The "Nice" raiding guild. Truth or Fiction?
Posted 01-21-2008 at 03:55 PM by Nez
The "Nice" raiding guild.
Is there such a thing as a nice, fun end game raiding guild? A guild where people are positive, helpful, respectful of each other. A guild where problems are solved without insults and profanity. A guild where those with more experience and knowledge are willing to teach and pass on that information instead of making fun of, or ridiculing those with without. A guild where mistakes are analyzed and correct in a positive manner, then forgiven. A guild that is truly a team that works together for fun instead of epics. Does this type of guild exist? It just seems to me that the people in this game are increasingly becoming more and more negative and mean spirited. I really do not understand why its not possible to raid End Game and still have fun and enjoy it.
Is there such a thing as a nice, fun end game raiding guild? A guild where people are positive, helpful, respectful of each other. A guild where problems are solved without insults and profanity. A guild where those with more experience and knowledge are willing to teach and pass on that information instead of making fun of, or ridiculing those with without. A guild where mistakes are analyzed and correct in a positive manner, then forgiven. A guild that is truly a team that works together for fun instead of epics. Does this type of guild exist? It just seems to me that the people in this game are increasingly becoming more and more negative and mean spirited. I really do not understand why its not possible to raid End Game and still have fun and enjoy it.
Total Comments 15
Comments
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In theory, it should exist but I have seen it from the other perspective....the "nice" guild that lags behind in progression. I imagne a few do survive and succeed but they are more the exception than the rule. Finding the right combinations of outstanding players who are both skilled, determined and good citizens is rare. Finding a block of them enough to field a cutting edge raid is rarer still. I'm sure we all know really nice people in hardcore raiding guilds.
So many of us are faced with a choice(in fact if we can consider ourselves both skilled players and nice people) Sacrifice citizenship and comraderie for progression? Every time I tell myself "this time I'm going to 'ride the tiger' and see end game, I swerve into a "nice" guild at the last minute.
I dunno. I am compelled to log in and go all out tonight even if its maybe, just maybe we'll get down the 4th boss in ZA despite the fact so many other people see that as lol-worthy. /shrugPosted 01-21-2008 at 04:43 PM by Horacio 
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Fiction.Posted 01-21-2008 at 05:03 PM by Ciderhelm 
- Mmm.
Define raiding guild.
I'm in a "casual" raiding guild. We're nice. We're not cutting edge progression, but not LFM Kara, either.Posted 01-21-2008 at 05:12 PM by gardek - Horacio is dead on. The only truly 100%, full on "nice" guild I know has only cleared Kara (very, very recently) and struggles with ZA.
Posted 01-21-2008 at 05:12 PM by Velhym - Well. My guild is a bit better than that... 5/6 SSC, 2/4 TK.
But at the same time, my definition of nice might not coincide with someone elses :PPosted 01-21-2008 at 05:12 PM by gardek - I'll expand.
I was nice until I wanted to accomplish something.
I originally GM'd a casual guild. It was really fun, and I had some of my most fun times in WoW while we weren't "raiding" (they were technically raids, since they were 15 man UBRS, but back then you'd never compare it to a raid zone). I still consider them the most enjoyable times I had.
But the times I'll remember best required a lot of seriousness, a lot of toughness, and a lot of perseverance. There were many times when I was neither nice nor happy. This, with the same guild I had GM'd casually, but was now GM'ing and RL'ing as a hardcore progression guild. It was worth it, but I wouldn't do it again in-game.Posted 01-21-2008 at 05:33 PM by Ciderhelm -
Fiction, but here's why.
People in this demographic, mistake "being nice" with complacency. "Oh, it's ok you failed to sheep/cc/CoT w/e those mobs, try harder next time. Oh, you failed again? no worries bro, must just be having a bad day." et.al.
Guilds which are more progressed than the "friendly, family channel" type of guild, expect their members to excel EVERY MOMENT they're in a progression raid. If a raid member is slacking, they're replaced. Period. The reason this can't happen in a "friendly, family channel" type of guild is because that's the line. You can't say, "Hey Cider, you're really not doing well tonight, your TPS is in the toilet, you can't tank more than 1 mob at a time for some reason, so why don't you come back tomorrow when you're feeling better.
