It’s a hard thing when you come to lose good members simply because you can’t give them what they want. And I really do mean good members – the ones worth keeping. Of those five who ventured into Karazhan a few days ago and handed the traitorous Prince his backside (after three attempts, admittedly) there are now only four, simply because she wanted to raid. And Crimson Blades, at its current numbers, cannot give that opportunity to high-end 80 members simply because there isn’t enough 80′s in the guild. While the numbers is far from my fault, the discussions in the guild have made me think about where I’m going in respect of the guild itself. I mean…the Blades, as a starting point, was to be a social levelling guild – and still is and I have decided since that it always will be – but no matter how much I might want to keep it that way, the lure of raiding guilds to get that best end-game content gear and to get into the end-game instances is very substancial for people on the tougher side of 80.
Admittedly, this is the fate I chose when I wanted the Crimson Blades to be formed as a levelling guild: It can only ever be a levelling guild. A raiding guild involves members coming on and posting raids constantly, advertising raids for various members to sign up to and adventuring together in an instance to kick the tail end off the biggest bosses you are likely to face in Azeroth. Even if I’ve never been in one, I got a fair idea of how they work. As a result, though, they cannot involve lower level players in the raids due to the fact they are unable to add to the group in any way – and on top of that fact, probably would get told to take a hike the moment they try to step into a raid instance! The problem multiplies when you try raiding in a levelling guild – most people are trying too hard to get to that raiding level to worry about raids they don’t need to be going into. And it’s worse when you consider 80′s can NOT level (they are already at the cap until Cataclysm hits the shelves) so it’s not so much a “social levelling” guild for them as a “social” guild.
Herein lies my dilemma. I’m making a beeline for 80 now as are many of the other players I’ve gathered into the guild over the months. All in all, though, I have no experience in raids (even if my dungeon experience is relatively exceptional) and, being the tank, it is crucial for me to know these things. However…for me to know, I’d have to be there. And I’m not. I’m levelling in the Tundra or somewhere else, I am not getting any raiding experience. The participation in Karazhan was twofold: To get a taste of raiding (in a 10-man, it’s only a step from normal dungeons) and to see if I could get two of the items on my list from about a month or so back (which I didn’t). It confirmed what I had thought at first…I was not at a raiding level. I had no experience and it was my downfall when I was being helped by people who did these places long before I came along.
In respect of Gordrake, my path is set: Get to 80, seek out a raiding guild to help me with raiding, work hard on what I need to do and then go from there. It’s after that, though, that I’m oblivious to. I might know raiding with my tank, but what about my others, the ones not even hitting 50 yet? They’ll hit 80 one day, and Dundrak can’t hand over ownership to another alt. Hell, I can’t do that myself forever. It’d ruin the guild as it stands. Likewise, though, I can’t change the guild’s purpose now. It’s a social levelling guild, and trying to make a raiding guild out of a levelling guild is like trying to make eggs from an oyster – something’s going to break, and I suspect it’ll be my guild. But then if I don’t do something for the members who want to raid, I’m going to be losing more members than I can recover at some point or another. And as I’ve said, the guild is not at the capacity right now to run raids consistently. Occasionally at level 70, perhaps, if it’s 10-man, but people have to want to be there and, frankly, only 5 of the Blades’ wanted to be there (even if, of those that did join us 5, one was an ex-Blade themselves and the other a good friend of mine) so right now, there’s not a lot I can do about the Blades’ losing 80′s to raiding guilds.
In some ways, I can accept that, it’s something that I have to as a leader of the Crimson Blades. But the person that left after that raid…we had a lengthy discussion about a lot of things and, after the conversation, everything that’s cropped up over that last week has been mentally prodding me, concerning me and leaving me to wonder where to go. One option for me is to make a new guild with Gordrake, sourcing members from the Blades’ who want to move on to raiding. However, unless I can get a high number of high levels to keep with the guild that will be a problem when it comes to gaining members, not to mention we would be stuck for a period of time to 10-mans anyway. Another is to simply have Gordrake come back with that raiding experience, but then he’d effectively be on the back burner and useless until Cataclysm comes around and bites him square on his beefy ass. The third is to keep Gordrake in an already-established raiding guild and have them source members from the Blades, but I’ve not really heard of many good social raiding guilds. I know of one or two that friends have been lucky to find, but if they’ll accept complete newbies to raiding is another kettle of scampi.
I know I’m thinking WAY ahead of myself, but it’s better to think now what I’m going to do in the future and have a solution for when it comes rather than being in a last-minute panic or finding that none of my ideas are any good and having everything falling flat on my face. But I’m still left with that one question that I have no answer to…
…what do I do when I get there? Which way do I go?
The problem with making a strict leveling guild is that you’re focusing entirely on a secondary portion of the game – while leveling is part of the experience, World of WarCraft is very much focused on the endgame; be it through raiding or pvp or whatnot. Seasonal event achievements, daily quests and everything often expect you to be max level, and except for occasionally overhauling or finishing content, Blizzards’ approach to old zone leveling is generally to to speed it up via patches.
