Blizzard Retracts RealID Implementation on its Forums

Alts, Pugs and Raids - Oh my!

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.
________________________________________________________

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.

Day 1-3 - The Decision

I haven't posted in awhile because the game had gotten me down and stressed out to the point where I almost quit the game. After thinking long and hard about the situation I decided to stay and the guild decided to to rally around and transfer for a fresh start. I started to write about the process and will start posting what I wrote over the next few days. After reading back through the posts it almost feels like I went through some "12 steps" program. I hope you enjoy...
___________________________________________________________

Burned again. I have been on Uldaman for more than 4 years now. I have been leading guilds for about as the same amount of time. Since I have started leading, I have heard it all. Seen it all. And, seem to have been through it all. It hasn't been always a barrel of laughs.

Uldaman is like a small town. Everyone knows everyone else's business. All it takes is one good trolling in trade or the forums and you seem to get blacklisted. The people here never ever forget. Ever. Pugging is horrible, the progression even worse and the trade trolls are the kings of the server and are immortalized. Ranked 175th out of 200 some-odd servers, low rung doesn't even come close to how I feel about this place.

Uldaman has been good to me and it has been bad to me. Uldaman will always remain Uldaman to me; a crappy instance that once done with it no one wants to go back.

Over the 4 years I have struggled against the odds to keep my guilds going. Not once have I disbanded a guild or had a guild fall apart on me for reasons that I could control. I have kept my guilds going until the last physically moment that I could bear. Quitting the game for a year due to pregnancy being the only reason why I have had any previous guild end. 

Having discussed this with my male counterpart GMs on this server, as a female it seems that I carry a heavy load of criticism daily on how I run things. I have done nothing different than any of the other guilds out here, yet I have been called every name in the book the favourite being "Bitch". This really only happens when I put my foot down and assert the rules implemented for the guild. Someone breaks them, they are in the wrong, I am the bitch. Go figure.

Once again, I have been burned. A couple of guildies break a few rules; hey, causing drama, sexual harrassment and abuse of our loot rules is not that bad right? Not in these people's minds it seems. After immediately "laying the law" the bigger issue starts. The offending players are gone, and the rumours start to fly. "Get out while you still can. The guild is falling apart." is whispered to a player on trial status. She immediately gquits. "I hope, naps is taking the high road and not bad mouthing us, that would be unfortunately immature of her."  They were lucky that I didn't tell the guild at first what was done. The gloves came off when the applicants started asking me why I would invite them to a guild that was about to fall apart.

After letting loose, and telling the guild exactly what took place in order to maintain the peace and stop the rumours, I had guildies come to me saying "thank god I don't have to go through this alone now". The stories of sexual harrassment were sickening, the comments made in private that were brought to light were depressing. I am done.

The constant attacks from exguildies. The hate mail from deleted toons. The level one alts whispering me just what they think of me. The rumours from ex guildies meant to destroy what our guild has worked so hard to do. I am done.

1 week ago I was about to delete my toons and quit the game. A game is only a game until someone gets hurt. 1 week ago my officers banded around my to take the brunt of the work off my back and keep the guild going. 3 days ago the show of solidarity of those within the guild was astonishing. I know that for the most part the people in my guild are awesome. The ones who are able to work as a team have remained and we will strive on to reach our goals. Just not on this server.

3 days ago. The majority of my guildies decided they are done with this server and we should leave together. After Midnight is not dead. After Midnight is surviving and transforming into what it should be, into what it deserves. Just not on this server.

The idea came up during an officer meeting. The idea was presented to our core and 17 to 2 voted in favour. We then presented the idea to most of the raiders and so far reaction has been positive. Many of us are finished with this server and are hoping to start fresh somewhere else.

The research for a new home has been arduous. We wanted a PvE realm. We wanted something with better progression, player base, economy, pugging situation and mature population. We found what we are looking for an players wanting to come have unanimously voted in favour. Were going to go.

There are much more planning to do before we do go, but the situation is ripe for change. ICC is at the brink of being released, our DKP is about to reset, our website subcription is up and so is our vent server.

I will be keeping a log of our transfer process here and will most probably post this when we're done. As I am expecting major trolling I will not be disclosing where we are going or what our guild will be called. This is a clean cut. We're ripping off the bandaid in one fell swoop. After Midnight as it is will cease to exist and hopefully we'l be finally left alone.

