Why Guilds Keep Bad Seeds

I think it's important not just to know how to respond to outside stimuli but also to understand why things happen.

When someone does something like ninja looting, badmouthing, or being overall rude, and you tell their guild leaders, you expect to see something done about it. Right? Sometimes the behavior has been bad enough that you expect nothing less than a gkick.

So why do guilds keep bad seeds?

The Guild Thinks You're Overreacting
They don't see your side because they just don't agree that the infraction was anything more than a situation between two people that should be handled between those two people.

The Guild Doesn't Mind Bad Behavior
Some guilds are bad. To the core. Or bone. Whichever has a catchier tune.

It's None of Your Business
Much like Blizzard's policy of "We'll look into it but you don't get to know the result" when you report stuff, some guilds will take appropriate action but consider it no one's business but their own as to whether punishment is doled out. After all, the last thing they want is a vindictive wounded party dancing around Dalaran and taunting the punished member with "HAHA! You got suspended from raids!"

No Proof
Especially in cases of he said/she said, the leaders' hands are tied in the absence of screenshots. If you're going to punish someone, you need to know they did it first.

They Can't Afford to Lose Members
Struggling and dying guilds can't afford to do anything that will lose even one member, or they'll sink like a stone. If you have 12 people who raid, three infrequently, and the bad seed is one of the reliable raiders, sometimes guilds will weigh the cost of having a bad rep versus the cost of not existing, and survival wins out.

Too Well Connected
Sometimes your bad seed just knows the right people. When a GM's real life BFF is a total jerk, I bet you 99% of his guild wants him gkicked as much as you do but are equally powerless to see it happen.

Too Likable
Some really obnoxious people are extremely likable to their friends and guildmates. They'll make everyone laugh by telling anecdotes of their wacky antics and be just a really great person to the people who matter to them. Then when you have a tale of woe to bring to the guild's attention, the guild sides with the offender because, well, they like that person and they don't know you at all.

Too Emo
Some players are so emo that any punishment from guild leadership will lead them to gquit in a drama-filled huff. From your point of view, this is a good thing. From the leadership's point of view, if the crime doesn't warrant a gkick, and that's the effective result of any punishment they dole out, the lesser evil is to just bury the matter -- sometimes with a mild "Don't do it again," sometimes not.

Too Much Drama
Some guilds just don't want the hassle of having to deal with a disgruntled player, no matter how bad they've been. If you haven't been an officer, you may not know how much of a headache people can be when they're in drama mode. It really makes officers think "Why do I do this again? It's supposed to be a relaxing hobby, for God's sake!"

Too Valuable
If the offender performs some vital role to the guild that no one else is willing or capable to take on, the guild will often choose to keep that resource and take the hit to their rep because losing that player would partially cripple them.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.
She's currently eating blueberries.
Beth's been married since her junior year of college.
Whenever that was.

Keep It Real

Elitists tick me off.

People with superiority complexes do not belong in family guilds. Not because they're ambitious and powerful or because family guilds aren't (power is subjective, but IVV is in about 10th place on our server for raiding atm) but because they're superficial jackasses who don't care about the feelings or interests of others.

Let's take this down a notch. Say it's not a hardcore elitist or jerk but simply someone in your guild who gets along with people in general or does hard work and starts to feel a little . . . important. Powerful. Impressive.

Back when I got the wind knocked out of me, I'd had a feeling of power. Not all-powerful by any means, but as if I had dominion over applicants and the right to weild that power in a responsible way.

I like to think I didn't have any unreasonable pride back then. Just the normal stuff that goes with having a job you take too seriously. So when the emergency popped up and my toes got trampled, I still had my feet and fingers and other bits. I could still function.

Yet it hurt like hell.

So when I say it is unwise to be anything but humble in all aspects of guild life, whether you're an officer or a star raider or just leveling, I say it for your protection. Because I know what it feels like to get knocked down, and if I didn't have much pride and it still hurt that bad, I can't imagine what it would be like for someone who let their pride or superiority or entitlement run away with them. It would probably feel a bit like dying.

These days, I'm trying to stay humble. I do what I can for the guild as a member, and I don't have any duties or position to mess with my head. I found contentment by going more casual, and I'm having more fun (and less stress) in game by simply increasing my focus on the real world.

I said it before, I'll say it again: The game should never become more important than the people. That doesn't just mean gear. Power, position, pride, entitlement -- all are inner demons that you should avoid if you want to be happy.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's currently not packing to move, like she should be.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.
Whenever that was.

Personality Clashes

There's a woman at my church that I don't like. No real reason, I just don't like her. Maybe it's because we have nothing in common. Maybe it's because I think she'll judge me if she gets to know me, so I feel defensive around her.

There are people in the world, good and reasonable people, who sometimes you just don't get along with. No real reason. They just rub you the wrong way.

First off, you can't gkick them. So stop thinking about it. If they aren't needy, greedy, selfish, or mean, forget about it.

I won't tell you to pull some Disney movie stunts and learn to love them.

I'll tell you what to do when things go rapidly down the toilet.

Avoidance

This is good if both subjects are angry and need a cooling-off period, or if someone is about to gquit in a huff.

Signs of needing a cooling off period:

• You want to say things you can't take back.
• He or she has said things they can't take back.
• You know that one of you is about to do or say something hot-headed and stupid.

How do you arrange a cooling-off period if you're involved in the argument?

Repeat after me: "Dear Level-Headed Officer: Please post the following for me in X discussion. 'I need a few days away from this argument to get my head straight. When I feel steady, I hope we can work this out in a calmer venue.' I request that you lock or delete X thread as it is getting out of hand and we need a fresh place to discuss this." Alternatives include "we need to drop this subject."