Progression just doesn't work like that. The line has to be drawn somewhere. This doesn't mean you're an asshole to everybody, but calling a spade a spade is something that has to be done if you're going to be on the cutting edge of progression. How that's called is up to you, but with the demographic of this game as young as it is, good luck.
My guild is a tad older, but we still call a spade a spade and have no qualms of replacing slackers, mainly because none of us are using WoW as a social platform. (but that's a whole other topic)Posted 01-22-2008 at 05:48 AM by Calve - We are raiding 3 times a week/ Currently at 5/6 SSC, 2/4 TK (second night on the naga lady.)
We are a nice raiding guild. Not cutting edge, obviously, but still.
Everyone aged 25 or more. We have been this way for the best part of 2 year, having had a big blow up with drama, anger and all at the start. Right now, we have a council of officers (mostly senior members) running the raid and guild tightly : no slackers, discipline in raid, courtesy on all channels and TS and so on.
We do know each other and gather a couple times a year to eat and drinkn, discuss wow and other things
The raid is the core of our guild, but there is some room for retired members or those who can't raid atm for irl reasons.
We have had raiding members taking a break and coming back.
All i'm saying is yes we consider ourselves a fun nice guild, IRL comes first, people are already respectful of each other or quickly taught to be. And yes we have an efficient raid, with focused players.
The main difference is we play to see content, not to get epics. Loot is a mean, not an end. We don't even have dkp.
We may progress more slowly than others, but we fully intend to see Hyjal and BT before WotLK.
But as an officer, i do have to say : it's a lot of work.
Find a handfull of like minded people and start working on it.
It took us 2 year, maybe tou can do it faster ^^Posted 01-22-2008 at 06:34 AM by Yorg
Updated 01-22-2008 at 08:32 AM by Yorg - It is evident that everyone has different definitions of both "progression" and "nice" and for the most part, everyone has to find thier balance somewhere inbetween. Its not a 1:1 correlation as there are certainly guilds full off complete jackasses who treat one another like dirt that lag well behind guilds that play hard but treat one another with respect.
I suppose you're not a nice guild if you tell a player "sorry, you can hang out, run 5 mans, kick around Kara and stuff but you can't raid." No, that's not entirely true. The problem with many guilds is that they have to go with what they have and whether or not they label raiders, they invariably end up with players weaker than the content dictates and no one wants to tell them "go home, see you in Kara this weekend" Hardcore guilds replace them. Nice guilds wring thier hands and threaten but its only grossly poor play that earns demotion or gkick.
Leading a guild or raid like that is a tremendous amount of work. Yo don't have a mandate to remove people that don't perform. "So and so's DPS is terrible......but everyone likes him, he's been in the guild forever, etc." You have pressure to perform and more than likely everyone will be dissatisfied with progression whether they are a god player or part of the problem because if there is anything common among Wow players, its the inability to self evaluate.
Pulling together as a raid and making progression necassarily includes excluding poor performers and makes a guild not "nice". For players to continue to excel there has to be the threat of "unnice" treatment. Self motivators are few and far between and to a certain point, too many can be a critical mass causing drama and splits.
I dunno, I had a really shitty night last night in ZA and these issues were all over it. I kept thinking about this blog while hovering over my heathstone on the hot bar. /sighPosted 01-22-2008 at 07:15 AM by Horacio -
I guess the term "Raiding Guild" defines the atmosphere inside. Its a guild built and based on raiding, not on friendship or having fun. I have absolutely no problems with people being told they screwed up in plain blunt terms.
