GUILD RESPONSIBILITY

[MouseOfAslan]

One of the great things about a guild like ours is that for the most part we try to help each other out. That is a lot of the fun about this game. We can go to the 'rescue' of guildies in need. We can help run someone through instances.

When I first joined this guild, it was in the throws of turmoil. Some of the turmoil came just from an intense desire to have perfection in an MC run to the point that it wasn't any fun. I understand the desire to have a perfect team, to have perfect runs, to get to the end of an instance without a lot of pain because people have gear to make it happen.

However, when we volunteer out time to help out guildies who can't find anyone else to do instances and we get shot down because we aren't perfect and people don't want to do an instance and spend gold on repairs because we can't keep up with others, that in my opinion is where I draw the line between this being a game and having fun trying to get things done and it having become an obsession to the person who won't help in an instance unless things are perfect and it can be run fast without glitches.

For that person to be a raid leader and an officer, I feel that priorities need to be evaluated. Not wanting to help out guildies in an instance because you can't afford gold repairs, because the party isn't perfect enough and will fail, 'it's a waste of my time' were the words used. It should never ever be a waste of time hunting with fellow guildies. Even if you bomb out 10 times.

If guildies don't have good enough equipment to do high level instances... how are they supposed to get it? Is it supposed to poof out the graveyard from dead heroes for our use? No, we have to go to instances, hope for drops and wipe a lot while we get better.

Going to the great high level instances is all good and fun when everyone is on the same page of fun. One person can spoil it and the game fast. Please remember that Karazahn isn't everything, that other instances should be run for other guildies and help should never be a burden.

I have never been so close to quitting WoW as I was this week. It shows that the attitude of one person can sure affect others in the guild. Please re-evaluate the moral issue and priorities of the officers in Redeemed.

 

[Where]

/hug Schmeea

I can see where you are coming from and have also been dissappointed with the lack of enthusiasm for helping our fellow guildies. Julienne and I were the only ones for over an hour that were willing to help sabelm for his epic mount quest in scholo, when I did it Julienne and goblit were the only ones that helped me in DM and for scholo myth and his wife on their 56 alts were the ones willing to come help so we did a full scholo run and got their quests done while we were at it Its not just the 70s though, when I was trying to get groups for the auch instas a 66 said that he wouldnt go to tombs because his gear was better than there anyway but he would go to crypts or halls heh. Unfortunately the game is about loot and grinding in the end... I prefer the social aspects of it though I would of long ago been burned out of grinding to max level then grinding/farming/pvping etc if it wasnt for all the friends I have made in this guild. I enjoy helping people out too and try my best to balance whether or not I should push for another level or take a break and help a guild member out. I might not always drop everything to help someone out but I do try to help as much as I can I dunno if anyone remembers that silly rogue "Where" but he spent a lot of time in the trenches trying to help quite a few people in their quest for loot/attunement or just running any insta he could and I look forward to getting back in there with Where2 We all just need to sit back and think to what it was like for us at that level, or before we were 60, some of these people havent been at max level for a year and a half like some of us did before BC, this is totally new to them and lets try to do our best to make it as enjoyable as possible to them. Another thing to think about is I have noticed it is a lot harder to find groups for anything pre-70 now, there isnt the huge number of people like there was when most of us levelled to 70 so telling them to PUG it sometimes just isnt possible, I sat in LFG for 3 hours last night for durnholdt and got one rogue to join the whole time heh.

 

[Where]

one more thing, I wouldnt call it guild responsibility but I would expect a little more compassion and willingness to help out of my brothers and sisters than some random end game oriented guild

 

[Plankeye]

I am glad I am not an officer. Complaints like this would drive me nuts.

This one is really simple to solve and it is not the fault of the existing leaders as they already do quite a lot trying to get the 30-40 kara raiders going on a weekly basis. This is simply people stepping up to take on the responsibility of leading low level instances. It is easy to complain. It is 100 times harder to give of yourself and your time. So you see an opening. Are you willing to fill it or sit on the sidelines and continue complaining? I will gladly setup weekly instance leaders with access to create groups in the phpraid site to facilitate scheduling of these low level instances. So who else is up for helping out your fellow guildies?