Take this time off to think carefully about what you might have done wrong. This part is not about what the other guy did wrong. It is about you. Accepting your own culpability is the first step to getting past a personality clash.

Forcing

For the officer, if both parties remain too angry and irrational to speak to each other without inflicting pain and anger:

1. Lock or delete the thread; ask the members to log off if the fight is in gchat.
2. Let the angry parties know that the discussion is over for the protection of both and you insist they take time away from each other to cool down and think.
3. Do not take a side!
   

Explain in whispers that if they are unable to speak to each other in civil tones, they aren't allowed to speak to each other in guild channels until that changes.

When a situation deteriorates enough to make officers step in, both are in the wrong no matter how it started. Make sure they know you expect them to take a break from each other in whispers/emails/PMs also and that you're willing to help them through their problem later when they're both calm.

This strategy is to quickly stop people when they're just making things worse but requires careful follow-up to make sure the argument is truly ended.

Collaborating/Compromising

If/when both parties are cool and open to reason.

The goal is to get everyone to an acceptable conclusion, not to make everyone like each other.

This is the solution step.

An officer might mediate this step, talking to both parties and getting each side, then urging both to a conclusion if a conclusion is to be had.

If the two parties are ready to talk to each other, insist upon language with no hostility. It's best if you can get both parties to apologize to each other for their behavior, no matter how justified they think it was. Apologies usually help cool lingering resentment.

Encourage them to avoid accusations or defensiveness.

Look at these paragraphs and tell me what differences you see:

(1) I'm sorry you think I'm arrogant, but I'm totally not and you need to stop calling me that. I'm just confident, which a scrub like you wouldn't understand.

(2) I'm sorry if you think I come across as arrogant. I do not see myself this way, but I realize how my self-confidence may be percieved as arrogance. I will try to pay more attention to how I come across to others.

The first invites further argument, has harsh accusatory language with "you think," as well as an insult to the opponent. This gets everyone nowhere.

The second accepts that the opponent's feelings have validity while still respectfully disagreeing with them. It also addresses the opponent's root concerns, where the speaker has agreed to try and correct the negative perception.

(TL;DR -- Don't be a jerk when you're "trying" to patch things up.)

When The Mediator Agrees With One Side

Depends on the argument, really. Unless someone is breaking guild rules or has become destructive on a guildwide scale, I advise not to take a side whether you favor someone or not. If a relationship needs mediation, both people have done something wrong and you don't want to support the wrong attitude even if they have the right motives.

It can help if you tell the person you agree with that you see their side of things but they still didn't handle it correctly. Understanding someone's side can go a long way toward calming them down and making them accept their own errors.

When Things Still Go to Pot

With personality clashes, sometimes the only thing you can do is ask people not to make it worse. You can't enforce your request if they insist on fighting, and the result of escalation is usually a heated gquit.

Also, sometimes individuals just won't take criticism of any sort. We had a member gquit once because of a personality conflict and wounded pride when the officers supposedly sided with someone he didn't like (as someone who wasn't emotionally involved, I know there was no "siding" going on, but I can see how an angry and wounded person would take it as a personal affront).

If you're the angry or injured party in the fight, I have very simple advice: don't shoot yourself in the foot. Shut up if you can't hold your temper and don't gquit to make a point unless you're ready to move to another guild. Angry, irrational people are more likely to get gkicks and less likely to get accepted back. No one wants a drama queen.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's currently eating Starburst instead of lunch.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.
Whenever that was.

Holding Back the Tide

When your guild gets embroiled in a bit of unpleasantness with a player or another guild, it can be difficult to control the public responses of your members. The best you can do is request that people keep their heads and not sink themselves further into the argument, but if outrage is high and members are slapping out responses before they think, can you really turn the tide back?

In any dispute, there's always the threat that members will ignore leaders and go off half-cocked into the fight. This makes things worse instead of better by escalating the drama and even giving credence to people who don't deserve to be acknowledged.

In IVV right now, a single player master looted an item that he'd lost the roll for from a 25-man and then taunted and harassed the involved players for trying to seek justice through GMs. Several of his guildmates joined in abusing IVV.

The question for a guild when you fail to see justice in a situation such as this is how to act. On the one hand, individuals may want to strike out to appease their own anger. On the other, the group as a whole is implicated by an individual's actions and leaders want to keep members in check.

This rule -- that a guild can be tainted by the inappropriate actions of a member -- is obvious in our discussions of how to interact with the ninja's guild from now on, since they chose to keep him and (several of them) defend him.

The reining agreement in IVV is to avoid his guild, Pure Insanity, but not to harass them. One of our best players, recently returned from a tenure in a top US raiding guild (and even left behind a Gladiator title and frostwyrm on his alliance toon), says he'll ask any group he joins with a PI member to drop either them or him. He won't group with them. And he's sure to have a solid reputation as a player on our server just like his last.

The actions of a few taint the whole. Perhaps on a small server like ours, you can't afford to get rid of bad people even if it ruins your credibility as a guild because there's no one to take that person's place. Or perhaps Pure Insanity just doesn't care if members reflect badly on the guild.

Either way, when it comes to your guild, public relations demands that you keep player behavior in check whether you possess the offender or the victim. I don't care how connected a person is or how many friends he or she will take -- if a member is willing to soil your guild's name, and if they know they can get away with it without punishment, they will never be worth keeping.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's currently working on her writing.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.
Whenever that was.

Loot Disputes

Infant guilds by new players often decide to pass out loot based on rolls with no outlining criteria.

