The Family Business

Gkicking

2010-02-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

Here's the thing about gkicking -- it's not a universal "Fix It" button.

Everyone (and I mean everyone) who's ever been an officer for more than a few days has, at some point, wanted to just toss someone out on their ear. And most of us have had to swallow the impulse and sit on our feelings for the good of the guild.

In a family guild, it's more complicated to get rid of someone than in a raid guild (which is run like a business) or a social guild (which can run respectably on personal taste or less respectably on emotion). In a family guild, if you start getting rid of people who haven't done anything against guild rules, you'll have a rebellion on your hands.

In my opinion? Wait. Until someone breaks the rules, your hands are tied unless you want to upset everyone else, but the truly discontent will leave of their own accord if you give them time. Don't bend over backward for the people you want out. Don't ignore them or sabotage them, but also don't kill yourself trying to make them happy. At a certain point, their enjoyment of the game stops being your problem.

The point is higher in a family guild, but it's still there.

If they don't care about staying for the sake of other people, if they keep demanding their own way even if it's selfish or unwise, they will eventually leave. It's inevitable. And, in a family guild, where the guild is about being there for others, you want them to. There is no place in a family guild for selfishness.

Most of the time, disgruntled players who leave will learn that the rest of the World of Warcraft doesn't care about them. Most come back, humble-hat in hand. A few don't, and you shouldn't lose sleep over those.

The up side is that if someone leaves whom you really believed didn't care about your guild, or if you just plain don't like them, you have all the power you need to refuse them if they try to come back. They will have to justify themselves to you to get back in.

And they should. Anyone who leaves IVV, for example, has to explain to every officer's satisfaction why they want to come back. They have to work out personal differences with anyone in the guild they had issues with, and they have to more or less grovel to the administration to prove they won't do it again.

IVV makes sure that members want back for the right reasons, and not just because their new guild is mean.

The majority of members who gquit IVV and return have been welcomed back cheerfully enough, even when hurt feelings were involved in the gquit.

But that doesn't mean everyone who leaves is always welcome back, or that there aren't people who don't gquit who don't really belong in a family guild.

There will always be people who cause problems. Some eventually work out their differences, or learn that what they have in your guild can't be replaced by anyone else. Some never feel truly settled but stay anyway.

Some mature over time, some get more unhappy until they leave.

The truth is, every guild is imperfect, and every guild will have members ebbing and flowing. Satisfaction grows and wanes, officer stress spikes and levels, and while it is the ultimate in relaxation fantasies for officers to imagine gkicking all the problem cases, the wise move is to just let it be. Fix what you can. Don't rework the guild to make one person happy.

People will come and people will go. The truly loyal will hold on through the rough patches. Trust them. Reward the loyal instead of trying to placate (or punish) the people who cause your headaches.

Let the unhappy leave on their own.

It's the only real solution.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.
Beth is glad she's not an officer anymore.

Raid Leaders Are Not The Enemy

2010-02-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

This is a companion post to "Taking Criticism."

Raid leaders are not trying to destroy your ranking on Bob's dps meter by giving you criticism or tips.

They're not trying to ruin your play style or step on your toes.

They're just trying to whip you into a shape where they'd be willing to roster you more often.

If the boss dies, it shouldn't matter who's top dps. It should matter whether or not the raid leaders, the ones creating the roster, think you did what they wanted.

Not because they're right all the time, or because you won't get rostered otherwise, but because ignoring them (or getting angry) without reason makes you a brat.

Yes. A brat.

So shut up, sit down, and if you don't like the criticism you're getting from your leaders, feel free to argue with stats and resources and explanations. But being a brat who rebels against nothing at all (or even good advice) is just plain dumb.

Don't be dumb.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.
Beth has been playing Warcraft for three years.

She hates the drama sometimes found in raiding.

Taking Criticism

2010-02-03T14:24:00.000-08:00

I have this friend. Recently, she got insecure about her raid performance. I talked to her raid healers, as well as her raid leaders -- basically, four of the five people who comprise my immediate family group. People I trusted to know what they were talking about and to be honest about it.

They gave her a glowing review with a few minor pointers, but the comments that stuck with me were about how she didn't start out as a great raider-- she made a lot of mistakes when she first began, back at the start of Wrath -- but grew into it.

My sister-in-law summarized it best: "[S]he is open to constructive criticism and improving."

My friend has been rostered for almost every progression raid in Icecrown Citadel because she's improved so much, because she's willing to acknowledge her mistakes and learn from them. The raid leaders know that even if she screws up, she'll keep trying and listening to their suggestions until she gets it right. They aren't afraid to be honest with her, because they know she'll listen.

Because of that, she's extremely valued as a dps. More valued than people who don't know how to take criticism, who get angry or refuse to listen.

This is more than a lesson for raiding, it's a lesson for life: you need to know how to take criticism gracefully. If you don't, you'll never be as good as you want to be, and you'll never be sought-after.

Players who know how to adapt, they get pursued by raid leaders. Players who don't... don't.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.
Beth has been playing Warcraft for three years.

Why Guilds Keep Bad Seeds

2009-09-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

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:

Lock or delete the thread; ask the members to log off if the fight is in gchat.
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.
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

2009-05-19T07:14:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-29T04:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

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.

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.
Step 2: Go through the steps you've agreed on to reach a conclusion.
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

2009-04-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-20T07:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

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.

---------------------------

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

2009-04-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

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.

---------------------------

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

2009-04-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

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.

---------------------------

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

2009-04-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

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.

---------------------------

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

2009-04-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

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.

------------------------------

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

2009-03-31T06:34:00.000-07:00

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.

---------------------------

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

2009-03-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

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.

---------------------------

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.

Cliques -- The Little Family in a Big Family Disconnect

2009-03-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

Family Guilds are aptly but deceptively named. While it's true that a number of my actual blood-related family members are members of In Vino Veritas, it is also true that the guild itself has become a second family to me. The foundation of our guild was real-life family and friends but we have grown far beyond these restrictive borders to include those with little more than a common vision and a love for gaming. This subtle but definite shift from "family" as persons with whom a real-life bond or blood or friendship is shared to "family" as the guild itself, inclusive of all its members, has been occassionally problematic.

The conflict between these two understandings of the "family" in Family Guild has been more apparent to me in my role as an officer. There are those within the guild who, to some degree or another, still cling to their real-life connections within the guild and almost exclusively instance and PvP with that close-knit group of individuals. There are others who hold that such cliquish behavior is harmful to a view of the guild as one big "family" and therefore frown upon those who reserve their in-game time for their real-life friends or family. This is the tension I want to discuss with you.

People join family guilds because they are looking for family -- whether they're following joining their older brother's guild or looking for a community that provides a safe, family-friendly atmosphere for playing World of Warcraft. If they were looking for anything else, they'd join THAT type of guild. I've said it before, but it bears repeating -- raiders belong in raiding guilds, PvPers belong in PvP guilds, socialites belong in social guilds and family belongs in (you guessed it) a family guild. In fact, it's been commented upon by multiple persons on multiple occassions that a significant portion of my guild would not be playing World of Warcraft if it were not for In Vino Veritas. The commenters have ranged from our most dedicated raid leaders to folks that do little more than hang out in Dalaran chatting with people. They remain with us and with the game because we are family -- and that's what they desire most from this virtual environment.

People join family guilds to be part of a family, but that rarely means they view every member of the guild exactly the same way. It's impossible to have an intimate relationship with 3 to 4 dozen people. It just can't be done. Every member of IVV has some connecting point -- the person(s) through whom they were brought into the guild. That connecting point likely has their own connecting point(s) and that forms a social network that is in some way connected to the rest of the guild. The issue that many seem to neglect is that the further you branch away from that initial connecting point the less connected you feel. We all form cliques -- small groups within a larger group -- but to keep within the metaphor of the family, I would suggest that in a healthy family guild the "cliques" are not seperatist sects but members of nuclear families connected to one another in various ways to form "The Family."

Like any healthy family tree, it branches. I'm understandably closer to my sister than to my mother's cousins. No one looks upon that as odd... or offensive... they see it as normal. Proximity breeds familiarity. There is nothing wrong with being part of a smaller, more intimate group of friends. Being a part of such a group does not exclude you from the larger group. In terms of the family metaphor, getting married and moving out of my parents' house doesn't make me any less their son. It only means that I've branched out. I'm still part of The Family (big "F") even though I've started my own family (little "f"). Don't let anyone make you feel guilty for being a part of your family. It's natural, good and right for you to spend more time with your immediate family than you do with your extended Family. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone complain to the effect of "You only spend time with your wife and sister and brothers-in-law!" Well... DUH! While the claim isn't patently true, I do spend more time with those people... and I think it appropriate that I do so. In fact, it would be unhealthy if I didn't.

That said, I want to extend a warning to those who have become so comfortable in their immediate families (the cliques) that they are neglecting their extended family (the guild). Not everyone has strong, unbreakable ties to your guild. This is particularly true of those who have weak real-life connections to the guild. The adopted cousin might not feel as at home as the natural-born son. While I would urge you not to let others make you feel guilty for being part of a group within the group, I would also encourage you to continue to draw others into your group, particularly the disenfranchised. They may become a part of your inner-circle or your outreach may serve as a catalyst for introducing them to a different group that they fit in better with.

We are family -- both in the most intimate sense and in the broadest possible sense.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.
He's a pastor, husband, gamer and hopeless romantic.
He lives in Minnesota, birthplace of flapjacks.

Needs vs Wants

2009-03-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

A while back, there was a bit of hooplah in IVV about people asking for or not giving help. The base problem was availability but also interpretation -- people are less likely to help with a Want than a Need.

Instances while leveling are a Want. You do not need instances to level. If you are lucky enough to have someone willing to run you through something, that's awesome. Otherwise, suck it up.
Heroics are a little different. Need depends on gear drops in light of raid requirements and whether or not you can find a comparable piece elsewhere (craft/rep) that is soloable. Everything else, even emblem farming, is Want. If all you need is emblems, be available for other people's runs, but you don't have the right to badger 4 other people to go somewhere specific.
Achievements are Wants. Sorry, folks. I like achievements as much as anyone, but nobody is going to feel pressured to stop doing dailies to help kill turkeys or even, as one (now former) IVV member expected, form a fresh raid to kill the faction leaders.
Mount, pet, and rep farming are Wants. I like cosmetic items and nice high reps too, but they are a luxury, not a right.
PVP is a Need when you're camped and have no options but to sit there. If you have a choice in the matter, it's a Want. You aren't entitled to backup if you can get away.
Activities suggested out of boredom are not and will never be Needs. They are Wants. Period.
Class skills are a Need. It's pretty hard to do anything if you're working with level 44 spells in Outland.

Riding skill is a Want. I'm in Outlands on a 60% speed mount on Moon Guard for my mage. If I can handle that, you can handle the slow flyer.

Managing Wants

Your guild gets more use out of the guy doing his Hodir dailies for the shoulder enchant than your Wants. Therefore, it's actually more beneficial to the guild when people ignore Want requests.

Family guilds inevitably try to help each other within reason. But Wants are luxuries. If you get help for them, you are lucky and should be very happy for all the nice helpful people around you. But it is unreasonable to think that you are entitled to help for your Wants. You are not.

The best method is to find other people with Wants and team up. Even if your Wants don't mesh, agree to help each other anyway. This gives you the numbers you need, even if you have to do some things you have no interest in.

Managing Needs

If you Need something, make that clear to the people around you. Don't just say "I need this," either. That's sloppy, lazy, and not at all persuasive.

If you have a Need, first tell people why you need it. "I want to run X" will get you ignored while "X has the bow I've been farming to raise my dps by Y points for Z raid boss" will get some interested people going "Well, I can't help now, but if you can wait until ___..." and others ready to jump on the bandwagon immediately (often those with Wants in the same area). The first request implies that it is a Want request, while the second assures everyone that your request is a Need because you've done your homework on it.

A good guild will go out of its way to fulfill your Needs if you let everyone know about them. A method my guildmates use sometimes is putting their current Need in their forum signature. Another good way is to whisper someone who has connections (for example, whispering me or Jon would be a good way to get a group for a Need, since we have family connections we can pull in).

Most Needs can be handled solo, but at some point you'll require the help of others. And when that time comes, you must convince them that your Need is really a Need. And then they'll pay attention to you.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer of In Vino Veritas.
She's a writer and likes to help with mount farming.
Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Think Well of Me

2009-03-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Everyone has someone whose good opinion they desire. You probably want a positive relationship with your parents, children, friends, or coworkers, but every now and then you care about the opinions of people you shouldn't -- like a girl from my high school who tried to hang out with the popular kids in choir, but the popular kids just made fun of her; women who stay with abusive men; or players who choose to idolize others, regardless of personality, just for having the best gear.

It is almost impossible to stop caring what others think once you start, and it makes you try harder to be what you think they want. The only way to be completely out from under your own feelings is to stop caring altogether -- shut down and even get angry and convince yourself they're not worth it. Go on defense.

Except that it is normal and natural to care what others think. To not care about anyone is sociopathy. So the key, to me, isn't some hard emotional shell but learning to respect the opinions of people who will treat you with respect, who will build you up instead of tear you down.

A player should not stay with a guild, no matter how badly he or she wants its good opinion, if the guild does not offer (and defend) a healthy and respectful atmosphere.

Recognize destructive patterns. If you find yourself always craving the good opinions of people who hurt you, reroute your energy to getting to know different people. As you should very well know, appearances can be deceiving -- I saw a guy in the elevator who looked like he played Warcraft and thought "I'm dressed so normal, he probably thinks I'm one of those boring people who doesn't even know what DPS means."

Acknowledge your appearance. My mother is an image consultant, so I grew up knowing the perfect colors for my skin and hair. I had a distant affection for the kids who wore big boots, wallet chains, and black clothing to school, but as a preacher's kid I had little leeway to indulge in edgy fashion.

Growing up in a church-saturated environment with a beauty expert mom and a sort of quiet oddness, I've always known that appearances, whether it's green hair or green starter gear, force people to make assumptions about you. You can hate this all you wish, but it is a fact of life.