The Bench: Our Saviour

The Bench. No one likes to sit on it. Everyone plays World of Warcraft to actually play, rarely do we want someone to tell us that we have to sit out that night. But unfortunately, with the inability to scale the difficulty of instances to the amount of people in your party, having to sit out is an inevitable part of playing wow within a raiding guild; game mechanics simply do not allow for more than 10 or 25 people per instance. In a perfect world, a raid guild would have 25 players, all encounters would require the same amount of tanks, the same amount of dps with no bias on melee or ranged and the same amount of healers. Life in game however simply just does not work out that way.

We obviously know that a perfect 25 man "same player group" scenario does not work; even with the aid of Dual Talent Specialization and allowing healers to go dps and perhaps a tank to heal, the need to "afk for real life" aspect of the game also doesn't allow for a raid roster to cap at 25. I have mentioned once before real people play the game with you, not just NPCs. Recruiting more than the allowable 25 man raid instance is a necessity.

After Midnight last night ran into the issue of not having enough available tanks to get a Trial of the Grand Crusader run off the ground. I personally do not like to over recruit. I have ridden the bench before and yes, it is not as fun as being in the action with everyone else. So, having three dedicated raider rank tanks with near 100% attendance, we felt we did not need to recruit anyone additional lest we have someone riding the pine. However, last night it would have been awesome had we had a well geared pinch hitter ready to come in to help the raid out.

Now, we do try to rotate people in and out of our raids. We recruit quality players for our guild and we try to give everyone, as much as possible, the same amount of play time when we can. However, sometimes when I open up a raid spot for a class where we have had players go on hiatus or suddenly change their attendance habits, I'm sometimes approached with the question, why? Why are we recruiting when there is a possibility that X or Y player will show up?

The Bench. No one likes to sit on it, but it is sometimes a necessary evil to ensuring your raid group continues on in a well oiled manner. If X or Y player does not show up, it causes us to have a spot unmanned for the night. Especially in key roles that can be detrimental to your raid that night. In the above example I gave about our TotGC run, we were missing a tank, a key need for the Beast of Northrend strategy; you need more than one and sometimes more than 2 to rotate the impales. Having one or more tanks going MIA from a tight raiding roster can be detrimental to your group.

Blizzard at the beginning of WotLK said "bring the player not the class" the unfortunate reality is that is a half-truism which Blizz admits. While it is easier in Wrath to bring varied types of classes to your raid without qualm, the inherent needs to bring a certain amount of players per type of role is still there.

So how do you treat your "bench"? After Midnight will be looking for a couple of new tanks for our raiding roster to enter the raiding rotation we now have with our current players unfortunately making our nightly bench a little heavier but keeping our raids going. Although I don't like having people sitting out of our raids too much, I've come to realize recruiting more than enough to cover player absenteeism is key to a successful raid schedule at times.

How large is your raiding roster? How many raid groups are you running a night?

How Guild Recruiting Helped My Career

I just hired my first employee.

The experience was a little nerve wracking; Would they like the job? Are they going to accept the salary? Will they fit in with my team? I didn't realize how similar it is to guild recruiting until after the experience.

In February 2009, I was promoted to my first supervisor position which included several management duties including some human resources tasks, hiring being one. I was extremely nervous during the search for a replacement for one of my employees who had decided to leave the company. This wasn't a game; I had full control over who would get the job and who would not, which meant I got to decide who would be on our payroll. This was real.

How did being my guild's recruiter help me with my employment practices? I had aligned our guild with real-life day-to-day practices and viewed our in-game goals and tasks as being similar to real life situation as you would run an organization. This made it easy for me to make allusions to situations I would encounter during my work day. Here's how guild recruitment aligned with how I played out the hiring:



1. Screening the Applicants

We expect our guildies to apply to the guild via our forums. They must state experiences, skills, previous guilds, etc. Effectively, this creates a raiding "résumé" that we use to screen potential recruits before offering them an interview for a potential raiding position.

I have become a pro at screening applications to our guild and this skill has helped me in screening the applicants to the position I was hiring for at my work. Being able to scan through a multitude of curriculum vitae, picking up on highlights and skills that would be a good fit for the position is a must. Going through hundreds of apps over the years, has help tremendously.