This is both lazy and naïve. Though IVV currently has a /roll plan, we struggled through several permutations of loot rules to get to this one and may in time find something that works better.

Individuals Want a System That Favors Them

The hardcore raider will want the system that favors people who play often and come prepared.

The casual raider will want the system that gives them a shot at loot even though they can't put in the same time and effort.

Family guilds want to be fair to both -- in a family guild, the raiding of the hardcores often relies on the whims of the casuals. If you ostrasize either group, you won't have enough people signing to form a raid.

Cover Types of Loot

• Epics
• Novelty Loot
• Legendaries

Each type of loot should have a different parameter of rules. Novelty loot does not help a raid progress, but it's much sought-after and can be a "status" flag for your guild. Legendaries do help a raid and thus should go to the person who will get the most use out of it for your guild.

Cover Types of Spec

• Main Spec
• Off Spec
• Dual Spec

With specs, loot rules become much more complicated. And with dual specs, main spec becomes a lot more subjective. I can't tell you how to handle this because I'm just as intimidated by the subject as anyone. But it will help if you read up on loot systems.

Bonus and Punishment

IVV doesn't have bonus or punishment packages, but rewarding good behavior like being on time and coming prepared to raids.

PuG Raiding

Can your members fill in raids for people outside the guild? Under which circumstances is it okay? Under which is it not?

Settling Disputes

Loot disputes always happen when players start to care more about gear than each other. The key to keeping loot disputes at a minimum is simply to encourage your players to make loot secondary to relationships. While this is impossible with many players in ordinary or hardcore guilds (where the raiding atmosphere is much more competitive), it is vital to the success of a family guild.

No loot system is perfect and none will completely satisfy your members. Rules are simply necessary to guide the guild through loot and prevent anyone from taking advantage.

Loot disputes are the easiest disputes to solve. Whatever your rules say, obey. If they obviously need to change, change them. Let the loot fall where it lies according to your current rules even if nobody likes it, then make provisions in your rules to address what happened and prevent it happening again.

Anyone who cares more about people than loot will stay and try to work through the problem, especially if you listen to them and work to find a fair solution. People who care more about loot than people will continue to be a problem unless they have a change of heart. If they don't change, they will eventually leave for a guild with loot rules that favor them.

As a family guild, your job is to try and keep the members willing to work through differences over those ready to pack up and leave for something as bloodless as loot.

Summary

• Don't break your loot rules, ever.
• Change your rules when they fail to be fair.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist, and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.
Whenever that was.

Playing Favorites

As often as possible, IVV strives for fairness. We distribute loot based on random rolls, we rotate the undergeared for the overgeared just to make sure everyone gets a chance to play, we work to maintain a safe and enjoyable gaming atmosphere for all our members – from the most hardcore to the most casual. Sometimes this emphasis on fairness in the administrative aspects of the guild imposes itself upon the social aspects of the guild, most often in the form of this complaint: “People don’t spend as much time with other guild members as they do their friends/family.”

The fairness principle that our guild operates on mandates that everyone be treated with equal respect and consideration. While we believe this is a good and proper approach to administration, it can only be taken so far in relationships. The idea that a person ought to share his time equally among all members of a group is preposterous. It’s impossible, in fact. The very idea is framed by an arbitrary concept of fairness. Families don’t operate on the “fairness principle.”

Growing up, I had a “Granny” who lavished me with affection, praised my accomplishments and went out of her way to cook my favorite foods. I also had a “Grandma” who criticized me, made me feel unwelcome and gave preference to my older cousins. Is it any wonder that I preferred “Granny” to my austere “Grandma”? It oughtn’t be. I cared more for Granny and sought to avoid Grandma because of the way they responded to me… the way they made me feel about myself.

Likewise, when “Guildie” offers help, asks politely when he wants our assistance and strikes up conversations for no other reason than to find out how our day has been while “Guildmate” takes advantage of us, begs and whines and refuses to communicate clearly or effectively, we’re going to prefer one to the other. That’s normal. It’s not a matter of prejudice – which means to “judge beforehand” – but a matter of judiciousness – judging based upon evidence. We make choices on how to spend our time based upon the known, not the unknown.

I’ve said before that it’s right and proper for people to spend time with their friends and family. It’s appropriate for them to spend more time with this group than other people they aren’t as familiar with. Being comfortable with a group is no excuse for not reaching out, but being outside the group is no excuse for not reaching in either. It may sound stupid for me to say, but I feel compelled to state the obvious: People like likeable people.

The fatal flaw in the complaint levied by so many is that the moment someone begins receiving as much of someone’s time and energy as that person’s friends and family, that person has by definition become part of that “friends and family” group. The accusation is a moving target. Speaking only for myself, I’ve greatly broadened my social circle within the guild since I first joined and continue to expand that circle… not by embracing every individual member and burning myself out trying to equally be friends with everyone, but by reaching out to one person at a time.

The complaint that spurred this article assumes that I owe something to the speaker. As a fellow member of my guild, that person automatically has my respect, consideration and assistance. That is to say, I regard the person highly, always give them preference over non-members and help them any way I reasonably can to achieve their in-game goals. This does not mean that I owe them the time, attention and affection I offer my wife or my closest friends. Some things are given freely, others are earned.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.
He's a pastor, husband, gamer and prefers Coke to Pepsi.
He lives in Minnesota, land of ice and... more ice.

Fighting for Peaceful Fighting

The key to conflict management isn't stepping in after a fight has started and fumbling around to stop it.

The real key is creating and maintaining a process to help everyone through their disagreements.

