So I’ve hesitated to post this for fear of being wrong and looking like an idiot, but I’ve decided this is part of what I do as a GM and maybe it’ll help someone. Also, after singing to you guys, I can’t really embarrass myself much further.

We finally killed the big blue menace on Tuesday and I’ve spent the past few days building our Brutalus healing strategy. I’ve looked over kill videos, WWS reports, and strategies that include listing of the boss abilities. I know that at my guild’s place in progression I could jack someone else’s strat and do no actual thinking for myself, but my EQ roots make coming up with my own plan a matter of pride. Also no one else knows my healers as well as I do, so I doubt their strats would be as strong as my own for my guild.

So here’s the plan for our guild’s initial Brutalus attack:
1 CoH Priest and 1 Shaman to heal Meteor Slash
1 Pally to heal Burn targets (With help from the meteor slash shaman at the final tick)
1 Holy priest, 1 Disc priest, 1 pally and 1 shaman on the MTs.

The shaman and I are going to spend some quality time together figuring out what rank of Lesser Healing Wave he can cast continuously for 6 minutes (fully raid buffed). In the fight he will stand still and continuously cast Lesser Healing Wave. The holy priest will be casting max rank Greater Heal to land in time with the main hand weapon swing (both 2.5 seconds, coincidence I think not!), and keep renew up and the Disc priest thinks on his feet and will alternate his heals but I anticipate at 4 casts in 15 second average. The pally is a Holy Light spammer.

The heart of this plan is maxing our inspiration/ancestral fortitude uptime to counterbalance Stomp. I’ve done some math with my raid leader and determined that with this configuration we can keep inspiration/ancestral fortitude on our tanks 94% of the time.*

So, that’s my initial healing plan. As my raid leader buddy says, “no good plan survives contact with the enemy.” I’ll check in after our first night’s attempts and let you know what worked and what didn’t work.

*I found that in my scouring of the intarwebz there is no Inspiration/Ancestral Fortitude uptime calculator or formula published so I had to make my own. It’s not perfect but it’s the best estimation I could put together without delving into derivatives. Using the math my raid leader and I put together I will be creating a calculator in the hopes of preventing someone else from having to do all that math.

And on the 6th day, I rest. (Sorta)

I don’t lead raids on the weekend. Some people can lead raids 7 days a week but I am not that person. I make myself available for one on one sessions with my raiders regarding raid performance, real life, personal interactions, gear plans, etc. But leading a group of 25 raiders, just drains me.

My guild, however, has become it’s own living breathing thing. With 148 accounts and 358 characters (only 38 of which are raiders) our guild has four hour raids five nights a week that are “official, ” and 5 Karas, 4 ZAs, 2 Mag/Gruul runs, and a smattering of pre-bc runs scattered in our off time. The runs are sometimes run by my officers, partner-in-crime and sometimes by random members that just stepped up and started running it. Sometimes they consist solely of members of my guild and some are a collection of people from various guilds.

Normally I avoid the ones my officers don’t lead. It’s hard for your guild not to look to you for leadership, and it can make the leader feel like they need approval for the things they would otherwise just do or say. This weekend however I decided to go to one. My baby druid is coming along nicely, and I thought she was ready for some 25 man content. It was interesting. I bit my tongue while some interesting healing assignments were made and watched my member as he made careful adjustments to his instructions. We ended up one shotting, High King, Gruul, and Mag with a group of alts and casual friends. He didn’t do everything I would have done, but we were successful. One time I was unable to contain my advice, so I whispered it to him rather than blurt it out. (Taking two very observant players off cube duty and instead having them watch nearby cubes as back up, if you were curious) He handled it with grace (namely listening to me =P)

I can’t say I was a perfect raider. I can say it was very interesting to be in the back seat, watching the raid from another perspective. It was also interesting to note how he established his authority, how he handled questions, how he put down rebellion and how the raid in general responded to general nuances of his personality. I’m thinking about using fraps to record myself in vent and the raiding effect. It would be interesting to see if I can recreate my observations and translate them to my own leadership skills. I can never hope to be unbiased, but maybe I’ll be able to learn something anyway.

On a side note, I’ve about had it with that little blue dragon. I’ve tried about all I know how to try from a leadership and strategy perspective. I’ve done indepth WWS analysis, made graphs, pictures, wordy explanations, set up captains, educated captains, worked on a one on one basis with those that are repeatedly not executing, recruited new raiders to replace the ones that are not executing, tried different strats, spoken to leaders of guilds that have killed him, spoken to members of guilds that have killed him, everything I know how to do. If we don’t kill him soon, I’m not really sure what to try next. We have the gear, strat, ability and desire, it seems we lack the focus and execution. All guilds have high points and low points, and we’ll get through this one too, it’s just frustrating to be in a low point.

