Project Lore: All Things World of Warcraft

It seems like a most appropriate time to reveal to all my first experience with quality guild drama. You see the guild I've been running with since Warriors of Faith went in to administration mode died over the weekend. It wasn't until yesterday that I managed to get one side of the story. According to my informant, the former GM was fed up with the guild, snagged all sorts of materials and gold and gquit. Your basic ninja scenario. Instead of flocking to some random guild I've decided to split my chances between my characters. Solidsamm will be joining the guild that a large portion of Smooth Criminal's officers and members have moved to. Solidsagart has already moved to a guild run by a friend from the "good ole days" of WoW. She'll reside there for the foreseeable future, gearing up and possibly even raiding with them. Hot on the heels of the collapse of Smooth Criminals, I bring to you a tale of woe, back room deals and intrigue. Since the abandonment of 40-man content I've always felt that guilds have become a far more fleeting endeavor. The social aspects haven't changed, but the difficulty of finding 40 competent people, and the more challenging raid content in general, lead to guilds and members remaining together longer. Knowing those facts, you can imagine my old guild's shock and dismay when word came out that a few core members were thinking about forming their own crew. A rumor of that caliber, which happened to involve three officers and the main tank, crushes moral, to say the least. An even worse case, it could easily fracture a guild. Not the stuff of legends; a simple exodus of the executives you say? Here's the kicker, the rumor started during the second All That Remains party. As it spread like wildfire through the 30 or so people roaming my apartment the situation went completely nuts. It became an elaborate game of telephone mixed with the too many cooks in the kitchen issue. Everyone heard different things, tried to interject their opinions and create a plan of attack. Personal feelings were used as facts, and players with conflicts of interest started writing guild policy. It was a mess. Oh, the second kicker (would that be the placement kicker?), this all went down while the people in question were in transit to their domiciles from the party. A party where they spent a weekend hanging out and having fun like everyone else. Didn't matter, they were unceremoniously kicked before being confronted. I bet they were surprised when they logged in! In the end the guild lost a few members, but ATR remained as the premiere guild on Matheridon-US. The members were kicked, their new guild dreams died shortly after, and they joined another guild. With the help of our ousted members the other guild became the #2 guild on the server, even grabbing server first kills for a good stretch of time. Friendships were tested, the guild hit a wall in raiding as it recovered, but worst of all feelings were hurt. All because of a stupid rumor's ability to take on a life of its own, and cause once level-headed people to act on impulse instead of logic. It pains me to even discuss the stupidity at how the whole debacle was handled. At least everyone lived... What's the craziest bit of guild drama you've ever been tied up in?

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A New Guild and the EPGP Loot System

Posted by

iTZKooPA on

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 -

18 Comments Tags:

being a good member,

dkp,

dkp systems,

epgp,

gquit,

loot systems,

making yourself heard,

new guild,

ninja,

playing politics,

political aspirations,

stand-by

[caption id="attachment_4967" align="alignright" width="300" caption="This Is All Done Without User Intervention"] Fear My Total Disregard For Achievement Points

It finally happened. My Guild Master called it quits and Warriors of Faith is no more (for all intents and purposes). The guild that got me back into raiding - pot popping, min-maxing and all - fell apart for a few different reasons. Naxxramas and Ulduar will no longer feel the wrath of WoF due to the well-timed departure of a handful of key members for a variety of reasons, summer, vacations, money, ninja transfer and flat out boredom. The camel's back was not officially broken until the last two active Officers /gquit and formed a new guild, with the apparent blessing of their former GM. WoF is still alive, but raiding is done and said GM has been inactive since. With a need to raid I /gquit with a heavy heart, and asked for an invite to the next powerhouse of Magtheridon-NA, Smooth Criminals. I know some people /gquit all the time, but it always depresses me a little bit. Its makes me feel like a, well, a quitter, and that annoys me. Then there is the notion of betrayal and abandonment to my former mates. When I quit my original vanilla WoW guild it ate me up for a few weeks, but I was quickly forgotten so I got over it. Since Smooth Criminals has a "blessing" from old GM, and one of my favorite people to play WoW with is an Officer, it feels more like a reformation rather than a new beginning. I hope these facts manage to keep my feelings of remorse to a minimum, but the simple 6-keystroke act still penetrated deeper than expected. I already know many of the members in the guild, so I assume my "standing" won't differ much. Naturally I will continue to be highly vocal (see this entire blog) with my opinions, but respectfully so. My nature has already lead me to go head-to-head with my new Guild Master. Thankfully he is as chill, articulate and respectable as I (hope I) am. We've discussed loot issues here at PL quite a few times, from ninjas to the woes of PuGs. I even went on a triad about my old guild's severe lack of a fair - in my mind - loot system when dealing with PuGs in the raid. After that ordeal the old (tear) guild saw its first loot system implemented. It was a newish system, not used by many guild, but it worked relatively well. It was basic enough to not impede raiding, but robust enough to deal with dual specs, auto-ignore members who can't use certain items and kept a running list of who received gear that night. We only used it for a few weeks, but it received my approval. Of course the new guild decided to go a different direction, EPGP. In theory EPGP is a solid DKP system. It does all the basics, rewards players for attending successful raids, tracks one's points for receiving gear and allows raid leaders to keep records of all the happenings. The best feature is the basic design of the system. Like most systems players are given points for being present at kills (Effort Points or EP). Separate to this is their Gear Points (GP), a number which climbs as gear is acquired through the system. If two or more people want a piece of gear then the quotient of the two numbers (EP/GP) is calculated and the raider with the highest number is rewarded. Essentially it gives people who can only raid here and there a chance to acquire gear over time, rather than always losing to someone with super-high DKP.