1. Step 1: Have everyone agree on how to solve the problem. Voting, /rolls, mediation, an impartial judge, whatever. Just have everyone involved in the argument agree that they'll accept whatever the outcome is, even if they don't like it. It's just like loot rules, only for relationships -- we hand out loot based on pre-decided methods and we stick to them or everything falls apart. This is the same thing.
   
2. Step 2: Go through the steps you've agreed on to reach a conclusion.
3. Step 3: Everyone accepts the outcome. No recounting the votes, no redos. It's over.
   

If you can't agree on how to end the fight, it will never end. If there are no rules, then players keep changing the rules, keep making up their own rules, and everyone calls foul all over the place. You must gather participants and get them to agree to stick to one path in order to reach a peaceful conclusion.

Common WoW Disputes

• Loot
• Personalities
• Guild Direction
• Guild Structure
• Guild Methods

I've previously written how to attempt to overthrow a corrupt leadership, but most fights are about differences of opinion and vision, not corruption. In such cases, following my advice on overthrowing your leadership is, in itself, immoral. The key to conflict management is fighting clean. It's not about stopping a fight but about ushering it to an honest and fair conclusion, a conclusion all participants have agreed to live with ahead of time.

Over my next few posts, I'll delve deeper into that list of common disputes.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's currently enduring a heat wave.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.
Whenever that was.

Personal Goals

Understanding a player's goals in the game is a way to understand what makes them happy or dissatisfied about your guild.

Most players have multiple goals in varying degrees, but you can usually find out their main goals by talking to them about what they want out of the game -- both for the short term and in the long run.

Common in-game goals:

• Raiding
• Gear
• PVP/Arenas
• Collecting
• Achievements
• Society
  

Types of goals:

• Sets sights on the things they want most.
• Sets sights on the things they can get through less effort even if it's not their first choice.

I set my sights on that one thing at the end of the road and keep running toward it, even though I may never get there. My husband sets his goals more realistically on things he doesn't like as much but can actually get.

Once you understand the goals of your members, you can plan events to help everyone get what they want out of the game. While there are limits to how far the guild should go for individuals, common goals among members should be supported by the leadership whenever possible.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer and wants a phoenix mount.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Complaints

IVV hasn't had a lot of complaints at any one time, but we have had a collection of them over the period of our existence. Any guild does and will. One thing I've noticed is that a member who feels dissatisfied about one small thing will often stay quiet until the small thing seems to be guild-wide, and suddenly a problem with this or that situation becomes a flaw in the entire guild.

Here are a few family guild complaints we've received in the past that either have or haven't been true (they're all debatable):

• Elitist
• Gossipy
• Cliquish
• Unhelpful

Unhelpful will be our jumping-off point, as it's been going on the longest. I've found that members who don't know how to get groups or ask for help often consider IVV unhelpful. For example, a player asking for a tank when only two tank classes are on and both are doing their dailies (and, considering all the new dailies, will be at it for a few hours). Or another player tries to form a group for hours with no tank while someone else gets a group immediately by bringing his own tank.

If you have no clue how to get help, you won't get help. Also, if you have unrealistic expectations about what help you deserve, you will definitely be disappointed with what you get. I've found that the players who are most frustrated and feel most neglected by lack of help are the ones who think they should be helped even in little things.

A guild is usually called Elitist when they don't let everyone in. Elitist has a negative connotation for me, and I'd rather shoot myself than be lumped with all the pompous elitist jackasses of the world. I've heard leaders in our guild argue that "we are elitists, but." I don't think we are. Elitism is about rejecting others based on a sense of superiority, and while we're proud of our guild and think we are an excellent oasis for our members and that everyone should want to be part of us, our rejection of applicants isn't based on "You're not good enough." It's based on protecting the balance of the community and maintaining our core values. And while that may be Idealist, it certainly doesn't ring true as Elitist.

Elitists would have kicked the problem members long ago, would have tossed out the high maintenance cases, and would never have put up with trying to make everyone, even the fringe members, happy. Elitists would reject people for arrogant reasons and not because applicants often have the wrong idea about what we are. We care and will continue to care about every member's inclusion in the guild -- even when they call us Elitist.

Cliquishness is similar to Elitist but carries a little more weight in IVV. Most of IVV would admit we're cliquish, but I'm not so sure. Cliques are, by definition, groups that don't allow others to integrate into them. They're exclusive. So, I prefer to describe IVV as peppered by subgroups, rather than cliques. In fact, the most cliquish current group in IVV is probably my family group, but our group is also the first on the scene when anyone feels neglected. We have Family Instance Time every Sunday, our long-distance version of eating Sunday lunch together, but sometimes what other guildmates see is us playing with each other and not with them.

Perceptions play hard into accusations of cliquishness. For me, I wouldn't invite the whole guild to a Sunday family brunch when I only have seating and flatware for five. Likewise, when it's time for us to play and bond, we're limited to 5 for instances. When someone isn't able to show up, we'll plug their spot with whomever we think doesn't get groups often enough or whomever needs a certain drop, but when your primary reason for playing a game is to keep in touch with certain people, it's unreasonable for others to expect equal time. It doesn't mean we aren't available for everyone else outside of family time, it just means we're closer to each other than the rest of the guild. And except for the inevitable fact that we play less with others, we still play with others, we still talk to and try to help others. A real clique wouldn't.

Gossipy happened more recently in a fit of frustration from someone who'd been an officer. I've mentioned before that we keep records so that we can notice trends in members -- has Beth gotten progressively more frustrated about her raiding schedule over the last year? Address problem before it becomes drama!