 

[Zazzy]

If my time permits, I am willing to run some outlands instances, and even some of the higher level old world instances. but anything too low I might consider "power leveling" and I hope any lowbies understand that I think you should get a group your own level in that senario.

I love running instances. And sometimes I wish more people wanted to. But you won't see me sending up a wall of green text yelling at guildies for not helping me.

 

[Elihu]

One major thing we need to look at here is that this guild is composed of many different types of players. We have people who play for the fellowship aspect of it all, others who play for the ability to get away from responsibility, some who play for the ministry opportunities, others yet who play as a side hobby and log in only occasionally.....the fact is our guild is a very mixed guild. Now try to step into leadership's shoes and fill the needs of all these very different styles of gamers; it is very difficult to do so.

Granted, I have no idea what situation(s) took place that you are referring to Schmeea, nor do I condone their actions but I must say that I agree with what Plankeye (Sandric) posted as well. If you see something that is a need, do your best to fill that role yourself. If you need help doing so, please ask.

We as a guild are meant to be different from other guilds. We are to set an example to be looked at, that reflects Christ's love for one another. Let us do our best to be that example and help one another when possible, not allowing greed (gear or loot) to derail us from that goal.

If you have an issue with someone, especially an officer acting out of line be sure to take it to the guild leaders. Let's do our best to keep our guild chat free from strife so that others who are not involved, or those that are newer don't get wrong or bad impressions on something they may know nothing about.

If needed please feel free to contact me in-game (Fj or Itsuka) for questions, concerns, or even invites to an instance run.

Matthew 5:14
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden."

 

[Frother]

I don't view this thread as a Complaint, so much as an exhortation, and throwing up a flag to say, hey, let's not lose sight of the forest thru the trees. If you've stumbled into the 'just gotta get better gear and that instance is not going to do me any good' mindset, it's time to step back and take a breath, officers most of all.

I also wouldn't go so far as to say helping others play a game is a responsibility though either, but it certainly is an opportunity to help someone in their enjoyment of the game, and get to know them a bit in the process. Try it and you'll see how much fun it is. Don't let Blizz fool you into forgetting that gear isn't the point, fun with others is the point. That fun comes in varies forms, as apparently Goblit and Julienne have discovered. So-called 'gear' is just a program algorithm that slightly modifies play mechanics temporarily.

Unfortunately just to play the game with most of the guild, you have to get to 70 (on this server...) and have some 'gear'. So give a hand to those who just wish to join you in the game! The more of us there is to game with, the more play options open up to us----> more enjoyment for all.

Meltaway

 

[Avesther]

I love Schmeea dearly, and I do know that she is always in the bankground helping guild members. She is also always willing to get group activities going with the guild...she's like a Halaa master PvPer now. Alas, like most people who are doing things in the background, she too has been forgotten. As awkward as that may sound it is also the truth. In our zeal to reach for a goal we oft forget those who helped us on the way. It is why I nominated Schmeea for guild leader some time back because I know of her commitment to the machinery behind Redeemed.

I have to admit I'm not always the first to jump on the band wagon to help others. I've let personal happenstance get in the way of me being a better guild member. And I will endevour to do better my part in the guild.

As for raiding, I raid because if I don't, many times the raid doesn't happen. We always seem to be short a healer and I'd rather see people who like to raid do stuff they enjoy in the game then be disappointed. I don't raid because its necessarily something I enjoy doing anymore. I do realize that in order for me to see more of later instances, its something I have to do alas, its not something I'm interested in right now.

I will work harder to ensure people looking for gear or attunements for later instances get a better chunk of my time.

===EDIT===

I should mention that I have the key to do all the instances on heroic. My battle medic spec may not be the best spec for it, but I'm all up helping how ever I can.

