the various cells. You’ll note that under the Times column, there are just a couple of comments. That meant that most people said our current days/times were good for them. The others indicated that if the times changed, they might not be able to raid or gave a preference to raiding a bit earlier (would be preferred for them, but not absolutely needed) or let us know what days they were definitely not available.

(Judging by my spreadsheet, our raiding times aren’t going to change and will continue to be Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 9pm-12am ET with invites at 8:45pm ET.)

Okay, on to…

STEP 4: Determining what you need.

I said we had four tanks on the roster for Mists of Pandaria: Choryn (aka Dayden), Division (aka Chronis), Kaleri and Mhoe. I honestly have no problem with this whatsoever. I started out Cataclysm with four tanks (1 bear, 2 prot pallies and a prot warrior) and we lost two tanks before T11 was over, so I have zero problems having a bit of a bloated roster to deal with such happenings. So while I wasn’t going to say “hm, we could use a fifth tank”, I wasn’t going to ask any of the four to not be a tank. Each tank needs to have a decent DPS set as well, so honestly, four tanks is fine.

8-9 healers is fine as well. If our resto shaman passes her trial and wishes to continue healing, we’ll have 9 healers. If not, we’ll have 8 to start with, which is fine, considering two of them (the monks) will likely be OP to start with, given that they’re the new class. (Remember DKs and Sarth 3D? I’m anticipating similar levels of overpoweredness.) But 9 healers won’t be a problem either.

10-16 DPS, however, is a problem. On a typical encounter, we have 2 tanks, 6 healers and 17 DPS. We really need to boost that number.

You would think that the next step would be to say “hey, thanks for your responses! Now we know what we have and we’re going out there to recruit stuff we don’t have!”.

But that’s not exactly what I did.

Up until the other day, all the results of the PMs responding to me had been only shared with the officers. I have now shared that information with the guild. I have asked them if their primary choice of healing or tanking has changed based on other people’s first choices and, if so, to please let me know what they’d prefer to do.

I did this because I know that teamwork in a 25-man guild is important. While the DPS and the healers don’t necessarily have to be best friends, the healers do really need to get along well, at least professionally. The tanks do as well. The ranged DPS and the melee DPS should also get along in their particular groups. Further, there’s balance to think about. Having three tanks wearing agility leather, plus a feral druid, plus a rogue means some competition for agi leather. Similarly, two healing monks and two healing druids (plus a potential moonkin) might mean problems for intellect leather.

Informing the players who is essentially on the same team-within-a-team as them allows them to make choices that they may enjoy more. It also gives our MAYBE responders time to see if they can decide about continuing with us.

So until this coming Sunday night, my guildies have a chance to change their minds before we solidify the roster and go in search of specific classes.

PROBLEMS

As you can see, I was really lucky in that I didn’t have 8 people wanting to be tanks or 29 people want to be DPS. If your raid’s first choices don’t all match up nicely like mine did (and you can see, we lose 2 DPS to heals, lose 1 healer to tanking, lose another healer to, well, not playing, so we were lucky), it’s time to start negotiating.

The first thing I would do in the case of a conflict is talk to all those people involved. Say that you have five people who are interested in re-rolling DPS Monks. Chances are, your roster cannot handle five DPS Monks. Maybe your roster can handle three. Here’s a hypothetical situation for you with all five of these people wanting to be a Windwalker (DPS) Monk.

Person 1: Hunter
Person 2: Shadow Priest
Person 3: Rogue
Person 4: Resto Shaman
Person 5: Protection Warrior

Now (and here’s the important part) assuming all skill is equal between the five individuals, I would be inclined to ask for two volunteers to either stick with their current spec (based on balance, of course) or pick a different DPS class (assuming you can handle more DPS). Maybe you’ll luck out and get two people who will happily stick with what they’re doing or something other than a Windwalker Monk.

If no one volunteers, I would be inclined to ask the resto shaman and prot warrior how badly they want to be monks and if they would consider, for the raid’s balance, doing something else. Why? Again, assuming all skill is equal between these people, the hunter, shadow priest and rogue have been main spec DPS for you for X number of months or years. They KNOW (probably…) how to kill things as a DPS. They have the experience. If you had five people wanting to be Mistweaver (healing) Monks, I would want to favour the resto shaman. If you have five people wanting to be Brewmaster (tank) Monks, I would want to favour the prot warrior.

In short, if you’re having roster conflicts, I would tend to favour those with good experience in that role already.

Having said that, if skill is not equal among those individuals, go with your better players, hands down, trying to negotiate with the “less-skilled” players or the ones who haven’t been there as long as others or some other sort of way to separate them. You need to prioritize people for swapping roles and one of the best ways is player skill, but that can also get ugly.

(Have I mentioned that I’m thrilled not to have to negotiate as of right now? No? I AM THRILLED.)

Next time, we’ll get into Steps 5 and 6. Essentially, we’ll see if anyone takes me up on the offer and we’ll look more carefully at Mists of Pandaria recruitment needs.

A Decision

Kurn / / apotheosis, guild, mists of pandaria, raiding, ramblings

Before I get into this, I wanted to say that I have not forgotten about the next post in my preparing a guild series. This post has to come first, for reasons which will become obvious shortly. (Members of Apotheosis, go read my post on our forums first, if you haven’t already.)

I had set a deadline for my guildies to let me know if they were interested in raiding with Apotheosis in Mists of Pandaria. That deadline was 12:00am ET on Monday, June 11th.

Of course, I had to make up my own mind. I have vacillated wildly throughout this expansion. I’ve enjoyed some encounters and some decisions Blizzard has made and I’ve also really, REALLY hated some encounters and some decisions. (Seriously, you ought to hear me in Episode 33 of Blessing of Frost, when we discovered, right as we were recording, that Firelands was being nerfed. Around the 38 minute mark.)