I remember member pages from when I was an officer, and they aren't gossip. Gossip is malicious, idle, and has no relevant bearing on any situation. Some guilds may have member pages that just trade frustrations and stories about their members, places to vent and even be cruel. IVV has member pages about what a player has done to improve, sometimes even to the point of offering private kudos among the officers about a member who went the extra mile, and also about potential problems with a member that should be watched or addressed.

The two young members we kicked for being needy, greedy, or even (in one case) taking items from the guild bank for resale were carefully tracked and logged in their member threads. What members need to know is that any move by IVV officers is deliberate and has a specific goal. A new post reminding everyone about guild bank rules means someone probably did something naughty, but the officers don't want to call anyone out publicly.

Member pages are also useful for briefing new officers on what's been happening with X or Y person. Knowing someone's history doesn't give the right to judge them. It's meant to provide context for the future, whether a player is getting better or worse about something we've struggled with them over. Some players become more mature over time. Some become malcontent. But it's important to know which way they've started to swing so you can act to try and help them feel settled and happy.

At the end of the day, accusations and Complaints are, at their heart, an indicator of how happy that member is in your guild. Most complaints (in any guild) aren't something you can fix without changing people. Sometimes it's the complainer who needs to realize that they can't get what they want without changing their habits and expectations. Sometimes you need to push members at large to care more about the people they don't know as well. But at the end of the day, the officers have little control over the actions of the guild, and there's only so much good that can come from a complaint.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer and complains at That Time of the Month.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Seeking Balance

Life is filled with ups and downs, givings and takings. Every new responsibility requires some alteration in another area. These changes can be difficult to accept, particularly when they touch upon those things which are of great worth. I greatly cherish my recreation time at this point in my life. I’ve always enjoyed playing World of Warcraft, of course, but it’s beginning to take on a new significance as I undertake a second job and my wife and I seriously consider starting a family. The new job started Monday and I’ve logged into Warcraft once since then – only long enough to purchase Dual Talent Specialization for my Paladin.

The reason this is significant is because prior to the start of this new job I could (technically) log into Warcraft anytime I wanted. I set my own schedule and took a break from work whenever I felt like it. Working away from home denies me that freedom. This has the obvious result of limiting my in-game availability and the less-obvious result of causing me to value my in-game time far more than I did before. World of Warcraft isn’t my only form of recreation, but it’s my primary form. If I’m going to lounge after a hard day of work, it’s going to be at the computer.

A lot of the WoW players I know are students or tech workers (who work from home or have personal laptops at work). Others are unemployed or part-time or even stay-at-home parents. Only a handful have non-computer-related jobs. This isn’t to bash on any one group, but only to say that it’s difficult to correctly balance the pressures of life with a game like World of Warcraft.

I’m struggling right now with the give-and-take between being a responsible adult (work, family, house maintenance, etc) and needing time to relax (WoW, novels, television). I’m so used to being able to relax whenever I need to that I’m struggling with this peculiar form of self-discipline that compels me to plan the time I spend in World of Warcraft well in advance. Compounded with this are my duties as an officer which often compel me to spend my precious in-game time dealing with discontented members or raiding issues. What’s a guy to do?

I can’t claim all the answers, but that’s hardly the purpose of this post. What I can offer is the perspective I’m fighting to maintain – balance is key. Balance between work and play. Balance between my personal enjoyment as a player and my responsibilities as an officer. Balance between preparing (grinding, gearing) and playing (raiding, arenas). Balance in all things. Does this mean a perfect 50-50 balance? No. What it means is that I need to find that place where I can both fulfill my work and family obligations and still relax in World of Warcraft… that place where I can enjoy the game and still help run the guild… that place where I manage to do boring dailies for the gold I need to raid without allowing the game to become “boring.” Balance – here’s hoping I can find it.

Reader Response Request: What approach have you found useful in creating or maintaining this balance in your own life?

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.
He's a pastor, husband, gamer and coffee-lover.
He lives in Minnesota, where the moose come from.

Bring the Hammer?

I am in favor of aggressive tactics in stopping an argument when politeness fails to do anything. Not many of the officers were aggressive when I served in IVV -- we had only one real enforcer, a schoolteacher / raid leader and our policies favored an anti-militaristic approach.

I believe that sometimes, to protect people from themselves, you have to shut them up even if it turns their anger at you. Even if it steps all over their "right to free speech." (Technically, in a private setting like a guild, it can be argued that no one has the right to say whatever they want without consequence.)

Right after I graduated high school, I became an instant messenger junkie for an entire summer.

I chatted with my friends and one boy in particular. He was younger than me, Catholic, and embittered by it. He had formed his own beliefs out of little more than retaliation against the church, and while I'm not Catholic I do share quite a few core values with them.

So we argued. And by the time it got to "You grew up in a religious bubble" (sure, that's what made my mom cry and my dad have a heart attack in Texas -- a bubble), by the time it got personal, it was already too late to salvage our friendship.

I don't instant message anymore. At all. Ever.

I still feel that it's a guild leader's responsibility and privilege to stop conversations when they start to get out of hand. Screw allowing people to say what they need to say -- all that's doing is giving people room to be angry and hurt each other, and that isn't free speech. It's breaking down trust and destroying respect.

There are some situations where you can't stop someone from doing something stupid. A friend of mine insisted on going back to a boyfriend who'd degraded her as a woman and a person, and I couldn't do anything but express my worry to her, pray it would be different this time, and offer my shoulder if she needed it in the future.

But if you have the technical capabilities to stop people from saying stupid crap on your forums or in your guild (locking a thread or demoting to probationary no-gchat status), is it also your responsibility to exercise that power and force them to think about what they're doing? Not just hurting themselves with their own choices but hurting others around them -- hurting their relationships and their reputation.

