Troubles of Being a "Casual" Guild Master

[the-woman-n-black]

My husband and I run an " adult social/leveling" guild. I think the guild is pretty good. Not huge, but not small. My members tell me they really enjoy being in the guild. They all bring their alts. But for every two members who turn 85, we lose 1. They want what I can't offer them. I don't have the experience (nor the personality type) to lead a raid. We don't have any high level members with the interest and/or ability to take over the roll of raid leading either. But I believe the real question is...even if I could get someone to lead raids, SHOULD I?

So here's the back story...
I started playing wow a little over a year ago with my husband thanks to a $25 Best Buy gift card. Not a lot you can buy with $25 in that place. Within a few days we had a new computer and two accounts. It was the perfect game for two people who read and research for a living.

We got recruited into a new "social/leveling" guild within a few weeks of starting the game. It was great. Everyone got along, guild chat was always a good time, the people were very helpful, the GM was always around and doing a great job. As the guild aged and it's members hit 80, there became this need to raid. The GM was also pretty new to the game and so she recruited a couple of strong raiders into the guild to arrange and lead raiding. The guild kind of started to morph into this new blend of raid/casual/leveling...monster. The new players were inundated with the raiders conversation in chat and vise versa. They had a lot of trouble getting raids to work out. The more casual players that would join a social/leveling guild did not make up the caliber of raider that these leaders needed/expected out of people. It was like two experienced raiders leading 8 completely under-geared newbs. I wasn't there, but I hear it was disastrous. And then the final straw, the GM goes through a divorce and a subsequent vacation...and disappears. Guild falls apart. So I leave and begin the search for another guild. Now I get to see what most normal guilds are like. I join a guild filled with 12 year old death knights. I join a guild where no one has a sense of humor. I join a guild where no one talks EVER. And so, I then start my own guild.

K, back to the present. I surprisingly ran into the old GM of the awesome but failed ex-guild. We get to talking, and land on this raiding conversation. She says to me "it's a catch 22; I don't know if you can truly have a social guild and a raiding guild in one". And I think she might be right. What are your thoughts on this? Is it possible to find someone who has the skills to lead raids and the patience to not freak out on a bunch of not-so-serious players? Will raiding ruin the otherwise lax ambiance of guild chat? Should I just accept the fact that at level 85, people are going to leave?

[Pragious]

I was in a similar guild at the beginning of Wrath. Very social, quite a few member, mostly a leveling/social guild as yours is. We did raid some (cleared Ulduar 10, and ToC 10 when it was the top content), but we always lost members when they got tired of the monotony of killing the same bosses every week, with very little progression being done. (I even left after a while to joing a more serious raiding guild.)

The problem, IMO, is when people are leveling, they joing a leveling guild because that's all they can get. When they get to the level cap and learn a little more, they're ready to try something more challenging (at least this has been my experience.)

[Sedative]

My guild is a lot like yours. We're small-medium sized as far as your average guild goes. It's mostly all friends and friends of friends of friends. About half of us, including myself, comes from a background of hardcore raiding - and we aren't exactly interested in returning to that playstyle.

Having said that, we would like to do some 10-mans...eventually. We aren't rushing it though. And when the random person asks "so when are we going to raid?" I generally answer with "as soon as we have 7 or 8 appropriately geared people that can all be on at the same time and want to raid."

It doesn't seem to be as much of a problem as it might have been a few years ago. These days if you really want to raid, then you need to be in a raiding guild, with a schedule and attendance requirements. I've made it clear that isn't us, but we aren't against setting up a raid either.

[SonsofDisaster]

Though, largely, I'd have to agree... but, I would say that it's not "impossible", rather, ALMOST impossible. Essentially, to have an actual casual raiding guild, you need 10-25+ people who are EXACTLY on the same page as far as what they want from raiding.

One person might think that "casual raiding" means raiding intensely, but only 1-2 nights a week. Another might think that "causal raiding" means any boss that takes more than 2-3 attempts is not worth downing. And another might even think that "casual raiding" involves making serious attempts when everyone feels like it, but not actually having a strict obligation to show up to scheduled raids.