So when the time came for me to look at my own name in my handy-dandy spreadsheet, I hesitated. A lot. Under the “Raiding in MoP” column, I put YES. I put NO. I deleted my answer. I stared at the blank space and I promptly closed the spreadsheet.

I gave it some more thought. Saying “yes”, to me, doesn’t really just mean saying yes. As the guild master, it means another 18-24 months of commitment to the guild and the guildies and the raids. I cannot just say “yeah, sure,” and then bail after six months if I wasn’t happy, I would feel as though I was letting the whole team down. I know what craziness happens when a GM steps down. It’s even worse if they’re the raid leader (like I am). I knew that if I could not commit to another ~2 years, I should not commit at all. It would be so much worse for the team later on if things went to hell.

I went to bed.

I opened up the spreadsheet again the next day and typed in “NO” next to my name and let my officers know that same day. I posted to my guild’s forums late Thursday night.

So I will not be raiding in Mists of Pandaria. I will likely no longer be playing after my Annual Pass runs out. I will be giving up the roles of guild master and raid leader to other people (working that stuff out).

I am genuinely sad about this. But it has to be done. I can’t do another two years of “this”. And by “this”, I mean everything. The mediation of squabbles among guild members, the recruiting and interviews, the attempts to change policies, the research for raids, the log diving (as much as I love it), just attending almost every single raid… I think I’ve missed less than 10 raids in the last 18 months.

I thought about the whole “delegation” thing. People always tell me I do too much. Frankly, fuck that. It’s never really been a question of “Good God, I’m doing way too much,” because I am doing what I feel needs to be done AND I’m happy to do it. The problem was that external circumstances arose. My grandmother breaking her hip in December and my father’s recent hospitalization (he’s fine and she’s doing better, although I’m still her errand girl, as we live in the same apartment building), plus finals really showed me that “Real Life” can rise up and swallow ALL of your free time. I was forced to name a new healing lead, the wonderful Jasyla, which I don’t really regret (although I miss chatting more with the healers in general) and I did a lot of work for the guild ahead of time (like boss strats and such). I got to be very good at managing my time while my grandmother was hospitalized, but I knew I still had a lot on my plate.

The thing is, it’s actually less time-consuming for me to do stuff myself. And it’s more satisfying, too. Rather than constantly asking people to do X, Y and Z and then following up, it’s easier to do it myself from the start and there’s a lot less communication between people needed, because, hey, it’s just me!

Still, though, I thought about it. I thought about maintaining GM and giving away raid leader to an officer. I thought about giving the bank to someone. I thought about giving recruitment to someone else. It would have lightened my own load substantially, since the raid leader position is really the bulk of the work.

Then, I realized that I don’t actually want to raid in Mists of Pandaria. I’m not excited about any of the changes except POSSIBLY Challenge Modes. I am not thrilled by the beta, which is hilarious, because that is the only reason I signed up for the Annual Pass. And I have not logged into beta since the level cap was 87. (It is now 90, so it’s been a while.) I am uninterested in what’s in store for holy paladins (except Clemency, that still looks awesome — a cooldown FOR your cooldowns!) and hunters. I am not excited about basically anything I’ve seen yet. Sure, Pandaria is gorgeous, but I’m not connecting to it. I haven’t posted anything about the Mists beta here because I’ve literally done one instance a couple of times and I quested Kurn to 86. And that’s it.

I also don’t trust Blizzard not to nerf everything to hell and back again. I don’t trust them to… well, anything, really. The Real ID fiascos, the nerfs, the fact that Blizzard’s views of the game are drifting further and further from my own… it’s the writing on the wall. I AM that person who will say “You’re damn right I did Jailbreak for my guildies 17 times!” and “We 27-manned Gehennas one night, that’s how hard it was to get 40 people in a raid!” and I remember the OLD Decursive and I remember a time when all paladin gear had strength AND intellect on it and I remember when people would craft resist gear! I am that cranky old player who yells about how easy these kids have it these days with their LFGs and LFRs and VPs and 10-man raids.

I don’t value a lot of the things in the game right now. None of the LFG or LFR pugs I’ve run have been things I want to treasure. Most of them are things I want to forget. My guild is one of the few exceptions, because I really do value the people and the team and the atmosphere. However, there aren’t a lot of things in-game right now that I treasure. There’s nothing like my epic bow quest anymore. There’s nothing like the Benediction quest either. There are no more attunements. Instead, there are all these people who think they deserve epics and raid spots because they’re max level and can game the ilvl requirement by using PVP gear. (I am talking to YOU, DK tank who “tanked” my End Time run on my resto shaman with your PVP intellect boots and 0 gems or enchants on the rest of your strength PVP gear while wearing the VP agility trinket.)

The number of players who think the way I do and value the same things I do has rapidly shrunk this expansion. It was getting bad in Wrath, but it’s gotten worse in Cataclysm. The things I mentioned earlier, my memories of Jailbreak, of undermanning Molten Core bosses, of crazy tier gear for classes like the paladin… These things are important to me. Yes, attunements were crazy, but what a bonding experience for guildies. The 45-minute Baron runs? Amazing. (And this is likely why Challenge Modes spark my interest a bit.) Just about everything from “the old days” makes me smile. Farming Essences of Air in Silithus, hunting down my demons for my Rhok’delar (and having half my guild laugh as Klinfran the Crazed kicked my ASS across the Burning Steppes), 5-manning Zul’Gurub trash at 2am at level 60, doing a 45m Baron run in 39 minutes without a tank apart from my cat, Whisper… These are the things that mean the most to me, these were some of my best memories in the game.