When I was an officer, we were afraid to take a hard line with people. "If we call him out for spouting crap, he'll gquit." That was always our excuse. We didn't want anyone to gquit.

It was an excuse I hated.

Yes, we want people to stay, we care about everyone (even the high maintenance crowd), but if we can't rein in members who are causing disruptions and showing disrespect to others because they'll gquit in a huff if we try... who the hell cares?

The people who don't spout crap in gchat deserve to be thought of as well. You can't keep catering to the problem cases, keep babying them because they'll leave if you do anything even hinting at punishment.

If a guild keeps catering to the problem cases, the regular members will leave. They will get frustrated by the continued disruptions, get fed up because no one ever takes care of them, and they'll leave to find a guild that does.

I am in favor of playing tiptoe political games most of the time, but sometimes I truly believe the best decision is to bring the hammer to shut people up until they calm down. Because some people don't listen to anything but force. And like my instant messenger friend, some people just don't know when to stop.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, avid blogger, and hates arguing.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Finders Keepers

Yesterday, I decided to do the Kalu'ak puppy-gathering quest, the one where you have to kill the mother and gather her pups (and if you gather before killing her, she enrages). I went up and killed one of the mothers and noticed I couldn't grab her pups.

I'd forgotten the quest.

Hoping I could get the quest and get back to grab them before anyone took advantage, I raced down and back up in a frenzy of worry to find a hunter had just taken the whole camp. I cried on his shoulder, he cheered at me (which felt like he was rubbing it in), and I had to go far to the north to find enough puppies for my own quest.

In this game, we feel a certain right to that which we've fought for, but the bitter pill I had to swallow was that if you don't keep your place in line, you lose it. I had to leave my spoils because of my own mistake. It wasn't the hunter's fault; he'd found the puppies all alone and unprotected by me or momma, and he rejoiced in his good fortune.

It's the same in guilds. We often relinquish the things we think we've earned when we walk away for a minute.

The right to raid is most obvious. You don't come prepared or on time, you relinquish prime spots in other raids because no raid leader is going to give the best slots to someone who forgets all their reagents and has to leave to repair halfway through.

A subtler but greater evil is the loss of friendship or respect. If you step out of line behaviorally, you run the risk of losing favor with others, which may only show up as things like not being invited to groups or conversations. For a family guild, ostracization is the greatest evil that can befall any member.

While not every ostracization is due to our own machinations, it is often enough our fault that we should always say "What did I do that could have caused this, and how can I fix it?" Whether it's an attitude, a fight with someone, or an accident, we are in charge of our own behavior and our own place in line. And like my experience with the puppies, if we walk away for even a moment we accept the possibility that the line will close behind us and we'll have to start from scratch.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer and wants a kitten-collecting quest.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

When It All Comes Crashing Down

This week... everything blew up. Okay, technically it came down. My wife and I just moved into a new house where we quickly discovered that a group of squirrels were contesting our sole ownership. We took the necessary measures to relocate the squirrel family and patch up the holes they'd carved out for themselves beneath our vinyl siding. We returned to the idyllic peace and quiet of our new home.

Imagine our surprise when we began hearing the fuzzy little critters again... this time directly over our kitchen! Our cats jumped into action and in the process tore through the tiles of our suspended ceiling, leaving some hanging, one with a gaping hole and two others on the floor beneath piles of chewed and filthy insulation. Fiberglass dust, chunks of insulation, chewed pinecones and squirrel poo covered everything in our kitchen. Every dish, every countertop, it filled our toaster to the brim (time for a new toaster, methinks) and even spread into the interior of some of the cabinets. It was a royal mess.

Over the next four days I spent a good 12 hours in the kitchen taking down tiles, ripping out ruined insulation, cleaning/disinfecting, replacing broken tiles and securing the handful that hadn't been destroyed by our feisty 20-pound "kitten." Patching the entry hole the squirrels used is going to be undertaken by a professional -- and for that I'm thankful.

But I don't tell you this to garner sympathy or to ask for donations toward the Anti-Squirrel League of America. I mention it because there are times in all of our lives where the world comes crashing down around us and how we respond to the chaos and disorder impacts not only ourselves but everyone who interacts with us. I wish I could say that I handled the falling ceiling with grace and poise, but I didn't. I ranted and panicked and mechanically shoveled insulation into garbage bags. I upset my wife and myself in my anger over the situation. I created emotional chaos out of physical chaos... and I didn't need to.

When things go wrong... when things go REALLY wrong... remember the wise and endearing words of Douglas Adams: Don't Panic. Things are rarely as bad as they seem at first. Keep your wits about you, take a step back from the situation and think instead of feel your way through to a solution. If six people just /gquit in discontent, spend some time trying to find out why rather than recruiting the first six players you can find or (worse) lashing out at those who left in anger.

Look for solutions instead of assigning blame. The first response to any disaster is to repair the damage. You can deal with preventing recurrences after the fact, but don't waste time pointing fingers when you ought to be dealing with the immediate situation. Blaming others is easy, presenting workable solutions is difficult.

Don't lose sight of the final goal. In the case of our falling ceiling, the immediate need was to have a clean kitchen, but the ultimate purpose was to have peace of mind regarding the soundness of our home. It's far too common for people to focus on the immediate issues to the detriment of the big picture. If your guild is founded on relationships, don't make decisions that put loot before those relationships. Short-sighted decisions may solve a current problem but will always create a larger one in the future.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.
He's a pastor, husband, gamer and expert squirrel trapper.
He lives in Minnesota, where ketchup is considered spicy.