Now, most of you would never consider changing your RL style just to be "more accepted," yet we do change for people whose opinions matter to us. We let them talk us into getting better gear, farming mats, and we work harder because they encourage us to and improve our gear because we don't want to be the last one in greens when a Tier 8 walks by. We get self-conscious despite ourselves.

Give others a chance. A defensive nature may protect you from harm, but it also prevents real relationships from forming. Yes, if you're different people will pigeon-hole you the first chance they get, but a warm smile goes a long way toward saying "I might not look normal but I'm still a nice person."

Like Jon's post about saying hi -- sometimes it's those of us who are different who need to take the first friendly step. Differences can be intimidating, and there's nothing more reassuring than finding out that the orc in all epics is willing to sit and chat for a while about class mechanics, or the huge guy in homeroom with the tattoos is just a big teddy bear. Or even that the mom blaring heavy metal when she drops her girls off at school just wants to see them grow up happy, self-confident, and free.

---------------------------

Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.
She's a writer and cares too much what others think.
Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Greetings! The Importance of Saying Hi

2009-03-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

Greeting your guildmates is one small step toward founding, fostering and maintaining good relationships. Saying "Hello" or "Good Morning" makes people feel personally welcomed and acknowledged. The word "personally" is the operative word there. A relationship-building greeting needs to be more than just a recognition of the person's presence, it ought to be sincere and personal rather than general.

Often it's only those who say "Hi" who get a greeting in response. These guildies tend to be well-known and well-liked because they are seen as friendly. Why? Merely because they take the time to greet their fellow guildmates. You can start new friendships and build upon existing ones simply by taking the time to say hello. It's a simple concept, but you might be surprised how effective it is in practice.

"The Greeting" is an excellent time to use (and learn) a person's real name. Saying "Good morning, George" conveys a significantly more intimate greeting than simply "Good morning". This can be difficult if your guild does not actively support the use of given names over character names. IVV uses a simple method that ensures you never have to slight someone by misremembering their name (see suggestions below), but even if your guild isn't prepared to take that step you can utilize tools already in Warcraft to achieve the same result.

If you don't already have it active, turn on your Guild Member Alert, located in your Interface options under Social. This may create some mild chat spam, but it means you'll be able to keep tabs on your guildies and interact with them in more meaningful ways than you would if you only noticed them when they happened to talk in Guild Chat.

Talk to your officers about adding a person's real-life name in the Public Note section of their character profile (accessible via Guild in the Social tab).

You can create your own notes by means of your Friends List. Click the small "note" icon to the left of each Friend's name and add his or her real name and any other pertinent information in the space provided. This will give you a quick-check reference for remembering the names of your guildmates. The only downsides compared with #2 are that you have to fill up your Friends list with guildmates (not such a bad thing, really) and you have to be willing to ask the player his or her name before you can add it to the note.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and gourmet coffee lover.

He lives in Minnesota, the state that elected a pro-wrestler governor.

Playing for Yourself

2009-03-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, I found myself caught in a spiral of trying to make everyone happy but myself.

Before Wrath's release I chose to go Inscription for the cosmetic druid form glyphs and for the extra glyph slot, both of which never arrived. I also chose it to be an asset to my guild -- as did 5 young men, each more enterprising than myself. Sunday, I realized that even the one positive about Inscription, the shoulder enchant, didn't matter -- the rep grind it would save me is Sons of Hodir, who have a tailoring pattern at Exalted I'm determined to get.

When I was an officer, I served with several men who felt passionately about raiding, and I got it into my head that by not helping 25 man raiding, I was not helping my guild (unpatriotic). So when Wrath arrived and Teo asked for more holy priests, I volunteered to go holy at 80. Sunday, I realized I'm unable to do 25-mans because they're late at night and I just got my schedule fixed (from getting up at 1pm with late night raiding to getting up at 8am with no raiding). Not doing 25's, from my experience with IVV's more hardcore members, means I felt massive amounts of guilt and failure, even though I personally prefer 10's.

It's easy to pressure me into doing things I don't want to, which is why I hate when others beg and badger in guild chat -- it makes me frazzled, guilty, and frustrated. Sunday, with Alliance swarming over the daily areas so I couldn't do the quest chains to open up useful rep (and, in the process, ding 80), I gave in to doing things other people wanted but that I had little interest in.

The entire day filled with disappointment, failure, and the realization that I push myself to give to others and neglect my own needs.

You read this and you think "Well, that's dumb. It's a game, you should have fun."

This line of thinking is wrong.

It is fun to me to be useful. The pain came when I realized how much I'm not useful. No, I don't want to be useful doing menial tasks for others or being harassed to heal heroics all the time, but I do enjoy filling needs when I'm available (i.e. not doing my own thing) and in the mood to do heroics; or signing heals for a raid in a spec the raid needs; or offering my skills in a helpful profession.

The problem that I realized was I can't fill the guild's need as a healer in 25-mans, and my profession is . . . well, useless. I don't even enjoy it, and I've wasted hundreds of herbs (i.e. gold) leveling it.

And I'm so busy helping others and trying to hit 80, I haven't had time to farm any of the 1 in 1000 droprate pets I'm dying to collect (or, omgitssopretty, the 1 in 5000 purple parrot). I want a phoenix so badly, I don't dare raise my roll against anyone for any other mount, though I'm not sure we'd even have enough dedicated people to farm it if we tried.

Sunday was a pile of horribleness, compounded by people saying cynical or discouraging things, my brother getting camped, and the experience bar that kept shouting "You can get me to 80 in 3 hours, what are you waiting for?" while Alliance scurried below like ants (six of them, and if you're not on a PVP server, I'll explain -- even if only one of the six attacked, it is PVP code that if I fought back the others would be forced to help whether they agreed with him for starting it or not).

I spent the rest of Sunday out of the game, regaining my equilibrium, and came to the following conclusions:

Do what you love. There was really no way I could have known how disappointing Inscription would be, and I still don't mind being holy, even if it's just for 10's.

Find a way to help that makes you happy. I love mount farming runs, and I'm secretly trying to work up karma points with the people around me so they'll all pass the phoenix to me if we ever get around to farming it. I also enjoy fishing and cooking, so I take pleasure in preparing raid buffs for guildmates, even if I can't see those buffs in 25-man action.

Don't overhelp. I care about mount farming, and I do want to heal heroics for people, but I draw the line at "I'm bored" activities as well as attunement runs. I have other things I'd rather do, and I can't even participate in everything that is important and urgent. My sister-in-law advised me to do what she does and ignore every "Want to do something" request that doesn't involve a whisper directly to her. I'm not sure if I can swing it, but I'll definitely try.

---------------------------

Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.
She's a writer and way too easy to talk into things.
Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Playing Parents

2009-03-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

This is a fairly popular image. Pardon my stealing it.

Teo has been absent because he welcomed a brand new gold farmer / raid hunter into the world at 6PM last night. (She'll be a blood elf, of course, unless she rolls undead. But the statistics say elf.)

I'm sure one of us will take advantage of this ready audience and post a photo when photos are available. Hi baby Elsa Shu-Yi!

So, in honor of real life children, I talked to a few of my guild's parents about dual-boxing Life and WoW.

Five out of my five polled parents said the biggest change is time. They have to focus hard on managing time and juggling availability.

Stay-at-home mom Kristina says she only plays when her children are at school, napping, or catching up on their cartoons -- otherwise, she makes sure her husband is with them when she's planned an in-game activity. Single mom Tara gives her girls extra love, like going to the movies, so she's not just consumed by the game -- she works hard to get them settled with their own entertainments (or bed) if she has to raid. Daddy Rich actually took advice from Teo and only plays when his little girl is in bed or having quality time with mommy. He says "your playtime will be cut, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Keale plays after he's already spent time with his kids, and Eric has to coordinate every moment of his in-game time and even does his chores for the day when both his kids and his guild friends are in bed so he can squeeze every last drop out of both worlds.

Most of these parents have trouble scheduling things or doing spur-of-the-moment activities because they know they might have to run away in the middle. Over half told stories about fleeing to take care of something and coming back to the game to find a corpse. (Kristina's 5-year-old loves to announce when her mom is being attacked even when it's Kristina attacking the mob.) From the stories they told, apparently having kids makes you look like a huge noob, but it's just something you have to roll with.

Being a playing parent can strain guild relations if you're not with people who understand the whole "real life is important too" deal. Tara remembers when she got to a ZG raid 15 minutes late, only 2 minutes after they'd removed her, because she had to finish giving her girls their bath (they'd known the reason, and one guy had stood up for her since they were only on trash). Their response was harsh when she spoke up: "Because I said anything at all they gkicked me."

Eric had a more encouraging (though grosser) story: He had to go afk suddenly because his little daughter got out of bed and "used the floor as a potty." He said the raid understood and gave him the time to go clean.

Four out of five of the parents polled would let their children play WoW if they wanted, though the dads are a lot more nervous about it. Rich would be watching his little girl "like a hawk" and Eric would try to prevent his kids from playing as much as he does. Keale won't let his kids play at all, not even for the excuse of spending time together in-game: "After sitting back and noticing the time needed to play the game and how easy it is to lose 3 hours of time I will not let my children play. [It's] too much of an addiction."

In contrast, the women already let their girls play on their accounts (though there has been some trouble with the reading aspect of the game). Kristina's 5-year-old already talks like a pro, saying how she wants to play her rogue or DK, and now that Tara's kids are older she's thinking about getting them their own PC and account so they can play with her (she hopes IVV will welcome them like it welcomed her).

All of these parents said WoW gave them a great way to relieve stress from their day, but their kids always come first. It might rack up their repair bills and make them look inept in the middle of pugs, but I think Rich said it best: kids are "a great excuse to get away from the game and explore the real world."

So here's to parents and their RL quest chain: Children.

---------------------------

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.

Guest Post: How I Came to Be in A Family Guild

2009-03-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

As you've probably read in one of Beth's earlier posts, IVV started when a group of in-game friends got together to form a guild and began to recruit from their personal network of real-life friends. I am not one of these "real life" friends. How did I get into the guild, you might ask? It all started one day when I was a level forty-something noob…

I had a couple of real life friends who played, but for the most part I played alone. As time passed, I began to desire a group of people I could be friends with and possibly learn a thing or two from. In my time leveling I had seen a lot of different guild titles roaming about and even run an instance or two with a number of them, but still had no idea which to join. I did some google research and read about a few of the more prominent guilds, most of which seemed to be full of seasoned raiders. I felt those sorts of people would probably not want to deal with someone as inexperienced as myself.

Then one day I stumbled upon a guild called In Vino Veritas. I read their website and found that they called themselves a "family guild" but also raided. I had seen a lot of people from this guild running around so I figured I'd try to join up... there was a catch. First, I had to know someone in the guild and have them recommend me. I didn't know anyone in the guild, so I went to Orgrimmar and waited until I saw one of them.

The first person I messaged told me that, "Yeah, IVV was a cool guild but you had to know someone to get in." I asked him if maybe I could do an instance or something with him so he could see that I was not such a bad guy, but he told me he was already on his way to do something. So I waited until I saw the next IVV member. He was around my level so I asked him if he wanted to run something together and he agreed. While we were flying to whatever instance we were going to run I asked him to tell me more about IVV. He told me that everyone was really cool and, after I explained to him what I was looking for in a guild, said that he would definitely recommend me for membership.

I filled out my application and eagerly waited for a response from the "recruitment princess." After a couple of days she informed me that there was another Zachery Taylor (nickname "Z") in the guild who had a sister named Leah, which is the name of my wife. Because of the other Z's prominence in the guild, I became known as "Z2" or "Artoozeetoo." It all seemed too strange to be a coincidence and the guild had originally thought my application to be a joke by Z. When they realized I was for real I was invited to join the guild.

In real life I'm a pretty shy person until I get to know someone and this trait carried over into the game. For a while I kept leveling and never really said much in gchat, but I read the forums and read a lot about other members, trying to find common interests so that I could start to form relationships. I saw that a lot of members had facebook pages so I started a facebook group for people in the guild and began talking to a few people that way.

One day while reading the forums I saw that the guild was going to start doing "Hug a Lowbie Night" so I signed up to go, figuring I could get to know some folks better and hopefully learn a thing or two about gameplay. I went on a few of these runs and became friends with a Warrior and a Priest in the guild. Around this time a section of the forum was created for members to make threads about themselves. I figured it would be a good idea for me to make a thread so the people whom I had been reading about could read a bit about me.

Another way I made friends with people in the guild was by speaking to them in whispers. Sometimes someone would express a hardship they were experiencing and I would send them an encouraging word or people would express things they had accomplished and I would send them a congratulatory message. I would also talk to people about similar outside interests, through which I met a Rogue who shares my love of Star Wars. Now we constantly hijack forum threads by changing the subject to Star Wars.

During this time I was still in the fifties and sixties trying to make my way up to level seventy. I had been making increasing numbers of friends in the guild and began building personal relationships with them in-game and sometimes outside the game via facebook or AIM chat. I tried my best not to have to ask for a lot of help or to force people to go out of their way, but I was eager to learn. I ended up befriending a fellow Warlock who now plays a Paladin while discussing ways to become a better Lock. It wasn't until I hit level seventy that I began a lot of in game interaction with my guildies outside of guild chat.

I hit seventy only a week or two before Wrath of the Lich King came out, so after a week of running Burning Crusade heroics I started the long grind to eighty. At level eighty I became acquainted with other people I had not gotten a chance to talk to before through running heroic instances and communicating through Ventrilo. It was during this time that people really started helping me and giving me advice on things I didn't know a whole lot about. It was this way that I befriended another warlock in the guild who showed me how to improve my DPS from mediocre to the competitive numbers I post today.

That is the history of how I became involved with the guild known as In Vino Veritas. The moral of the story is that in order to truly become part of a family guild you have to have more than just a common interest in the game or loot, you have to have an interest in the people who you are playing with. I enjoy playing WoW and I enjoy the proverbial phat l00tz, but more than anything else I enjoy playing a game with people who have become true friends to me.

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Zackery Taylor is a member of In Vino Veritas.
Dr. Zackery Taylor is not a doctor, even though he tells everyone he is. He's an IT manager in Texas who likes comics and kittens.

