The Dambusters

Having struggled to get my head around the layout of the web design package I recently installed, it became apparent that I might have been digging too deeply in my efforts to streamline the guild’s online strategy. Having come to terms with domain names, name servers (DNS) and File Transfer protocol (FTP) I started to get frustrated with the actual structure layout of the web editor itself. The HTML and CSS coding elements are easily learnable but the way the program laid out the file system was very confusing, not the hierarchecal file setup I had expected and that made for a messy feel that was very off-putting.

A few days ago I began wondering how to keep my blog and the website linked, I found the idea of simply creating a link to the blog from the website to be clunky and decided that maybe I should incorporate both website and blog together. I already know the layout of the blog site and have found the tools available to be both very customisable and powerful although the blog itself displays an air of simplicity with the curent theme.  My plan is to adjust the site as I learn and understand the more powerful tools available while trying to decide how best to implement a forum for the guild’s feedback and discussions.  I also need to change the domain name to www.dambusters.eu but seems there’s a problem accessing the site’s domain settings and I am currently awaiting a support response.

I stil have the option of starting from scratch with the ‘under construction’ website and returning to the old wowstead site aswell as working on this current site so our options are open, I would love to hear your feedback to determine what the community are thinking regarding these changes.  Feel free to make comments here….

In addition, thanks for the responses I have received regarding the previous Class Leaders post.  I have a few candidates in mind but I am still hoping for more people to come forward, don’t make me chase ya now!   😀

Having a specialist in a particular class is a great way to teach people who want to learn to play a particular class for their own benefit aswell as that of the guild.

The guild needs class leaders. If you consider yourself to be a fine example of your chosen class then please come forward. It is possible more than one person will apply for your role but please apply if you believe you have the knowledge and let me make the decision of who becomes the authority on all things related to your class.

This position requires experience and understanding aswell as willingness to offer friendly and helpful advice. If you get a class lead position and feel you would benefit from the assistance of a friend then by all means, make it so. This might help if you are not 100% on one of the specs, I will expect you to still be able to cover advice rendered from your junior guildies in need.

Class leaders will also help to determine who is doing well among others of the same class in the guild, maybe for recommendations to the Raid Leader or Rated Battleground Leader. Your advice may also be requested when recruiting specific players for these teams in the future.

Your name will be mentioned around the guild’s online spaces to advertise who people need to contact if in need of advice.

Remember we are a social levelling guild, new players look up to the more experienced Dambusters as figureheads of our community. Take hold of a leading role and do us proud!

Death Knight
Druid
Hunter
Monk
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior

Let me set the scene…..

Big guild, full of friendly people all busy doing dailies, dungeon runs, farming materials, afking, talking on vent etc etc etc.

This is a very busy time in the game. Most wow maniacs are beavering away trying to level up alts, gearing their main or any number of other chatbox distracted task.

If you need assistance and go to your first ‘port of call’ the guild chat, you are absolutely right to do so. It’s usually a good place to join in on a conversation, especially in the evenings.

If you ask a question there and nobody replies, please don’t assume you are being ignored because that simply ain’t the case. Not in the Dambusters!

There could be any number if reasons for lacking responses in the gchat. Last thing such an occurrence needs is for you to start bitching about being ignored etc. logging off in a mood is simply rofl embarrassing. If you feel your topic of conversation is ignored then try searching the Internet for advice, there’s loads of it out there. Or you could simply wait a few minutes and repeat the question. DON’T SPAM tho haha, that ain’t cool 😀

Chances are people may not know the answer to your question, they could be in the kitchen making a coffee, they could be embroiled in a bitter 1 v 1 world pvp moment as some homicidal orc warrior decides to use his new MoP overpoweredness to cut a hole in every alliance face they meet. I’m sure the guild likes you 🙂

Try to consider these things before spouting QQ drama in the guild chat. I’m sure 99% of the guild would fully agree.

/Salute

The days of open invites are numbered in the Dambusters. Until now, the guild has been free and open with its recruitment policy, happily inviting everyone and anyone into the guild regardless of who they are or what they may bring to the guild.

This policy is coming to an end soon but please, don’t worry! The access to the guild will still be easy for anyone who wishes to become a member, so long as they show us they can access our website –new site creation currently in process– and care enough to read what we are all about a swell as answering a few fun questions about themselves.

The good people who really want to join us will have no trouble in doing so. What this means is that as people leave the guild (which always happens due to many factors over any given period of time) the guild will refill its ranks with people who, we can be confident, will share our values as a guild.

People already in the guild should see no change, ofcourse you are the reason for the guild’s success. If you have an alt character you wish to bring in, the process will remain the same as now. Just contact a recruitment officer or myself for an invite on your alt.