Policy as Litmus

Teo had a similar post on how to tell your family guild's success.

The officers of IVV just opened up discussion of new loot rules, and I had a few things (okay, a lot of things) to say.

What I realized is this:

If you lean toward DKP in a family guild, you must ask yourself why. Back in Burning Crusade, we used Suicide Kings and I fought for it. Why? Because players who did not invest in IVV had brought friends into the guild I did not know or trust. It was like having a (admittedly polite) pick-up-group attached to the guild.

A good test of a guild's member balance are the policies you feel compelled to make (or support). I felt compelled to protect our loyal and long-standing members through a loot system more approaching DKP than we'd ever had.

Since those raiders left in a minor exodus at the end of BC and we focused on making our core of loyals happy, we've returned to a simpler system of rolls and are discussing bonuses for being on time and prepared for progression runs.

What I realized, in supporting this idea, is that I support it because there is no one left whose rolls I fear, whose guild loyalty is in doubt. I trust that everyone in IVV now has proven themselves as loyal and will continue to do so, and thus deserve the loot gained by the group's effort.

When a fair and non-competitive system worries you, it means your family guild is not properly balanced.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, avid blogger, and cat owner.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Leveling Requirements

I like to level alone. I don't have to catch someone else up, I can take cookie breaks whenever the hell I want, and I can tab out for hours when I think up a new blog post.

It's freeing to level alone, because you are the master of your schedule.

On the other hand, I leveled 1-70 with my family and don't think I could have learned the game quite as well without them. When someone realized "Hey, talent points are important!" I was like "What are talent points?" and they told me and we all started looking up what to do with our talent trees.

I said recently that help leveling is a Want and not a Need. This is still true. But I want to quantify that today with the statement that learning how to play the game is a Need. And when someone just starts, it's important for a friend or guildmate to go down to their zone, group for an hour or two, and teach them.

You don't need to be the same class. You don't need to be the same spec. You just have to know the basics and answer their questions while they try and figure out what's going on.

Things you might cover:

• Train all skills.
• Which professions to get.
• Money (ie, making and saving for mounts).
• Spell/attack rotation.
• Talent points.
• What they have to look forward to for their class.
• Goals.
• Out-of-game resources (particularly to help with quest questions, or even a leveling guide).
• Achievements.
• Addons.
• Mail system.
• Auction house.
  
• Non-combat pets.
  
• Your favorite things about the game.
  

Just because you're 80 (or getting there), doesn't mean you know all the answers. Let them know that and teach them how to find the answers you don't have.

It's better to start training them at level 5 than level 50. And when they hit 80 and endgame with you, they'll be ready to learn even more.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, avid blogger, and cat owner.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Reflection and Reputation

Behave yourself. Don't be a jerk. Don't ninja loot. Don't make fun of the less-geared or less-skilled. Don't camp lowbies just to ruin their enjoyment of the game. Act like a decent human being, because as long as you wear that guild tag under your name your actions reflect on more than just yourself. What you do reflects on me... and I don't want to be known as a jerk.

I understand that a lot of our readers aren't members of my specific guild, but I'm sure you understand my point. Guilds are judged based upon the actions of their individual members. Most players don't have a lot of in-depth interaction with persons outside of their own guild, so when RandomDK of [Guild Name Here] decides to ninja loot in an Archavon PuG, people aren't saying "How did we find the one bad seed in [Guild Name Here]?" They're saying "[Guild Name Here] are ninjas!" It doesn't matter how upstanding, virtuous and friendly the rest of the guild may be... that single act of jerkiness impacts the reputation of the whole.

I shared with you once before that my first character to the level cap was a Warlock that achieved level 70 about halfway through The Burning Crusade expansion. I leveled up with my wife, sister and brothers-in-law. While we were just getting a start in heroics and working to obtain our Karazhan keys (remember when you had to get a key?) a player from a recognizable guild on our server went out of his way to mock and laugh at the leveling greens and instance blues my brother-in-law's Shaman had equipped. My sister called the jerk out on it and soon got a threatening whisper from another member of that same guild, telling her to knock it off because "we own this server." The drama escalated slightly and then was forgotten (like most drama), but the lasting effect of the encounter was this... I strive not to group with or transact business with persons from that guild. I know today for a fact that some (probably most) of their members are good, decent, upstanding persons, but I won't group with them if I can avoid it because I can never be certain I'm not getting one of the bad apples out of the bunch.

Your actions reflect on others, either good or bad. If you care about your family -- your guild -- then act like it when you deal with outsiders.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.
He's a pastor, husband, gamer and lover of seafood.
He lives in Minnesota, where a "Babe" is a blue ox.

Following as a Skill

In a game where "skill" is often measured by putting in the most time and having the most hardcore net of accomplishments, I have always worried that I am on a lower skill bracket than others in my guild. After all, I spend the majority of my time obsessing over cute pets, pretty dresses, and holidays instead of pwning the hardest heroics for emblems and giggles.

Saturday, my family got a guild first: the Impossible Achievement that made a noob DK trash-talk a tank friend. After jubilant cheering (and a 10 minute afk where I baked a few celebratory cookies), we finished the other achievements for Azjol-Nerub and moved straight to Zombiefest.

I had never done Heroic AN and had never done Culling of Stratholme in any form. In fact, my shadow priest wore level 71 green boots and mostly 70 epics except for a holy tier 7 chest, 80 rings, and some Naxx 10 gloves.

Anyone with any sense will know that I couldn't have been carried through the Impossible Achievement (aka Watch Him Die). We had only two working dps, me and Jon's wife, while my husband tanked, his best friend off-tanked, and Jon healed.

