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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Incoming: plans for a Guild

Ok.

I've had enough with the 'progression guilds' and 'alt garages'. I've read Sydera's excellent guild forming guide in the World of Matticus (thanks Sydera for this continuing series!), and I have made up my mind. Even though the guide is mainly focusing on raiding guild and it's requirements, I have seen that most of this applies to any kind of guild or internet community with common goal.

And I'm not flying high and fast not to understand that as a real person with real life I could cope with everything by myself.

The following is my view on things, which I will refine as soon as I get some input from my brothers about it. Naturally, they will be the rest of the Guild Council, making it in the beginning easy to handle things on the fly. I'm focusing on having this guild around so, that I'm not needed to run it anymore. Really, that should be attainable!

Please comment.


Charter

Basics
The Order will focus on PvE, especially unlocking
the content that is widely neglected by the players who have been in the game
for longer. The aim is to provide a platform for players to proceed from
instance to instance at around the right level range and provide support to
achieve this. The Order is not an alt garage: we accept only one –two in special
cases like the council- character per player, which should be the main of that
player. We also are actively looking for people who are newcomers to the game to
help them advance and understand the game better.

PvE
The Order
is PvE based, though nothing prevents it’s members taking into the
Battlegrounds. In fact, PvP is encouraged especially as a group effort, because
there are nice rewards and achievements available in the PvP. But the main
emphasis of the arranged activities of the Guild is in PvE and especially in the
Dungeons and Instances. The Order will not boost players through instances
unless necessary due low attendance, but even then the toons in appropriate
level are more likely to be made to play to get through rather than guided
through by higher level toon killing everything. This doesn’t teach anything,
only shows the scenery.

Casual
We all have real lives. Real life
comes first, Guild second and the game is in the third place. Even though we
might not be able to play the game regularly, everyone is required to follow the
information in the Forums, and make it their habit to follow the forums and post
in there. It might be impossible to inform the Council or the officers about
issues in game, but the forum will be available to all, all around the clock.

The Order doesn’t require the members to have certain gear at
certain point. However, it would be wise to invest time to gathering information
about the best possible gear and consumables for the instance which one is
attending to: this is merely courtesy towards the others, because no-one wants
to have a wipe.

How ever, because we are all newcomers and playing
casually, there will be wipes. Be prepared to die, and to die a lot. The main
thing is to have fun, no matter what!

All Content for All
The
main focus of the Order is to unlock and open all content to all players in the
Order. This requires from the members certain devotion to know their character
class to be able to tackle the unexpected situations certain instance bosses
pose. No-one is required, however, to be able to raid and play any more than
their real life and will permits.

Due to the common courtesy that
one should make every precaution not to result a wipe by not preparing for an
encounter, it would be advisable for everyone to try to find information about
the class they are playing and about the instance and boss they are going to
face.

Learning and teaching
The Order isn’t a progress guild in
the sense that we will not boost and help people to get to the level cap as fast
as possible. Instead, we try to learn the game and teach each other the things
we learn. In a sense I would like to think the Order as a boot camp for
newcomers: we teach the basics to everyone, so they can continue to a raiding
guild if they want to.

Everyone is welcome to ask questions and
comment on others, but mature mind frame is expected: there shouldn’t be any
flaming, calling names or degrading others in the game nor in the
forums.

Maturity
Maturity isn’t dependant on age: it’s a state
of mind which some reach earlier than others, and then there are some who will
never be mature. This means that members of the Order should refrain from using
excessive foul language in the chat and in the forum. Be civilised and treat
others as you expect to be treated by others. Fair
enough.

Raiding
The Order isn’t a raiding guild. Sure, we have
to form raids teams to tackle the larger instances (10, 20, 25 and 40 men
instances), but our main interest is not in beating the bosses but learning to
play the class in a team of people. This will prepare us all for the real
raiding game at the level cap, level 80. Our aim is to be able to visit all
instances at around the appropriate level in the range of the
instance.

Loot is given by loot council if need be. In lower
dungeons the need-greed-looting is the norm, but if you need, you should make
sure that you use it right away: no transfers of gear to your alt.

This charter is subject to change whenever the founders, Guild
Council or the officers assembly see that there is something to be changed. The
founders have the final say.

4 comments:

Gamer Hudson said...

This is pretty much what we aimed for with Casualties of WAR, and we want to expand upon it.

Unknown said...

Yes, I know. In fact, it was the community feeling of CoW that made me think of this, and the fact that I have been wondering the power levelling phenomenon made things click.

Honestly, if I was based in US, I would be a devoted CoW. Alas, I'm not, so I have to come up with the next best thing: live by the same guidelines and spread the word of PLAYING THE CONTENT instead PLAYING THE GAME!

Thanks Hud. I appreciate your input. A lot.

Unknown said...

I would define what you described your guild as a "Casual Raiding Guild". I know you said you are not a raiding guild, but you also say that you will do all the way up to 40 man instances to experience the content and learn your classes. If your intent is to move at your own pace then "Casual Raiding Guild" fits pretty well.

I ran a casual raiding guild in eq1 for 2 years and it was both the most rewarding and the most frustrating task I have taken on in any MMO.

The most difficult thing for me is that you walk the line between hard core raiding and family. This can set it up where people are pulled to both ends. It is easier, in my opinion, to do either raid guild or family guild.

If you have a solid core and great leadership it is not too bad but still can be frustrating at times.

After all the warnings and gotchas...I have to say it is absolutely amazing when you pull it off.

Unknown said...

@Jason: We'll see how it cames out. Because of the fact that I'm very cautious in recruiting and the guild is meant to be available when needed, the 'progress' is very, very slow. We'll enter the first real instances within a year if we're lucky and before that we'll be doing guild runs in the lower dungeons just for fun and laughs.

Like making the RFC run as a guild event. Well, that's almost like 'Orgrimmar Naked Gnome Run', except that we run for the RFC. Only to group just outside the instance.

Just for the Achievement. Yeah.