I’ve always said that if you can’t roll with Blizzard’s punches, you won’t survive in this game. It’s true. You have to adapt, you have to change, you have to embrace the new stuff. I think that I’m finally done with it. It’s exhausting to keep up with the changes. It’s also sad, for me, to see how little Blizzard values the things I enjoyed, which some of my favourite memories centered around. So I will take my precious Vanilla and BC memories, some of my Wrath memories and some amazing times from Cataclysm, I will breathe a sigh of resignation and I will take my leave of the game.

Don’t get me wrong, here. I don’t care if you quit or if you keep playing. Do what makes you happy. I won’t try to convince you to leave and I don’t want people to try to convince me to stay. I’m just documenting my decision and the repercussions thereof. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to, and obnoxious comments will not be approved and/or deleted. :)

So with that said, what will happen to this little ol’ blog?

It’ll likely stay online for, well, a long time. It doesn’t cost me anything extra to keep it online, but at one point, it’ll become inactive in the sense that I won’t have posted anything for a while. I’ll likely write some goodbye post in November, but I’m not gone yet.

In the meantime, I plan to keep up on my prepping the guild for the expansion series. I plan to finish up some of those 33 draft posts. I plan to do something to pass my knowledge along to whoever’s interested. I’ve learned a lot about managing a guild and playing at relatively high levels of content and I feel as though I still have a lot to share before I leave.

As to the podcast, that’s still to be determined (and I still need to edit our latest episode).

As for the guild, Apotheosis will still be a 25-man raiding guild in Mists of Pandaria.

Once Choice finishes raiding for the expansion, I’ll be done over there, too.

And no. You may not have my gold or any other stuff I have on any character. ;)

How to Prepare a Raiding Guild for Mists of Pandaria: Steps 1 & 2

Kurn / / apotheosis, guild, mists of pandaria

With Apotheosis at 8/8 HM in Dragon Soul and most of our roster having obtained our Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider achievements, it’s time for me to start looking ahead to Mists of Pandaria. Even if my own future is somewhat murky, since I’m really not sure what my plans are for Mists, I’m the guild master of Apotheosis and I will make sure there is a viable raiding roster available… assuming there’s enough interest from the guild, that is. If everyone decides to call it after Cataclysm, I won’t rebuild a guild again from scratch.

So I’ve decided to try to share this preparation work with you all.

Step One: Determine What You Already Have

We can do this easily by examining our current roster. Obviously, this is based on a 25-man raiding guild, but you can still take stock of who you currently have on your roster if you’re doing 10s. Here’s what I’m starting with:

28 Raider-ranked people (includes 5 officers)
4 Initiate-ranked people
= 32 people on the raiding roster

Role breakdown:
– 8 healers (2 of each class, 1 holy and 1 disc)
– 2 main spec tanks (1 paladin, 1 DK & 3 OS tanks, 1 DK, 1 druid, 1 warrior)
– 12 ranged DPS (3 mages, 2 shadow priests, 1 moonkin, 3 hunters, 2 elemental shaman, 1 warlock)
– 10 melee DPS (2 frost DKs, 1 combat rogue, 1 mut rogue, 1 feral druid, 2 ret pallies, 1 enhancement shaman, 1 Arms warrior, 1 Fury warrior)

I also have a large community in my guild, many friends of Raiders, many retired Raiders and such, some of whom may be interested in joining us come Mists.

So I have ~32 people to start with.

Step Two: Figure Out What People Want

The next step is to see if people are willing to continue raiding with us and, if they are, what class and spec they’d like to play.

To that end, here’s what I’ve already done:

– ~2 weeks ago, I posted on the forums asking people to start thinking about what they wanted to do in Mists, with a list of questions they should start mulling over.
– ~1 week ago, I posted on the forums reminding people to start thinking about what they wanted to do in Mists.

Today, I posted on the forums asking every raiding member of Apotheosis to send me a PM with regards to their intentions and also invited any non-raiding member of the guild to let me know of their interest in raiding for Mists.

I did so by asking them to answer these questions (previously posted ~2 weeks ago):

ALL RAIDERS OR HIGHER (not Initiates yet) should now start sending in responses to me via Private Message (PM) on the forum.

1) Would you like to continue raiding as a member of Apotheosis in Mists of Pandaria?
2) If so, would you like to remain your current class and spec or would you like to reroll?
3) If you want to raid and would reroll, what would you reroll to (class and spec)?
4) Would you be able to continue to raid during the current days/times on a 75% attendance basis? (Tues/Thurs/Sun, from 9pm ET until 12am ET, invites at 8:45pm ET) If not, what days/times might work better for you?

If you’re not SURE, please let me know and give me what you’re leaning towards, both if you want to raid at all or class/spec stuff.

If you are NOT a current raiding member of Apotheosis, but you might like to start in Mists, please answer the following questions in a Private Message (PM) to me on the forum.

1) Would you like to raid with Apotheosis in Mists of Pandaria?
2) If so, what class and spec would you likely be playing?
3) Are you able to make the current days/times on a 75% attendance basis? (Tues/Thurs/Sun, from 9pm ET until 12am ET, invites at 8:45pm ET) If not, what days/times might work better for you?

If you’re not SURE, please let me know and give me what you’re leaning towards, both if you want to raid at all or class/spec stuff.

You have approximately one week to get this info to me. (Initiates will be asked for this information if they pass their trials.) I’ll start sending out nastygrams to people as of 12:01am ET on Monday, June 11th. ;)

So that’s what I’m starting with and that’s how I’m proceeding.

I’ll be storing their answers in a spreadsheet. Down the left side in the first column is the player name, in alphabetical order.

