Reflections From The Pond

My guild, Ascendo Tuum, is a guild of both raiders and not-raiders. We do official raids twice a week and people who sign up for this are expected to come on time, prepared, stocked up on all raid consumables needed. Which we do. Most of the time.

Most of us, officers and not-officers alike, try our best to make it work good for ourselves and the people playing with us, our fellow guildies, to have fun together. And because our goal is more focused on this than on clearing raid content as server first, we listen to what people want and what they have to say. We listen to opinions and suggestions on how to do things and answer questions and concerns and try to settle differences and choose a way to go that will allow people to stay happy and content in the guild.

I was one of those opinionated people myself at times before. I had something to say and I wanted people to listen. Most of the times I caught myself before I got too carried away and I backed down, being more than happy actually to let someone else decide what to do and how to do it.

Now I am one of those who decide things. I see all the wrangling of guild rules and loot rules that goes on in the officers’ forum for them to be as fair as can be and still accomodate most people. I see the public forum posts with discussions and opinions about how we should raid, or where, or when, or how we should distribute loot and to whom and why. I see all the things that never enters the discussion forums at all, I see the whispers and PM’s from various people about how things should be done or could be done and I see the outright whines from those few people who think they have been treated unfairly.

I see all this, and I see how it wears our officers and raid leaders down. 

Now, I know that being an officer or a raid leader is not mandatory. It is not something forced upon you, you accept the rank and the privileges and the responsibilities that comes with it of your own volition. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to feel fed up with it, to feel that although you do it because you like it you are in over your head, that it is a second job and not a fun hobby of yours.

To be truthful, people do express happiness and gratitude and confidence in our officers and raid leaders, and it’s those moments that keep them going I think. But sometimes these little nuggets of light and joy get swamped by the dark tedium of endless discussions and people never willing to accept that a no is a no.

We had one player quit the guild the other day after some discussion following his refusal to go to Malygos with the raid group he was assigned to because he wanted a nice and easy Naxx run. (Now, a kind person may say that the reason this player was found to be a brand new member of the servers no 2 ranked raid guild the following day was because he was lost and lonely after having left the guild he had been with for the last year and took solace where he could find it. A cynical person might say something else.)

I think one of my fellow officers hit pretty close to the mark when he asked are we too soft? Do we listen to too many people whose suggestions may or may not be erring to the side of selfishness?

So, have the long-standing tradition in AT of open dialogues, of people being allowed to say their minds and of the officers listening, served its purpose?

No, an open dialogue is always welcome. But sometime you have to draw the line. Sometimes the dialogue is not adding anything new to the table, just rehashing varieties on the same old, same over-discussed theme because you don’t know how to stop discussing.

I said earlier that our guild is not a dictatorship. But it is not a democracy either.

We rule by committee. We have wrangled the how’s of raiding long enough now I think.

We may decide to go for the 25-mans come Ulduar. We might decide to go for 2×10 mans. We might decide something altogether different.

But I think the time for discussing why you should follow the raid leaders instructions, or the pro’s and con’s of different loot systems, or even questioning why the raid leaders make the decisions they do, I think the time for that is past. When you spend more time discussing raids than actually raiding, somethings need to change or you will suffer total raid or game burnout.

Being casual about our raiding does not mean we can’t enforce hardcore rules- like this is the accumulated wisdom of AT’s raiding history – take it or leave it but STFU and let’s get down to business, shall we?

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