Schooling the Unskilled

2009-03-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

The organist at my church is bad. She hits the right notes and can play more than one line of music simultaneously. The problem is that she lacks rhythm. A song might take twice or half as long depending on whatever interpretation her mind gives to the proper length of a quarter note that week. At first I thought there was a pattern to her madness -- that she was reading the notes consistently but incorrectly. I was wrong, there is no pattern. Her musical "style" is chaos and nearly impossible to sing to... and yet she's still the organist at my church... and has been for nearly twenty years. Why? Not because of her skill, but because of her passion. She genuinely loves playing the organ. She persists under the delusion that if the music were peppier or the songs were more soulful that it would attract more people to the church, never realizing that the problem isn't with the songs, it's with the performer. I've been at the church for over five years now and I still don't have the heart to tell her the truth. She's not a skillful organist, but she's our organist.

Perhaps my description of this rhythmically challenged woman reminds you of someone in your guild. Maybe its their incompetence that stands out, like that raider who still hasn't figured out not to stand in the fire? Or perhaps it's their social ineptitude that sets them apart, like the raid leader who refuses to listen to the advice of others?

Not every member of your guild is as skilled as the next. Some people are equipped to lead, others to follow, some to experiment, others to copy, some to excel, others to lag behind. The danger that presents itself is that we all tend to set ourselves up as the standard by which others ought to be measured. It's an unconscious thing to do... and a very natural thing. We don't think from the perspective of others, we think from the perspective of self. In an end-game raiding guild the standard is generally set by means of availability and numbers. This mean if you can raid and you keep up with the rest of the guild, you keep your spot. If not, you're gone. Family guilds operate on a different principle and are therefore more likely to encounter players who, like my organist, just don't pick up on certain things.

I would rather have my rhythmless organist than a paid professional because my organist isn't just doing a job, she's a valued part of the church community. Likewise, I'd rather have one friendly but underskilled player in my guild than a dozen of the rude and elitist "pro" players who spend their time boasting and putting down everyone else. Family guilds don't build upon "skillz", they build upon community. Start with the right foundation and the building will be the stronger for it. You'd be surprised how skilled someone's mum or little brother can be at a game like WoW with the right guidance.

Before you run off to save the world, ask yourself these simple questions. Does the person realize that there is a problem? You can't fix a problem if you don't realize there is one and offers of assitance are more likely to be viewed as insults by someone who doesn't realize they're making mistakes. Does the person care? If they care then they will be open to constructive criticism and will work to improve. People who don't want to better themselves are not worthwhile investments for your time and energy. Lastly, if the answers to the first two questions are "no" you have to ask yourself whether this person is worth having around in spite of these flaws? In the case of my organist the church has said "yes." There are some other cases where I have said "no." There's a world of difference between a true and loyal guild member and someone who merely provides a warm body.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and Miles Davis fan.

He lives in Minnesota where zamboni is a household word.

Negativity

2009-03-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

We discussed this in an officer meeting once, though we never continued the discussion afterward or formed plans of action.

When you say something negative about someone else, even if you're just joking, it gives people who don't know that person a bad impression of them.

Even the smallest and most harmless negative remarks create a negative persona for the subject, a persona that eventually alienates them from your guild. And while there is often truth in negative comments, those same comments can keep a player from improving -- whether it's in attitude, gear, or skill -- by ostracizing them from groups when they otherwise might have gotten opportunities to change.

A negative reputation limits player opportunities.

For example, if your worst player has trouble finding groups to learn how to play and practice their rotation, you don't want people going around saying "This player can't tank/heal/dps" because it makes people pass that player by for groups. Which gives them no opportunities to improve. Likewise, an "annoying" player who is excluded from groups (and thus can't interact with others except through guild chat) has no way to learn more appropriate behavior.

If you talk about someone in a negative way, even just to your own personal friends, it limits their chances to change. I'm not saying you personally have to take responsibility for everyone with problems in the guild -- I'm just saying that negativity can only make things worse for people who already have rough circumstances. Thus, it should be avoided.

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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.

Guild Bank Donations

2009-03-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

My women's ministry teacher once held up a stained pink baby jumpsuit and a similar outfit she'd found on sale for $1 at WalMart. She asked "Which would you prefer for your own children?"

She set the little outfits down and proceeded to explain that many people leave ruined clothing and broken electronics in charity boxes, using them like guilt free trash cans. She said that the charities end up throwing those items away and do not appreciate getting them.

People use guild banks like that.

Last night, I had two eternals to put in the guild bank: fire and air. These are things my characters don't use. (For those of you who don't know, eternals are an important part of top level crafted gear and enchants.)

I open the guild bank and, like the time a real life friend filled it with cockroaches when he went on hiatus except not half as funny, someone had bloated the deposits tab with level 13-17 rings and necks, the ones you get from leveling jewelcrafting.

Because I'd heard the old guild leader complaining about this sort of thing on our couch between episodes of Veronica Mars, and because I knew it would just end up a headache for the bank officer no matter what the person putting them in had intended (most people don't think of it as malicious, they just think someone might be able to use their junk), I took it upon myself to guilt the offender into never doing it again.

A warlock friend offered to take the items and disenchant them, then return the mats to the bank, and I told him I doubted the guild bank even wanted the mats. The old guild leader (my disenchanter) had glared at me the day before for sending him level 10 greens to disenchant. I figured that meant the officers weren't dying to have Strange Dust in the guild bank.

But it is an interesting issue. People hold on to low level items because someone might need them, and the guild bank seems a logical place for someone to find what they need. But when most of the guild is at the highest levels, then the guild bank needs room for the rarest and most expensive materials, not things you can buy stacks of on the auction house for silver.

Guilds typically have people who put things in but never take anything out and other people who take things out but never put anything in. The result is that we have three black Valentines dresses in the deposits tab and a bunch of Preserved Holly (which I asked for and then distributed among a handful of guildies with the order to use it up).

While it would be possible to start a secondary guild for a bank to hold low level items, I know from our current bank that it would just sit there and molder with things people don't need. The best thing any member can do for his or her guild is to ask in guild chat if anyone needs what you have and then sell, disenchant, or vendor it.

Each individual should be responsible for taking care of his or her own pre-endgame items. Like giving a broken toaster to a charity with the idle thought that they might fix it, you're just adding one more step on its way to the trash.

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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.

Attitude Check: Trust

2009-03-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

Family Guilds are founded on relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Without trust a family guild cannot function. I’m not talking about the superficial level of trust that most organizations with a common purpose possess. There’s a fundamental level of trust that hopes the Guild Leader won’t ninja the bank, disband the guild, transfer servers and leave everyone out in the cold. There’s a judicial level of trust that believes that loot will be handed out fairly according to the guild’s rules for loot distribution. I’m talking about something deeper – relational trust. Relational trust requires emotional vulnerability; it requires forming human connections with others. This isn’t always easy to create or maintain in a virtual environment where “real” human interaction is not a requirement. It isn’t easy, but it is necessary for those who would be a “family guild” (as opposed to a “raiding” or “PvP” guild).

Trust on the relational level does not come easily. Trust is not bought or demanded, it is earned and nurtured. Trusting someone requires opening up to that person – becoming vulnerable. In a very real sense, this is the definition of the type of trust we’re seeking. Some people trust easily, some with difficulty. It’s important to recognize the difficulties presented by asking people to trust one another in a setting where there is no ultimate accountability. You cannot force someone to be trusting of the guild, its leaders or its members, but there are certain steps you (as a leader or a member) can take to encourage and foster an atmosphere of trust within your guild. The essence of my advice can be summed up thus: “Trust and you will be trusted.”

First, be willing to take the first step. If you show a willingness to make yourself vulnerable to others by reaching out to them in seeking to either establish or develop a personal relationship you will find them far more likely to open up to you. In doing this you lead by example.

Second, keep your word. If you are going to take the first step you MUST be prepared to follow up. Trust is constantly being built and once broken it can be very difficult to fix. The best and most powerful way to foster trust is simply to keep your promises. It’s much easier to trust someone who is reliable and honest.

Third, praise and reward trust in others. Encourage trust among all members not only by being a leader yourself but by pointing out and praising acts of trust and relationship-building in others. Our guild makes a point never to neglect someone who is making a clear attempt to build relationships within the guild. In many cases we could do one better and reward the person’s willingness to reach out by trusting that person with, for example, greater responsibility.

What follows are a few practical suggestions on how IVV has worked to create a community that trusts.

First Name Basis – This came about quite naturally for IVV because our core group knew each other prior to playing WoW together, so “Jon” came more naturally for my brother-in-law than “Manasseh” and the usage of real-life names carried over to other members. This can be a difficult transition for a guild that generally goes by character name, but it’s a policy that helps to foster trust within the guild as a whole. Using “real” names rather than character names to identify a person is humanizing and more intimate (without being uncomfortable). In a virtual world where anonymity is the norm, this is one small but important step toward developing an atmosphere of trust.

Member Pages – IVV has a dedicated forum for people to create an “About Me” page. It’s our own version of MySpace/Facebook (though many members also keep in touch through these social networking sites). We encourage members to talk about their interests/disinterests, their families, their work, their lives and frustrations. The posting of pictures is also strongly encouraged because it provides a whole new level of intimacy which demonstrates an increasing level of comfort and trust.

Responsibility – If you’re going to ask people to trust you (and the guild) you need to be prepared to act on that trust. You might be surprised to find how much there is to be gained by entrusting someone with even a small amount of responsibility. Ask a fellow member to take care of some task or another and let that person know that you’re “counting on them.” Even asking them to assist you with a task you’re undertaking can have the same effect. It’s shocking how much this can mean to someone, especially during those early stages of relationship-building.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and wannabe Jedi Knight.

He lives in Minnesota where the snow comes from.

Loot Wars

2009-03-03T03:04:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I don't understand the obsession with loot. In my world view, there's more than enough to go around. I dare to suggest that loot is unlimited and the only discrepancy is how often you get to try for it.

Guilds get into trouble when they approach touchy situations like "this player died and did nothing for the whole run, this other player rocked the house out and deserves this drop more." If a great piece of loot drops, do you give it to the failure or the success?

I have my own philosophy on that situation -- if the failure was good enough to get into your raid, they're good enough to roll on the loot per your loot rules. You don't get to switch things up just because you don't like how your rules work when you want to be biased. You hate it, then put a few exception clauses into the rules for next time but play fair now.

I really don't understand why guilds don't seem to have special rules for super-rare items. If a legendary drops and Proven Guild Hopper is rolling against Guy Who Formed The Guild, nobody's going to like it, but you don't suddenly say "Well, you helped, but we're not gonna let you roll." Not if the rules clearly state he can roll.

For goodness' sake, just change the rules before this stuff happens. Agree to handle legendary loot with a Loot Council and have done with it. Because that's essentially what people end up debating -- unplanned switch to a loot council for the most-desired items or no? The real issue isn't who deserves it but whether or not you're willing to undergo the stigma of being unethical by breaking your own rules.

And, yes, it's unethical. I'm sorry, but sometimes you have to hurt to learn, even if he really really really didn't deserve that drop.

Back in Burning Crusade, we farmed Gruul regularly and the Dragonspine Trophy (husband told me that this was the best melee dps trinket available) dropped about three times altogether for IVV. The third time, a few months before Wrath, our lowest dps performer (a druid) won the roll.

I felt the groans in officer chat.

"Rogue guy over there could have really used it, he's one of our best dps," my friend moaned and, since he was playing in the same room as husband and me, turned around in his chair and pretended to weep.

But they gave it to the druid because they knew it was important to be fair and treat everyone equally.

It is every guild's responsibility to choose which is more important: the people or the game? When you come to tough loot decisions, that is the call you inevitably make.

IVV believes that by treating the people right, the game will follow. We believe that a guild is only as good as how fair it's willing to be to its members. Fair is not always easy, and sometimes it feels a lot like unfair, and yes, you might be able to get by in spite of your choices, but you'll lose some really great people along the way.

Some guilds are willing to put up with those consequences.

Family guilds don't.

---------------------------

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.

Guilds, Real Life, and Responsibility

2009-02-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

I realize I've been on a conflict management kick lately, shaking my finger and telling everyone to be responsible in some way or another.

This is a different sort of responsibility.

What is your personal responsibility toward other players?

There are several modes of thought. Some consider every person to be responsible for him or herself (sometimes not even that) and too bad if they manage to be smarter and faster and more cutthroat. Some consider themselves responsible to help teach new players the ropes, to lecture on rules, gameplay, and manners.

But are you ever responsible to help someone fill a gap in their home life?

For most people, no, never. It's a game, for God's sake.

In a family guild, you get an interesting mix of responses. When we had a small exodus and return of members (5 or so), two of those got back in the guild through a guild vote based on (and I truly believe this) the overwhelming factor that neither boy had a dad at home, and they said they needed us to fill that gap.

I was in the "we cannot let them back just to help fill their void" camp, and I was very very definite on this point. I still voted them back in, because I'm a softie, but I did not talk softly.

And we all wavered. I think part of the thinking went along the lines of "This guild cares, so someone else will take care of them." People voted them in thinking we could help but not taking responsibility to do it themselves. We voted them in because we thought they deserved a second chance but also out of sympathy, because we just didn't have the heart to say no.

Part of me (the woman) thinks they're better off in IVV than out there in the morass of heartless male role models who pepper the official forums and our server. Another part (the officer) thinks they played on our heartstrings and used their dadlessness to get what they wanted.

I voted to let them back in, but I had to overlook the emotional points of their applications. I don't think a guild is fit to be used as a surrogate parent, but I also believe that people deserve a second chance.

My conclusion is that I don't know what the right answer should be. Certainly, after we pulled them back into the fold, no one jumped from his seat to say "I'll be your father figure!!" One of them had hit his angry teenage stage, taking little things out on bystanders, and the other disappeared for a while.

Anyone who voted for them because they thought we could support them in trying times was, in my opinion, way off the mark. Not because we aren't capable, but just because that's not how it turned out.

And I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that's why the officers don't plan on opening reapplications up to the guild anymore. IVV just doesn't have the heart to cut people off, not when they think they can help. Sweet, but potentially harmful.