2. Interviewing

My biggest fear during raider interviews is that once they get the inside scoop of how we run things, they won't want to join. This goes back to what I was very nerve wracked for during the interview process I just went through. Would they like the job? Are they going to accept the salary? Will they fit in with my team?

The criteria for joining my guild are not necessarily being the best player in the world. We have brought in players who we knew at the time weren't the greatest but were incredibly eager to learn and we saw potential in them. Team players are a must and they best fit in with the personality of our guild to be up for consideration. The "salary" is our ability to clear the content and the raiding spot we offer; are they willing to put in the work to get the raid spot?

Since the job opening that I had to offer was an entry-level position, I wasn't necessarily looking for someone who had tons of experience. Someone who has done the job before would have been nice, as there wouldn't have been such a learning curve. But, an eager fresh out of school worker, willing to learn and put in the effort to do their best was all I was looking for. Since we work in teams it was important for me to find someone who would work well within our work environment.

Since I have already gone through the interviewing process with my guild and expectations for the position I had to offer were not a big stretch from the game, it was surprisingly easy to make the jump from play to reality.

3. The Formalities

Bringing players into the guild, advising them of the raiding schedule, asking them to adhere to the rules and having them sign up for the website are all normal things that I ask/tell my guildies upon joining.

Formalities in every organization are the norm. As in work, the guild has a structure in order for things to work smoothly. The basic information I supply or collect from my guildies allows me to manage my resources better.

Upon hiring the new employee, I had already made a mental note of what I needed them to submit for the position. I just assumed that there was info like SIN numbers, start date, blank cheque etc. which were asked of me on my first day in the office needed. Knowing that I myself had to be prepared within the structure of my workplace for things to run smoothly, as in my guild, I scored brownie points when my superiors asked if I made sure the new employee would be bringing the items of info they needed.



In the end, the whole experience was a positive one. Something I attribute from having so much experience with various types of personalities during interviews in game. I am quite looking forward to doing my next one and perhaps fusing more tips and tricks from the game into my workplace.

LFG?

I know this is a shameless plug but I figured it's my blog what the hey!

After Midnight is recruiting dedicated, mature and talented raiders for their raiding roster. We currently have a good amount of healer, dps spots open as well as one tank spot. While some guilds might have seen a slump in the Summer months in their attendance, we are anticipating the reverse come the school year as many of our players have school-aged children who need attending to during the week.

If you think you would be a good fit for our raiding roster please do not hesitate to contact myself, Dovizioso or Gedoraf in game on the US-Uldaman Server.

Our website is http://www.aftermidnightguild.com/ should you wish to apply outright.

Hope to hear from some of you soon!

Napaeae

Would you like your Guildies' sunny side up or poached, Sir?

I work in the advertising industry for my day job. This has helped me out countless times in guild recruitment. As all advertisers are, I am also quite eager to get our name out there in the hopes of catching that lead, that buy-in or that "customer" to join our guild. As guild leaders we all have something to "sell" it may be a raiding spot, a casual laid-back atmosphere or maybe even a little Role Play as suits your guilds needs. How do you go about getting the sign-ups you need to make your guild a successful one?

I have rarely come across a guild that had less than noble intentions in their recruitment practices. For the most part when someone has left our guild for possible greener pastures on their part the receiving guild was the one approached not the guild approaching the player.

What about those times when a guild actively recruits your players without prior inquiries?

I have experienced this about 3 times in my GM "career". Each time has been very different from the last. The first time was a very blatant attempt at poaching our core players with the promise of mounts, money, and dibs at loot. With the 2 following times were done more subtlety and were more effective.

Types of Poaches :

1. Green Eggs and Poach Approach

This is the type of poaching that is downright blatant. The Poacher may approach you outright in a capital city one day saying things to the effect of "Wow, your gear is great! Why are you running with THAT guild? We could offer you so much more." Or, after initial approach, outright offering gold, mounts, extra dkp etc as a "signing" bonus for leaving your current guild to join theirs.

