Saturday, December 5, 2009

Day 4 and 5 - The Wait


Second post I wrote about After Midnight's Move. Please remember this was written a few days ago and is meant to chronicle my thoughts on the matter.
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So we started a private post to the players who have shown interest in coming with us and whom we'd want to come to a server transfer with us. I feel bad. I hate having to have to keep secrets like this. I have always toted that we led transparently; I think that is why my husband and I have been so respected. Hiding this just feels... dirty. But, this is a new begining and new beginings sometimes means going cold turkey. Time to think about myself.

Here's the problem, we want to raid, drama free, without the BS and with everyone carrying their weight. I like everyone in After Midnight, I do. I just don't think everyone will fit in with what we are trying to build. Also, do I really want to bring the girl who distracts my raiders by showing pictures of her boobs to everyone? No. Do I really want to bring the player who only shows up to loot tuesday and whines when we wipe on progression bosses? No. I'm sure looking from the outside looking in people are going to hate me for this move and not inviting everyone to come with me. I pay my $15 bucks too (oh wait, I pay more like $45... website, vent, account... but that's neither here nor there,) do I really have to spend my time dealing with that BS? Even when I did deal with situations like that with a gkick or something, no one can let things go and I end up being trolled for months. Fun times.
 So we have 24 people who are coming. We almost have an entirely balanced raid group. I know we're going to have to recruit when we get there and it will be hardtimes for a bit to get the raids off the ground. With 24 trusted players, I think we're going to make it through the tough times.

The buzz is exciting. People are cleaning out their banks and doing crazy farming sessions in anticipation for the new economy. Some are scrounging up the cash to make the jump in a few days. We are scheduled to leave on Friday; many are set to leave before then. A couple of people have already transfered over alts and are doing pugs to get to know people on the server. We know we're going to need some melee dps and healers; everyone is instructed to keep their eyes out for players who fit our bill.

The plan is to have open concept leading. Of course we will have the regular officer structure and will be holding our own version of "Raid Leader Idol" but we're not going to have class leads anymore. The original setup will be voted by commitee on how the players want things to roll. I'm thanking lucky stars that we all want the same thing. Progression in a non-hostile envrionment; I trust everyone will do what's best for the guild.

Our website is being revamped by my husband and one of our main tanks whom we found out was a programmer. Out forums sucked horribly so we're hoping to find another provider that has the widgets we need but more functional forums. We also need to fix up our application process; After Midnight's questions didn't make sense for what we wanted to achieve. There is lots of work to do.

I'm terribly nervous about the move, it's been 4 years since I have been on another server. I'm also going to have to eventually tell the players who are not coming. I know there are people who we have asked too that are not planning on coming in the end. I'm hoping they can keep the word to themselves before I do announce it. I doubt that will happen but we'll deal with it if the time comes. I want to be able to be the one who tells everyone what is happening. I don't want anyone else to have to deal with the brunt of this. It's my responsability to deal with the harsh reality of the secrecy, and I know there will be people who will not understand why.

6 comments:

  1. Interesting.

    I'm looking forward to the other bits.

    Gobble gobble.

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  2. bakunin said...
    Naps, sometimes politics gets dirty. But I know from discussing leadership points with you that you have a kind heart and the best intentions.

    And that's one of your strongest points -- you dont need to become mean and hardened to run a competitive guild. Just intelligent policies and planing. I'm in a US top 50 guild now and the leadership reminds me a lot of how you ran things. It's a matriarchy as well, hmmmm. Something to that maybe.

    -Adorno

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  3. -- "The stories of sexual harrassment..."

    Wow, I wasn't aware this was such a big thing. In my 4 years here I've heard of 1 alleged harrassment incident which no one ever really got the full story. Appropriately enough (according to your accounts) the source of that drama faction transferred to Alliance side Uldaman shortly after. There's not much drama Horde side it seems.

    -- "The constant attacks from exguildies."

    On the very rare occasion that we put up a recruitment thread on the Uldaman forum we get our trolls too. Just ignore them, seriously. They exist soley to get attention, deny them that and they'll whither away. Our guild's reputation is good enough where people are likey to disregard what some random L1 troll has to say.

    -- "The research for a new home has been arduous."

    A couple years back before I joined my current guild I almost transferred. My guild at the time disband. Some close friends and I were going to transfer off so I created a character on several (3-4) servers and pugged some 5-mans, spoke with some people, etc. Turned out, douchebags exist on every server and that was a big waste of my time. I never left but my friends did go only to come back a couple months later.

    -- "The plan is to have open concept leading."

    Too many decision makers and no decisions get made. And I know sometimes it can be tempting just to ask the guild what they want to do but understand a lot of times people don't know what they want. Or maybe they know what they want but maybe not the best way to get there. At one point officers in my guild made a decision with regard to how we were going to progress through content. Pretty much the entire guild (well, the people that raided) was against it. In hindsight, most or all of those people would tell you, yea, that was probably the best way to go, my bad.

    I'm somewhat amazed how 2 people (You and I) can have such completely different experiences here. It really highlights the impact the social aspect of this game has even to areas generally regarded as being more non-social (Hot Pocket loving raiders that live in their mother's basement, right?). The people you associate with can make or break this game for you. It sucks that you all have decided to leave. I hope it works out for you. Wow that was long.

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  4. -- "Uldaman is like a small town."

    Uldaman's charm lies is its low population. I was telling someone yesterday that I play with names/titles/guildnames turned off. I don't see any text above anyone's head, except npcs I leave on. She asked how I play like that and I told her that, oddly enough, I can tell who I'm looking at by what their character looks like and what gear they're wearing or what mount they're on or where they've decided to park themselves afk, etc. I don't think I could do that on Blackrock or Daggerspine.

    -- "...as a female it seems..."

    What is this, like, reverse sexism? Aww, things are so tough because I'm a girl, woe is me. Stop identifying your sex as a weakness or a scapegoat. It has nothing to do with you being female; it has everything to do with you surrounding yourself with fucking idiots. Our de-facto guild leader is female and she has the utmost respect of all of our members (and she's not someone's gf or wife either just another member).

    I understand AM isn't in the position where they have the pick of the litter so to speak. Maybe you felt you can't kick people because you need bodies for raid. I wouldn't say my guild has a zero-tolerance policy but we'll kick you double quick if you start acting like a moron regardless if we need you for raid.

    -- "Someone breaks them, they are in the wrong, I am the bitch. Go figure."

    What I have to say to this is, don't play the role and not expect to be called on it. In other words, "Head Bitch" might not be the best guild rank to give yourself.

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  5. There are 2 very very good replies to these threads that I want to publish but my blogger dashbord keeps saying they are published but they won't.... I'm not sure why this is happening but rest assure I will repost whatever was said in its entirety if I cannot get it to work.

    And no, before people start saying I am letting only the positive comments come through, I assure you I'm not trying to censure unless it contains information (like the server we are on, my irl name etc) The post I want to publish is actually critical.

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  6. I might be starting a blog. You can check the beginnings of it if you like napps; and of course any feedback is appreciated!

    http://one-priests-opinion.blogspot.com/2009/12/one-priests-opinion.html

    ReplyDelete