Column B: Current Class
Column C: Current Spec
Column D: Raiding in Mists of Pandaria? (Y/N)
Column E: MoP Class
Column F: MoP Spec
Column G: Times?

Once I have responses from all the raiders, I’ll have a much better idea of where we’re at for Mists of Pandaria and what I’ll need to start recruiting for. As an example, let’s say that both my tanks want to do something else, like Mhoe wants to heal (hahaha) and Chronis wants to go back to his hunter. Let’s further say that a DPS, like Majik, wants to be a Brewmaster Monk, but no one else wants to be a main spec tank. I would then recruit for 1-2 more tanks for Mists of Pandaria and would not seek out another Brewmaster Monk unless the expansion was around the corner and I was screwed with no tanks.

Similarly, say all my healers want to keep playing exactly as they are. I would want to go out in search of one more healer and would seek a Monk, specifically, since I believe in a balanced roster.

Next week, we’ll start in on Step 3 where we look at the results of my guild’s answers, compile the results and see where to go from there. And remember, it’s never too early to start planning ahead for the next expansion!

Thinking about Time as a Raider (and GM)

Kurn / / apotheosis, guild, raiding, ramblings

I’ve had a lot of free time since my exams ended last month. Combine it with short raid weeks due to clearing content and the fact that Diablo III came out and, honestly, I haven’t spent a lot of time in-game.

This is vastly different from how things were for me back when I started playing. I was always trying to improve my character by getting things done, like getting all of my T0 set or working on my T0.5 questlines. Or farming for consumables and consumable-related stuff. Doing stuff that I genuinely needed to do to improve, not just because there was some achievement for it. (Because achievements did not exist back then.)

It dawned on me that I really don’t need to do that anymore.

Back in the old days, there weren’t these limits of “one flask or one guardian/one battle elixir”. You could have a flask and several elixirs active at once.

Early in Burning Crusade, the developers decided that was making it really difficult to balance the encounters. How do you balance an encounter for a raid group that is using 0 consumables and a raid group that is using every single consumable in the game? Simple, you cap the consumables and balance for a raid group at that cap.

Back in Burning Crusade, I will freely admit that Apotheosis was not a guild where most of its members used consumables of any kind. It was like pulling teeth to make people use elixirs or flasks. For myself, I always used the Elixir of Healing Power and the Elixir of Draenic Wisdom. This is primarily because, back then, Elixir of Healing Power was +healing (while Adept’s Elixir was +dmg/healing). I also used to eat the Golden Fish Sticks for the +healing.

I was, unfortunately, an exception in our raids back then. I had no idea addons existed to help verify/enforce consumable usage. On the night that we finally, finally killed Lady Vashj, my whole raid team was actually using max consumables and it was amazing. What was less amazing was clicking on 24 other people individually to see if they had their elixirs and food buffs…

That stuff, back then, was time consuming to get or expensive. And not remotely close to the way all of it was back pre-BC. In Vanilla, due to the lack of a cap on this stuff, you could farm for twice as long as you raided every week and still not have everything you needed. Hell, I never even used a flask in Vanilla, not on Kurn. The first time I actually used a flask in Vanilla WoW was when Tia and a warrior friend of hers and I decided to three-man Emp runs in BRD (me on Madrana). It was a Flask of Distilled Wisdom and it was glorious.

But I digress.

In Wrath, I fished up my own fish and cooked it myself. I made my own Flasks of Distilled Wisdom, yes, that same Vanilla-era flask, since they were SO good for holy paladins. It took a good deal of time and occasionally made me go farming in places where I could get Icecap and Dreamfoil and, of course, Black Lotuses.

It’s been different in Cataclysm.

Once all Valor Point stuff I want has been purchased, I feel that I only have to spend maybe an extra half an hour in-game per week. That extra time is all I need with regards to providing consumables for myself.

For me, consumables are not negotiable. I need to have a flask, I need to have food, I need to have various potions (I use Volanic sometimes, but mostly I use Potions of Concentration) and that’s all there is to it. I feel if you’re not buffed with flasks and food, you’re not going to be able to do your best.

This is something I’ve codified into our guild stuff. Raiders MUST be flasked with a food buff, or using two elixirs in lieu of a flask.

How is it, then, that I only need to spend a half an hour in-game per week on consumables? It’s easy. We’ve organized it so that the guild collectively takes responsibility for the major consumables.

For the majority of this expansion, every raiding member of the guild (Initiates, Raiders and Officers alike) was required to “donate” three flasks of a certain kind (pre-determined and they stuck with the same one) to the guild bank every week, due before Tuesday maintenance. This is a LOT less work than people needing 9 flasks of their own per week (or six in the case of Alchemists) and was made possible once we opened up the Big Cauldron of Battle after making 3000 flasks (gah) and then hitting Level 20 so we could have 30 flasks down per cauldron.

So we’ve been collecting flasks from people on a weekly basis since, uh, last April, maybe? We eventually brought that down to 2 flasks per person per week and now we’re about done with flask donations, period. It’s weird to be done sending in flasks, but definitely nice. So every raid night, I take six of each flask out and I drop a cauldron prior to the first boss pull and another one just after break. This worked out so well for us that I imagine the same sort of thing will be done in Mists. The guild bank has had to spend ridiculously little gold on flasks since we pushed a bit to get to 3000 flasks crafted.

As to food… Well, food is basically the Seafood Magnifique Feast, which is 90 of a useful stat to you and 90 stamina. We have the guild bank provide that, but I would say that we have spent… probably no more than 2500g over the last year and a half on various fish for the feast.

