Casually Guilded: A Guide to Moving On

by Gimmlette

Last week, I discussed how to find that "perfect" guild. You followed the tips and found yourself a wonderful place to hang your hat. The people were friendly and you got to see what you wanted to see, based on what you decided were the things in the game that meant the most to you, like, maybe, killing giant spiders.

First 25-man kill of Maxenna in Naxxramas, 2009

But, after days, weeks, months or even years, what you want out of the game changes. Maybe you can play longer hours now so you'd like to give progression or hard-core raiding a try. Maybe you just can't play even the 4 hours per week you started out with and need to stop playing altogether. Maybe the guild climate has changed. Whatever the reason, you've decided a change of scenery or tabard is what you need. Let's talk about how to leave in the best possible fashion.

First of all, how do you know it's time to leave. It can be hard to make that decision particularly when you've been with a guild for years. If your guild has a casual focus and you find you have a great rush of adrenalin when forced to produce a certain amount of heals or damage per second, you might feel constrained with a slower pace. If you find yourself parsing logs for what you do after every raid and you're reading about character optimization, you might like a more progression focused guild.

If you started your tenure with your guild by having 6 hours per week to play and now find that real life only allows you 3 hours per week, maybe the kind thing to do is to leave a guild that is more interested in raiding and go to a slower paced guild. Or, perhaps the game holds no interest for you or those 3 hours find you frustrated by what you can't get done. You might benefit from stepping completely away, breathing, living and seeing if the game is where you want to spend your free time.

In addition to your evolution as a player, guilds evolve. I know of casual guilds that morphed into progression and then hard-core raiding guilds. I also know of guilds that went the other direction because it was too stressful to maintain the high focus of progression. And, sometimes guilds just implode and the atmosphere can only be described as "toxic". May you never experience that, but it happens and you'll know when it does.

Heroic Heart of Fear Guild Run, 2015

All of these cases and varying degrees of them might cause you to want to leave. If you feel let down or have a conflict with someone or dislike the nature of the guild, the human desire is to "tell it like it is", let "them" (whomever you identify with that pronoun) know how unhappy you are. That is the worst thing you can do. Even in a guild filled with drama, adding to it will not help anyone. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas may have said, "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light", but throwing a fit brands you as a drama creator. If you stay on the server where your former guild is located, word gets around. Even if you thought you had formed a wonderful friendship with "C", a drama-filled guild exit can quickly leave you isolated. "C" doesn't need that in her life. Even if your cause is righteous, such as the guild leader only raids his family, don't scream at him.

Don't post to your server forum that you're looking for a new guild while you're in your current guild. Guild leaders read the forums, or any guild leader with any smarts does. The last thing they want to see is your name with a "Hey, I'm looking for a new guild" post. Your current guild expects you will be a team player. If you're posting to the server forum that you're looking, you'll be guildless faster than you expected and you'll find out that "C", whom you thought was a friend, isn't interested in someone who goes behind the guild's back.

Don't not talk to someone and just up and leave. You might think you're avoiding drama, but guilds are going to know when you're not logging on. If you happen to be on some people's friends list, they are going to wonder why you're online but not in the guild.

Follow these tips for a seamless departure. First of all, decide why you want to leave. If it's simply that your wants from the game have changed, hurrah for you. Better to find some place that fits your wants. If it's a personality problem or a perceived change of tone in the guild, can it be solved by talking with an officer?

Second, and I believe this is the number one priority for someone leaving a guild, tell an officer you're leaving. You don't have to write a long involved note. A simple, "Hey, it's been fun, but I've been accepted into a progression raiding guild so I'm going to be raiding with them." Your fellow guild members and your officers will thank you. "Well, I didn't want to cause drama," you might say. Leaving without talking to anyone in the officer corps causes drama and leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Your alts, if you have them, could find themselves guildless.

What if the guild situation is untenable and telling someone will just make it worse? I still believe you need to send an in-game letter to an officer or the guild leader stating simply, "Hi, while I've enjoyed my time here, my game wants have changed and I've found a guild that better meets my needs. I wish all of you the best." You might be lying through your teeth but a letter with "You're all a bunch of steaming sacks of talbuk doo doo" won't win you any friends. In the age of instant communications, you could find your letter going viral for all the wrong reasons.