How to deal as a player? This depends on what motivates you. If you are looking for a place that will provide you with bonuses upon joining and you don't particularly have any attachment to your current guild, then it's totally your choice whether you take up the offer. If you're not interested, you can let the inquiring party that you're quite happy with you guild and if you feel the need to advise your GM that you were approached in this manner, do so. Telling your GM, especially if they are down to earth and won't go overboard on the offending party, allows your guild to keep tabs on possible intra-guild issues.

How to deal as a GM? I'm a big fan of letting it go if I don't have prior relations with that particular guild. With that said, if I have had dealings with the guild's GM before I tend to contact them and let them know I know what has occurred and nothing more. Usually, if the poacher has an ethics they apologize right away.

2. Eggs Benedict and other Extravagant Poaches

This poacher may constantly talk you about their guild. They may never come out and outright ask you to leave your current guild but allusions to "Gee, I wish we had someone like you app to our guild," are in constant use. They may message you every time you log on to talk about how your guild is doing. They use any negative statement that you may make about your guild no matter how little ("OMG, we wiped on FL trash one night) and swear that kind of thing never happens in their guild. The Poacher will paint such a wonderful picture of their guild in the hopes to sway you in their direction. Once they feel that trust is gained they will outright ask you if you would like to join after hearing any minor complaints which they have blown up in their minds. (Wow your guild must be so horrible!)

How to deal as a player? Again, if the approaching guild entices you, you are more than welcome to join in hopes the pastures are greener. If you are not interested, for the most part this poacher can get pretty annoying and you may end up putting them on ignore or just appeasing them with one word answers after awhile. Being direct and telling them, "Thank you for letting me know how your guild runs things, but I think I will stick with my current position," usually stops the poacher in their tracks.

How to do deal as a GM? There is nothing much you can do other than trust that your guildies have faith and confidence in your guild and will stick around. If someone is unhappy they will leave anyways and there is not much you can do.

3. Sunny Side Up with Friends

This poacher may be a long time in-game or real-life friend of yours. They joined another guild and tell you about it all the time. They may be having a blast and want to share that with you too. Hey! Who wouldn't want to surround themselves with their friends right? So they contact their GM, they have a spot open just for you! What do you do?

How to deal as a player? Well, this one is a hard one, and totally a personal choice like the previous instances. It basically comes down to 2 choices, stay with you current guild that may be perfect strangers but probably works for you or join your friends guild and be with friends. Whatever you do choose don't ever feel bad for your decision.

How to deal as a GM? There is NOTHING you can do and NOTHING you should do. Who are you to limit friends playing with friends? This is what the game is about anyways, right?

All in all, finding out your players are being poached is quite the annoyance but there is not much you can do if someone has it set in their mind that they are going to leave the guild. Letting the poachers know delicately that you're aware of the situation may alleviate unwanted advances should your guildies complain, however for the most part let it go and have faith that your guildies have your back. Leading with confidence usually instills confidence in your players and is the cornerstone to a strong long living guild.

Sex sells a little too well… My thoughts on recruiting

I used to be one of the best recruiters on our server. I say used to be because I have recently started to doubt that claim. I used to spend hours on end scouring recruitment threads, cross realm transfer requests, researching unguilded toons, promoting, etc. I love to recruit, so much so I think I should have gone into head hunting rather than marketing. Although I suppose my marketing background helped some.

After Midnight has been no exception to fuel my love; however this time around recruiting has been somewhat of a different beast.

We started off the guild as a focused raiding guild that has fun but still gets things done. I have been raiding with some of the players in this guild for almost as long as I have been playing the game. We are extremely comfortable with each other and due to this fact I believe this has made us into extremely crass individuals in game. Don’t get me wrong, we have our limits, however several of us are comfortable to have discussions out in guild chat that most would only have with your best friend over a bottle of wine. This is where recruiting for the guild became interesting.

I’m still coming across moments where I slap my hand against my forehead and say why didn’t we recruit this way in the first place for After Midnight’s “special” situation. Let me share with you what I learned.


Mama’s 5 rules to recruiting:

Know your focus and define it clearly

One of the biggest issues I have had deal with is changing how the guild is to appease everyone. After Midnight’s goal was in fact a semi-hardcore one. We wanted to down bosses and have our proverbial cake too while still being allowed to mess around. Unfortunately selling yourself as a focused raiding guild doesn’t go over well when recruits understand this to mean that during raids everyone brings their “A” game, mutes their mic and gets the job done.