[/caption] Confused or interested? Read more about it at the EPGP website. Just going by the basic theory I like the system. It is as if it was written specifically for my raiding schedule. Unfortunately the stand-by EP system that my guild chose to run with is simply awful. You must be in the raid group to acquire any EP on boss deaths. This means that I couldn't do anything, dailies, quests or leveling my priest, outside of grinding while waiting to attend Ulduar. The opinion of the GM is that by being in the raid you are showing you are ready. Apparently you can't go AFK while in a raid group. It just doesn't happen, okay! Expressing my dislike of the stand-by setup directly to the GM did nothing for me. He wouldn't budge. He did create the system, so his hardheadedness is understandable. In an effort to equalize the system without upsetting my GM I found other routes. After some secluded whining to my officer buddy, who went to the GM, the system was changed to allow raid ready members to receive 1/2 EP if they are outside of the raid group (and in the guild). A compromise, but at least I can level my priest (for the guild no less) and still be rewarded for my availability. I still maintain that EPGP is overkill for a 10-man raiding group, possibly even 25-man - it would have been awesome in the 40-man days - and hope that the arduous task of recording everything becomes too much for the officers and it's abandoned. That being said the creator(s) deserve a pat on the back for its robust feature set, integration as an add-on and ingenious distribution system. I re-learned two important lessons from the experience. Most importantly that making yourself heard, rather than sulking, is important in our massive multiplayer online setting. After all, if you aren't a happy raider chances are you won't be an active raider. Remaining rational, open-minded and cool-headed also goes a long way. Second, political shenanigans, ear-marking and wooing is not only for heads of state. iTZKooPA 2012 perhaps? What elaborate loot systems does your guild use? To bad we can't just find nine (or 24) close friends to employ the honor and worth system with.

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Gone Guildless

Posted by

iTZKooPA on

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 -

18 Comments Tags:

Guild,

french-canadians eh?,

gquit,

ninja,

$No, I Am Not \'Batin$

Snow is no fun alone.

Last night I did something that I have never done in my MMO career, I gquit. Even when I quit the game for a few brief months around The Burning Crusade's launch, my fingers never actually typed that sequence into World of Warcraft's command prompt. In fact, at that time of my relapse into real life, I was the second oldest member in the guild. And no, the GM wasn't the longest-standing member, my IRL boss was. It stayed that way until my subscription ran its course, then I was promptly gkicked.

Upon returning to World of Warcraft more than a year ago I found it fairly difficult to readjust. Going from arguably the best guild on the server to bouncing from guild to guild as they repeatedly disintegrated was a drain on the soul, and my intentions to continue playing. My former guild finally "collapsed" - GM quit and guild was reformed under a new name - shortly after TBC's launch. The pieces were quickly picked up by a few of the dedicated members and reformed as a hardcore, min-maxing powerhouse of a guild. Not something I wanted. I fought through the ups and downs, and eventually stumbled into a guild of close knit friends. Not only were many of them real-life friends, but they happened to be French-Canadian. They were a good group of people, some of them excellent players, others, not so much. They made a good run towards the end of TBC to get through all of the raid content. They brought me along on those raids when they could, but I never felt that I was part of the guild. I was just that rogue they'd bring along if they needed some melee DPS. I was the guy who could get anything cooked, or would waste time fishing. I was the gnome that was always at the AH. I was the dagger lover they'd ask lore questions to. I was the uneducated person who couldn't speak French. I was THAT guy, not one of them. Nevertheless, I did have some good times and late nights with them, and thank them for the support they showed me and instances we ran together. I even scored some going away gems along with the well wishes and good lucks. With my trusty rogue finally at level cap and geared enough to enter Naxxramas, it was time to look ahead. Wrath of the Lich King brought more than a few friends from my old guild back to the game, so I created a private channel for us to chat in due to our guild separation. Slowly the channel filled up as old friendship were re-kindled or re-discovered. Loot drama forgotten - a priest taking tanking loot to use the stamina as a PvP item - we have fallen back under the same banner one by one. A banner that I will join as soon as the GM gets online. Till that time, Solidsamm remains guildless, but this time on his own terms. Soon, I shall return to dominating Naxxramas! It feels good to be excited to raid again.

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