Every week, we have a specific donation for something we need in Apotheosis and if you give us what we’re looking for, we give you 200 EP. (We use the EPGP loot system, but you can easily adapt this for DKP or suicide kings or something else.) As such, we almost always have any sort of fish or anything we need. Every week, it’s just like “hey, do you want an extra 200 EP? Then donate (items here)” and people do it. Personally, I enjoy fishing, but sometimes I’m strapped for time, so I’ll occasionally buy the fish at the AH and donate them, but most of the time, I like to fish them up myself.

For enchants and gems and such, we introduced Raider and higher free enchants some time ago, including everything, basically, except for helm enchants and shoulder enchants. Again, we fund this primarily through EP drives from the raiders. Since we introduced this sort of thing, I don’t think we’ve had to spend any money on things like Greater Celestial Essences, Hypnotic Dust or Heavenly Shards. (Especially since shards can now be gotten from Maelstrom Crystals.)

The best part about EP drives is that they’re optional, but so many people decide to participate anyway. I have never missed a week and many others haven’t, either. It’s just a small amount of EP, but it’s a nice little token that may or may not make the difference in your EPGP priority versus someone else who might be after the same item you are. Over time, it certainly adds up.

This way, though, everyone becomes responsible for everyone. Small donations (20 fish here, 40 fish there, 3 Greater Celestial Essences here, 2 Heavenly Shards there) add up quickly, even if you only have 30% of your guild donating. Flasks are taken care of automatically because everyone’s donating every week. Fish and other stuff are taken care of as needed.

Even repairs are taken care of by the bank on a rank basis.

Alts: 100g/day
Friends: 100g/day
Initiates: 250g/day (people who raid but are in their trials)
Members: 250g/day (older members, retired raiders, no longer raiding with us regularly)
Raiders/Officer Alts/Officers: 500g/day

This is funded through the sale of BOEs, of crafted stuff, of crafting materials and patterns, plus the gold-to-bank guild perk, Cash Flow (2) and despite shelling out for epic gems to give out to raiders now and again, the Apotheosis guild bank has over 500k at the moment and has remained at about that level for a couple of months.

Making the whole guild responsible for consumables frees up a huge chunk of time for you and for everyone else. If everyone throws in just a little bit of effort on a regular basis, no one needs to do a ton of work. It’s great. In our system, there’s still individual potions to take care of, but I’ve always found that if you mix up one big batch at a time, you should be good for weeks on end.

So apart from potions, Raider-ranked folks are taken care of in the guild by the guild, with Initiates getting at least some of the benefits as well.

On the flip side, over on the baby pally, I basically pay 400g a month to Choice, which entitles me to flasks and fish feasts and repairs, but I take care of my enchanting myself and I often bring my own Fortune Cookies just because I’m a scribe there and I always have extras. They also have EP donations, but they’re on a grander scale and tend to be steady (whereas one week, Apotheosis will want fish, but the next week will want enchanting mats). Potions are taken care of by me as well, but being a potion master alchemist, that’s not remotely an issue, especially since my mage is an herbalist.

Back in the old days, being a “raider” meant endless farming before then wiping endlessly. Being a raider was a huge time sink. It’s not that it’s not a time sink these days as well, because it certainly can be, but as someone who has recently finished with school and is enjoying her free time, I really appreciate how everything is taken care of by everyone equally in my guild.

(If you want to start flask donations or EP drives, Google Docs’ spreadsheets are the most amazing thing in the entire universe ever, by the way.)

Saviour of Azeroth

Kurn / / achievements, apotheosis, dragon soul, guild, raiding, ramblings

(Yes, I spell Saviour with a U. I’m Canadian. Let it be.)

I have been playing World of Warcraft fairly steadily since October of 2005. That is nearly seven years. It is very, very, very rare for me to achieve anything for “the first time”, these days. That’s to say, while I can kill a new boss for a first time, I’ve killed plenty of new bosses for the first time. While I can kill a new heroic boss for the first time, I’ve killed plenty of new heroic bosses for the first time.

This tier has been a challenging one for me, and for my guild. Released just before the holidays, the normal modes of Dragon Soul seemed pretty elementary to those of us in Apotheosis. It took us three weeks to clear all the normal content, and part of that was Spine and Madness each taking a week out of us, plus roster issues due to holidays.

Roster issues. Never in my life have I been happier to have had an overflowing roster going into a tier of content. We have lost: Kamilla, Huntertoga, Hestiah, Mabriam, Tiandrina, Xmolder, Daey, Arolaide, Murran and Dar since the end of Firelands. That is 8 DPS (all three of our warlocks and a legendary mage) and 2 healers. And none of them jumped ship to another guild, those are all people who just decided to stop raiding. I feel most comfortable with 33-34 people on a roster for a 25-man raiding guild. We have been running with around 28-29 people. It’s not always been easy for us over the last few months.

But we kept at it.

Heroic Morchok, Heroic Hagara (server first!), Heroic Yor’sahj, Heroic Zon’ozz, Heroic Ultraxion, Heroic Blackhorn… then Heroic Spine of Deathwing and finally, Sunday night, Heroic Madness of Deathwing.

For the first time in my WoW career, I have cleared all heroic content on the current tier. (4/5 TOGC, 11/12 H ICC, 7/13 H T11, 6/7 H T12 and now 8/8 H T13.)

It’s definitely been an uphill climb. Sometimes, it’s been uphill in the snow (yes, hi, main spec healer doing offspec DPS and main spec DPS warrior tanking bloods for Heroic Spine? A night of work on Heroic Madness with 0 main spec tanks in the raid?). Sometimes, the attendance boss would rear its ugly head. But we usually worked it out and at least got something done, even on those sketchy nights.

This is the reward. Saviour of Azeroth. 8/8 HM. And we did most of our progression at the 0-10% nerf level. While it took us a while to get Spine down (and up to the 20% nerf), we would have had it with another week’s worth, regardless of the increase to 20%. And Madness is just such a joke after toiling forever on Spine.

