It’s not easy for me to imagine how things feel from the perspective of a standard guild member who can just play the game as they feel like, no real pressure to do anything except just enjoy their play.
Almost immediately after starting to learn this game, I created the guild and have been a keen guild leader ever since. I’ve learned this game as the Dambusters big daddy so it’s all I know. When I create other characters on horde side, or other servers and join other guilds, I can’t help but have this sense of loss. It’s an emptiness that makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable. I don’t want to take over the other guild or anything like that but it’s just not the same. I imagine if I stuck it out a bit longer, give it some effort then I could grow to feel part of another guild but everything in my mind tells me to get home so I can rarely spend any time playing the game elsewhere.
What this means is that if I actually want to make personal progress in the game then I must make it part of the guild’s policy and ensure I follow it through. I want to raid, I want to play PvP and I like to have friends who share my goals in game. Everybody is different and that variety is a major bonus because it allows the guild leadership team to think together from the perspectives of multiple individuals who collectively bring together those ideas and forge ahead in ways that one individual would struggle to achieve, simply because there are so many facets involved in managing such a community. It’s too much for one person, although it’s good to have one guy who can mediate and have the final say on certain aspects.
Countless times I have written blogs in the past with the aim of achieving an adjustment to a particular group of people’s outlook. I’ve lost count of how many people have come to me straight after a blog and asked me “was that blog about me?” and sometimes the actions of an individual do inspire me to write a blog focusing on a certain subject, that’s true ofcourse. I would be pretty naive if I didn’t use my experiences with people as lessons for what I would like to happen in the future. Sometimes it’s a positive aspect that deserves a special mention as a possible example to others. Sometimes it’s an example of an incident or occurrence I would rather not see much more of. Every blog subject is an attempt for me to either educate on or bring attention to a particular subject.
I like to think that I’m in touch with what’s going on around our guild at all times. If I am aware of something that’s happened then I try to use it as a lesson to our members. As I mention, it could be a good thing that deserves encouragement or a bad thing that needs to be stamped out. You can bet your bottom dollar I will act when action is needed and it’s this very learning and constantly adjusting we have done throughout our 5 years in existence that makes our community an advanced social guild where people enjoy their experience of the game.
We have our raid leaders, we have our events and we have our guild bank, monthly meetings (which we didn’t have this month for the first time in well over a year) and everyone is going about their business as usual making The Dambusters one of the most active guilds on the server, and probably one of the most vibrant guild communities in the entire EU. We have officers performing raid leading, recruitment, guild bank, planning events and our officers are if a very high standard. You won’t find them abusing their given power in this guild, they are approachable (maybe apart from Spyrot the hothead) and they care about what they are trying to achieve. In the end, people still very frequently come to me for information on all of the above. I get questions about raid team inclusion, schedules, the Dambuster Draw, ‘what can I withdraw from the bank?’ The weekly activity prize, PvP, people who want to have more events planned, people who want to know more about Idioms’ Hearthstone tournament (I know right??) and countless other queries and opinions about stuff that goes on around the guild. I even recently got advised how better someone else would have handled a recent officer demotion!
People expect me to know my business and although very often my answer can be ‘best speak to Spyrot about your raid spot mate’ or ‘jolts would be your best guy to talk to about this month’s draw’ I am usually well placed to offer a good insight to the probable outcome or answer.
I said at the start that I find it difficult to put myself in the shoes of a non-GM but that doesn’t mean I have no idea what goes on at the grassroots level of The Dambusters. I have eyes and ears in every corner and have been likened to a CCTV van in the past such is the extent to which my feelers reach. I believe I’m an asset to have as a friend in the guild and although maybe I talk too much or appear to give too much away, it’s very calculated and deliberate and the communication overload our guild experiences is a total boon for us and is something which has enabled me to proudly market our name around WoW Insider and Convert to Raid more recently. There are big raiding guilds who know our name and who respect us as a community. We have had members who got glowing recommendations about us from world first raiding guilds because we have built our guild from strong foundations which make us stand out to people as a community who can withstand a bit of drama and come out the other side I damaged and stronger every time.
I’m not sure how many of you will grasp where I am coming from on this but to summarise, this is a really good place to be and we will only get bigger and better in the coming expansion. We may see disagreements and differences of opinion from time to time but there are big picture reasons for why certain things are done the way we do them. I am always open to hear opinions as long as I am allowed to reply with my own opinions.
The guild can always learn and adapt to certain things but for the most part, I think you can be glad you are here. I’m gonna recruit some more friends for you and we will have a bawl in Warlords of Draenor!
/Salute
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