Though these people all consider their style of raiding to be casual, there's some seriously diametrically opposed ideas in there and it would be EXTREMELY hard for a guild to make progress when all the members are bickering on what "casual" actually means. Personally, I feel like many (read: NOT ALL) "casual" and "semi-hardcore" guilds suffer from this problem of misnomers, while "hardcore" guilds generally have a pretty well-established paradigm for their raiding, which members can either agree with or GTFO.

I do feel your pain though. Through BC and Wrath, I hopped through 3-4 casual/leveling guilds that "always had intentions of raiding," but when enough people finally got to level cap or attuned, the whole idea- and almost ALWAYS, subsequently, the whole guild fell apart.

[Morte]

On the surface I'd say your ex-guild master is right. Its very difficult for a social guild to also be a raiding guild, much less a SUCCESSFUL raiding guild. I don't care what anyone writes on any forum about this game -- and I don't care who the author is -- even if its blizzard employees themselves....there is absolutely a different mindset needed for raiding versus just being around in a social guild -- casually questing, joking about, crafting, doing 5 mans, etc. That mindset is three things (at least) ... focus, perserverance and preparation. The vast majority of folks with a social guild do not have those qualities.

The above isn't a knock on social/casual gamers -- its just an observation of fact....much like the statement "water is wet."

But.....its not IMPOSSIBLE for a social guild to raid either..... just very very hard for it to work and keep everyone happy.

My main's guild (I won't name here not out of shame but I don't need people harrassing my guild either ) is about the closest I've ever experienced to that perfect blend of casual /family oriented guild that raids....SUCCESSFULLY...and with relatively current raid content as well. But its a guild that was formed when wow released back in Nov 2004 and over the years it's been a struggle and there were many massive blow outs and a few periods in the guild's history where we had literally like 50 people leave in a week's time.

Finally in the last year things have been stable...membership is fast approaching over 600 (we have over 250 "real" members if you don't include alts).... we are a pretty well oiled machine now. Very fun guild good people --- and we have an actual organized raid program and a 10 man "core" program.. If you want in you sign up and see if you fit in, if not you don't have to raid and none of the raiders will mock you or make fun of you or anything like that.

So its possible...but its hard earned.

[Arlee]

You can definitely do it, but it is a lot of work. As someone stated it is very hard to balance the wants/needs of the two different groups. In order to do it successfully you need to have a clear idea of how things should work and you need to have people to back you up who are interested in the same thing. Spell out expectations as well because like someone else said, the way people define terms can vary widely.

[Nedle]

I had a small guild for awhile and one thing I know is that you will always need to be recruiting. People will leave for many reasons, not just because they are looking for a different way to experience content.

But here is the general comment regarding your question. The game is generally designed with the intention of experiencing things at max level. Don't get me wrong there is a great experience from 1-85. However, Blizzard doesn't expect its players to get to 85, then start an new alt and begin leveling again. Therefore if your guild cannot accommodate those that wish to experience that aspect of the game you are going to lose members.

Here's what I suggest...don't try to straddle the line. If you want to be a Social/leveling guild then be that. If you are losing people that want to continue past 85 then they either aren't there because they enjoy leveling (or they would start an alt). Or they don't feel a strong enough social connection to the guild to stay. In either case if you truly want to be social/leveling you don't really want them in your guild anyway.

One of the problems with being a "casual" GM is that you don't have enough time to invest people in the social aspect. If you're not on to interact then you rely on the rest of the players in your guild to do it for you. Ultimately if there isn't leadership on folks go elsewhere at least thats my experience.

-- Edit --
I will say as others are, it's possible...just don't know if its what you're after. (And believe me without a few extra officers its a lot of work on your end)

[Plasmon]

Yes it's possible to have a social guild and still raid without being too hard on the members. I co-lead a social semi-casual raiding guild, and I know some other smaller guilds that sound a bit more like yours being much smaller and mostly adults but still are able to raid.