But it’s such a relief to get it done. We’re not done raiding, but the tough stuff is over. One more heroic clear to ensure everyone gets the title/achievement, then over to “fun” achievements to get the Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider meta achievement and drakes and all that other jazz, before resuming heroic farm.

In the meantime, my “real” life has been competing with WoW stuff during almost the entirety of Dragon Soul. My grandmother broke her hip on December 21st, was hospitalized and only returned home two months later. I started my final semester of university in January. My father was hospitalized in April. I had two killer exams on the same day. I took a couple of raids off with Apotheosis and didn’t raid with Choice on my baby pally for about two weeks in there. The time off did me good and I haven’t spent a ton of time in-game since my exams ended. The time I’ve spent playing WoW has generally been raiding and the rest of my WoW-related time has been spent either podcasting or planning out raid stuff or recruiting. (Apply now!) Obviously, I haven’t been blogging and I’ve barely touched beta (though I really ought to) and I won’t be spending a lot of time playing Diablo III, although I did start a character this morning.

The good news is that my father’s out of the hospital and doing pretty well.

My grandmother’s hip isn’t what it used to be and she’s still struggling at home, but she’s applied to a senior’s residence that is pretty swanky, so we’ll see when they have a spot available. Until then, I’m still playing errand-girl, since I live two floors down from her in the same building.

So real life is settling down a bit. I passed my exams and my classes so I should be graduating on June 18th.

Things are better. I hope to be able to sit down soon and spend more time on this blog with you all than I have over the last month. :)

Late-night Thoughts on Guild Dynamics

Kurn / / apotheosis, guild, ramblings

Once upon a time, I knew absolutely no one in the World of Warcraft.

So I introduced my brother to it.

He joined up with something like three guilds before I even joined one. He met people. He’s always been the more socially outgoing of the two of us, and it seemed that trend would carry over into WoW.

My brother had joined Fated Heroes while I was in Kindred (which then morphed into Kindred Knights). I got a lot of pressure to join FH and, eventually, I succumbed, on the very day I dinged 50, which was, I believe, early February of 2006.

I have been playing with the people I have met in Fated Heroes pretty much since that day. It’s where I met Tia and Kam, Majik and Toga, Daey and Dar and so many others.

I was thinking about guild dynamics tonight because Daey, who has been an officer in each incarnation of Apotheosis since the start, recently stepped down from officerhood and, due to work and other commitments, he’s been unable to raid regularly (read: pretty much at all) this whole month. I’ve kept in touch with him and we’ll see if this upcoming reset works out for him now that hockey is over for him and go from there.

Dayden, one of our officers in the last incarnation of Apotheosis, and through Firelands in this version as well, has returned to the game after a long period of staring out of his window during all the free time he had. ;) Except he’s unavailable for, oh, three weeks, smack-dab in the middle of his trial.

I’m okay with both of these situations — Dayden because he gave us notice way ahead of time and Daey because I’ve been in contact with him regularly throughout his absence and has given me straightforward information about a timetable for his return.

I then got to thinking about how it might look to others in the guild. “Weird,” they might say, “Daey hasn’t been in a raid in like a month!” Or “oof, that’s right, Dayden’s not around for the next three weeks, man, that’s weird.”

At that point, I started thinking, “you know, if people have a problem with it, although I have no evidence thereof, they can…” and I trailed off in mid-thought. No, they cannot just “kiss my ass,” which was how that thought would have ended. ;) “But why not?” I asked myself. “I’m the GM and while that doesn’t mean I’m a dictator, I should occasionally be able to be dictatorial, right?”

No. It doesn’t mean that. Being the GM means that I, above all others, should hold myself to a certain standard of behaviour and, within raids, skill/familiarity with my job.

“What is the point of being a GM if you can’t do X, Y or Z for your friends?” I found myself asking, even though I don’t feel I’m doing that at present.

The point of being a GM is to help manage things, make things run smoothly for everyone. I have never been a fan of using one’s power (either in-game or in other, RL situations) to manipulate situations for one’s own benefit. Had there been a healing legendary this expansion, I would have been the first to say “nope, I should not get the first”. In my mind, being the GM does not mean my friends (and family, since my brother does still play) should get a free pass. And I don’t believe Dayden and Daey are, and no one’s complained about them and their situations (no, guildies, you should not start now), but it started this really interesting series of thoughts in my head, which I thought I would share.

I play WoW for a few reasons. One of them is to play with my friends. But they were, once upon a time, all strangers to me. Over the years, some have quit playing, others have moved on elsewhere. You cannot count on everyone to be as dedicated as you might be to the group or the guild or the game. There will, inevitably, be turnover and you’ll stop seeing friends log in. Or maybe it’ll be you who stops logging in.

Starting up a guild with the goal of “to play with friends” is noble, to be sure, but the biggest warning I have to anyone about that is you will rarely be able to only play with your friends. Billy has class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he’ll miss Tuesday’s raid. Clyde will step in for him Tuesdays, but he can’t make Sundays. But Sophie is there on Sundays, but can’t make Tuesday or Thursday. So you go recruiting and you hope to receive applications from qualified, skilled, like-minded individuals.

But here’s a secret — no one you recruit will ever be exactly the same as your current group of friends. And hell, even in that group of friends, there are dissenting opinions and there will, inevitably, be some form of drama somewhere that may, or may not, be dealt with in a respectful way.

As soon as that one “outsider” joins the guild, all of a sudden, it’s not just a group of friends anymore. Now you’ve become a team that integrates people who have the same goals and availability and, hopefully, skill/talent/ability. That team integration is one of the biggest hurdles any guild faces and it’s also the reason that policies and rules and regulations need to come into play in a guild. It may be possible to not have any rules when it really is just a group of friends, but as soon as that “outsider” joins, they have a lot of catching up to do in terms of how the guild works.

