Guilds who overtime, Recruitment and Community Perception

[GreenJesus]

If I had to mythic raid more than the 6 hours I currently do I'd tell the guild leadership to go fuck itself.

[Soluna]

The answer is simple. If you can make good progress that rivals those of the overtime guilds, then you don't have to raid unreal amounts of time. For the sake of anonymity, I will not reveal my ingame identity or guild, however, I'd like to say that we got top 100 title in BoD by strictly raiding 3 times/week. The only time we pushed more was an extra day on the last week, when we thought top 100 would be reached for horde, and we therefore wanted to get the title too, and thought that it was within the realm of our capabilities.

And that's still with 3-4 people holding us back (which is 20% of the raid, and that's a lot imo). Now our recruits are getting better and better, because we offer a chance at top 100, while raiding 3 times a week, with an extra push only if people want it, unlike many guilds that you see in rank 70-100 range who raid unreal amounts of time, opposite to what they promise in their app page. Not having downed Jaina at this point, with her nerfs, which might not be gigantic, but are significant, and all the gear that you have, considering that Jaina can be zerged real hard, means that you are indeed not a preferable choice sadly. Of course people who want to raid competitively will look more in the realm of 200-300 rank, not 400+ (assuming you killed Stormwall early, since more than 400 guilds have already killed jaina, your rank is most likely around 600-800 I imagine by what you are saying).

It doesn't help that the first 8 bosses are complete pushovers also. I was rank 800-850 in antorus, and joined a rank 250 guild, simply because I didn't want to bother with the inbetweens, and I am now in a top 100 guild. I think that you guys should basically accept that your raiding could have been a lot better, if all your members were more efficient at progress/preparation, but since it's not, you will always be second choice. I hope this is not hurtful, it's just the truth really.

And yes, overtime sucks.

[shyguybman]

My guild raids 2 nights a week but it would be nice to raid 3 at least for the first couple of weeks of a new raid so we can make some good progress. We have some pretty inconsistent players so an extra day would help. Recruitment is hard on a low pop server.

[Erous]

If your focus is to remain very competitive, which based on your post it seems it is, then you need to extend your times to make up ground where you're lacking to remain that competitive. Based on your post, it sounds like you're behind in progression based on your expectations...so, you need to find a way past it. However, if you're about remaining progression focused, but don't care about rankings or competitiveness, you keep to your schedule and accept that guilds who are raiding more will probably get ahead of you.

Lots of competitive guilds who are recruiting state in their recruitment notice that they "add extra days during progression" or something like "may go longer if a progression fight, or are getting close to a kill." If you didn't state this up front with your recruitment, then you may lose people as the expectations have changed. Or, you may lose progression focused members who are willing to stay, while you have those who are trusting in your word get sour at you. It's almost a lose lose situation if you didn't state these requirements up front.

Personally, I feel that your guild is struggling with identifying where they want to be with raiding and progression and that will doom your guild if you don't find a way to remain focused and stick to the culture you've built. If you change it, or deviate from consistency you will fall apart.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Our guild will overtime but traditionally it's to do one or two more pulls when we feel the kill is going to happen. Or we cleared trash and we are at a farm boss right at quitting time so we drop 5 or 10 extra minutes into the bucket and kill it.

It never goes beyond 30 minutes. Rarely even that. We raid until 10:30 central and that is pushing close to midnight for your east coasters and most people in our community have jobs or go to school.

[parasight]

You need to be open, honest, and straightforward with yourself and the people who work (raid) for you.

People have lives, schedules are real.

If you are seriously deviating from your posted schedule then you're going to run into problems that could have been avoided using alternate approaches. Meaning, you should have posted a different schedule, get better players, or plan better.

You have to run an organization like a business if you want it to perform as one.

[rrayy]

Found the racist!

That is not racism. That is Xenophobia.

[Omedon]

I'm utterly fascinated by the idea of "overtime police!" I'd never heard of that, but it kinda warms my heart that there are people out there that go out of their way to make sure that raiding stays accessibly on schedule and doesn't even start into the breach of social contract of "we're all here, just a couple more pulls, don't cut us short with your real life, man!" I'm kinda proud of the WoW community for putting a new line in the social contract that pushes back against "overtiming." Good for you!

My opinion: if you have a schedule, you should stick to it, start and finish, for such large group endeavors. There is no element of this game that should be prioritized over real life. If there are 20 people, it's a pretty safe bet that someone is only saying "yeah I can do one more pull" because of unspoken but no less felt peer pressure.

[xpose]

If a guild started doing overtime outside their scheduled times I would find a new guild. It's already a chore that most guilds raid 6-9 hours a week. I'm not looking for more.

[quite an expert in wow]

I'm utterly fascinated by the idea of "overtime police!" I'd never heard of that, but it kinda warms my heart that there are people out there that go out of their way to make sure that raiding stays accessibly on schedule and doesn't even start into the breach of social contract of "we're all here, just a couple more pulls, don't cut us short with your real life, man!" I'm kinda proud of the WoW community for putting a new line in the social contract that pushes back against "overtiming." Good for you!

My opinion: if you have a schedule, you should stick to it, start and finish, for such large group endeavors. There is no element of this game that should be prioritized over real life. If there are 20 people, it's a pretty safe bet that someone is only saying "yeah I can do one more pull" because of unspoken but no less felt peer pressure.

the 'overtime police' is just here to shame others, people that decide to raid more than they usually do, have reasons for it that have nothing to do with people outside of the guild - mostly just because they enjoy it you know?

peer pressure i can sort of agree on but if you're getting in trouble by doing one more pull, maybe you shouldn't play so long in the first place?

[shyguybman]

If a guild started doing overtime outside their scheduled times I would find a new guild. It's already a chore that most guilds raid 6-9 hours a week. I'm not looking for more.

6hours being a chore LUL