Ghost Stories Around a Campfire

If you are leaving because your wants have changed and you have a reasonably good relationship with your guild mates, a paragraph in your guild's forum explaining why you're leaving is a very good thing to do. You'll find that people don't hold it against you if you're up front about leaving to do something else. They will probably wish you a lot of luck and encourage you to stay in touch. Even if you're leaving because the guild climate is "toxic" to you, a polite "I'm leaving to pursue other avenues" let's you leave with somewhat good feelings from the general membership.

When should you leave? I think that's a very subjective thing. If you're leaving to pursue other avenues in the game, have explained things to your officers, have penned a "thanks, but I'm leaving" letter and people are wishing you well, leaving during a time when a lot of people can say their "Good byes" is not a bad idea. Everyone comes away with "warm fuzzies" and you look respectful of everyone. If your leaving is because of drama or if you think it will cause drama regardless of doing the above suggestions, then it is probably best to leave at a time when there are few people online. If there are people online when you decide to /gquit, don't burn your bridges, so to speak, by calling out someone or some group of someones as you leave. "I'm going to pursue other avenues. Thanks for all the fun," is all you need to say. Your letter of goodbye to an officer and/or the guild leader can be penned at that time, as well.

Guilds become families, particularly if you hang around for a long time. You know someone's pet, their hometown, their favorite food, their dislike of asparagus. Understand that leaving is bound to cause sadness, anger in some cases. We're human and we can take some things very personally, even when they aren't meant that way. If you leave with tact, even if the guild doesn't deserve that tact, you'll feel better about cutting the cord and moving on.

Casually Guilded

by Gimmlette

Finding a guild in World of Warcraft can be a daunting proposition if you're a casual player. You don't want to be a "hopper", one who can't stay with a guild for more than a couple months because, ewww, you didn't know they did or expected "that", whatever "that" happens to be. You want to get it reasonably right the first time. There might be a temptation to be a mercenary, just come into a group when they need that 10th person, but the game is designed to favor a guild experience. The perks, such as reduced cost for vendor items, faster movement speeds, ease of accessing a bank, to name a few, tend to push people toward the collective setting rather than being a lone-wolf. So how does a casual player find a guild?

1)  You can hang out in any major city and read recruiting texts.

Generally speaking, they won't be quite so cheeky as the above. A good recruiting statement tells you a bit about the guild; raiding times, casual/hard-core/family friendly. whether they require a certain voice chat and what kind of perks they might have.

2)  You can check the World of Warcraft Realm Forums or the Guild Recruitment forums. Guilds looking for members will post an "ad" of sorts, detailing what they are looking for and what they offer. I recommend sticking with your realm forum unless you really hate your realm and are looking for a change. The Guild Recruitment forum has so many posts it can be hard to sift through them.

3)  You can hang out in a major city and type "I need a guild", repeatedly, often, a lot. Assuming you can endure the inevitable trolls who will respond to you, you can see what guilds will invite you just because you're unguilded. (The short answer is, "Quite a few.")

4)  If someone is asking in Trade or General chat for more people to run a raid or if you use the "Looking For Group" tool, you can ask the people in your group about their guilds.

Sapphiron in Naxxramas

Those of us leveling toons other than our mains, have bemoaned the fact that people don't want to chat when they are in a group. "I just say 'hi' and you'd think I had the plague." For most people, end game is where it's at and they are running 5-mans to level and raid for transmog gear or to get something done faster than soloing. The best chatting is when you get 3-4 members of a guild in a 5-man or hook up with a handful seeking more bodies for a raid. They tend to be amenable to talking about their guild. But, don't take it seriously if they tell you to "bugger off" in any sort of fashion. It's not you, it's them.

I have some suggestions for a casual person to help them find the right fit. This takes a bit of work on your part, but the end result should be a guild you can be happy in for a very long time.