After Midnight has become a special case as our members have become slightly bipolar in their wants for the guild and we have twisted and turned the guild to try to accommodate every change whether it be monthly, weekly or even daily. We have gone to complete horsing around during raids which tend to make them much longer in length, to complete silence on vent when members complained we’re not focused enough, back to a medium of minimal horsing around when those same members complained it wasn’t fun anymore which in turn lengthened the raid week once again. (Not to mention added to the number of wipes)

Ideally, what should have happened is we should have defined the guild clearly, recruited as such as a focused raiding guild and upheld the standards rather than bending and twisting to every member’s whim. In doing so, we would have entered a clear contract with everyone in our guild by keeping the promise of focused raiding with them complying or else face unfortunate consequences to keep the guild integrity.

Set reasonable standards then stick to them

If your goals are to only recruit players who are completely geared in Tier 8.5 to see the content you are currently doing stick to it and don’t deviate. That said you wouldn’t make such a demand of players if you were only starting out Naxxramas with your guild. Set your player demands early on and stick to them.

If you raid schedule requires your players to meet 50% raid attendance, enforce it. If players must be gemmed and enchanted properly to be considered for recruitment, require it 100% of the time.

If you set reasonable standards for your guild based on your guild’s status (casual, hardcore, pvp etc.) and server demand (low pop servers tend to have a more competitive player market than high pop) and you stay with them throughout your recruiting career you will be respected by your guildies and potential recruits alike. Deviate and you run the risk of seeming wishy washy or desperate depending on your situation.

Research your applicants

Never heard of the player you are about to recruit? Investigate. How many times have I run across a situation where I didn’t look into the guild background or server background of a potential recruit only to find out once recruited they were either a) a guild hopper, b) disliked by several members of the guild, c) trade chat spammer or d) drama queen.

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/ although not used that much anymore can sometimes give you a fair idea of where the toon you are thinking of recruiting has been.

Has the player applied to several guilds at once? Your server’s realm forums may have a “guild list” with their websites so you can check it out.

Are they coming from another guild? Talk to the guildies of that guild or better yet the Guild Master to get the 411. (This obviously might not be an option if the player is trying to be discreet but I’ve always felt sometimes it’s best to have the discussion with their GM to uphold better guild relations.)

In any case, a little digging and you might find yourself with a diamond in the rough or avoiding serious drama.

Don’t over recruit

One of the worse things to do to fresh applicants unless it’s outlined and expected from the outset is to sit on the sidelines night after night waiting for a chance at a raiding spot. I’ve been in situations where I have over recruited and had about 15 people sitting on the sidelines. People started dropping like flies because they felt they weren’t needed and applied to guilds that had a full time raiding spot for them. Unless you have detailed the fact that players need to work for their raid spot and the spot is not guaranteed, do not over recruit.

Class Balance; know what you need ahead of time

When we started After Midnight we looked at the amount of raiding toons we had and the amount we had for each spec and set our recruitment needs clearly on our website. Although Blizzard has been quoted as saying “bring the player not the class” it’s hard to have a successful raid with 10 paladins and 15 DKs. Ok maybe DKs are slightly over powered but hey even they have their raiding limits!

Knowing what classes bring which buffs to the table and building your raiding team accordingly is essential in a raiding guild pining for success. If your guild is more casual then Blizz’s cliché might be more up your ally but even then players don’t like having to compete with 10 others of their own class for gear especially if it’s done through /roll as some guilds do. The best way to build your guild is to have a good mix of all classes and specs. This way your raiding guild can min/max properly or your casual players won’t feel faceless in a sea of players with the same class.

For those of you building your raid roster by min/maxing buffs one of the best raid building tools I have seen comes from MMO champion: http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/

This tool allows you to play around with the different classes/spec to build an optimal raid based on the buffs you need to maximize your raid’s potential. Don’t have that Shadow Priest in your guild for the + to hit? Your Boomkin friend can do the same thing.


And Mama’s unwritten (until now) sixth rule of recruiting don’t use the promise of hot dirty priests as a selling point to your guild. Even though they tell you they come for the focused raiding you’ll find very quickly your guild is full horny old perverted men who think they can get into your pants, for real.

Happy Hunting!