Apotheosis didn’t always have rules and policies, but we added them as we came across various situations back in Burning Crusade, and those rules and policies have served us very well over the years. We still maintain them and we still add in clauses and such as we encounter them in new situations.

So even when you’re forming up and you’re all “hey, yeah, I get to just play with my friends!” be aware that the dynamic will inevitably change and new people pulled in may not have the same background and ideas as you. It’s not a bad thing, but it means things that you’ve taken for granted need to be codified (you know, written down) for the new people to learn and accept them.

In looking at the Heroic Blackhorn kill shot, I see familiar names, but I only see two that have raided together since 2006; Madrana and Majikmarine.

I see Chronis (Division) and Kaleri and Merkavah and Nowell, all of whom I raided with at various points in Wrath of the Lich King. I see a bunch of people I’ve been raiding with for about a year and I see a few newer names.

Much as I like these people (and I really am quite fond of my guildies overall), they were not the people for whom I restarted this guild. I have a responsibility to these people, the “new” people, although I really don’t think of them that way any longer. That responsibility is to uphold the guild’s standards, maintain order and lead us through the various encounters in current raid content.

Sometimes, it astounds me to see how far Apotheosis has gotten from the original incarnation, when we were just a bunch of people who wanted to play together and eventually down Illidan. It’s grown into such a diverse community of people — raiders and non-raiders, left-wingers and right-wingers, members of the GLBT community and heterosexual people, people of different nationalities, religions and ethnic backgrounds.

So I don’t mind that our little guild has grown from a group of in-game “friends” to a great community and I don’t mind that it means I need to ensure things are fair for everyone. I do, however, have to chuckle at how naive I was, back on June 1st of 2007. I really did think we could have this perfect little haven where rules and policies and such weren’t necessary and everyone just innately understood how we did everything. In that little idealized society, it wouldn’t be a big deal that Daey’s been unable to raid or that Dayden will be missing time. It’s not a big deal in Apotheosis at the moment either, mind you, but I’m forever anticipating such issues and thinking about how such things will be interpreted.

Sometimes I miss being that innocent about things like guild and group dynamics, but my sociology education and being a GM are the two things that have really caused me to be hyper-aware of how others might interpret things and how I should work to pre-empt those misinterpretations.

The Times, They Are A-Changing

Kurn / / apotheosis, guild, ramblings

Apotheosis went 4/8 HM in 25-man Dragon Soul last night, with Heroic Warlord Zon’ozz dead. (Warlocks wanted, apply now!)

As I was making the kill shot, I realized something startling. Of the 25 people in for the kill, precisely two of us were in Apotheosis back in Burning Crusade: myself and Majik.

That’s not to say I didn’t meet a bunch of these people in Wrath: Chronis, Kal, Merk and Walks were all people I raided with during Wrath of the Lich King.

And that’s not to say that there aren’t some long-time Cataclysm-era members in that kill shot, either: most of the people in for the kill have been with us for at least 7-8 months and people like Tikari and Srs have been here since before Cataclysm even dropped, while Shawnelle, Slout, Raymiee, Ludde and Sara have all been around since March.

It’s not even that there aren’t other people who weren’t around or in for the kill last night: Daey was unavailable and I had swapped Tia out in favour of getting people who aren’t stepping down some more face time with Zon’ozz.

But it’s startling to see how much turnover there’s been in just a year.

My starting healers: Myself, Walks, Kal, Dar, Hestiah, Kaleina, Legs, Num, O and Apple.

Of them, Apple and Legs stepped down shortly after we started raiding because they couldn’t find the time to hit minimum ilvls and other requirements. Kaleina similarly stopped raiding shortly after we started because she also wasn’t doing what was required. That left me with 7 healers. And of those 7, only three of us are raiding today.

This is typical of the turnover. And the crazy thing is that most of it isn’t even “hey, you’re progressing too slow, I’m out!”. Most of it is people getting increasingly disenchanted with the game. Most of it is boredom. I think we’ve had two people leave our guild for greener pastures. So many other people have just stopped playing due to RL stuff or boredom or burnout.

It was definitely startling to me to see only two “old-school” names in our kill shot last night, but I do want to admit that although I think there’s something significant about that turnover, I’ve long since stopped thinking of people as “old guildies” and “new guildies”. Old guildies are, to me, people who have been there more than three months. New guildies are less than that, generally.

Regardless of where we all were five years ago, we’re here *now*, learning encounters together, wiping together, cobbling together a victory from a very shaky pull, overcoming the odds as a team, as a group.

I started Apotheosis up again in Cataclysm, hoping to reunite with some old friends. That happened, as expected, but what I didn’t expect was the number of new people I would encounter, nor did I think I’d ever really get to know “the new people” as well as I did my old crew. I’m pleased to say I was wrong about that.

It’s a lovely thing to be able to look at the team that you have assembled and be proud of them. So even in these challenging times, where we’re having to do all KINDS of crazy acrobatics for soaking Hours of Twilight appropriately on Heroic Ultraxion (8% on our first night on him!), maybe even especially in these challenging times, I have to say I am incredibly proud to be a part of this talented group of individuals and incredibly humbled to be their leader.

Your Mouth and How to Shut It

Kurn / / apotheosis, general, guild, raiding, ramblings

Hilarious title, when you consider that I’m the author of this post, right? One of the longer-winded bloggers, whose posts can often exceed 3000 words, is advising people on how to keep quiet? INCONCEIVABLE!

But seriously, folks, there is a very interesting issue that can arise in a raiding guild, particularly when you feel you understand a fight better than those who are organizing it.