---------------------------

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.

Attitude Check: Serious Business

2009-02-25T13:13:00.000-08:00

We are all subject to the natural human tendency to take ourselves too seriously. Leaders and those in roles of authority are more susceptible than the average guild member, but even among the thronging masses there is a clear attitude of inflated self-importance within the virtual world we share. The danger of this tendency is that it can subtly and silently strip the game of its true purpose and replace what ought to be a fun, relaxing escape from reality with a burdensome, grueling, stressful grind. It is this crafty substitution, brought about by the stressors of the game itself (reputation grinds, gearing concerns, class imbalances, etc) and its social aspects (rude players, broken engagements, guild drama, etc), that most often contributes to burnout.

The reality is that games are designed to be fun. They are not "serious business" and the loot, accomplishments and goals set within a game are of no more meaning in real life than the color of your coffee mug is to your success in raiding. The point at which a game ceases to be enjoyable is the same point at which the player needs to take a step back and reevaluate his motivations for playing.

Near the end of The Burning Crusade I was utterly burned out on World of Warcraft. I wasn’t an officer, I didn’t raid, I had one level 70 character and I played between 6 and 8 hours per week, sometimes less. It wasn’t that I was over-committing myself to the virtual world – it was that I took my involvement in that virtual world far too seriously. I allowed myself to become frazzled because I wanted to raid and my work schedule wouldn’t allow it. I rubbed the letters off my keys grinding honor through the Great Alterac Valley Strike of ’08 in order to keep my Arena gear in top shape for my 1800-rated team. I fretted over every rumor and nerf and set of patch notes that made its way onto the WoW news websites. I drove my wife crazy, pushed my friends away with constant whining and never had ONE MOMENT of in-game fun and relaxation for months!

Perhaps you’ve been in my place. Maybe you’ve been burned out over situations significantly more "real" and "serious" and exhausting. You might be the GM of a family guild that’s struggling to get enough people together to raid a couple times a week, or the raider leader who has to deal with all the unhappy people who didn’t get to raid this week, or the recruitment officer who can’t seem to get people to understand that their 12-year-old brother’s best friend just isn’t a good fit, or maybe you’re none of those… just a regular member trying to get by in this vast virtual world… wondering where you fit in with a community of people you view as more knowledgeable, skilled and geared than yourself.

Friend, there is hope for your affliction. It’s not a cure-all and it won’t bring you back from your burn-out. It’s a vaccine and each of us could use a regular shot of it. I like to call it "reality", but I’m going to list under three other "R" words.

Remember. Go back to the beginning. Remember the reasons you started playing this game in the first place. Remember your very first character and your very first adventure in Azeroth. How long has it been since you listened to the rich-voiced introductory cinematic that told the history of your character as it panned its way to your race’s starting area? Remember. But don’t just remember it – recapture it. Take stock of just how far you’ve come since you first picked up the game, remember what you loved about the game then and I would wager it’s still what you love about the game now. Focus on those things.

Relax. I know you’re busy, I know that raids have to be led and rosters have to be posted and people have to be disciplined and loot has to be handed out and…… so on and so forth. I’m not telling you to neglect that stuff, but make sure that you take some time for yourself. Relax… have fun! If you aren’t enjoying the game, you shouldn’t be playing it. Guild Leader, go fishing for an hour. Raider, make a level 1 on an RP server and see what the other side of Warcraft is like. Gladiator, turn off General & Trade chat for half an hour and hang out with your friends. Achievement Guru, run a lowbie through your favorite instance just because you can.

Recognize. The world (of Warcraft) does not rest upon your shoulders. The game isn’t going to collapse just because you take some time to enjoy yourself. The guild is still together, the raid bosses aren’t dying without you, and the Sons of Hodir will still be there next week even though you decided to set aside the old reputation grind for a few days. Recognize that this game is for you but it isn’t about you… so enjoy it… and stop taking yourself so seriously.

------------------------------

Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and abstract thinker.

He lives in Minnesota where the snow comes from.

The Art of Shifting Power

2009-02-23T08:21:00.000-08:00

I've always been afraid of being labeled an "emotional woman" when I get angry or sad or frustrated. Like, "Here she goes, just nod and smile and wait it out."

It's demeaning. And it makes women angrier, sadder, and more frustrated, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that we run high on emotions and go nuts over "little things."

Because, really, it's just a "little" disrespect. It's just a "little" apathy. It's just a "little" sexism. Nothing to make a fuss about, right?

In conflict management, groups concerned with denying conflict often shoot the messenger. The person saying "THERE IS A PROBLEM HERE" is seen as the problem and is treated as the problem. Rather than dealing with conflict constructively, the group denies that pain and conflict exist and insist on fake peace instead of honest struggles about reality.

In groups like this, there's very little you can do, aside from getting a higher power on your side (officer core, guild leader, or the majority of members). If the group itself is unhealthy and destructive, putting all its energy toward sweeping problems under the rug (it's "just a game" after all, so why bother to deal with guild conflict when you can ignore it?), it just postpones the inevitable.

But let's talk about something you can do. The following is for dealing with despots, not undermining a leadership you just don't agree with/like.

Bullies and abusive members/leaders should be disempowered. To do this, you:

take away their choices
limit their information
diminish their perception of control

(In my last post, I mentioned boycotts, protests, and denying free services.) If they take away things you've become dependent on, such as access to the guild bank or raid slots or rare crafting patterns, you do not reward them for trying to hold you hostage by giving in. You hold firm.

You may say "I'm just one member, I can't do any of that!"

No, but everyone can. It is not impossible to persuade a majority of the guild to your side, though it is hard. It takes time and effort and persuasion. A gquit is simpler and faster, but this is written under the assumption that you don't want to keep leaving guilds, that maybe you want to fix one... that maybe... you care. And you want to stay.

So you want to empower the other members to engage the leaders on an equal level. To do this, you:

reduce your own fear (scared people scare people)
use positive language
give choices about when and where to talk
give them information/knowledge
find best alternatives to what they want
give them something to do

Also listen to what people want and try to understand their interest in the guild: needs, desires, hopes, concerns, and fears. "This is also a form of disempowering, because one who hears may know too much AND get it wrong -- or get it right if the underlying motive is power or control. It can be intimidating to be understood." (class notes)

And be careful who you empower. Sometimes they use that power against you.

Once you have the larger communal power on your side, once the guild has agreed on a course of action, approach the leaders as a group. Know the problems you want fixed. Whether it's respect for some members who aren't getting it, a leash put on disruptive members, a change in policy, a more open administration . . . if you have the power of the entire membership behind you, you have all the power.

Don't mess it up.

---------------------------

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.

Power in Guilds

2009-02-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

Many guild leaders assume that power is the ability to gkick whomever you want.

This is incorrect. Power is the control that other people give you. For example, to use (or abuse) the power to gkick, you must have people willing to stay in your guild. The natural conclusion is that members give power to the leadership by choosing to remain.

A fundamental flaw in guild management is the inability to remove the leaders through a majority vote. The guild leader watches the officers, but who watches the guild leader? I've heard horror stories of GLs passing leadership to unqualified, selfish friends without even telling anyone, much less asking the guild.

We should have a Mutiny button. Like the French, we should be able to lop off the heads of despotic leaders. Hold them accountable. We should be able to stop people who take the cream of the guild's effort and leave members the bare bones, people who lead by fear and threats and selfish, unjust methods. A guild should always be open to reasonable demands and principles but should never put up with threats or pressure.

Members of a guild do have significant power as a community, though less as individuals. What can a leader do if everyone decides to protest unreasonable decisions or boycott raids or deny the leadership free materials and services in the interest of enacting change?

The worst that can happen is everyone gets gkicked and you form a new guild together with the rules you wanted in the first place. And the old guild leader must start his guild again from scratch -- begging players to join a team or community that no longer exists.

You should make sure your guild has a procedure in place to make decisions and sticks to it -- a basic tenent of conflict management is that the method is more important than the outcome. As long as everyone agrees that the decision will be made a certain way, no one should then protest the final decision.

Now, this does not mean the guild needs to be in on every single administrative decision. That would slow decision-making to a crawl. I'm talking about controversial matters that people in the guild care about and that need to be addressed, not the day-to-day shlub of ideas.

Officers and Guild Leaders should work out the exact extent of their individual authority in each of their areas and pass it by the guild for inspection. How far can an officer go? Can a bank officer deny a member access to the bank because he suspects they're using the materials for an unapproved purpose? Can a recruitment officer deny an application based on a bad feeling about the applicant? Can a raid leader leave someone out of a raid because he thought (but was not certain) they were the cause of two wipes last time?

Clear criteria for officers is imperative if you don't want them overstepping their bounds. People are capable of doing things in the interest of the guild that the guild would not approve of. When I rejected the real life friend of a member, at least one officer and probably several members at that time thought I didn't have the authority to do so. I assumed I had the authority to protect the integrity of the application process by enforcing the rules I had put in ("Blank questions equal auto-no"), but others assumed that "real life friend" overruled everything else.

This is why you must be clear with each other. The officers should feel free to create their own limitations and guidelines, but the guild should always be asked to approve those limitations. At the end of the day, it is the guild that the leadership serves. The populace should have the opportunity to accept or reject the power level of leaders. And this hearkens back to decision-making methods. The simplest way to approve or reject the powers given an officer is a poll, but it also doesn't allow for feedback or bias.

With bias, some members are naturally more powerful than others. This is often a form of reputation, where the member has proven him or herself to be a leader or thinker. Some people's opinions, for good or bad, matter more than others. This is a distribution of power in the membership that arises naturally, often by a member proving him or herself to be of value in various ways -- in this case, having helpful problem-solving ideas for leadership. (Unfortunately, having an opinion does not automatically make feedback useful -- such as the Compromiser who wanted random rolls for very rare novelty loot and ignored the issue being discussed: that rare status pieces should go to someone IVV trusted not to gquit the next day.)

On Monday, I'll cover empowerment, disempowerment, and how you can force unwilling leaders to change the way a guild is run.

---------------------------

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.

Attitude Check: Inclusiveness

2009-02-18T04:59:00.000-08:00

One of the philosophies adopted by my guild that most separates us from the community at large is what I choose to call inclusiveness. It’s something you very rarely find in guilds focused on end-game content. A family guild is different in this regard because we accept people based upon who they are rather than how they play. Does this mean that a family guild is filled with losers and know-nothings? Far from it! What it does mean is that a person doesn’t have to level a character to 80 or participate in raids, arenas or heroics to be a very real part of the guild.

This philosophy of inclusiveness directs the guild toward a mutual respect and concern for all its members – from the level 15 Hunter who can’t find Mankrik’s Wife to the level 80 Protection Warrior who is decked out in epics and main-tanks every new raid encounter. It’s a philosophy that produces a nurturing rather than a critical atmosphere for those who are still growing within the game and a stable community and activity base for those who are seeking experience with the end-game. I want to point out three specific areas in which I feel an attitude of inclusiveness has enhanced my enjoyment of World of Warcraft and my love for my guild.

Guild Pride – Inclusiveness fosters a “We before me” attitude. It isn’t “me” pushing through a new raid encounter, it’s “us” – all of us, not just the ten players who made the roster that night. When one of us accomplishes something, we all accomplish something. Because everyone is included and respected everyone is made to feel a part of what our individual members achieve. It’s no different than the fans or, perhaps more aptly, the bench-sitters at a football game. You might not have thrown the game-winning pass, but you still feel some sense of accomplishment and jubilation at the victory.

Less Drama – Inclusiveness works to prevent the kind of hurtful, selfish, rude behavior that stems from an attitude of self-importance. Sure, we’ve had our share of drama and hard-feelings, but we’ve also always been able to work through the majority of these issues and retain both the offended and the offender. Because we consciously work to include everyone our members are not just told that they are a part of our family, but shown that they are accepted. Knowing that you are accepted by your community and regarded not just as a warm body or a character that performs certain actions, but as a human being makes it a lot more difficult to cause grief to those around you and much easier to output the effort to patch things up rather than simply “moving on” when something goes awry.

Greater Diversity – Not only among the types of people within our guild, but among the types of activities organized or provided by the guild. Most guilds organize around what they do (Leveling guild, Raiding guild, Social guild, etc) while a family guild organizes around who they are. You don’t cast a family member aside just because they are annoying or unpopular. Instead the community works to provide the needs of all our members, even those who cannot contribute to the success of the guild’s end-game goals.

We are a guild that raids, but we are not a “raiding guild”. We are a guild that levels and socializes but we are not those type of guilds either. We are a family guild and that one word is the heart and soul of our existence. Inclusiveness is not just a good idea, it is a necessary attitude for maintaining a community that is more than just another guild.

------------------------------

Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and abstract thinker.

He lives in Minnesota where the snow comes from.

The Chain Link Effect

2009-02-17T06:02:00.000-08:00

I might have been a little harsh last post, so let me explain why I sound so frustrated. This is a warning tale, something I hope members and officers alike can learn from. The point is protecting relationships, and it happened middle of 2008.

When a situation begins to spiral, a chain of events occur. People are links in the chain, and some are helpless after their role. Others are not. But any link can break the chain when it gets to them.

Link 1: Me
Link 2: Applicant
Link 3: Henry*
Link 4: Mora*
Link 5: Officer A
Link 6: Officers B & C
Link 7: Guild Leader**

*Names changed.
**So you don't get confused, this is the non-Teo GL, a very good friend who served most of 2008.

The chain began when I rejected Applicant, Henry's real life friend.

I was tired, overworked, and didn't love his app. He left the "Did you read our rules?" blank, I'd posted on the website "Blank answers equal auto-no," and even though I would have overlooked it if it'd been a different question left blank or he'd been better connected . . . he wasn't. Henry was brother-in-law to Officer A but very new to the guild and neither he nor his wife had pushed to get to know us at that point. Henry also didn't leave a recommendation for Applicant that I found . . . well, sufficient. It was more of an acknowledgment that they knew each other than a recommendation to the guild.

So I gave Applicant a chance to fill in the two empty questions.

At the end of three days with no reply, I sent him a rejection notice and told him he could try again.