It's possible to have raiders and non-raiders get along just fine in the same guild, and if you establish a website with forums you can direct much of the raiding discussions to a designated raid forum to keep it less prominent in guild chat. You need to define clear raiding rules and expectations for raiders and you can have social/casual guild policies for non-raiders while at the same time expecting the raiders of your guild to meet a much higher standard of expectations.

It's important to realize that in a casual raiding guild you actually need more total raiders than in a dedicated raiding guild (assuming both do the same raid size, say 10 man) because casual people won't be able to attend every week and have varying schedules whereas hardcore raiders typically can raid at the same time every week and rarely miss it. So to support a 10 man raid you will probably want to have around 20 raiders in the guild.

Raid leading isn't as hard as you may think it is and you might want to give it a try. If you're the type of person that enjoys reading and research as you say, then you might like the experience of researching boss fight mechanics and raid strategies. The standard 10-man raid is 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 damage which is typically approximately 3 ranged and 2 melee. Nearly everything you need to know about each raid instance (and the game in general) can be found at www.wowpedia.org. Go there, look up the raid instance, follow the links to each boss, read about the mechanics of the boss fights, read some suggested strategies for dealing with those mechanics, watch a video or two such as those from Tankspot (or search ZAM Official on youtube), and you've just armed yourself with pretty much everything you need to know.

Try and have you guild raiders learn about the boss fight mechanics themselves, and then communicate a raid strategy to the during the raid which you determined based on what you learned, borrowing suggestions from what you read, and tailor the strategy to your specific raid group composition. Use some kind of voice chat (like Ventrilo, Team Speak, or the in-game one if you must...) and you're good to go. When the boss kills the raid try and analyze what happened, communicate to the raiders what needs to be done different from the failed attempt, and if everyone learns from their past mistakes and you iron out any problems in the strategy then you'll eventually get the boss down.

If you want to see some examples of guild rules and raiding rules that might work for a guild like yours, I can post a link to my guild's website. I'm not trying to advertise my guild so I'll only link if you are interested. Our rules are very detailed so you could just slash away and simplify things until you've got something that you feel is a good balance between being casual enough and being organized enough to have successful raids.

[the-woman-n-black]

Plasmon, I think it would be interesting to see how you've set up your raiding rules.

Unfortunately, I tend to disagree with your "raid leading isn't as hard as you might think". As I said, I don't have the personality type for it. I can type like the wind, but when it comes to vocal communication, I fall flat. I just wouldn't be comfortable with having to be the one to explain fights and make the calls. The research side of it is pie for me, and I don't go into a PUG without having done my share of it. But the leading part is an issue.

[Nedle]

Plasmon, I think it would be interesting to see how you've set up your raiding rules.

Unfortunately, I tend to disagree with your "raid leading isn't as hard as you might think". As I said, I don't have the personality type for it. I can type like the wind, but when it comes to vocal communication, I fall flat. I just wouldn't be comfortable with having to be the one to explain fights and make the calls. The research side of it is pie for me, and I don't go into a PUG without having done my share of it. But the leading part is an issue.

Assuming this is something you want to pursue...

Raid leading really isn't that difficult. The key would be to get your feet wet if you haven't already. Going in cold turkey won't do you any favors. Once you know the fight (through research or experience), and have loot rules set up it's pretty much telling someone where to stand, and what to look out for. After that I think that hardest part is figuring out where you went wrong.

If it still doesn't feel right to you and you know that people are leaving your guild to attempt raid content, then they generally want to raid. Give one of them the responsibility of learning the fight and leading the group. Maybe you'll just need to show up I would keep the loot rules at your discretion because ultimately you will be the one that has to enforce them.

[Barreveler]

I'm in a similar guild. I think it's all about your expectations.

We've been around since just before Burning Crusade and have grown to be pretty big. 500+ active characters and probably over 100 different people that play regularly. Incidentally we're far older than the average guild, we have essentially no players under 21 (with the exception of a few people who are children of regulars), and quite a few over 45. We have a number of professionals, including myself and even a few retirees.

