Stemming from this post on World of Matticus, I decided to lay down my viewpoint on the relationship between a raider and his raid.

When we raid, we get loot. This is obvious. That loot is an electronic manifestation of our effort that we’ve spent that night, meaning that the time, gold, and energy we spent to get to that boss and successfully kill him is represented by the items he drops.

An effective loot system should be in place to reward the players that deserve those items. What are the criteria for “deserving” a piece of loot? Seniority, performance, and attendance are the three categories that I go by in Fury Untold. Don’t let me trick you, I do not use a “loot council”, as I think that 90% of loot councils are twisted systems often renamed “favorites council”. We utilize EPGP, however I do prioritize raid invites based on those three factors, so as long as you 1) show up 2) pull your weight and 3) aren’t a new guy (which is honestly prioritized really low), you’re golden for a raid spot, therefore getting you in the pipes for “rewards”.

The reason I call this an investment, is because more and more often, I see guild’s stuck in the progression curve* that are simply used as jumping off points for other guilds. Their primary player base is geared, so any items that drop go to the “new guy” and once he’s full purple and gets bored, he moves on to a guild that can offer him the next tier of content (like the previous guild should have). The previous guild’s time and effort have gone to waste, those items are gone, and you’re in essence feeding the fire for another guild’s raiding.

* stuck in the progression curve – Farming the previous tier of content without any real viability at advancement, due to a lack of motivation, leadership, guild population, or any other factor.

A few little updates…

Yes, I am still alive.

No, I haven’t stopped playing.

The guild is great, about to start 25 man raiding.

I do plan on finishing that list of promised posts.

If I didn’t post get the urge to post so late at night I’d probably have more here. I post from my phone about 95% of the time so it makes posts with slot of cross refernces and/links kind of difficult.

I’ve been busy working on a few side projects recently.

Expect a post tomorrow.

For those interested, I am having a blast with the guild. Recruitment is creeping along and things are shaping up.

I’ve still got several aspects to iron out as far as detailed guild policies (refer back to my Guild Structure post). However, we hit OS and Naxx last night (with a few pugs) and did fairly well. Now if people could just learn the Heigan dance. :D

I’ve been lucky on my recruitment, I’ve gotten mostly good players, that are looking for what I’m trying to offer. Hopefully in the coming weeks we can get further in (and hopefully clear) Naxx and we can move on to Malygos. Only time will tell.

PS – Watch for a follow up post to my “Tanks: Egos and Epeens” post.

Insomnia is a horrible thing.

I don’t normally ask for comments to my posts, but this one is different. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have transferred my paladin back to Sen’jin and started a guild <Fury Untold>. The guild is still very new, and I am still finalizing many guild policies.

When I was still on Kael’thas and still in , I knew I wasn’t happy. For many reasons that I do t really care to go into. I have my two original 70’s on Sen’jin and I wanted to get everybody back together (well almost everyone).

During the time between me realizing that Entourage wasn’t working out and me purchasing my guild charter for Fury Untold, I did a lot of research. I have been a GM twice before, and was an officer and raid leader in other guilds. I took what experiences I had, and re knowledge I had gained since my last bout as a GM, and decided to try and make a place called my own on my home server.

I had it all planned out. Looting rules, officer structures, guild policies, the works. It boiled over in my head for weeks before I even left Kael’thas, not to mention when I was actually turning in the guild charter.

I hope that people in Fury Untold read this. I know the blog itself is new, just a month or two older than the guild. My original intent was a democratic guild with a board or officers that were appointed by me. Delegation was going to be a major part of my leadership style. I wanted to have my officers doing their specific jobs, so they would feel a bit of connection and involvement with the direction of the guild.

I wanted to have an even looting system, however I think I’ve decided against my original idea, as I want something more transparent as not I cause issues or confrontations directly at whoever is leading the raid.

I’d like to take a poll, specifically of any Fury Untold members that may read this, however I would love to hear from anyone. I have opened comments to unregistered users, so anybody can respond. Just make up a name and a email and give me your opinions. How do you like a guild run? Do you want a dictator making executive decisions? Or a comitee of officers that have meetings and take votes to decide what direction to move things? What about looting policies? We are going to remain a fairly casual guild for now, raiding 2-3 times a week once I can get the numbers met. So use that as your guideline for comments.

I busted my ass this week and went from 70-78 playing Monday to Thursday. I took the weekend off, as my eyes were about to explode.

Additionally, I set up a guild on the Sen’jin realm, Fury Untold is the name. We’re gonna stay in 10 man content initially with a 2 night a week raid schedule. This being the 3rd guild I’ve started in my ~3.5 year WoW career, I can definately say, recruiting your initial player base sucks. Once you get enough people to get a group together (with enough room for an unguilded pug or two) it’s not too bad, but damn.

This may seem redundant, but in the world of MMO’s you have to play with other people. Sure, you can level solo, but that only gets you to max level, and then what do you do? From PvP to heroics to 25 man raids you are going to have to interact with other people.

In the World of Warcraft, there are varying degrees of players. The variables are many and not really of our concern, but you will come in to groups with people that are better than you, and worse than you. Again obvious, but people pay to play. This makes them feel entitled to play the game the way they want to play. So when you get in a group people are expecting you to play the same way they are, so that they can accomplish their goals. However, as I stated, players don’t always play at the same performance level.

This is a major issue in progression content (large raid PvE). I will touch on this in my next post!