The benefits of such a system may seem obscure at first, it has taken me time to consider all the pros and cons of such a move but as you will no doubt be aware, I do my homework on matters of guild management as emphasised here and you can be sure I have carried out the forethought required of such a move.

Having an application system allows us to vet our incoming members to ensure they will be more likely to be trustworthy. In the past we have been stung by douchebags who have abused the trust we offered to them by way of guild bank accessibility and leadership roles causing us massive drama and forcing me to rethink my strategy of trust. Having a vetting system will allow us more flexibility with the rank perks and bank tab access aswell as having a more fluid rank progression than we currently have.

Another bonus of the new setup will be that it ensures any prospective new member MUST access the new website, forcibly directing traffic to the online spaces we use to keep our members most reliably informed about the general goings-on around the guild. We need to get the information contained in this blog and the Facebook page out to our members in a more efficient way and the website will be designed to allow that.

You may be thinking ‘hang on a minute, how do we keep recruiting from around a low-med pop server like Xavius?’
The answer to that is, we use the server forums and use our growing community reputation to cast a wider catchment net to not only Xavius, but all of the EU. I read so many posts on the WoW community sites about people who can’t ever find a decent guild that fits their needs and that Dambusters, is where we come in. People will be able to find us on the forums and can access our simple website application process and join us on brand new toons to try us out if they wish. Remember new toons are great for levelling guilds!

The whole idea is to get the majority of the guild talking on our forums which ofcourse will be updated with the upcoming website.

Any thoughts are very welcome!

/Salute THE GUILD

After fully 104 total wipes since the 2nd of October, the Dambusters finally slapped The Stone Guard into place after reaching a state of fever pitch with our ecstatic raid team.  The boss didn’t go down without a fight having almost entirely wiped on this amazing epic kill, only Illia was left as the boss had around 500k health left when he rolled away for a moment of respite before popping that OP monk ability Touch of Karma for the kill.  Astonishing piece of quick-witted skill in a tight situation!

I would like to take a moment to thank our hard working raid leadership team of Spyrot, Kuja and Nevra for managing the team roster in often difficult situations where people have had to be left out at times.

This is part of managing a team, you have been determined enough to realise that we need the most committed team players who put in the time and effort required of an Air Raider to get this first of many kills!

The team who got the Dambusters first kill of Mists of Pandaria:-

• Spyrot
• Kuja
• Nevra
• Illia
• Pocahunter
• Manacle
• Argher
• Trikié
• Kleinie
• Bunnyboiler

Good effort people!

/SALUTE

Every guild needs good leadership, it begins at the general membership base and grows more demanding with the officers and culminates right at the top with the guild master who carries the burden of overall responsibility for the entire guild and everything that goes on around the community.  Guild Leaders who brush aside responsibility with comments akin to “well, he’s in my guild but I don’t control him so what can I do if he’s acting like a douchebag” should be worrying to anyone who is serious about being part of a good guild who takes responsibility for it’s member base.

At the Dambusters (most popular guild on the server™) we take the actions of our members seriously and people who create unnecessary problems around the server community that reflect badly on us is considered to be unbecoming of a Dambusters Guild member.  To that end, our leadership group must take seriously their positions as officers and try to carry out specific given tasks as delegated by the guild leader.

As a lot has changed since the guild’s evolving status over the years has altered the mentality and requirements of the specific leadership officers.  Some officers have been specifically appointed to specialised roles around the guild and others are there as advisors for reasons like being trusted by myself in real life to give me hard facts about goings on that I may need to hear in a frank and factual manner.  Others advisors have proven themselves to go out of their way to issue advice and opinions having attained valuable game experience over years of play and that information has been useful to me in managing the guild.

These committed people have given the guild a lot of effort over the years and I am very grateful for that!  However, a guild leader cannot expect the guild to remain competitive over years to come without constantly striving for new and vibrant ideas from new people as well as demanding continued inspiration from the current officer team.  To this end, I will be placing an onus on the current crop of officers to clarify exactly what they see as their primary roles at the moment and going forward.  It is noteworthy that although a lot of people are reading this blog and the website info (which is in need of updating admittedly) there are vast amounts of guild members who have never visited these web spaces.  This needs to change rapidly.  These places are the most beneficial for getting guild information out to our members and we need to do more to ensure people are watching.

