drama, Leadership

No really. It is. Almost. Let’s face the facts: most people suck at leading guilds, whether through lack of experience or lack of talent. There’s no such thing as professional guild leaders; there’s no college you can go to take courses in guild leadership. Very few people even realize what they’re getting in to when they accept a leadership role in a guild or create a new guild and are completely unprepared for it. Even the very small percentage who have professional leadership training or experience in other realms can’t be prepared for the specifics of MMO guild leadership. Some aspects of leadership can be learned, but I’m not convinced all abilities required to be good at guild leadership can be. At the end of the day, some rare natural talents are required to do more than a passable job at it. But still, some key concepts can help you to do a much better job than what you’ve accomplished wandering around the in dark. click here to read entire article

burnout, Leadership

This week I will be celebrating my third year anniversary as a member of Fusion. We will be throwing a champagn ball in the courtyard of the villa. No, I’m just kidding. I won’t actually be celebrating it, simply reflecting on the last three years. I joined a guild full of people, enough to raid 40 man content. Now there’s only two people in the guild who have been in it longer, one being the GM. I’ve been an officer for about two and a half years and even by that point I was a veteran compared to 75% of the guild. Most people burn out in less than a year of raiding, and very few people who move into leadership positions last very long at all. The job has a tendency to take a toll on people and honestly most people just aren’t cut out for it. I’m not trying to talk myself up, it’s just a set of qualities I have that have me adept at this role. click here to read entire article

efficiency, Leadership, raid leading

I often hear the same complaint from friends I have in different guilds. “Our raids go soooooo slow and we waste a ton of time.” I listen in on these raids sometimes and it just boggles my mind how much time is wasted. I realize this is a hobby and a game and shouldn’t be serious business all the time, but the flip side is that I’m trying to have fun and I’d rather not waste my time sitting around like a lump on a log. Many people I talk to share this same point of view. If you’re someone in charge of raids in your guild, then this quick guide is for you. As a raid leader, no matter what the skill level of the people you’re leading, you have the power to greatly increase the speed at which you raid. click here to read entire article

Leadership, Recruitment

Too many guilds act like the world already knows who they are and how awesome they are, and the only reason everyone isn’t pounding on the door to get in is because they haven’t been told “hey, we’re looking for your class!”

Back in my EverQuest days, we had a guild below us in progression called Dark Conquest.  The joke in my guild was that their advertising slogan should read: “Do you breathe and play EverQuest?  Then join Dark Conquest!” click here to read entire article

Recruitment, Traits

Watching a movie made by an acquaintance’s guild today, I was struck by the utter lack of urgency most of their players showed when in a fight.  They would switch off the boss to DPS the adds, but they took their time about it.  If they were repositioning, they’d overshoot, then back up, then adjust again.  I saw keyboard turners.  I saw spell clickers.

This is the extreme version, of course, but I’ve seen it in every guild I’ve been in to one degree or another.  It’s often referred to, in DPS, as “pressing ‘2′ harder”, but that really misses the fundamental problem.

Today I was thinking a lot about our process of learning Sarth3D as Trouble and I were reviewing the notes going into his post on “How We Learned Sarth3D”, and I remembered how much that same urgency mattered when learning Sarth.  There wasn’t space to not switch targets instantly, or to pause in your DPS while moving from a wave, or to make extra movements just to spread out.

It’s not often a trait listed when you’re thinking about what qualities you value in your raiders, but I believe it’s a key one.