Full disclaimer: I do both. I organize fights for Apotheosis (still seeking skilled DPS, including WARLOCKS PLEASE) and I’m a part of the rank and file in Choice.

One thing that I have noticed, as a raid leader for Apotheosis (both now and back in BC) is that I loathe people telling me what to do when I’m the raid leader. Note that this is very different from entertaining suggestions or people offering advice. I loathe when people say “Kurn, you’re doing it wrong, we have to do it this way”. It drives me crazy. In part, it’s because many times, the individuals who say these things to me are wrong (in that they’re forgetting a key part of the fight or encounter or whatever), but it’s also like, “hey, now, buddy. Show a little respect for the pecking order.”

In Apotheosis, I’m in charge. I oversee the raids, I am the guild master. I don’t run the guild like a dictatorship and I don’t have vetos or anything and I largely view my role as one of a mediator/administrator/communicator, rather than one of SUPREME DICTATORSHIP. (Although I have fantasies about being able to do anything I want, from time to time.  What guild master doesn’t?) But really, I don’t have to “answer” to anyone, technically, when it comes to raids. (Apart from showing progress for my raid group, lest they lose faith in me.)

Having said that, we do have review threads up for every single raid and everyone is welcome to chime in about what they thought worked/didn’t work and how to better improve something. 25 pairs of eyes is better than one, after all. I’m more than happy to hear what the guildies saw and what they think and I may (or may not) incorporate their suggestions/observations into further refinements of strategy.

I will even sometimes ask during the raids if anyone has an idea for something or if people have any suggestions, although most of our discussions take place on our forums.

And I also constantly consult with the officers to see what the impressions/problems are from a DPS/healing standpoint as well.

So it’s not that I don’t like taking advice and it’s not that I don’t like hearing what others think. I just feel strongly that there’s a time and a place for it and, in our guild, more often than not, it’s in the raid review forum.

Now flip that around.

Two nights a week, I raid with Choice — as a holy pally (on the “baby pally”, as I call her). The fights are the same as what I’ve seen in Apotheosis, since we’re both raiding Dragon Soul and attempting heroic bosses, both on 25-man. My own role is almost easy, because all I have to do is heal my assignment, as opposed to heal as well as oversee everything. It’s FUN to raid without any additional responsibility.

All of a sudden, however, I am keenly aware that I know the fights very well (given my other role as a raid leader with Apotheosis) and possibly know them better than some of the people in that guild.

The question here, when the raid group is struggling on an encounter, is “do I say something or do I keep my mouth shut?”

Since I absolutely loathe being told what to do in my own raids, I try to approach being a raider the way I want my raiders to act towards me. I will likely, privately, point out some issues to an officer and if the officer encourages me to do so, I’ll whisper the RL themselves. Or, even more likely, I’ll send a PM to an officer at the end of the raid, or occasionally post something in the raid forum after the raid with some of my identification of issues.

Throughout the raid itself, I will usually not say a lot with regards to strategy. That’s not my role. It’s not my raid group. And since I only raid twice a week with them, the officers are a lot more familiar with their group than I am. While most strats for most bosses share a similar basic strategy, it’s the nitty gritty parts that can, and do, change from raid group to raid group. I have to trust that the leaders in Choice are doing what’s best for their group.

Even if they’re struggling.

It’s occasionally frustrating to see the raid group not doing as well as they could be. The question isn’t actually saying something versus not saying something: it’s “do everything I can to make sure the raid succeeds versus letting them figure it out themselves”.

While I have no doubt that Choice will eventually get to the point where they want to be for kills and progression (they’re just one boss back of Apotheosis), it’s still sometimes hard to see them hit the exact same struggles we saw, because I KNOW how we solved that. Hell, I probably HELPED to solve that problem. And since they’re so close to us in progression, it’s really fresh in my mind as to how we solved those issues.

But at the same time, I know that I would quickly lose patience with some know-it-all who showed up in MY raid and proceeded to tell me how to do MY job as a raid leader.

So I largely keep my mouth shut with regards to strategy in a raid setting, unless I’m asked about something in particular.

But I do touch base with some of the officers to let them know of my concerns or issues or suggestions, usually after the raid. Choice has a raid forum for discussions, but they don’t do the level of raid review that Apotheosis does, so on the rare occasions I’ll post something public in the forums, it’s often just a lone post from me saying “well, this is why the tank died, this is who blew up the raid with deep corruption” and the like.

That’s also kind of frustrating, because I know the people there are interested in bettering their performances and preventing mistakes, but since it’s usually me posting these things, I feel like the mean ol’ person calling people out. In Apotheosis, that’s fine! I’m the raid leader! I can do that! In Choice, it’s somewhat more difficult to get my points across without seeming as though I’m an authority figure, or trying to BE an authority figure.

So for me, the best way to deal with this is to whisper or private message an officer with my concerns and post where appropriate on the guild forums.

My advice to those who are watching their raid group struggling, who think they have a better idea — unless asked for your advice during a raid, hold off until afterwards. Chime in on a review thread, or start your own, or chat with your role officer/friendly officer about your thoughts and ideas.

So it’s not exactly shutting your mouth. It’s more like holding your tongue until you have an appropriate time and place to discuss those things. And something else you need to be aware of: your advice may not always be taken or listened to. Unless you’re in charge of the raids, you always have to expect that your advice may be dismissed by the leaders. And that’s okay — you’re a team and your leaders may choose to go in another direction. The best thing you can do, as a member of that team, is support your team and team leaders and throw in your two cents’ worth at appropriate times in appropriate places.

(Also, have you listened to Episode 52 of Blessing of Frost yet? Why not?)

(Seriously. Warlocks. Apply now. Please.)