(The same week, I auto-rejected a second real life friend of Henry's, a kid who hadn't filled out even half of the required fields, including how he knew Henry. Had I left the application up long enough for Henry to recommend, I might have given that kid the option to reapply as I had the other friend. He's a lesser detail in the story and not a link in the chain.)

Henry spoke to me and understood my reasoning for rejecting both.

Applicant spoke to me and tried to talk his way into the guild by answering the questions directly. "Yes, I read the rules," he said. During the conversation, I explained and assumed he understood that he'd have to fill out another application and our chat wouldn't change that fact.

I lost little love for him in our conversation because he said several times that he had no time to play the game and became petulant when I suggested Jame's Leveling Guide ("If you don't want me in your guild just say so"), a guide which I myself find very useful to maximize game time. From his conversation, I believed that he thought other people helping him level was the fastest way to go. Ignoring the fact that he was completely mistaken, that level of neediness was exactly the kind of thing I tried to protect IVV from.

At this point, from a normal guild point of view, you might say "I wouldn't even have let him reapply! Geez, suck it up Applicant, QQ." While I find this mode of thought comforting for my own part, it is not the way we do things in a family guild. We give second chances, and we don't resent giving them.

The problem was that he turned down his second chance to get in the guild, citing no time to fill out a second application. It might have ended with that, but Henry was compelled (whether through his own will or Applicant's badgering, I don't know) to gquit in order to play with Applicant and rejected kid.

This also might not have been a problem if Henry had not left a wife behind in the guild. Mora.

Mora, of course, is the link after Henry. She could have handled the situation by grabbing her husband by his virtual short hairs and tearing into him the way only a wife can.

Instead, she went to her brother, Officer A, in a frenzy of worry about having to follow her husband out of the guild. While brothers are reasonable and acceptable sources of comfort (I've always leaned on Jon), her going to him instead of her husband put him in the middle of a marital issue, where he could (at best) be only a mediator. Were there reasons for high levels of turmoil on Mora's part? Yes. Henry did not live at home -- a soldier, he was stationed away from his wife and kids with the cheerful prospect of being deployed in Iraq in the foreseeable future. Mora was taking care of their children by herself and very stressed. (Knowing this made me angrier at Henry. You do not leave your single mom wife stranded in a guild so you can play with an army buddy.)

But was this an excuse for dragging her brother into it? No. She was a grown woman. A good explanation is not a good excuse.

Her panic reacted sharply off of Officer A, who did not want to leave IVV but saw no choice if his sister left. While he is the last person I want to blame for any part in the situation, as he is more a victim than the rest of us at this point in the story, his stress and confusion did more damage than Mora's, as he was a vital guild asset and very good friend.

Still, had he approached the situation from a "We can get her back in the guild when things calm down" point rather than believing he had to go with her (and could never come back), his worry might not have fused him to the next link:

Officers B and C. They were the only others online when all of this went down and, like Officer A, they got swept up in the panic and pressure of the situation. I was told afterward that they did the right thing at the time, and I believed it. But now . . . no. There was no excuse for bending to the will of people blinded by fear, except that they were blinded themselves. No one considered that we could work out the situation and get them back even if Officer A left.

They, in a joint decision, brought everyone back in the guild. Henry, Applicant, and the kid who hadn't even filled out his application. They even promised to accept another of Henry's friends without his having to apply when he got the game.

Since, at the time, I considered myself to have more authority over applications than I actually possessed, this stripped not only that imagined authority from me but the little I actually did possess. It hurt my pride, it denuded my job to a paperwork monkey, and it completely infuriated me. Moreso because Applicant had been arrogant and even a little patronizing to me, and because the kid wasn't even a part of the issue and his application was so incomplete, it didn't exist.

But they still got guild invites.

It was an emergency action to protect Officer A though part was, I truly believe, because men don't know how to deal with hysterical women.

(You slap them. For reference. And I'm not being mean -- I truly believe a good verbal wake-up call is necessary for anyone too scared to see clearly, especially if their actions are harming or frightening the people around them.)

But the problem wasn't just that I was angry, though angry is a pale reference to my helpless, insulted rage. It was that I never got to resolve the issue. Because everyone took the easy way out, the way that was most obvious to them without thinking about the consequences or negative effects it would have on other people, I got left holding a fury I could do nothing about. I couldn't even talk to any of the first few links, because I wasn't sure I could be civil. And, really, what was there to talk about? "I'm furious and only barely managing to keep from gkicking your friends and gquitting in a petulant childish huff"?

Yeah. Real mature.

The final link sealed the situation into a ball of unapproachable, unresolved issue: The guild leader tried to calm everyone down. He affirmed everyone's actions as correct, when everyone's actions were completely wrong. The only excuse I can offer him is that he didn't see the whole situation as the chain it was, just as I didn't, and wanted everyone to be happy again.

One of Teo's recent posts mentions that it's bad to assign no blame if blame is needed. In that situation, everyone was to blame and no one was blamed. For me, it was personal. For them, it was disaster averted. At different points, I was mad at each individual link in the chain without understanding the overall effect of everyone's bad decisions. And it was easy to talk me down from wanting to gkick and claw eyes out because I don't like being angry at people I care about. I ended up thinking "Well, I could have avoided this by letting the patronizing jerk into the guild in the first place." Like it was all my fault, since I didn't want to blame my friends or Officer A's sister or a man who was about to be deployed to Iraq.

I ended up deciding it was the applicants' faults. I didn't want them in my guild, they shouldn't have gotten in that way, and the kid turned out to be a needy, greedy brat who gquit a week later with the statement "nobody ever helps me" -- and who afterward badmouthed us to other guilds. (Think of all the badmouthing he'd have added if he'd known the wild, triumphant cheer I let out when he left. XD It was one of the most joyful moments of my officer career, just as good as a well-placed "I told you so.")

The older Applicant stopped playing shortly after joining, a fact I'm relieved about even now. I don't think I could have hidden my dislike, and I don't like confrontation.

I'm not sure what moral I should attach here. I think there are a few, like "Think before you act," but it's all a bunch of cliches.

Your intentions can be unquestionable, your motives sympathetic, and your position defensible -- but your actions can still make everything worse. In these situations, it takes multiple people to flush everything into a headlong spiral and wrap it all off with a nice unresolved bow.

It takes just one to stop it. Any one link, at the time they were called to make a decision, could have done something differently. I could have talked to Henry before rejecting his friend and found out it was a gquit issue. Applicant could have accepted my offer to reapply. Henry could have stayed in the guild and still played with his friends. Mora could have unleashed her freakout on her husband instead of her brother. Officer A could have told his sister to sit tight and calm down until the officers could mediate. Officers B and C could have done the same. And the guild leader could have called everyone to account.

Eight people can make quite a mess. One link, acting wisely, could have cleaned it up.

The fact that no one had the foresight to do so is an excuse to some extent, but it still doesn't make up for damaged relationships. The situation was full of Accommodating when it should have been handled with Collaborating. Accommodating is good when something doesn't matter, but it mattered to me. Collaborating is much slower but could have gotten everyone out with their relationships intact.

And that is the point. My relationships were damaged. Wounded. Scarred. It's been months. I'm not holding grudges as much as acknowledging that my feelings about people changed because they made selfish decisions (Applicant, Henry, and Mora particularly -- though this event does not permit anyone, including me, to make judgments on their marriage, they obviously had no communication about this and it yanked all of the officers into their problem).

If there is a way to preserve relationships, you must fight for it with all your strength. I tried. I really tried. Not coherently, and perhaps that's why I failed, and perhaps because no one realized that this would leave a permanent mark not just on my pride but on my relationships. But the truth is, if the other officers had not Accommodated, we could have come to a decision that let me look even Applicant in the eye with some level of respect.

While my guild has changed since then, and policy would not allow the same thing to happen today, I still feel it vital to press this thought on you, the reader:

Relationships must be preserved and protected.

And that is what I want to convince you of today. Not "Oh, woe is me, everyone was mean and I'm such a victim." Yes, I realize I'm still angry and I need to get over myself. I also realize I've been pretty snarky in this post and it could hurt feelings. My only defense is . . . I've been honest.

But my goal is to convince you of the simple idea that you need to be aware when relationships are in danger so that you can work to protect them.

I'm not saying it's easy, but I am saying it's necessary.

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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.

Accepting and Rejecting Applications

2009-02-13T07:43:00.000-08:00

In most guilds, a poorly filled application means the recruitment officer first laughs at you and then deletes your app without a moment's hesitation.

I've gotten applications where the applicant only answered 9/25 questions, where they left important things like "Did you read our rules?" blank, where raid experience is "none," and where people really and truly don't know how to:

Read.
Spell.
Form a sentence.
Form a word.
All of the above.

I got A's in school, I'm a professional writer, and while I understand that some people have zero grammar skills (and that's okay), that does not mean that they are unable to read the question and think about their answer. Lack of writing skill does not mean lack of mental function, as so many people seem insistent to impress upon recruitment officers.

Sometimes with applications, even people I accepted into IVV, I felt like I was grading tests from a 5th grade class that just Did Not Care, and I was too tired and fed up to fail them.

In the real world, this is unacceptable.

If you bring a resume to a job you want and it's handwritten on notebook paper in pink pen with your qualifications squeezed together to fit on the front, you will go in the trash without a second thought. They are busy. They do not have time for idiocy.

Officers are busy. We do not have time for bad applications.

Unless we're Family Guild officers.

The sad and frustrating truth is that Family Guilds do not shunt people aside for having a less than pristine application, as most guilds do. Most guilds say "Someone makes the game harder to play, gkick them" or "An app bores you, reject it" and "Who cares? It's just a game."

But that attitude goes against everything a Family Guild stands for. We do not gkick, reject, or throw a slovenly amount of ennui over a situation as an excuse to make things easier for ourselves. We take the hard road.

We take the annoying road.

In a family guild, getting an application from someone with connections is like getting a job application from your boss's nephew. His resume might be in crayon, but if he doesn't drool on himself or pee in your trashcan, you give him the job.

This makes it very hard to adhere to any sort of standard for applications. You can't punish people for slovenly work, no matter how much you want to, because it might cause drama.

And drama is bad.

Very very bad.

Still, you might think "I'm a recruitment officer, I have a right to enforce some standard."

Yes and no. Mostly no. You're hoping that people assume you can and that fear of rejection will make them pay attention to the application. But the honest truth is that you're going to be overlooking a lot. And you don't have a choice about it.

If you reject the wrong person, it could get very very ugly. I'm not joking. People in IVV love each other and would never knowingly hurt each other, but GOOD GOD I got ripped a new one by people who weren't even angry and had no clue what they were doing.

Weak, emotional people + influence over your friends or superiors + you rejected their friend = "Kill me, please."

A Family Guild recruitment officer only has as much power as the guild gives you. If you need to reject someone with connections, do it carefully. It's possible, but you need to be able to defend your reasoning, and even then half the guild will assume "Real Life Friend = Auto Invite."

---------------------------

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.

Meet the Blogger: Jon Blevins

2009-02-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hey there! My name is Jon and you may be wondering “who is this guy?” You’ll be seeing more of me in the weeks and months ahead but decided to kick off my presence on The Family Business by introducing myself.

I’m the very definition of a casual-hardcore player. I play relatively little compared to the truly hardcore and while I love shiny new epics as much as the next guy, I would rather find relaxation and enjoyment in playing Warcraft than be “leet.” I'm not a "natural" when it comes to WoW. In fact, I was the very definition of a Warcraft "noob" when I started. My level 2 Human Mage died to a swarm of Kobold Workers minutes after creation -- yes, the yellow mobs that won't attack unless attacked. This happened more than once, I'm ashamed to say. Since then I've steadily developed into a good player and a solid raider – an achievement that I never would have obtained without the support and encouragement of In Vino Veritas.

I tend to focus on the philosophies and ideas that undergird the more pragmatic and directional writings of my fellow bloggers. I’m very much a “big picture” kind of guy who feels that unless you understand not only HOW to do something but WHY you do it there can be no real change for the better.

Experience

I was part of the first wave of new players to reroll on Zuluhed Horde under the leadership of The Elite Five (Teo and his old raiding buddies). My sister (Beth) married a good friend of our current Guild Master (Teo) which earned me an auto-invite to this amazing group of people (I brought along my wife and her little brother -- now one of our Raid Leaders).

I rerolled an Undead Warlock from my Human Mage primarily because my wife wanted to try Mage and I was sick of dying to Kobolds. I found that I greatly enjoyed the mobility and lethality of the class and that little Warlock remained my main character throughout The Burning Crusade.

I can still remember being lost in The Barrens around level twenty trying to finish some quest or another while The Elite Five were clearing Shadow Labyrinth for the first time (they were working on their Karazhan keys). I hit level 70 at a run and started taking a more active role in the guild that I’d come to adore. Work kept me from raiding except on special occasions in TBC, but I participated avidly in Arenas/PvP and got to know the majority of my guildmates pretty well. I’m a more active raider now in WotLK and that increased activity is undoubtedly one of the reasons I’ve been appointed to an officer’s position within the guild. I’m still a freshman officer and have a lot to learn (be gentle, Teo!), but I’ve never had more fun in World of Warcraft than I’m having right now and In Vino Veritas has made all the difference.

Characters

Manasseh, the aforementioned Undead Warlock, was my focal character in The Burning Crusade. I created him with the express purpose of DPSing 5-man instances and found that I very much enjoyed the mobility of the class compared to my previous “main” the Mage (Thesden). At 70 I realized that scheduling conflicts and heavy burdens at work precluded my being a regular raider so I took to the next-best thing: PvP. I managed to clear every fight in Karazhan, Gruul, Magtheridon, all but Vashj in SSC and left only Kael’thas standing in TK. I partnered with Teo’s Priest (Malloc) for Season 3 and Season 4 arenas and advanced significantly in skill and battlefield awareness to the point that I finally helped push the team to the required 1850 rating to acquire my S3 Spellblade. The dominance of melee in S3 and S4 made this no simple feat but we persevered and I’ve had only one prouder moment since I created my first character over two years ago.