I have always regretfully thought of myself on a lower skill bracket than certain others in my guild -- people who had grouped together to try that very same achievement and failed.

But the reason we got that achievement and they didn't isn't extra practice (those guys wiped for hours) or better gear (they regularly top the dps charts).

My theory is that we succeeded because my family group is a team.

We leveled to 70 together. We've met to do instances every Sunday since we started playing WoW. We know how to move together, how to coordinate, how each of us will react in a certain situation, how to give out assignments for each person's strengths and weaknesses.

Our family group has two officers and two former officers, and nobody steps on anyone else's toes. The theorycrafters in our group contribute to boss strategy, reading and tweaking and making suggestions. Whenever one person speaks, everyone listens. The non-theorycrafters tend to limit suggestions to our own roles, the occasional tweak, and just ask that someone tell us where to stand and what to kill; however, I also think we have one of the most important skills any player can possess -- the ability to follow.

A leader can communicate orders to a team with forethought and detail, but the entire effort is wasted if no one can execute those orders accurately. If everyone in a group wants to lead, nothing will ever get done. A good raid -- a good guild! -- must have people willing and able to follow to be successful, just as it must have those willing and able to lead.

Individual skill becomes pointless in a group effort if the individual cannot find synergy with everyone else. Like the worldwide arena tournament, where the US teams had been slapped together using excellent individual players, but the (Korean) winners had been playing together for years. It makes a difference.

And I think that while there are admirable players in my guild who could beat me in PVP and on the dps meters every single time, their 5-mans could never beat my family group for sheer teamliness.

Not that that's a word. But it makes me happy to finally know -- I'm not a scrub. :D And with the right environment, I might even be called . . . skilled.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer of In Vino Veritas.
She is a writer and avid blogger.
Beth plays WoW primarily for her Sunday Family Time.

Disconnects and Loot

I've blogged about pug raids before, about unexpected loot issues and the ethics of kicking people. This is a different scenario.

You're the leader (and Master Looter) of a 25-man Arch pick-up-group.

Someone disconnects right before the boss and comes back just before he goes down.

Do they get loot?

Your gut answer is probably no, but think about it in light of these questions:

Are they taking advantage?

Unless you know that they are, you don't have the right to say yes. It's definitely not the best way to pull one over on a raid, since people can see your character standing there doing nothing (or get dropped from the group).

I give everyone the benefit of the doubt for disconnects unless they're a known ninja. It's not fair to screw someone out of their 25-man id for the week because of something they can't control.

What have they done for the raid?

In my case, the disconnect guy had summoned everyone for two raids and helped on the trash. He'd apologized in our 10-man for being late because of bad lag when another player didn't apologize for being late because of AV (and got a summon from the guy who'd flown through major lag).

How well do you know them?

This is not about favoritism. It's, very simply, whether or not you know this person well enough to stand behind them when they say it was an accident.

My Situation

I led 10 guildies and 15 pick-ups into Arch. We pulled a little early, the rogue who pulled died, he apologized in a whisper, I told him "No big."

We downed the boss juuust after he enraged.

I immediately get two whispers and a few comments in raid chat: "Warlock didn't do anything, don't give him loot."

Warlock is a friend. He summoned everyone, he'd been having bad lag all day, and I'd noticed he'd been disconnected (gone grey) at one point.

I replied to the whispers, "He's a friend, he d/c'd, I'll talk to him." Whisperers remained adamant that he didn't do anything when he came back, either. I was sure this was just continued lag but didn't say so.

I whispered Warlock, one of my guild's sweetest kids, and said: "Some people will be upset if you roll since you d/c'd. I won't keep you from rolling, but it might be best if you pass." He agreed. Happily, the other warlock was also in our guild (an officer) and we were both glad to see him get the warlock piece.

The part I know a lot of people won't agree with is "I won't keep you from rolling." But think about it. Even if he was a pug, he blew his entire afternoon waiting on and summoning other people, he saved himself to 25-man Arch, and for what? To get passed over for loot?

This is a weird situation because it brings different philosophies firmly to a head. Many people do not see it as fair to give loot to someone who doesn't participate -- or even to keep someone in the group who doesn't do the best dps (see kicking link above). But I do not see it as fair to punish someone for technical difficulties. Forget how helpful he was with the summons -- it just isn't right to reject people for loot based on performance.

If someone is good enough to get in your raid, they're good enough to roll on loot. This has always been my philosophy. If I let someone in my raid, I have a duty to protect that person's interests, guildie or not. I was prepared to stand behind him and take crap if he wanted to roll, and I hope I would have done the same if he'd been a pug.

Because that's what good leaders do. Stand there and take crap for making controversial decisions in the name of fairness.

What preventative measures can you take?

Kick anyone who disconnects during a boss fight.

This is not a punishment. It's preventing them from getting saved to a raid they won't get loot from, and it allows them to try again later for loot, which is fair to everyone. If they come back and you haven't filled their spot and you're about to try the boss again, bring them back in. If the boss is dead, apologize for the necessity, give your reasoning, and hand out loot while you're talking.

This requires that you be aware of what's going on in your raid panel during the fight, so you might want to have a trusted Assist to kick disconnects (I was healing, it wouldn't have been possible). Sometimes people look disconnected when they're moving and doing their job, so it requires an attentive mind to pay attention to this sort of scenario.

It's harder than a simple "No loot for u!" But it's guaranteed to be fair.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer of In Vino Veritas.
She's a writer and hates leading pugs (but often has to).
Beth's been married since her junior year of college.