If you get enough people together, drama is an eventual byproduct. This week it happened to our guild. I’m sharing it with you because A) this is probably the only place I can vent where it reflects on me and not my guild and B) I hope someone can learn from our drama or at least be entertained.

So a few days ago I was summoned from my book writing via a MSN message from a guildmate “Check the realm forums.” I yawn, stretch, and direct my browser to the realm forums. To discover this gem.

It’s posted by a level 12 alt, but the genius was intelligent enough to use an alt tagged with the same guild as his main. So it was easy to identify the poster as a hunter we’d given an initiate opportunity to but decided not to retain as a member. The post was clearly bait and the realm community had already responded with some additional trolling but mostly skepticism. I asked my raiders not to respond however the request missed a few of our non-raiding members.

Sidenote: Who starts a flame thread with “I know everyone else like you guys.”

So Operation ignore the troll was put into place and we ignored him through this post:

But I’m afraid one of my soldiers broke ranks and posted a response on an unguilded alt prompting this response:

I haven’t figured out which member it was, and to be honest I haven’t tried too hard, but I suspect it was one of mine because the information shared wouldn’t have been public knowledge. I think raising to the bait does reflect poorly on my guild in some ways, however it is at this point that he moves from the slightly sophomoric to the absolutely absurd, conveniently diverting attention away from my errant member’s misbehavior.

Unfortunately for the poster, he’s now entirely lost the crowd prompting this next gem:

Now thus far it’s been easy for me. Ignore the poster as he slowly digs his hole. I know, if left alone, he’ll dig his own grave and eventually tire out. I know that nothing I say to him will calm him down. But now he’s growing hostile towards my server mates, and he’s told his first complete untruth. Everything else has just been his interpretation of the events that do have some base in reality, twisted as his perception of that reality may seem to me. I know better, I really do, but at this point I feel compelled to make an attempt to reach him, resulting in:

I’m not sure if I reached him or not, but it’s 7 hours since I posted and he’s yet to respond. The “Drama” thread has derailed into a Monty Python sketch. Yes, I did try to recruit in the drama thread. What can I say, I’m shameless.

So that’s my drama story. I hope you’ve been entertained, but I also hope that you and I can learn something from this example. While examining this situation or any unpleasant situation I don’t care to repeat, I try to look at the following things:

Prevention: The drama in this event comes from an initiate who was not granted member status. Unfortunately the purpose of an initiation period is to determine if a player is a good fit a guild and the guild is a good fit for the initiate. If there was a way to ensure a player and a guild will work well together there would be no need for initiation phases. I would say the conversation in which I informed the initiate that he would not be offered a member position within our guild could have been smoother, but honestly that conversation was as pleasant as that kind of conversation can be. We parted on amicable terms and allowed him to remain in our guild on a non raiding rank until his server-transfer cool down was up. (He chose to return to his previous raiding guild, despite my offer of assistance finding a new guild on our server.) Frankly, I was quite surprised to see his post in the forums. That being said, we’ve previously relied on the interview process to inform cross-server applicants that we make no guarantee they will be invited to member status. I believe that due to this event we’ll add this information to our application, so we’ll have documentation this information was provided.

Room for Improvement: The post made with information only known to members of our raider core, should not have been made. Once it’s all said and done I’ll have to track down who and have a heart to heart about why that post, while cathartic, was probably not in the best interest of our guild. As a guild leader, I’m not a tyrant, I’m not capable of nor do I desire to control the actions of my members. That being said, I don’t make requests idly. By explaining the rational of radio silence, I could have gotten higher buy in. Also we did a good job letting our raiders know we preferred they not post, but we did not get to our friend rank members in time to prevent a few of them from making comments. An outside observer doesn’t know the difference between the girl friend of a raider who logs in once a month and a core member of our guild from their forum posts. I’m considering adding information to friend rank induction reminding friends of this fact and asking them to consider how their posts will reflect on our community before posting.

Gold Star: I probably shouldn’t have responded to the thread, but given that I did, I think the response was professional and did not take the bait to indulge in mud slinging with him. I was tempted and could have cited that:

• In our raids he did an average of 400 dps less than he promised in his interview.
• He caused wipes on fights he claimed to understand.
• His ability to follow directions regarding when to misdirect was so bad that we had to create a safety word to be his cue to pull.
• His interpretation of the events of his initiation period was suspect to be generous.