We consider ourselves a "casual raiding guild." We try to raid 3 nights a week, but our un-official motto is "RL Comes First." it results in some inconsistency. Some nights we have an awesome raid, some nights we've had to call it because we couldn't get 25 people together. We have pretty good progression, (topped out at 11/12 Hard modes in ICC 25) but it's also slower than a lot of players, and we're sort of ok with that.

As a result, we also often disappoint recruits who are looking for a more hardcore raiding guild. There are at least two top ten guilds on our server that have been formed by people that left our guild because they wanted a more driven raiding experience. We have several more players that have moved up to our servers top progression guilds, and a few within our ranks that got burned out in those guilds.

I think it's a pretty good place. My work takes a lot of time (60+ hours a week on average, sometimes over 100), and it can be erratic. I can say without too much hubris I'm probably a good enough holy paladin to raid with almost any guild out there, but "hardcore' raiding guilds won't often tolerate someone who sometimes can't be there on short notice, and may end up having to skip for a week because I'm getting ready for trial or have a big brief to write.

---------- Post added 2011-01-11 at 10:00 PM ----------

Y
It's important to realize that in a casual raiding guild you actually need more total raiders than in a dedicated raiding guild (assuming both do the same raid size, say 10 man) because casual people won't be able to attend every week and have varying schedules whereas hardcore raiders typically can raid at the same time every week and rarely miss it. So to support a 10 man raid you will probably want to have around 20 raiders in the guild.

In my experience this is absolutely true.

In the past we've needed somewhere around 35 people willing to raid regularly to have a consistent 25 raiders. This obviously also involves ego, because if we can't act like a hardcore raiding guild and have "teams." We need people who are casual players, but who won't get upset if we have a particularly full night and there's not a spot in the raid.

[Plasmon]

Plasmon, I think it would be interesting to see how you've set up your raiding rules.

OK, here's the link to my guild website. On the left side of the home page is an information box with links and you might want to check out the "recruit info", because it's a good quick summary version of our guild and our policies. The heavy details are in our "raiding system" link which will contain the most useful stuff. As I said before, it's very detailed and covers absolutely everything we want our raiders to know, whereas a guild that wants a more casual approach to raiding might need only one quarter of amount of details that we have there. Our system is detailed because our definition of "casual raiding" is more than what is typically associated with the word casual. We don't expect people to have to raid every week and we don't tell our members what class or spec to play, but when they do come to a raid we expect preparedness, skill, and efficiency. So we like to define it more as semi-casual since "casual" often has the stigma of "slacker" or "unskilled". It's up to you (or someone you designate) to define your guild's approach to raiding and your definition of social/casual raiding.

Unfortunately, I tend to disagree with your "raid leading isn't as hard as you might think". As I said, I don't have the personality type for it. I can type like the wind, but when it comes to vocal communication, I fall flat. I just wouldn't be comfortable with having to be the one to explain fights and make the calls. The research side of it is pie for me, and I don't go into a PUG without having done my share of it. But the leading part is an issue.

I've had some officers in our guild evolve from being inexperience raiders and socially timid to become a knowledgeable raider with good leadership qualities. I've improved in those aspects over the years too. I know some people have it while others may not, but vocal leadership is certainly a skill that can be developed. This is definitely not your only option so don't worry, here's something you might prefer to do:
You can delegate raid management positions to other trusted members. Make sure to divide up the jobs so that each person doesn't carry the full burden. Get one person to be the "raid strategist" who determines and explains the strategies to everyone, get another person to be the guild recruiter if you need to increase your raiding population a bit to support raiding regularly (and it's inevitable that some people quit so you need to maintain inflow to balance outflow), get another person to be the raid leader in charge of the non-strategy aspects of the raid like gear requirements and making sure people are invited and prepared, get another person to be the master looter who distributes the loot and upholds your guild's loot rules, etc. You can fill one or more of these less vocal positions if you'd like, or you can just remain behind the scenes, or not raid at all. As long as you've got competent and trusted people in the key raid management roles then you've done your job as the master coordinator of the guild and you can trust the others to take care of the raids for your guild. Just make sure they feel appreciated.