I will expect my officer team to come back to me with notification that they have read this post and with some thoughts on their particular role within the guild, each officer must have a specific task that they take responsibility for.  My reasoning for this:

• People who volunteer are all important in the guild since they do work simply for the love of the game, there are a lot of people around who are keen to help out, but not take responsibility for a particular role within the guild while there is only a finite number of officer slots available, and there are many more who are not officers that would be willing.
• There’s no room to have people as officers just for the benefits it offers them, an officer must be a committed servant to the guild and not someone who relishes the position and all the perks without being worthy of the title.
• There are jobs that need to be done and that are not being done at the moment, clarification on these roles will be given by myself after I receive the information I expect resulting from this post.

I fully expect my excellent officer team to come straight back to me with renewed verve and a focus on specific roles which will carry the guild into the future.  I need mature officers who have plans for a specific role you may already be doing, or may wish to be doing.  A list of possible other roles (outlined and by no means exhaustive and I welcome additional ideas) around the guild which we are currently lacking include:

• A dedicated PvP player who is willing to volunteer time and effort to start and maintain their own PvP team (Rated Battleground and other such activities) within the guild, who will have recruitment rights for his/her team and who will stop at nothing to create a successful core group of players which make the Dambusters a guild to be reckoned with in Mists of Pandaria.
• A potential 2nd team Raid Leader who is willing to operate independently to the current 1st team Raid Leader Spyrot with good communication between the raid leaders of paramount importance.
• A Facebook page moderator/administrator who is willing to devote time to add to the page and canvas support for the page while attempting to direct more traffic to it.
• Specific class specialists who are willing to take time and give advice to other guild members who may be in need of tips to help them improve on their current gameplay.  Any prospective class specialist should let me know and they will be named as ‘go to’ people for advice for lesser experienced players. Even if the advice is just to visit certain known websites with reliable info.
• Someone with experience in website design at this transition time as I consider creating a brand new website from scratch with zero knowledge in doing so, any tips would be very welcome.
• An officer to arrange officer meeting times and to get people together on our Ventrilo for said discussions, a possible ‘Board Room’ type meeting with people who are advised to come up with specific issues or opinions that they would like to be looked into and resolved or at least discussed.  These points should be gathered from their friends around the guild and noted for bringing up to the convening officers at the meeting.  This officer will be responsible for the arranging of times convenient to the leadership team, and for the dissemination of the meeting content to the guild population, by using the website or other online means.

As I mentioned above, these possible roles are by no means complete and there are many more opportunities that you as an officer may consider as you define your envisioned position within the guild’s leadership.

The guild runs well although like all organisations, can very well be improved upon and it is my job to ensure we cover as many areas of the game as possible to ensure the continued success as a community as we have enjoyed in the past.  Let it be known that the past, present and future state, security, progress and general community spirit of everything that goes on, in and around the guild is the sole responsibility of myself.  I take the good with the bad and fully accept entire responsibility of the failings of our guild including the pleasure of managing such a fun and friendly community when things go well for us.

These outlined (and the many unmentioned) roles which may or may not be filled with differing quality of officers is completely the responsibility of myself and as with any community/company the buck stops with the guy at the top.  I expect things to continue to be fun and friendly around the guild, but hope to generate a renewed vibrancy around the place.  If not, then I will be able to clarify areas which need improvement very soon 🙂

/Salute the DAMBUSTERS!

Thanks Lisa for your kind recommendation of our famous levelling guild to prospective new players who want to be part of a community that not only helps them out, but actively encourages questions that some other guilds may scoff at.

The Dambusters of Xavius (Alliance EU) are a committed social levelling guild with a casual attitude. I say casual because we do not demand any particular skillset or particular play schedule of any of our general membership, but we do expect our members to display a team working mentality.
The casual but organised and friendly nature of the guild is only possible because of the totally hardcore and completely un-casual activities carried out by the guilds’ relentless leadership group.

The information given in this blog is directed to our members as a direct link to their guild leader and as such, I am delighted to give you all the link to the Drama Mamas story in which we were mentioned by Drama Mama Lisa.

On a side note, our ‘Air Raiders’ raid team have a very definite demand placed upon them, setting them apart from the general guild community and a further clarification of what is expected of a Dambusters raider will appear in an upcoming blog post to update the previous (still current) set of guidelines in place.

Click to read the WoW Insider Story

All Dambusters raiders should be aware that our raid leadership team has established a new assistant duo in the shape of Kuja & Nevra. The main duties of this committed couple will be to answer directly to Spyrot and to assist him with operations surrounding the raiding roster and associated tasks.

Please give all guildies your utmost respect and your raid leadership especially!

Announcement:

ALL RAIDERS WILL inwardly digest the educational Tankspot video linked below. We cannot tolerate another weekend without getting at least the first boss down. Be ready with minimum item level 463 and let’s BUST SOME DAMS!

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?80101-Mogu-Shan-Vaults-Stone-Guard

/Salute