A)  Review just how much you can play. Be honest. If you get home at 6 p.m. and have to be in bed by 10:30 p.m., how much of your evening can you devote to WOW? Do you have a spouse, significant other, kids, pet, etc., that needs some of your time every night? Do you have home obligations such as taking out the trash, yard work, cleaning, dishes, etc, that have to be done weekly or daily? What about food and just "you" time? You need to do an honest assessment of how much time you can spend playing the game. No sense joining a guild that raids Monday, Thursday and Saturday from 8-12 if you can't play until 12 during the week and every 3rd Saturday, you have to go visit Aunt Clara. Know just how much time you have.

PvP in the Inn at Crossroads

B)  What are you looking from the game? Do you want totally end-game raiding? Is it important to you to have the newest shinies? Do you like attacking the other side? Do you want to see older content which you might have missed as you leveled? Knowing what you want out of the game is very important so you don't join a guild where end-game raiding is everything and you want to see Molten Core, for instance.

C)  Armed with those two items, you can begin a search. As I said above, I don't believe the Guild Recruitment Forum is a good use of your time. You'll spend way too much wading through posts from realms you have no interest in moving to. Go straight to your realm and look at that forum. Because most realms are connected, you will have to hit the forums of your connected realms, too. I'm on Llane, which is connected to Arygos. I've found that guilds who are on Arygos don't remember to post to the Llane forum, and vice versa, even though we're drawing from the same pool of talent.

D)  Read all the recruitment posts. That could take time, but read every.single.one. Do you like what you see? A good recruiting post tells you what kind of guild they are; hard-core, family friendly, casual, PvP oriented, etc. It tells you about raiding; if they are looking for specific classes to fill their ranks, for instance. There should be raiding days and times listed, as well as technical requirements for raiding such as which voice server they use. They should also give you some of the perks of guild membership. It's, essentially, the same as the above recruiting statement but not limited to the Twitter-like post in the game's chat forums. It should be comprehensive, allowing you to decide if you want to research them further.

E)  Look them up on the WOW forum. At the upper right of the forum box, type the guild's name in the search box. (Here is the page for Spectacular Death to illustrate.) Check out their achievements. Check out the roster. You can search for how many trolls or paladins they have, how many level 100s and level 1s. I wouldn't shy away from any guild that is brand new. Spectacular Death was new once. If you like a challenge or the opportunity to help a guild get achievements, a brand new guild can be the way to go. It's so much fun to see the guild achievement pop up on the screen. It depends upon what you're looking for.

F)  Make a list of all the guilds you're seriously considering and who is their guild master/mistress. Google them. Seriously. Type the guild name into a search engine and see what comes up. If they have a web site, go there. What does it look like? Is it friendly? Is it up-to-date? Does it have public information that gives you an idea of the kind of guild they are and whether what they do is what you want to do? Remember, if the guild has an on-line presence, chances are very good they have a section that is not available to the public, that you'll only see once you're a member. A good guild, even if they are brand new, has thought about their online presence and has a lot of information for potential members available. You should be able to determine if what you see online is what you'd like.

     Saving Tyrande from the Horde.

G) Once you've done all that and have pared your list down to a handful, you can add the step of sending an in-game letter to either the guild leader or one of the officers. In Spectacular Death, we have a tab on our web site where you can see the officers. We have a Membership Officer. That person, also called "Recruitment", is probably your first contact with the guild. If you have questions or are interested in membership, contact that person or send an in-game letter to them or the guild leader. Alternatively, you can add them to your "Friends" list and when they log on, whisper to see if they would be available to answer questions about their guild. I get this all the time.

I strongly, strongly suggest that you read where the person is before you ask questions. I'm happy to talk to you, but not when I'm in a raid. If they can't talk, thank them for their time and send them a letter or ask if you can talk at another time. I can't stress this enough, "Courteous people will get more of my time than uncourteous people." I will make time for someone who starts their whisper with, "Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you but do you have time to talk about your guild?"

H)  If there is an application or interview required for membership, do it. Do not argue with me about whether you need to apply through my guild's web site. Application and interview exist for a reason and it's not your choice whether you will or won't do them. Is it annoying? Yeah, it is. But, speaking from experience here, we have turned down people whom we have discovered, through the application process, would not fit in.