It’s a little like making a fishing guild, though less unavoidable. While it’s definitely an aspect of the game and one you can strive to be good at, it’s not one of the main focal points Blizzard have.
As for raiding, being “stuck” at 10-man isn’t all that bad a thing, really. Your epics might be less shiny than people doing 25-mans, true, but you can still generally experience everything, and it is entirely possible to be a “hardcore casual” 10-man raiding group/guild – in fact, in some ways it’s a better experience than 25-man because there’s a greater chance you know everyone involved, and a lesser chance for loot/raid drama.
Yelnenu have an interesting structure because we’re not technically a raid group as such – we’re more a bunch of friends who have gathered over the years; we populate several scattered guilds and generally indulge in a variety of things from instancing, leveling, pvping and raiding together for fun and company. It’s not really something you can build intentionally, and we don’t really have leaders as such (though some people take responsibility for certain roles/aspects), but if not for them I probably wouldn’t be playing still.
While I agree that being stuck at 10-man raids isn’t a bad thing in itself, being stuck at 10-man level 70 raids is. At the moment that’s the most the guild can reasonably contribute to in respect of raiding, thus is largely unappealing to most because, as you have said yourself, everyone wants to get a piece of the end-game. It might’ve been end-game content for BC but it’s not widely considered end-game material anymore considering the new instances placed in 3.3 – or even on a wider scale, from WotLK in general.
It is hard, though, when it comes to deciding what sort of stuff you want to do. I mean…try to do one or the other kind of guild, you end up cutting a main portion out. And trying to do both just causes tensions and mini-groups inside the guild, which is not what I’m trying to do. Also, the server is already flooded with people wanting in on raiding guilds anyway, many not even giving half of a good experience according to those I’ve spoken to. Naturally, I’ve seen Orgrimmar overrun at times with players in epic gears and sat on top of the bank, doing nothing and not bothering with a guild. They tend to call in on what goes through the wire in the LFG or Trade channels. Some of them even have a hatred for guilds because of bad experiences they’ve had, which is pretty disappointing.
It is nice to see that you were fortunate in your group, and that’s what I’ve always aimed for all my guilds, past and present, to ever be: A bunch of friends who just like to have fun and do things together. Me being leader is secondary to the fact that I’m also another player, like the rest of the guild, and it wouldn’t be a guild without them as much as it wouldn’t be a guild if I didn’t make it in the first place. And if not for some of the members there, I admit, I’d likely get too bored by the time I’d even reach the end-game content and would give it all up. I’ve done that before on the Kul Tiras server once; started playing there, found it unfriendly, nobody wanted to talk or do anything and I ended up deleting all my characters and handing off the guild I had to some random person outside Stormwind bank.
That is the main reason, really, for the idea behind having a secondary guild connected to the Blades because then that’ll give the familiar people from the levelling guild a place to go when they are looking to get into raiding. And with the experience I’ll get from raiding outside the guild from Gordrake in the future, that would help me to build the group into something that can tackle any raiding obstacle. But I don’t know it it’ll work, if it can be pulled off…nothing. All I know is that I’ve cut myself off from an avenue of growth in the Blades simply because it is what it is.
Any thoughts or ideas that you could perhaps put forward? You’ve obviously played the game longer than I have, so…I guess I’m assuming you know more and better than I do. I just don’t know if my ideas are stupid, pure failure in written form or actually possible with a bit of elbow grease and perseverance. Perhaps that’s what I’m afraid of…
Yelnenu just.. happened, really. It started as the Lights of Elune which was a concept I had – it was entirely an in-character construct meant to exist as an in-world faction.. but with a very out of character guild chat because I think long-distance “brain talk” breaks immersion.
Ultimately, Yelnenu came to exist because more and more people were interested in making alts that didn’t fit into the guild, so we made a chat channel that we could hang in so we were pretty much tapped into /g even when we were on alts. Taking that plus picking up a few friends we made over the time and that’s essentially Yelnenu.
We’re spread across multiple guilds with that channel being the one common line. We help eachother out because we want to, not because there’s any rules saying we have to. It’s not something you can forcibly create, I think, it’s just something that happens given luck and the right situation. Some of my Yelnenu cronies are people I’ve been having around since the EU final beta, so it’s been a looooong journey to reach where we are now.
As for level 70 10-mans.. I think you’re putting too much emphasis on the 10-man bit there, rather than the level 70 part. (Especially seeing how level 70 25-mans can often be 10-manned nowadays). There’s nothing bad in indulging in old world content – Yelnenu will occasionally take a free day when enough are around and go beat up some old world thing just for fun – things some of us haven’t seen or whatnot. Just to experience it and conquer it now that we actually can. If you make it your primary focus though, you’re going to have a problem.
The thing is, so long as you make a “leveling” guild, or a “gearing up” guild, some half of everyone going your way are going to be people who just want a stepping stone unto the “real” endgame. Of course, so long as you’re just a “friends” guild, your recruiting is going to be hampered by the whole business of first making friends before you have new recruits.
I was just lucky, really. I had an idea, and enough decent people liked the idea to pick it up and stick around. The idea is long dead and largely abandoned, but the people are still around.