 

[treebranch]

Well said Avesther.

If I never see kara again, it would be too soon. The only reason I go week after week is to allow others to go. I'm looking forward to the day when we get more healers and I can bow out.

My wife has generously given me 2 nights a week to raid. (She takes care of our daughter during the time I spend playing) Both those nights are spent in an instance I’d rather not be in, on a character I’d rather not play on. I only get a few hours of "free time" a week, very late at night after the family is finally asleep.

So when i see this...

Please re-evaluate the moral issue and priorities of the officers in Redeemed.

I can't help but be offended.

Schmeea, I hope you will contact this person directly if you have not already. Please take this private, this is not the place for airing grievances. If I can help the process along, please let me know.

 

[Mordos]

Sorry tree but I disagree... there was allot of people involved so I need to say this:

Now that this is out in public I need to apologize in public. Schmeea, first off I want to say sorry… It may not mean much but I truly am sorry for the way I acted and the way I treated you. I should not have done that and I am truly sorry. I know I’m an eleetist, this is why I’m as selective as I am about where I go and what I do… My repair bill is appox 5 gold per death if we wiped ten times that would be 50 gold. I can’t farm like other classes and make allot of money so I can pay for repair bills because I’m prot spec and we don’t hit very hard. So, I play my hunter and select my groups carefully. You may think this is wrong… is it? I enjoy playing and I enjoy raiding that is what I enjoy for this game so that is my focus while play this game. Now on the night in question I had been asked in tells to go… and most of the time if you target me and ask me I’ll do it… I had done BM twice already that day and both times we cleared it with easy in 20 min. So I expected the same walking in there again and when we didn’t get to the first boss I was shocked and WAY over reacted. I like helping people, just hard on the gold stash… I’m a very imperfect person and I’m always working on the bad parts… These next couple week are extra bad as the wife and kids are gone, I miss them terrible I try and play to not get depressed. I’m not trying to come up with excuses that condones what I said, it was wrong… but I am trying to help you understand where I am… and prays are always excepted on my behalf.

So, if you will except my apology, thank you. If not I would understand.

 

[treebranch]

Sorry tree but I disagree... there was allot of people involved so I need to say this:

Just for clarification, i'm ALWAYS ok with apologies in open forums!

I apologize for ninjaing Walls third piece of stormrage... (As an attonement for my sin, Wall is making me carry it around in my bag for all of eternity... And yes, it's still in my bag.)

 

[Baddwin]

Hey Schmeea,

I just wanted to offer whatever words I can about the situation the other night. Personally, I thought that the situation was handled very poorly. At the same time, I'm trying to remember if I said anything that might have been misinterpreted as being critical. I don't think I did, but if so, then I apologize - it was certainly not my intention.

I, too, sense your frustration at the challenges of being both a family/friends oriented guild and an end game raiding guild. Those are two diametrically opposed objectives that don't really compliment one another. With that said, I think we usually do a pretty good job of trying to offer something to both ends of the spectrum.

Also, a challenge is that these two objectives seem to attract two very different types of players bringing two different mindsets to the table. The "family" type of player, which is a role I see you playing very well and offering a lot to the guild, tends to be more casual, and focused on having fun, and enjoying the social aspect of the game regardless of whether you're sitting in IF having an 'emote-fest' with guildies, or running Shadow Labs trying to get a key fragment for yourself or a guildie. It's the "wherever you are, have fun with it" mindset. That offers a lot to the guild, and is vital for keeping people feeling involved and connected. You rock at this, and don't sell yourself short, or feel like it's not an important role to play.

At the other end of the spectrum is the hardcore end game raiding mindset. These are more of the min/maxers, looking to eek out the last 0.0023% efficiency in their DPS output, regardless of how many hundreds of gold it's going to cost to do so. These are the players that can recite strategies for clearing 4 dozen epic mob fights in their sleep. These, too, are the core of the population that are going to allow us as a guild to experience the content that 90% of the players in this game will never see. And many of these players aren't having fun if they know that they've left any performance 'on the table', if you know what I mean. Think of them as the Donald Trumps of WoW. They stay up late agonizing about that Kidney Shot they used on that last boss instead of the Cold Blood Eviscerate that would have dropped him for sure (OK, so I exaggerate ). We have a number of players that fit in this mold, too, and are very good at what they do within this context.