Daerion is a level 80 Holy Paladin which I leveled up during the activity lull near the end of The Burning Crusade and is my current “main” for both PvE and PvP purposes. The guild suffered a significant healer shortage around the time we started moving into Mount Hyjal and, being interested in healing and a TOTAL altaholic, I decided on Paladin to fill a much-needed gap (we had a grand total of zero Holy Paladins around the time I rerolled due to the dominance of Shaman and CoH Priests in PvE and Druids in PvP). The gamble has paid off. I don’t have to compete for my raid spot and Blizzard’s redesign of the Paladin class has made them very powerful Main Tank healers.

My “alts” include Razor (70 UD Warrior), Zacceus (60 UD Mage) and Aerendir (66 BE Death Knight that I’m ~~thinking of~~ rerolling as Tauren). I actually have one of EVERY class on the Zuluhed server including a mostly-unplayed 19 UD Twink Priest named Kissie who functions as a bank alt. I don’t particularly enjoy leveling but I am allured by the potential that I see within other classes and specs and am eventually drawn to try them out for myself. My Paladin has caused me to fall in love with hybrids, but my poor Shaman just can’t seem to get off the ground even though he’s sporting some spiffy heirloom shoulders.

Profession

I’ve been the pulpit minister for a small rural Christian Church for over five years now. I studied Bible & Religion (in addition to English and Psychology) at the same university that Teo and Beth attended. I was raised primarily in the deep south: born in West Virginia and have lived in Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, very briefly in Tennessee and now in Minnesota – the heartland of all things bland and white.

In addition to my ministerial duties I do odd jobs for various temp agencies and had a three-month stint as a nursing assistant at a reputable nursing facility until the emotional weight of certain aspects of the job forced me to resign. My faith certainly shapes how I view the world and, subsequently, how I view the virtual world in which I interact with my friends, family and neighbors. I do not, however, attempt to combine my preaching with my recreation. When I speak or write I seek to persuade and inform, when I play WoW I just want to relax and socialize. I’m a better speaker than I am a writer and I have a great love for storytelling which I hope to eventually incorporate into my blogging.

Personal

I’ve been married to an amazing woman for five and a half years. She is the light of my life and a totally uber Frostfire Mage. We’ve yet to start a family but are certainly open to whatever God has prepared for us. I have a lot of IRL family and friends in In Vino Veritas including my sister, Beth, my wife, both my brothers-in-law and half-a-dozen college buddies.

I’m a shy, sensitive, laid-back, thinker, prankster sort. I’ve always harbored a great love for comedy and enjoy nothing more than laughing and making others laugh. I’m a fan of stand-up comedy and comedic cinema/television (among my favorite comics are Dana Carvey, Gabriel Iglesias, Demetri Martin, Mitch Hedberg and W. Fox [actually my college roommate, but no one could make me laugh like he could] and shows such as Seinfeld, Family Guy, The Office, Arrested Development and the better seasons of Mad TV & In Living Color). I obviously love to play games, read theological works and fantasy novels, have three adorable kitty cats, drool over Italian food and listen to most every genre of music depending on mood (right now techno/trance is my drug of choice).

I’m a particularly fierce friend and am undyingly loyal to those who have earned my trust. IVV is one such entity, which is why you can expect my posts to reflect the pride I feel for what this guild has accomplished.

------------------------------

Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and cat-lover.

He lives in Minnesota where the snow comes from.

Driving Unsuitables Out

2009-02-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

If you're in the position I warned against in the application and recruitment posts, the position of having members who really and sincerely don't fit with your members or plans, sometimes the nicest thing you can do for everyone is get rid of them.

I'm not talking about gkicking. Nor am I talking about ostracization, where you cut people off from the resources, events, and society of the rest of the guild.

I'm talking about being honest with them and yourselves. In IVV, when Teo returned to guild leadership right before Wrath, he sat all of the officers down and had a little chat with us. Some members wanted or expected IVV to be things it just wasn't. And Teo told us that we needed to stop trying to cater to those people, the ones who didn't quite fit in, who wanted us for raiding more than friendship, who made conscious decisions to keep their personal feelings out of the guild.

I'll call them Unsuitables. They would be excellent members to most guilds, but they would never be good family guild members, as long as they chose to keep us at arms length.

I realized as Teo talked that by catering to the Unsuitables, by spending energy and resources fighting to keep them happy, we ignored the beating heart of our guild. We overlooked the people who deserved our attention.

Teo led the officers to reroute our time and energy toward the members who wanted us for who we were, people we might have trouble satisfying but who could be satisfied by our focusing on their emotional lives in the guild. These members didn't care how many raids they got in as long as they got a fair shake and the chance to play with their friends.

We needed to focus on pleasing the members who wanted us for ourselves, not for our goals.

Part of this plan included a focus on 10-man raiding. It was not a clever diversion to beat out Unsuitables with a stick. It was an intelligent, reachable plan that served the needs of members who'd had trouble making raid times. Most importantly, the plan managed to express who we were in a visible way. We did not lie or trick or badger. We just decided to go a more friends-and-family viable way with the guild. We refocused.

And the result was that Unsuitables who wanted something else from us trickled away. No hard feelings, no drama. But by being who we were, we drove them out.

---------------------------

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.

The Value of Good Informants

2009-02-06T08:31:00.000-08:00

The most useful tool for a leader is not epic or even legendary -- it's information.

In family guilds, where it can be difficult and emotional to gkick (Teo espouses a "no gkick" policy that I expect he'll tell you about in another post), it's useful to keep track of "problem" and even "high maintenance" people.

In conflict management, it's necessary that the people involved in a dispute care about their relationship, whether it's as impersonal as a business relationship or as personal as a marriage. If two people in the middle of an argument do not care about whether they ever speak again, there's more of a problem than you can reasonably be expected to fix.

Now, in a guild, you'll be dealing with people you have official control over and that does give you an edge, but in a family guild, you're still dealing with people who are supposed to have a certain level of respect for each other. Not everyone is going to be BFFs or even get along, but they should try to coexist to the best of their ability.

It can be tricky, however. There are many situations where the reason for conflict isn't remotely close to what people are actually fighting over, and these situations aren't always simple to decipher. Underlying problems often spawn little surface problems that are what everyone sees -- but those surface problems will continue to show up until you get at the source. Like killing a weed: if you just mow over the top part, the roots will remain to grow thicker and stronger.

So the key to finding roots is simple: know what everyone wants. Motives. Why do people do things, and how can you address the why? Because why is a catalyst, and only addressing the result will mean that you will always have small messes to clean up.

This is why you need good information from as many sources as possible.

One source is you. I take screenshots of everything. I keep records when I see something that I consider evidence of an underlying problem. I do not screenshot Member A bickering with Member B in a late night raid. Officers tell them to shush, focus, and head back in, and it's dealt with.

I do screenshot Member C asking if anyone wants to come raid the alliance bosses and then telling the (one) person who replies to go start the raid. Or Member D in party chat ignoring the word "no" or saying that he wants a friend to quit WoW so he can inherit the guy's money. Or Member F acting with unseemly greed in a group.

The other source is friends. When a former member privately told a friend of mine about thoughts of gquitting, my friend told his roommate.

Who was the current guild leader.

That member didn't know that they were roommates, but it gave the leadership a heads up when that person did, in fact, leave a few weeks later. We were prepared.

(In a family guild, secrets do get passed around. I tell my husband everything, sometimes I ask my brother and his wife for advice. Other people do the same -- it's natural to tell spouses, siblings, and roommates what's going on in the guild, and . . . it can easily filter back to the officers. Because it often happens that officers in a family guild have a decent web of connections.)

Why keep records?

Having records is not so you can approach everyone and go "Oh, look, you broke code 9583 at 3am on a Saturday morning" (I had teachers who did that to me once, trotting out all my misdemeanors in a student-teacher conference -- I quit the class).

You keep records because, if you know a person's history, you begin to see trends. You begin to understand them and their reactions to things. It is preventative. And, yes, it is also good for evidence against people you might have to gkick or fail on their trial membership -- but that evidence is for the guild as an explanation if they demand one, not for an exhibition. It helps, when people don't understand why someone is removed, if you can offer proof and exact reasoning. It's important to your reputation as a leader that you're reasonable, that you never kick over hearsay or misdemeanors or even give the impression that you would.

Keeping the Secrets

Officers get news through the grapevine -- but most of the time, you'll need to keep that information private. When that member spoke to my friend about gquitting and cited never being promoted to a full member as just one reason, I immediately made a public post: "I'm lazy and if you're not a full member and have been in the guild long enough, just tell me and I'll do it. Your status in the guild panel means very little about your real status."

That was a mistake. The member whispered my friend later with a simple "traitor" and smiley face and was gone in a few weeks. I don't know if his informing (and my ill-advised post) directly contributed to that gquit, but . . . probably.

Therefore, if someone tells you something is going on, and there are only a handful of people who know about it, you keep your trap shut. You protect your informants' relationships by not exposing them. Not just to keep the flow of information coming, but because he's your friend, doing you a favor, and he doesn't deserve to lose reputation over it.

Obviously, if someone is going to do something particularly harmful to the guild, like swiping the gbank, you stop them even if they'll figure out who told. Nobody will blame anyone for squealing to protect the populace.

But if the information isn't going to burn a hole in your guild, if it's just someone who turns out to be a lot less honest than you thought, or a particularly vicious gossip, or even a gquit -- then you stay back and keep an eye on the situation until you have real evidence.

If it's just a secret that someone is keeping, like an illness or relationship or sexual preference, you most definitely keep it to yourself. It's nobody's business. It does help to know about harmless secrets, especially if they might one day spill into the guild, but that's so that you can have a plan in place for handling the surprise/backlash or even grief (in the case of an unexpected death).

But you never act on a private heads-up if it's going to get around that Member Y is a snitch, not unless it's dire. You just keep a closer eye on the brewing problems.

---------------------------

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.

Recruitment

2009-02-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

... if you trust everyone and let them in, someone will mess with your guild. If you trust no one and let no one in, you cannot grow or make new friends.

(Excerpt from my other WoW blog, Letters from Birdfall.)

I covered applications last week, but recruitment is different. There's one rule that you need to be aware of, even considering all my warnings about random recruits:

You will be surprised by people.

We've had quite a few very good surprises -- people who had no connections and came in and loved us, loved what we were and how we functioned and who would never consider going back to raid guilds or casual guilds. They've thrown themselves into the guild so fast and so hard that it's like they've been with us since the beginning.

We've also had people who were highly recommended by members but who gquit a week later. Most of those were people who joined just to raid, and whose friends/contacts in the guild were just there to raid. We had a minor exodus close to Wrath because we recruited for raiding but we aren't a raid guild at heart, and we weren't what those people wanted.

So the second rule of recruiting would have to be: Recruit for what you are, not what you want to become.

Family guilds cannot pretend to be anything but family guilds. Yes, IVV raids, but there was a point where we were trying to recruit so we could have stronger raids and that was a recipe for disaster. I hold very strongly now to the idea that you must first find people who want to be in a family guild and the endgame goals will follow. You cannot ignore the family aspect of the guild or try to keep them separate when you recruit -- members in IVV welcome new people with their whole hearts and if those people aren't willing to invest themselves back, they belong in a normal raid guild. We may have wanted to be stronger raiders, but that did not mean that we had the atmosphere or resources to satisfy "real" raiders. It ended up hurting our family members instead of satisfying our raid team.

The third rule of recruiting is: Never stop growing.

Family guilds, like social guilds, are notorious for members taking random hiatuses. Though in a purely social setting, this might not be a huge problem, if you're trying to raid and those members are some of your regular raiders, it puts a wrench in the works.

When IVV started and we only invited close friends of members (a policy we've returned to after the raider debacle), I had a vision. IVV started with about 10 people, 5 at the level cap and then my family group racing upwards. And I knew that as long as we continued to nag our own personal friends into the guild, and they nagged their friends, we would grow. It would be slow, but it would be steady and safe. Want 25's? Keep moving and have patience. We might only grow a little here or there, but we have the unheard-of benefit of not shrinking. Except for the exodus we should have expected, people just don't leave. It's like a profit chart with a line slanting straight toward the top.

I firmly believe that any guild willing to put in the time and patience to slowly grow with quality recruits can succeed at anything, because if your players love the guild, they will stay.

So if you keep moving, keep meeting people, keep encouraging friends and family to join, you cannot lose. Only win.

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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.

Meet the Blogger: Beth Blevins

2009-02-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

I grew up a preacher's daughter, moving every few years from one small congregation to the next. Most churches were pretty cool. Some weren't. When I was 11 and we lived in Texas, the church leadership was so corrupt that my dad had a stress-induced heart attack and hid it so that he wouldn't get fired, neither seeking medical attention nor calling in sick.

In college, I took a class called Church Conflict Management and soaked up every molecule of information I could, because it directly addressed what kind of catalysts could cause the pain my family suffered, and what kind of measures we could have taken to prevent or identify the danger (prevent, almost none; identify, plenty). I learned that managing conflict in churches is the single hardest venue for even the most seasoned conflict specialists, and my professor had a high success rate only because he weeded out the impossible cases on the front end.

I tell you this because it directly influences my approach to guilds and guild management and the subjects I choose to address. I tend to write from a "Things will go wrong" perspective.

Experience

Jan 2008 - Jan 2009: Recruitment Princess (aka Officer). I handled the applications and recruiting. I believed that recruitment could be either a boon or illness on my guild and made it my personal crusade to protect the guild from people who could hurt it.

Jan 2009: Social Events Princess (aka Officer). After IVV removed the need for a recruitment officer (to my intense satisfaction and support), I was made the events officer to schedule old world raids and social events. I felt this job provided scheduling conflicts with my real life and a different kind of pressure than my old job did. I also felt that members could get along well without me, and so retired from being an officer.

Profession

I consider myself a professional writer (I go by my maiden name here because it's also my pen name), even though I don't have any credentials after high school and college. I feel that professionalism is a state of mind and that accomplishments are a result rather than the cause.