New guilds may take anyone just to swell their ranks to actually be able to run content and there is nothing wrong with that, but for a casual player, your time is precious so you want to make a good choice about what guild to join. Jumping guilds is frustrating both for you and for the guild. Endure the application or the interview with grace and charm. You're finding out about them as much as they are finding out about you. As a side note, make sure you provide a contact email that you check more than once every other month. It is very frustrating to try to contact a potential recruit and have them not respond only to get a whisper 3 months later, "Can I still join? I don't check that email that I gave you very often." That says volumes to your potential guild mates and not in a good way.

There you have it. These are my suggestions for finding a guild you can be a part of and stay with for a long time. Remember, too, that every guild has ups and downs. It's the nature of humanity. If people have been around a guild for a long time or show a dedication to the guild, chances are good, it's stable and will be a good fit. Do your homework. Know what you want. Know how much time you can play.

Good luck.

Welcome

By Gimmlette

We've come through a slightly traumatic 4 days. For a week now, rumors were flying through the Internet about the demise of the beloved web magazine WOWInsider. For some of us, pretending we didn't know was our best defense. When the news was confirmed, thousands of people felt like they'd lost a good friend. 

So, I had this idea. My guild, Spectacular Death, has been around a long time, since December of 2007. We have a unique perspective and focus on this game. We'll never be first into content, but we'll have the most fun when we do get there. What if we made a blog that discussed this game we all enjoy and that discussion was from the casual point of view?

I took the idea to my guild and the enthusiasm is incredible. We're going to bring to our small corner of the WOW-verse, how the game works from a casual player's perspective. You can expect to see photos, including one for the highly popular "Throwback Thursday" theme. You can expect to see "Bug Reports", oh my, do we find bugs. You'll see "Suggestion Box"; some ideas we have for things we'd like to see added to the game. Favorite quest lines; suggestions for downing current tier bosses; a dissection of patches when the patches drop; we have lots of ideas. Everything we post will be for the benefit of and from the point of view of the casual raider. 

This will not be a blog about the exploits of Spectacular Death. If you want to know what we're doing, head over to our guild web site. We're going to be providing the casual raider tips, tricks, observations, rants and raves as we've found them within the game. There will be some overlap, we can't help it since current writers are from the guild, but our focus is not on what we're doing in SD. It's to be a resource to the person who has 3 hours one week to play; a spouse, a cat and a job; yet wants to have fun in this game. 

This blog is also a work in progress. Some days there will be quite a few posts, while some days, nothing. As we get this blogging idea down pat, you'll see more and more things, more steady columns, more familiar writers. Make sure you bookmark us. 

Finally, we had a floor tanking episode tonight. 

Danged dog. 

Why Be Casual

By Zylostout

I've been giving some thought to what it means to be a "casual" versus a "hard-core" raider. From my perspective, I think hard-core raiders are focused on the end game, specifically, progression raiding. Everything they do is geared towards that end. In order to achieve end game, they are prepared to put in long hours. Sometimes, they do things they don't particularly enjoy because it will help their end game. Sometimes, they skip things they might actually enjoy because those things won't help their raiding performance. Hard-core guilds have raiding rosters, and only the highest performers will be on those rosters. People in those guilds are competitive and that can come with an ego.

Casual players are in the game to do what is the most fun. They may also want to down the end bosses, but that will not stand in the way of doing something else that will have absolutely no bearing on raiding, just because they want to.

Note that there is nothing in that definition of casual players about how long casuals play or how committed they are to a schedule. The definition also doesn't give a benchmark for how good they have to be at playing their class or how knowledgeable they are about the game. Casuals can do or be all of those things, and more. But, the defining point for a casual player is "fun comes first". This includes life outside of WOW as much as what goes on inside the game. A casual player is more likely to drop a night of raiding for a fun event outside of WOW than a hard-core player. Within WOW, a casual player is more likely to do something goofy, just because we can and we don't have to use down time to collect things for the weekly raid.

In the end, for the casual player, it's not about the destination, it is about the journey, and how much fun can be had while on that journey. For many of us casual players, it's about the company we have on those travels. If there's a cliff we want to jump off, the company we keep is likely to start a competition to see who can launch themselves the farthest off that cliff. Or, if we see a pack of mobs along the road up ahead, well, "hold my drink and watch this". And, when it comes to raiding, we tend to ask, "Did the boss die? Did you die? Yes and yes. Great! Next!" because it's always more fun with friends.