The thing is, there's room in the game for both types. And I offer no value judgment on either. 'Not better, not worse, just different'. As a guild that tries to be, if not 'all things', at least 'as many things as is reasonable' for believers within the game, there's room for both in Redeemed, as well. And if you're wondering, I place myself in between these two types, with a preference for the first. I do want to be as efficient as is reasonable at my role, and want to face the challenges of higher level content, and am willing to jump through a certain amount of hoops to do so, but if it's not fun, and the people aren't fun, and having fun, then what's the point? And my standard of 'reasonable' in the previous sentence will certainly differ from the standard of many others in the guild. At the same time, I've been involved in more than my fair share of 'doomed instance runs', and some of the most fun I've had has been during these times, because the focus was on togetherness, and doing the best with what we had (and lots of jokes at our own expense don’t hurt, either!). And, surprisingly enough, some of those doomed runs actually turn out to be successful.

Where the line was crossed the other night, and I understand completely your being offended, is when the objectives of the group become more important than showing the people in the group the respect that they deserve as human beings and fellow followers of Christ. Unfortunately, that line was crossed, and there's no place for that in Redeemed. Apologies have been offered, and I wasn’t the aggrieved party, so I won’t belabor the point. Lessons learned, and all that... (and I wish I could say that I've never been a guilty party...)

Once again, I can see the motivations behind the general feelings engendered on both sides (regardless of the appropriateness of the reactions to those feelings). As a social player, you are willing to show respect and kindness in spite of perceived shortcomings in play performance or behavior (to a point, obviously). Your objective in playing is to enjoy yourself and help others to enjoy themselves, and as long as that's happening, "it's all good". The raiding mindset, though, has the objective of 'winning', and if some are perceived as not contributing to that objective, then that lessens their enjoyment of the experience. Whether it's true or not, perceptions form one's reality (on both sides of the equation) - I'm sure you've lived enough to learn that.

So what's to be done? I'm not sure. If I had the perfect answer to that, I'd be leading the perfect WoW guild somewhere. Unfortunately, us sinful people keep getting in the way. Perhaps the answer is to keep an eye out for those who's objectives at playing this game differ from yours, and keep that in mind when choosing who to 'run with'.

Nonetheless, don't let criticism offered in the heat of the moment detract from the fact that you play a key role in this guild, and bring a ton of fun, energy, and wonderful quirkiness (and I mean that in a good way) to Redeemed. You just keep 'doing your thing'.

(And yes, I've made some broad generalizations and over-simpifications for the sake of brevity (hah!), including pigeon-holing you a bit, Schmeea. Maybe I've misstated myself or completely missed the mark a bit, but if so, then it was with the best of intentions.)


*Your skill in Wall of Text has increased <375>*

 

[MouseOfAslan]

**moral issue and priorities of the officers in Redeemed** as in fun related not that this person did anything morally wrong (I might have spelled it wrong?)

Mordos, of course I'll accept your apology if you'll accept mine in return. I replied with things I'll leave unsaid in the thread as I don't want it to turn into an unnecessary flame thread because that isn't necessary nor intended. I too am having a bad week health wise, so can understand moodiness.

When I was in High School, my worse subject was math. So much so, that anything with multiple numbers in it makes me run and hide. (It was the only subject keeping from 4.0) I also grew up with games like Clue; Monopoly and the most complicated thing at that time was trying to get the trap on Mouse Trap to balance correctly for end of game fun! When someone in the guild can put together numbers, stats and make sense out of the conglomerate mess, I admire they have that ability. Mordos, you are good at that. I could never hope to compete and get completly befuddled and lost trying to figure out what would be best for my rogue... agility vs hit power vs stamina vs strength... ****head spins*** In this manner, you are a good choice for raid leader, my humblest apologies.