I'm working on a series of books about super heroes. It's a bunch of fun young adult fluff because I don't think a work has to be "literary" to be useful to the people reading it. I went to the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts in my junior year of high school but quit halfway through with a bad taste in my mouth and a violent disdain for anything arrogant and elitist, including an unfortunate prejudice against anyone who strives to do impressive things just so they can feel superior (motives make a difference to me).

Socially, I'm friendly but shy and need people to like me. Professionally, I'm confident, tough, and even critical. When I write for The Family Business or Letters from Birdfall, I tend to put on my professional persona. In gchat and guild forums, I use a surprising (to me) blend of confident and friendly.

Personal

I don't like to travel, even though I've been through Europe and lived in London. An ultimate homebody, I'd rather sit on the couch writing than just about anything else. (Reasons to leave the apartment include church, food, movies, jogging, and maybe fire.)

I play with my husband, brother, sister-in-law, and her little brother. We also include my husband's best friend in our family, who was guild leader between Teo's two terms. Growing up, I hero-worshiped my big brother, Jon, and followed him to a private Christian college where I met my husband, a computer guy who loves video games and hung out with a very strange crowd of friends (oddball artist, programmer x3, outgoing thespian, crazy Frenchman, pre-med Iranian Texan, musician x4). I loved that he was the "normal nice guy" in his group because it meant that he was stable but could appreciate weird and I . . . have been told that I'm weird. (Imagining the bus driver Bernie's conversation with his dispatcher Bernice and then repeating it to everyone in the car with accents but without an explanation isn't that weird! If Bernice was stationed beyond the light pole, and Bernie had a clearer view of oncoming traffic . . . they'd totally have that conversation. >.<)

Characters

Dustfire (BE Priest) is my raiding main on Zuluhed. She fulfills whatever the guild needs, though she was shadow until the recent healing crisis. I'm working on a story about her for my Birdfall blog, showcasing her role-play possibilities. Dustfire is sultry but manipulative, sly, and cruel. She puts down other women, sleeps with men for favors, and considers herself more important than the people around her do.

Plum (Tauren Druid) is my PVP main on Zuluhed. She's sweet, illiterate, hates enclosed spaces, and a great storyteller.

Birdfall (NE Rogue) is my holiday main on Moon Guard. I use her to complete holiday achievements for pets and pretty dresses. As a role-play character, she's serious and likes to keep a low profile, so she doesn't talk to strangers, and she doesn't have much to say when she does. Her best friend is my husband's mute female druid.

Applications

2009-01-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

For the Officer

If you run a family guild, you need to screen people who want to join. If you let in just anyone, you're soon going to have a bunch of people who expect a different sort of guild on top of your family players -- players who, if they want a family guild, do not want these people. These people will trample their carefully cultivated social balance, and you're going to have to make a lot of rules to impress on these strangers in your guild that this isn't the guild they're looking for -- or you're going to have to clean up the mess you've made by gkicking a bunch of people and potentially getting yourself on WoW Insider's Guildwatch naughty list.

Also, if you have an automatic invite policy for friends, if you ginvite random people you don't know that well or trust, it means they can auto-invite their friends. And You Do Not Want That.

... As recruitment officer, I was considered The Gateway. I was our defense against people who would ninja the guild bank or use us as a stepping stone to a serious raid guild. I was not a defense for myself but for my guild. And if you love your guild and want the best for it, that is a sacred duty.

More than keeping out people who would ninja the guild bank, I considered it my personal mission to keep out the selfish, people who wouldn't break the rules or be "bad members" per se, but who would use our resources (be it items or people) without giving back. Which was very hard to detect, and I'm sure I sometimes erred on the side of caution.

The hardest part was the social aspect -- trying to decide if people would fit. More than protecting our guild resources, I had to protect our guild soul -- our community essence, which is our most precious resource, beyond anything we own in the guild bank. This meant determining if the player in question would be a surface-level player, someone who would be a decent member but never really invest in us the way we wanted, and thus protect the guild's heart from being broken when they found somewhere they preferred. I also had to try and detect if someone would be socially unstable, another hard-to-anticipate danger that we tried to circumvent by requiring member recommendations.

(Excerpt from my other WoW blog, Letters from Birdfall.)

A decent application is short and to the point. You don't want your best friend's wife to have to jump through hoops. It also covers all the details you're concerned about, particularly the player's expectations on coming into the guild.

We started recruiting raiders at one point and in the end that was a mistake -- they all left. They also had friends with applications I wouldn't have taken if they didn't know someone. For example, we ask in our application: "What do you understand to be the purpose of IVV?"

Wrong: "To share the best of raiding and an environment unoffensive to the modern day WoWhead."

Wrong: "To be a raiding guild that that caters to the needs of serious gamers who also prefer a mature, stress-free raiding environment."

We also had people who came at us from a casual standpoint, but who still made the mistake of calling us a raid guild:

Wrong: "establishing a friendly and caring space for its members, even though it is a raiding guild."

And answers I sighed in appreciation for:

Very Good: "Friendly family orientated guild that likes raiding and talking on the vent till 3 in the morning"

Perfect: "IVV is a family guild that cares about its members and wants to have a fun time progressing through WoW"

If someone has right answers everywhere else but doesn't know what a family guild is, you need to explain it to them. They're walking into a serious commitment and don't know it, and they should. It's as simple as that. If I had known enough, I would have explained to those with wrong answers "We expect you to stay forever if you join us. We aren't a raid guild, we're a family guild, and I know you think that means a TV sitcom where everyone is just more friendly than in other places, but You Are Wrong. We are not 'Everybody Loves Raymond.' We're 'The Godfather.' And if you're not willing to handle that, walk away. You'll be happier in a different guild."

It doesn't mean that we don't raid or that we're not friendly. We're very friendly. But some applicants thought we were just friendly, and that is an incorrect supposition. We love each other. We accept our new members without reservation, they get all of us and all of our hearts. And that's a lot deeper and a lot more binding than just being friendly.

Perhaps (and this is just a stray thought) instead of asking people to define your guild, you should ask them to define a family guild. Because most people applying to us (I finally just ignored the answers to that question, because almost everyone got it wrong, though many turned out to be lovely members anyway) really and honestly didn't know. They either thought "raid guild that tries to be nice" or "nice casual guild that tries to raid." And those are so wrong it hurts.

For the Applicant

As for the applicant, you get the benefit of my experience and my pet peeves.

Research. Know the guild's rules and purpose -- know if it's the right guild for you! I hope you take my advice to officers to heart and understand what you're applying to if you decide to join a family guild. Family guilds are different from each other, since the members are different, and different things will be expected of you. Know those expectations and take it slow and careful when you approach them -- get to know a few members before applying and ask them questions about the guild. Leaving a family guild is hard and it's better to be careful on the way in. It's also easier to get in if members see your app and go "Oh, yeah! He's been talking to me for, like, 3 weeks now! Let him in. :)"

Do it right the first time. Make sure all the application questions are filled in, have someone proofread them, and ask if you're not sure how to answer something. Do not make the person reading your application feel like you're wasting their time. That would make them cranky and cranky people reject you.

Use common sense. Having a good solid knowledge of the guild (research!) will help you tailor your app to fit what they're looking for -- for example, we've had people use foul language in their apps, and one of the questions is "We don't allow foul language in public channels. Comment?" /facepalm

Punctuate. There is a difference between typing fast in an arena and filling out a static form questionnaire. They should not have the same grammar and punctuation mistakes. A business CEO once said, "If you write poorly, you look stupid." If you can't help your grammar, or there's no one to spellcheck for you, feel free to acknowledge it with a note -- sometimes I smile when I see someone apologizing for their grammar, and it helps me overlook it.

Be yourself. Family guilds have great phoniness radars. Being fake is the worst thing you can do -- it will make people feel lied to.

Persuade. This is particularly true if you don't know anyone in the guild. Family guilds judge applications based on an obvious desire to be involved in a close community setting. We want to be assured that we're making a sound emotional investment in you.

Be prepared. Always assume you're going to get the recruitment officer on a bad day. Your application needs to put a smile on their face, not make them feel like it's another chore. Take your time to prepare it instead of slapping down the first answers you think of, and never skip ANYTHING!!! There was a big (private) stink once about me rejecting a guy's army buddy because he didn't answer "have you read our rules?" and caught me on a really bad week -- I had about 10 other applications to run through and just didn't have the time to deal with someone who talked like he expected us to help him level (and later, while trying to talk his way into the guild anyway in whispers, got huffy when I recommended the leveling guide I personally use, after he'd just complained for 5 minutes that he has very little time to play *rips hair from scalp*).

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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.

Styles of Conflict

2009-01-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Whenever there's a problem, it helps to be able to identify how the people around you approach it. Some people move from one style to the next when dealing with a problem, and all are appropriate for certain settings. It's also good to know when your own style of conflict is just making the situation worse.

Collaborating

Problem-solving. Slow discussion, wants to hear everyone out and affirm everyone's point of view. Wants to find the best solution and not just the most obvious. Best when you care about everyone's opinion but also feel strongly on the issue. Worst when things need to be done quickly or when you don't care about the issue.

Example: Teo, our guild leader, is huge on collaboration. When he took the office back up recently, he posted three posts a day with end dates (the days those discussions would be closed and we'd move on to something else) and required that each officer post a response to each topic. He required that everyone have their say, even though it took a significant amount of time, so that we could find solutions that everyone had a hand in.

Compromising

Best for quick decisions and when everyone is willing to give something up to get something now. Tries to split the difference, meet halfway, and let chance decide. Is worst when it's possible for everyone to be more satisfied by working a little longer.

Example: Random loot rolls on emotional loot. Back in Burning Crusade, we were trying to form novelty loot rules (which would have just covered the phoenix mount). I wanted novelty loot rules that favored long-term members who wouldn't leave the guild after getting a rare status piece, because I wanted the phoenix and would have hunted down and killed anyone who had the temerity to grab it and take it to another guild. A now-former member ignored the reasoning for even discussing novelty loot rules and espoused a "Just let everyone roll" philosophy. This might not have been a problem if she hadn't ignored everyone's feelings and voted with the mindset of "I don't care, so why should anyone else?"

Forcing

Controls the argument and discourages disagreement. Forces others to agree, insists on being right. Best when things need to be done quickly or when an issue of conscience is in play. Worst when you want people to feel free to disagree and discuss the issue.

Example: Squelching disagreements in a raid when time is a factor. It's not that rare that people disagree on how a boss should be approached, especially if the current strategy hasn't panned out. Raid leaders need to be able to say "Okay, this is how we're going to do it, no arguments" and make their decision quickly in order for the raid to keep moving. When everyone wants to have a say, a raid grinds to a halt and the leader must take control to start things moving again. A stationary raid is a cranky raid.

Accommodating

Giving in. Refusing to acknowledge your own wants and needs to keep the peace. Deciding that it doesn't matter. Best when you care more about the other person than the issue or you were wrong about something. Worst when you wish you could speak up more.

Example: Acquiescing to someone's constant begging. A trial member begged constantly for help. My friend gave in once to help him get a hunter pet but insisted he kill the mobs himself. Though the trial member continued to beg that my friend kill the mobs, my friend refused to do more than physically guide him to his destination. That trial member continued to beg and people continued to give in; I eventually gave him a warning and then failed his trial membership for so much begging -- because our members would keep giving in, get frustrated, and never complain (so that we would never know action needed to be taken).

Avoiding

Leaving. Running away. Refusing to deal with the problem. Best when someone needs to cool off, you don't care much about the issue, or the situation is physically dangerous. Worst when you care but refuse (or are afraid) to face the problem.

Example: Gquit when things go wrong. One of our members took a lot of his alts out of the guild because he couldn't choose a "main" and didn't want to make a stink about it. The officer core could have gladly found a way to work the problem out, but he avoided mentioning it for so long (even lying about his alts, saying he took them out because he didn't play them anymore) that running away became the only option he considered viable.

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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.

Rocking the Boat

2009-01-23T09:50:00.000-08:00

If the officer core doesn't know a member has a problem, they cannot address it. This idea falls in with Teo's post on Tuesday about communication and openness but also brings in some conflict management.

There are two types of problems in a guild -- the kind that are nobody's business and the kind that can be fixed. If something has any possibility of affecting the guild, your placement in the guild, or the people around you, you have a responsibility to let the officers know something (at the very least) is going on. And if it can be fixed, a few simple (if uncomfortable) conversations are a very cheap price to pay for a pleasant coexistence.

A lot of people think "Well, I don't want to rock the boat, and it really just affects me..."

"It just affects me" is a lie. If you are unhappy with any part of your guild, and that part isn't going to magically go away, you are going to keep getting more and more miserable about it until you gquit.

And that does affect other people. Especially in family guilds! A gquit hurts people deeply. And if you asked anyone in my guild "Would you rather someone complain about stuff or wait until it gets to be too much?" they would say "I would rather they deal with it now. Anything to keep them from leaving!"

There is a very basic tenant of conflict management, and I'm talking particularly to people who hate confrontation, like me: If you don't deal with problems when they're small, they will get bigger, and then they'll explode on you.

You don't think you like dealing with little problems? Yeah, just wait. Not talking about it is going to make it grow until it's a monster, and it will eat you alive. It will cause guild drama, it will make you a focus of unpleasant attention, and it will rip your poor unsuspecting fellow players an orifice they never wanted.

So consider. Do you want to deal with very small problems as they surface and nip them in the bud with some discomfort but no hard feelings? Or do you want to wait until everyone will resent you for bringing the drama hammer down on the guild? Or even leave a guild you enjoy because you're too scared to be honest with people? That's no way to live! That is no way to live, constantly running away from things that are good just because you're afraid of confrontation, of conflict.

Boats rock. It's natural, it's part of life. But if you ignore the little waves, you're setting everyone in that boat to be tipped over by a monsoon. During my months in the officer core, I never ever saw anyone get mad about a simple request reasonably stated. You aren't going to get eaten alive by addressing things that honestly bother you, not unless the people around you are morons (in which case, find a new guild). But I have seen people let things fester because they're too afraid to upset others, and it's always a lot more painful for everyone than it otherwise could have been. Should have been.

One of my professors once said, "It's the shy who have it hardest in this world. We must try harder, discomfit ourselves more often, to be heard among the noisy throng."