My current guild leader is quite good at this, he's honest, plain and blunt. You F'ed that up, dont do it again. Do "this" instead. That I think is great. If a problem is there, it needs to be fixed. Adjustments made so you can progress. When you tank, your mistakes are obvious. I expect to be corrected. In fact, I really like my current guild because they will figure out what went wrong and make corrections. I've been in others were the raid leaders and officers just spends 15 mins telling everyone how dumb they are and to "pull your head out of your ass , etc etc. Anger, and insults, but absolutely nothing done to fix the problem. What's the point of that? LoL
I'm sure some of you have heard a recording of a guild leader screaming insults at his guild in vent, cursing at a full shout. Doing nothing for his guild, that a out of control 5 year old could not do. One of those recordings, is of a GM of a guild, on my server. And surprisingly they are very well progresses into BT. I just wonder how long ago would they of finished BT if they had some constructive way to handle and solve problems. =]
What always annoys me the most is the just plain lack of class and respect some players have for other people. Maybe its just the fact that all this is done remotely on-line that they dont have to act like what I would consider a "normal" human behavior. Where I grew up, if you walked up to another person and insulted him, you were quite likely going to get a fist upside your head. Maybe someday we will be able to reach through the screen and smack that smartass huntard when he deserves it.
-NezPosted 01-22-2008 at 09:45 AM by Nez -
I've been searching for that sort of guild for a long time. Unless you downgrade in content, you will always have to deal with a less positive raiding environment than you like. =/Posted 02-06-2008 at 03:42 PM by Ariedan - I just wanted to updated this thread. Shortly after this thread, my wife and I again changed guilds because we really did not like the atmosphere of our old guild. It was not functioning as a team, people were not friendly. We decided to give it one last shot with a new guild before we quit the game and looked for something else to do as our entertainment. Low and behold, we found a fun, friendly progressive guild. Last night we downed Illidan on our 3rd night of attempts. There are great, fun, friendly guilds out there. It makes the game so much more enjoyable, don't settle for less.
-NezPosted 04-25-2008 at 10:00 AM by Nez - I am a guild leader that has build a guild ground up based on a set of core values and respect among all players. We were late to form and that has presented us with being behind on content from the start... We expect to be pushing the boundries as we enter WotLK
The biggest issue I see is that people are selfish and lazy. For a guild like this to work you work hard and be willing to give of yourself and put your team ahead of your own desires. Rather than working hard to build something like many of you are discribing people would rather put up the mediocre crap from at the expense of fun, friendship, and perhaps being ever so slightly behind the curve.
For those of you who say you want a place like this... work for it... find a guild that is doing this exact thing... sign on... and be there for the long hall through good times and tough one. And if you can't find one... and you really want to be apart of something more... come see me. I'll raid with ya.Posted 06-27-2008 at 12:31 PM by jfalcon - I just wanted to toss an update on this topic after re-reading it. By "nice" I do not mean to not be honest or to ignore players short comings. By "Nice" I mean that constructive criticism is offered in a constructive way to better the player and the group. I in no way intended for it to mean to just gloss over problems to not offend anyone by correcting their mistakes. You obviously can not raid with someone that can not preform and/or is not willing or able to correct their mistakes or to take criticism. I have been in several raiding guilds, all of them had different styles, all of them eventually cleared BT. I just think that some of those people had more fun than the others.
Posted 09-04-2008 at 10:17 AM by Nez - When I was in the leading guild of the server for a brief time, we were rude, unforgiving, not in any obvious way supportive, shamelessly demanding of attendance and preparation, and generally ruthless when it came to mistakes. The guild had a reputation for these negative characteristics, as well as being elitist, and many friends expressed disapproval when they heard I'd joined them.
I thought it was exhilarating and reminded me of being in a seriously motivated tech startup environment earlier on in my career. That ethos was why the guild was the leading guild of the server and entered The Eye at a time when "friendly and supportive" guilds were struggling with Karazhan. The guild's sense of fairness was also revealing. Gear went to the players best suited to bring it to bear in progression, be they tanks, healers, or DPSers, period.
These guys eventually disbanded after Felmyst and moved to a more hardcore server to join a more progressed guild. The leading raid group now is certainly nicer and more supportive, and they're on Muru. Not far behind. I joined a social guild and I despair whenever I'm a guest in a raid of some "nice and friendly" guild who can't kill Magtheridon because people haven't learned to pull their targets or be at their positions.Posted 09-22-2008 at 06:56 PM by Machus
