2nd Kara Group

We have been doing some HEAVY recruiting latley (actually our recruiting hasn’t changed much, we’ve just been very sucessful latley).  We are up to 25 lvl 70’s and I think all but 2 or 3 are keyed for Kara.  We are looking at starting a 2nd Kara group.  How do you go about deciding who goes in each group.  Because of the raid id issue, players are not interchangeable once they have been saved.  As I see it there are 2 basic options

1. Group 1 gets all the best geared and most skilled players to maximize progression
2. Best geared and most skilled players are split between the 2 groups so both have a good chance to progress.

Obviously there are ups and downs for both.  In the first option you are most likley dooming the second group to large repair bills and lots of frustration.  However, this may be the best option if your guild has a lot of players that can’t commit to a set weekly raid schedule.  The second group is cobbled together with whoever can make it that day and give it the old college try.  You also have the problem with people who feel slighted at being put in the second group.  With the second option both groups may have trouble with content that the better geared group from the first option would have had little dificulty with.  This may be a good option for a guild with a large base of players that can commit to regular raiding.  Both groups would progress at the same rate and be ready for 25-man content at about the same time.

Our original intention was to go with the second option when we were ready to start a 2nd group.  However, we have enough people for the second group before we anticipated.  I think our issue is that we don’t have enough expirenced raiders that have some gear from the second half of Kara to split them up.  We still have some trouble in the first half if (and i hate to put it this way, but it accuratley describes our situation) we have too much dead weight.  In last weeks Kara runs we had several undergeared, new players and it was really messy.  Lots of wipes and bosses that barely went down.  When we’ve got better groups it goes quicker, smoother, and cheaper.

I don’t really have a conclusion here other than to say that you’ll have to figure out what to do with the players your guild has available.  We still haven’t decided what to do with the second group (and actually we’d like to wait until we have 30 keyed players to ensure that both groups have enough players every week).  This is a really hard thing to decide and it seems to me that the guild leadership has to pick what will be the lesser of 2 evils for their situation.

Trust Your Leaders

This one is slightly rant-y, but I think I’ve got a good message burried in here 

I’m not going to go into a lot of details… it’s just not necessary, but we had some guild drama last night.  The drama stemmed from what I think is a very small group of people who whine and moan at eachother and it escalated to the point where the GM was confronted in a very ugly way.  This person demanded things that would have gotten him a /gkick in other guilds.  In ours… they lost a lot of credibility with the leadership and we’ll have to see where the future takes it.  My point here today is not to embarass this person (if they’re reading, I don’t know one way or the other) or to gripe about what happened.  I wanted to tell all of you out there to trust your leaders.  Give them the benefit of the doubt until they give you a GOOD reason not to trust them any more.  Be objective with this.  I put the “until” statement in there because there are people out there who have no business being leaders, but I’d bet that a lot of the GM’s and Officers out there are good leaders and could be a lot better with a little trust.  I know that in our guild… we don’t make rash decisions, we don’t make spitefull decisions, we aren’t trying to exclude anyone or screw anyone over.  We are trying to maximize the guild’s ability to acheive our goals… progression through raid content.  Almost every decision we make has that goal in mind.  Also, I do mean WE.  This is not a dictatorship.  In order for us as a group of leaders to make good decisions we have a system of checks and balances.  We don’t like for anyone to make decisions by them selves.  That way there’s always an objective opinion. 

If you have a question or concern about what is going on in your guild go talk to someone, and not joe-schmoe who can’t do anything about it except whine and moan along with you.  As long as you’re not whining any good leader will appreciate and consider what you have to say.  Also keep in mind that in any group it is impossible to make everyone happy.  Consider that before you go complaining.  Is the decision that was made good for the group even if it’s not good for me as an indvidual?  That is a really hard thing to get your brain wrapped around.  But I think if you can talk to your leaders with an open mind and listen to what they have to say, they’ve probably got a reason for what they’re doing. 

To all you guild leaders out there… don’t be dictators.  Establish goals for your guild and try to do things to advance those goals.  When your members have concerns, listen to them.  Let them say what they need to say.  If there’s something that needs to change, assure them that you’ll take care of it, then actually take care of it.  If not, then do your best to explain why things can’t change.  Let them know you understand their concerns, but it’s better for the guild to keep things the way they are. 

Lastly, for all parties involved, try to stay calm.  It doesn’t matter if you’re upset or not, you will be held accountable for the words that come out of your mouth.  If you say something stupid, you can’t take it back.  You can apologize later… but sometimes that’s not good enough.  Words have a way of sticking with you.  Try to say what you mean and mean what you say (if you figure out how to do this all the time… tell me how!)

I think that’s all I’ve got.  Have a great weekend everyone!