We were given the short end of the stick. I'm not arguing that. But if we don't try, we'll never be comfortable in our own guilds. And we need to at least be comfortable.

Don't you think?

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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.

When It's Time to Step Down

2009-01-21T09:21:00.000-08:00

Image from Nataliedee.com

It might be that Sims 3 is coming out next month, or that I've started to think my new position isn't necessary as an officer position, or that I'm feeling especially pressured in my real life. But when the only thing keeping you in the officer core is the camaraderie and the thrill of seeing how guild drama is handled in the officer sections, then, folks, it's time to move on.

My husband managed recruitment for a few months, and he knew it was time to quit when he started to feel drained instead of satisfied. I got recruitment after him and worked at it passionately because I felt a duty to keep the guild happy and healthy. I loved being involved in discussions and brainstorming sessions, and particularly enjoyed being part of the private decision-making when problems broke out. I'm always thrilled to be able to bring my conflict management lessons to the fore and try to dissect delicate social situations. I guess that's just the writer in me. I love trying to understand complicated relationships.

I was moved to Social Events coordination after we stopped recruitment last month in favor of a system where members give their own friends our private application and send it to the officers to discuss as a panel. Though I had planned social events in the past, before my job move, I found that I was more relaxed when I planned things for the fun of it and because I cared about it myself, and not because I had a job to do.

I don't know the exact cause of my . . . I hesitate to call it burnout . . . but I feel myself yearning toward the uncomplicated responsibilities of being just a member for a while, someone who can disappear during the Sims 3 craze in February or when the writing bug hits me and not worry about responsibilities left untended.

In IVV, there's an unspoken policy that anyone who used to be an officer is entirely welcome to petition the core if they get the itch to return. So I know that if they want more hands, and I feel like jumping back into the morass of officership, they'd consider me.

But for now, I think I'd like to be just plain Beth.

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Beth Blevins is (no longer) an officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

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

Officer Qualities

2009-01-19T10:57:00.000-08:00

This topic has been covered with more panache and publicity than I'll be able to manage, but I think it's important to keep reiterating certain things, as repetition is often the key to making people remember stuff they don't want to.

Or so I've heard.

So here's my little list of officer qualities, in no particular order:

Stable
Honest
Sincere
Capable
Tough
Discerning
Giving

Some guilds get by without some of these qualities because the officer has other qualities that make him or her valuable, often in the form of being able to perform a job with an unusual level of efficiency.

For example, we have one really tough officer. He's our enforcer and the primary raid leader. Although he's a teddy-bear outside of raids, and I (a very sensitive soul) am not intimidated by him in the least even with his Big Boy voice on, he knows how to keep people in line. He's tough enough to do it.

On the other hand, another raid leader is his exact opposite. He doesn't have the personality to subdue the frolicking raid populace, and that results in a general lack of enforcement in his immediate area. But it's not because he's easy to walk all over. It's because he just doesn't get ruffled over anything. He remains in such a complete state of equilibrium at all times that he would have to seriously exert himself to try to even appear upset. While this isn't helpful in taking a hard line when one is needed, this trait is still valuable in him as an officer because he can calm other officers down and help them see both sides of an upsetting issue. It's also nice to have someone around who can make a tense situation light.

This officer is also discerning enough to know when to shut up and let someone else handle it and when to offer his opinion. He's mostly content to sit back and watch and let other officers make the decisions and offer his light touch if someone seems to be going too far toward the strict side of things.

It's particularly important to have a discerning and tough person in the guild leader position and in recruitment -- though in these cases, tough just means able to perform some difficult aspects of the job, such as letting people know when they fail the trial member period. I handled recruitment for a good chunk of our time as a guild and am not too modest to admit that I have a particular ability to dissect arguments and social interactions and find clues to the motives of the people around me. This sort of ability, which I believe our guild leader Teo also possesses to some degree, is important if you can find it in potential officers because it helps to have that kind of eye on explosive issues.

Of course, if the discerning person is prone to bouts of anger, favoritism, or instability, that would be bad. It's vital that your officers, people who are involved in important decisions about your guild and its future, are emotionally stable. While this does include problems like depression, bipolar disorder, and anger management issues, I'm also talking about people with their own agenda. You do not want someone in your officer core who cares more about his or her own needs than the guild's. That person will press for unfair and unbalanced decisions that will undermine the leadership's credibility.

Honesty is also good, though in a person with anger problems or who dislikes the people around him or herself, honesty can be used to tear people down. Honesty tempered with kindness and sincerity makes for the best mix. When I say sincere, I mean people who invest themselves into their beliefs and actions, people who would be hurt by dishonesty and the mistreating of others and who would seek to remove that sort of thing from the guild.

Sincere people, when they have a strong attachment to their guild, will fight for the rights of members like nobody else. And I would like to say that it's important for officers to care about everyone but, to be truthful, all you really need is a person who will act for the good of the members. They don't have to be best friends with (or even like) everyone to do that.

Officers give of their time, skill, and sometimes goods for the betterment of the guild, but I do want to note a warning -- you do not want someone too giving. It is very easy for officers to get worn down by the idea that we have a duty to give more of ourselves to groups and runs and gank protection than regular members. This is true only to a point -- it is important that we, as fellow guildmates, help each other, but it is most important that officers find a decent balance of time for the guild and time for ourselves. Members rarely realize how much work goes into a guild behind the scenes, and when you log on intent to grind rep for that raid enchant, sometimes the best thing you can do for your guild is to go /DND. Help is always needed, but helping too much will burn you out and make you useless.

And, finally, it's important that officers be capable. All the honesty and good will and knowledge in the world can't make up for a recruitment officer who goes to starting zones and starts ginviting everyone. If a person is not able to do their job, that person is better off giving their feedback from the member side of things. For example, even when Teo stepped down from being guild leader and was a member for a few months, the officer core messaged him several times for his help on touchy (and private) guild issues. So just because the most discerning or stable member of your guild doesn't have the time or the ability to be an officer doesn't mean you can't go to them when you want their help.

So, in the end, when I think of a really great officer, I think of someone fair and even-handed, able to understand what's going on and not overreact, willing to disagree, able to step aside, knows his or her own limits, and finds it important that everyone be treated with respect.

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Beth Blevins is an officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

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

Conflict and Communication

2009-01-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

If you have more than one person in your guild, you will have conflict. It's the way life is.

Plenty of people believe that communication is the key to successfully resolving conflict, that everyone would agree with each other if they could only understand each other.

This is false.

People have conflict because, at their core, people are different. Though communication is necessary to reach understanding, sometimes people understand each other perfectly and they still fight -- because understanding someone is not the same thing as agreeing with them.

Still, it is an important part of managing (and preventing) conflict to have successful channels of communication for your members. Large businesses who don't provide places for employees to comfortably give feedback or suggestions (who essentially ignore their workers), in the very worst scenarios, are the ones who have disgruntled people coming in with shotguns.

So, if you don't want your members coming at you with the proverbial crazy, make sure to provide them with plenty of opportunity and different ways to give you feedback.

Some people are only comfortable going to a specific officer with their problems. Some don't care who knows. Others would prefer to remain anonymous. You might consider this as the difference between A) going to your boss and laying all your problems on the table, B) yelling it across a row of cubicles, and C) dropping an unsigned note in a box when no one is looking. A Warcraft difference might be whispering someone, saying it in gchat, or dropping feedback in a website form that keeps the sender anonymous.

Whatever you do, just make sure to provide easy-to-access ways for your members to tell you what they're thinking. Because the more you know about what's going on with them, the more problems you can anticipate and try to prevent.

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Beth Blevins is an officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

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

Simplicity

2009-01-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

When I first joined IVV, one of the five founders said "My last guild had pages and pages of very strict rules. I don't want to do that here. For one thing, it would be impossible to enforce."

Guild rules all boil down to respect. In some guilds, the screening of applicants is so brief that too few rules allow members to run amuck without giving the officers the power to check them. In other guilds, there are so many rules that the officer core has to be significantly broadened in order to be able to enforce everything.

There's also the issue of getting members to read your rules. No matter how lovingly you put them together, no matter how short and to the point they are, you'll still have a segment of players who just assume that if they behave (more or less), they'll be fine, and another segment of players who are the opposite -- this segment makes sure the rules are enforced, no matter what.

I believe that any guild can function more or less on the following rule:

Thou shalt respect thy fellow guildies and thy guild.

Most of the time, this means not ninja looting, showing up unprepared, or being a total jerk. In a family guild, it goes deeper to include interpersonal relationships. They request that members not do or say anything that will make someone else uncomfortable, which in our case means a language restriction in public channels.

The beauty of simple, flexible rules is that officers can make judgments of a situation without being bound to dole out harsh punishment. If, for example, a member with a sterling reputation ninja loots something and claims it was an accident. If the guild has a "no ninja loot" policy and the group is crying for his/her head, the officers are required to punish the offender. In the same instance, with a flexible policy, the officers can offer lenience to people who have earned their trust through prior actions.

In the same way, the officers could take a harsher stance with someone who has a less trustworthy reputation.

Reputation should not be mistaken for favoritism. Some guilds use members to achieve goals for the core. This sort of guild structure is unstable, full of people acquiring unfair advantages.

Reputation, on the other hand, is subtle and widespread. Rather than a few people enjoying perks that disrespect the time, effort, and feelings of the people around them, a good reputation often goes unnoticed by the bearer and can sometimes be mistaken for favoritism by people who have lesser reputations. People with good reputations often get invited to more groups, conversations, and have better or closer relationships with the people around them.

In most guilds, a good reputation means being able to keep your head down and do your job, not causing conflict, and giving to the guild bank. In family guilds as well as social guilds, it relies a great deal on getting to know the people around you and investing your time, effort, and emotion in them. An unhealthy guild might have cliques that people find it impossible to break into, but a healthy guild will try its best to include anyone who makes an effort. Gaining "reputation points" in a family guild is not about (or should not be about) material goods. It is about investing oneself into other members.

Members who are needy, greedy, distant, or insecure will have the hardest time gaining a good reputation in a family guild. I've found that of two members who recently vented about being on the outskirts of IVV, one had never read a single member page, where members post details about themselves, and so didn't know about the most obvious relationships: like how one of the earliest guild members is my brother or that his wife's little brother is a raid leader; and the other member suffered from massive insecurity and always assumed nobody liked her, which couldn't have been further from the truth. But once we convinced them to post their own member pages and read ours, essentially starting the "getting to know you" process, they've been getting more conversation and group invites, more of those "perks" that they used to think was favoritism. In fact, it's just familiarity.

When people are comfortable with you, they include you more. It's a simple and inevitable truth. It also makes the task of enforcing rules easier, because as familiarity brings people together, they gain respect for each other. And a guild functioning with respect is a guild that will last.

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Beth Blevins is an officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

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

Definition of a Family Guild

2009-01-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

Raiding guilds take your time, energy, and focus. Social guilds take your conversation and company.

Family guilds take your firstborn.

It might seem a little offbeat, but it's an accurate description. A family guild isn't a place to sit around and hang out -- it's a legacy. Members are expected to tie themselves to the guild and bring in the people they care about, and when a member's child is old enough to start playing, we expect that kid to start playing with us.

Plenty of people confuse family guilds with social guilds. In social guilds, it's often perfectly all right to skip out of the guild without notice, come back, and just hang. Social guilds are very relaxed about member policies (you just have to be nice and not cause a ruckus) and focus more on social events or leveling than endgame.

Family guilds are never casual about who joins. It's like breaking into the mob. And it can be just as hard to break out. This is why family guilds often have very strict application processes and are wary of random recruits. Yes, that guy might be the best tank on the server, but how loyal is he? What does he need as a player, and what does he expect from us?

If a player expects to offer a family guild anything other than long-term commitment, possibly for the rest of his existence in the game, neither he nor the guild will find satisfaction together.

But family guilds, by their loyal and steadfast nature, and if emotionally healthy and possessing of a competent leadership, are the most stable guilds in the game. Their foundation is based not just on how well the guild does in a raid or how entertaining the other players are, but on a basic intense loyalty and trust that no matter what happens, no matter the slow raid progress or personal drama, guild members remain loyal to each other. Individuals may stop playing or fall away, but the guild itself will always remain. It is a rock to which members may cling when times are rough. It is a safe haven.

The best family guilds are forgiving, trusting, and unfailingly fair to members. The member base is made up by people with strong, unbreakable ties: family members, real life friends, and friends made through the game itself. That base slowly broadens as new members bring friends and family in. Sometimes sections break away. Sometimes they don't. But the guild always keeps a steady base that never panics because even if everyone new leaves, they will still have a fun game to play with the people they love.

And that's what it's all about. Playing a game with the people you love.

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Beth Blevins is an officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

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

Feedback

2009-01-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Family Business wants you to give us feedback!

We hope that we never pretend that we've got it all figured out. We most certainly don't.

Have a thought about how to efficiently run a family guild? A question about why we do something a certain way? Think this is the most absurd idea you've ever heard?

It doesn't matter who you are or what you want to say; we want to hear from you, so drop us a line!

What is... The Family Business

2009-01-08T09:17:00.000-08:00

"Whatya gonna do? Nice college boy, eh? Don't wanna get mixed up in the family business? Now you wanna gun down a police captain because he slapped you in the face a little bit, huh? Whataya think this is, the Army, where you shoot 'em a mile away? You gotta get up close like this... badaBING! you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. C'mere... you're taking this very personal."

- Sonny Corleone in The Godfather

There are guilds, and then there are guilds. Guilds in the World of Warcraft are typically built around accomplishing certain goals: PvP, PvE, achievements, and so on. They are communities only by convenience and common interest. Then there's the family guild. Family guilds seek to accomplish these same goals, but they won't do so at the expense of members. They are like family (at least, functional ones) and who succeed, and fail, together.

The Family Business is a resource for people who are looking to be in guilds that won't dissipate at the first sign of trouble, that will survive way beyond the lifespan of any game, and that will foster friendships that last a life time.

Join us as we explore the highs and lows of guild leadership, person management, conflict resolution, and help us as we re-shape the WoW community into one that treats all with respect and dignity.

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Beth Blevins is an 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.