I didn’t (but I must say, it is nice to get that list off my chest in my own personal corner of the interwebz) take the bait, instead I focused my comments productive things that did not lend themselves to debate. I reminded him that I was available to speak with him one on one to clarify and address any outstanding issues he may have. I expressed my regret at his dissatisfaction, without taking accountability for that dissatisfaction. While it may have been in poor taste, I used the free publicity to highlight my guild’s recruitment needs (and to my amusement have had two potential applicants get in touch with me as a direct result). Finally the reaction of the server including the lack of people to jump on the bandwagon with their perceived slights, leaves me to believe that all in all our interactions with our server mates have been fairly strong.

Damage Control: When all is said and done, there isn’t a lot of damage control to be done. Should the thread continue, I may need to re-evaluate, but I feel like in it’s current state this has been more of a nuisance than anything else.

Every guild has an identity and goals. It’s what draws people to your guild over another. But, even within a guild there’s a spectrum. No matter how “hardcore” your guild is there is someone who is the most hardcore and someone who is the least hardcore. No matter how talented your guild is, someone out there is the most talented and someone is the least talented.

My job is to bridge the gap. How do I keep my hardest core and least skilled player working together? How do I drive policy and raid nights to cater to the majority while still keeping both my most skilled and least skilled players involved?

Some of this is self regulating, your worst players either realize they can’t hang with your guild and get better or find a guild that is more their speed, or if they are a detriment and don’t realize it, are removed. Your best players either work to better their peers, or they find a guild more progressed and leave (A credit to our guild, this hasn’t happened to us yet). But in someways the nature of a guild’s mechanics help to narrow the gap. But even with that self regulation, the gap will always exist, and no matter how narrow the gap becomes, it will feel huge to the people on the far ends of it.

I won’t say I have the answer, but I’ve picked up a few tricks that I think help the process.

1) Know your raiders - I know, there’s like 30-40 of them and one of you, but it’s really not that hard. When you first recruit your raider set aside 20 to 30 minutes to talk to them. Make sure you do it in their first week. The key thing points you want to make and get are: Where do they fall in your spectrum? What do they want out of being a part of your guild? What are their initial impressions? And make sure they feel like they can approach you. About a month after recruitment, touch base again. Here you just want to get their impressions and remind them you are available. After that touching base can be much more low key. I try and pick one raider a night and at some point just touch base and just say “hi.” By going to them, you create an opportunity for them to talk to you about whatever is on their mind without them having to work up the courage to talk to you or worry about bothering you.

2) Be open to feedback - Receiving honest communication from a raider is a gift, even if you don’t like what the raider has to say. When a raider comes to you with something on their mind, they are creating an opportunity for you. If you make them feel like they aren’t being heard, or worse derive them for their opinions, you ensure they won’t give you another. It takes an experienced ear to know if a raider’s problem is sign of larger discontentment that may be shared with other raiders, a sign that raider has just had a bad day, or perhaps an indication that that raider may need to get over it or find a new home. Regardless of the nature of the feedback or what you do with it, coming to you is a sign of respect and a request for help.

3) Be honest - If you’ve identified a raider that’s on one end of the spectrum or the other, be honest with them. I tell my raiders that I appreciate what they are feeling, but this is a guild of 30-40 other people who all have different needs and their needs aren’t shared with the majority. I’m honest about what may change and what will not. If a raider is on the lower end of the skill spectrum I’ll tell them that they are most likely not going to get in for new content nights unless I don’t have another option, but that there is still a place for them in our guild and in our raids. Often times I’ve been able to take my guild into new content because those “bench” players have been there when a “starter” is sick or on vacation. When those times occur I am quick to thank my “bench” player and remind them that this is why they are important to my guild. On the other end of the spectrum, I listen to the needs and desires of my highly skilled or hardcore players and try to accommodate what I can without disenfranchising the other players. I try to give them the recognition they deserve and remind them of why we need some of our weaker players. More than change, I think most of these end of the spectrum raiders need to know their needs are understood and need someone to help manage their expectations.

4) Don’t be accusatory - Just because someone may not fit the average need of your guild, doesn’t mean what they need or want isn’t valid. No matter how foreign their needs/wants may seem to you, it’s their $15 and it’s their free time. Don’t make them feel bad for wanting to spend it differently than you do. If their wants/needs are irreconcilable from the guild’s it’s in your and their best interest to tell them you don’t think they’ll find what they are looking for in your guild, but try not to make them feel bad for trying to find it. Remember in someone else’s eyes you’re either a “scrub” or a “freak with no life.”

These solutions may not work for you or your guild, but it’s been my experience that they help minimize the drama and they work for my leadership style. I think in the end no matter how much people want to say that the driving factor for people playing this game is the loot, they have missed the mark. I think the driving factor for people playing this game is a sense of accomplishment and a sense of being an important part of a community that shares their values. If you measure that accomplishment in loot, mounts, non-combat pets or the number of people on your server that know your name, we’re all just here to have fun with friends.