I understand the gold issue, that is why I don't get into as many instances as it costs me now about 7-9 gold in repairs. So it is hard for me to balance running quests, getting gold, farming food items for food buffs, getting ore because I like to make things go boom!

One of the things I guess I need to do is get reputation so I can do heroic runs, but that also means I need to do more instances to get heroic. I don't understand that really well, I'm guessing you have to run the instances over and over to get rep....? Not sure if there are quests involved, items etc.

In that manner, if anyone needs help in and instance, please feel free to ask. I think I am taking a break for a while though, play horde for a bit. Open my mind away from focusing on things that shouldn't be that important and bring it back to fun. Tarl knows how to get a hold of me.

I'll be back soon.

 

[Where]

First of all, Kudos to you Mordos for standing up and apologizing like that! I didnt know exactly who she meant and you could of kept it quiet but its a good man to stand up and admit his mistakes.

Now I gotta poke some fun You cant be an elitist while handing out raid invites involving DKP BTW my WL ADD yesterday was just to see what happened hehe, pretty cool addon And... you still owe me a talk, you have told me twice now you would talk to me later and never did

To clarify a point too, in my rantings above it wasnt so much aimed at the leaders in guild, they are doing the best they can and most are doing well leading by example. I know it has nothing to do with leadership that makes the general population less willing to help each other and that is where I feel the disturbance is. We all just need to think about each others feelings and treat everyone the way we want to be treated. Dont be afraid to "pay it forward" and do something to help someone where you get nothing in return but the satisfaction of knowing you helped someone. The good deed just might get returned to you many times over

 

[nattyg]

At the other end of the spectrum is the hardcore end game raiding mindset. These are more of the min/maxers, looking to eek out the last 0.0023% efficiency in their DPS output, regardless of how many hundreds of gold it's going to cost to do so.

Ok...I'm going to inject some levity...you mean like these people???

http://www.redeemedonstonemaul.org/blogs/nevi/default.aspx

If only WoW was around to use Mathematica on back in college...

 

[treebranch]

Wow... that was really nerdy. Gilga would be proud.

 

[nattyg]

Funny...that's the same response I got from my almost better half There are certain things a gnome should just keep to themselves...

 

[Gilga]

THAT'S AWESOME! Although i would say that Matlab pwns Mathematica when it comes to linear programming. I have been thinking of writing a linear program for putting together raids groups, but I don't have a Cray here so I don't think it would converge...

Anyhow, as much as I'm happy to see levity in this post, I don't the serious points to be lost in it either. I believe I could sincerely argue in favor of every single perspective expressed in every post in this thread ... while realizing that several of those perspectives completely contradict themselves. Just how it seems to work.

But I do hope that we all love the game because it's fun, love our guild because of the fellowship ... that we are always (or at least usually) humble and grateful whenever someone gives any of their time to help us or include us and never come to expect or feel entitled to it ... but that we also feel privileged and honored to help out others in our fantastic community. We're an amazingly diverse group, and hope we appreciate and cherish that diversity rather than let it make us feel different and excluded.

Now I need to go make some fireworks on my alt...

 

[Baddwin]

Ok...I'm going to inject some levity...you mean like these people???

http://www.redeemedonstonemaul.org/blogs/nevi/default.aspx

If only WoW was around to use Mathematica on back in college...

Yeah, that's the guy. =)

And as I reread my post'o'rama, I realized that i might have come across as bashing on Mordos a bit. I hope I didn't. Yes, he made a mistake in the heat of the moment, but I've made far bigger ones in my day. I was really just putting down in text thoughts that have been bouncing around in my cavernous melon for quite a while now. (Gotta fill up the empty space with something, dont'cha'know...)

I'm all about the love, man, for everyone - saints and sinners, for we're all both - especially me!