The Dambusters

Let me first explain why I always put the word ‘officer’ in inverted commas.  Having served as a non-commissioned member of the Royal Air Force and having decided upon guild rank names that adhere to the non-commissioned ranks of the RAF, I find it difficult to use the term ‘officer’ since (to me) the word assumes some privileged position of power where I would prefer the actual officer ranked players in the guild assumed a more service orientated role within the guild.

The Dambusters have 2 tiers of ‘Officer’ currently in the guild.  Warrant Officer and Flight Sergeant!

It was brought to my attention recently that ‘officers’ may not have the power of guild control they require to perform their tasks.  It was also mentioned that as such, I am too powerful as a guild leader and that brings resentment upon me.  Upon inspection of my ranking structure I noticed that the disgruntled member was of the Flight Sergeant rank which is the lower of the 2 officer positions.  The Flight sergeant rank provides a great deal of benefit to the guild leader as it allows the Flight Sergeant to demote toons to ‘On Jankers‘ if they are breaking guild rules but also has a nice guild repair benefit aswell as a host of other options available to the rank.

The problem lies where the Flight Sergeants of the guild feel they have no say in the direction the guild takes.  They feel that as such highly ranked players, they should have a large part to play in the direction in which we take the guild.  That may be true if I felt unable to direct the guild in the path needed to keep us progressing as a community.  I am entirely proud and satisfied with the performance of the guild and so I do not feel that i require people to advise sweeping changes to our vision as a guild. This does not mean I never wish to hear thoughts and opinions, it’s just that I feel we are doing pretty well as a social levelling guild which is still what we are remember!

The disconnect certain Flight Sergeants feel is due to lack of guild control but the Flight Sergeant’s role is not to directly affect guild direction, but micro management of the player base and reporting any wrong-doing or praiseworthy behaviour to the Warrant Officer or Bigticket directly. A few Flight Sergeants may feel that as an ‘officer’ they deserve to have a big say on the way the guild operates but they often fail to notice the presence of the Warrant Officer rank.

People often assume that Warrant Officer is only for Bigticket’s alt characters to retain a certain amount of admin rights while playing those characters but if you look closely at the guild roster then you will see that there are actually 6 people capable of making the bigger decisions regarding actual guild direction.  These people deserve and should command respect.  They are not all top players but they are certainly top people.  2 are vastly more experienced than Bigticket and all are close friends in real life and as such can be totally trusted NOT TO make rash decisions where I cannot know the real motives for such.  The very top officers of the guild are within my grasp and they have done and will always be able to affect the direction of the guild.  These people deserve the utmost respect among the guild because they are chosen as potential guardians of the guild if I am unable to be online for any time whilst also knowing exactly my vision and management style to the letter.

I have found and proven this style of leadership unit to provide the utmost security and stability for the guild and as so many guilds rise and fall with wreckless or ill-advised leadership that this has become one of the most stable guilds in Europe.  Keep up the good work Dambusters!  Each of you are leaders in your own right and will face scrutiny dependent upon your good or bad actions.

/salute

I was recently accused of considering myself to be ‘The Ultimate leader’ which was a strange accusation to level at the guild leader.  I’m unsure whether to actually take that as a compliment or as an insult, insinuating that I may not be ‘the good leader I think I am’.

Let me take a moment to very briefly describe guild administration setup.  It is very possible and proven by many top WoW guilds to have a democratic board of officers appointed to make decisions on behalf of the guild at large. However the traditional style of guild management is to have a single guildmaster who may decide who will be the officers to help him/her fulfil his/her vision for what the guild should be.  This is still fundamentally a dictatorship since the ‘officers’ are decided by the guildmaster and is the most commonly found governance in the World of Warcraft today.

The word ‘dictatorship’ sounds harsh because of the modern era’s multitude of terrible dictatorship examples but a guildmaster need not be such a tyrant.  Some community leaders are considered heroes simply because they have proven to have the community’s best interests at heart.  Actually being a guild leader feels like a job and often results in me providing the role of servant to a great extent.  It takes a lot of thought and consideration aswell as time and effort.  Each move and decision can be felt by dozens if not hundreds of people around the guild so the guild leader can often become a target for questions and close scrutiny.  I feel the pressure from the Dambusters on a daily basis but it’s something I really enjoy and I can very well handle.  To be a decent guild leader, you must be approachable to the masses.  This results in a lot of my time being taken up replying to our members’ questions and needs.  This is something I also enjoy doing, and it’s just aswell because it forms a large part of my daily play.

People who hunt down their guild leader with accusations of failure in the role should consider the bigger picture.  There are a lot more people around the community than just yourself who may partially agree with any dissatisfaction you may have, but ultimately they may have more support for the leadership than they are telling you.  If you have a genuine concern then I will gladly listen to it and hope we can fix the problem you are experiencing together, as friends with the same goals 🙂

However, if you misinterpret your ability to command a lot of respect among the guild members and decide to embark upon a campaign against the guild leader because I will not adjust the guild to your liking then you risk alienating yourself and there will only be one loser in such a situation I’m afraid. 

People who want to control the guild ring serious alarm bells because it appears they feel they know better than the current leadership and therefore they threaten the vision of the guild leader.  The guild was formed almost 3 years ago and the vision I had for the guild back then has been far exceeded since those days but my expectations have modified as we have grown.  I have learned all I know (still such a noob) while being the GL of the Dambusters so being GL here is the only way I know how to play.  You can imagine any threat to that way of playing results in staunch defence on my part.

It has also been alleged (probably in the heat of the moment) that the guild is dying.  This can not be further from the truth.  The current state of the guild is as healthy as ever and the reason for our thriving vibrancy is pure and simply stability of management.  Your guild leader logs on just about every day and often plays for hours on end, if you check the guild TOTAL activity then you will find that Bigticket has surpassed the previous top active players and that tells it’s own story about who knows this guild best.

Come with me and enjoy the stability, fairness and fun of being a Dambuster.

/salute

On July 26th the guild will be 3 years old and I plan on celebrating it with an event of massive proportions.  There will be giveaways!  I expect everyone in the guild to try and be online on the day, lets hope we can rock the server!

I would like to convey my absolute pride in leading this fine guild!

This guild may have it’s troubles like any other community, but I firmly believe that with such a strong sense of camaraderie around here, it is impossible for the guild to fail as a ‘gaming community experience’ many of us hope for when we log into WoW.

Occasionally I find myself humbled by members of our community who stun me with acts of amazing kindness and grace usually hidden in the cut-throat world of egos in the online gaming environment.

Such an event happened just a few days ago when Zhini sent me an in-game mail detailing his intention to quit wow at least until Mists of Pandaria launch.  To my horror, he included a bunch of inferno rubies and 50,000g for “the guild or yourself” which I have temporarily sent to my bank character for safe-keeping until I decide the best action.  I am leaning towards setting a date, keeping it safe incase he returns and giving it all back until an undecided date and if he does not return by then I will plough it all into the guild bank and upgrade the guild’s daily repair facility.  That day may be a long time away so any comments or opinions on this would be appreciated.

Furthermore, I may be the self-appointed leader of the guild, but we would be nothing without the hard work of our members!  Please remember that you are all valuable members of this great community and I appreciate every one of your efforts when you have your friends and the guild in mind.

Keep up the amazing work Dambusters, you are fast becoming one of the most respected community minded guilds in Europe.

/SALUTE

I have been fighting a personal struggle for direction regarding how to react when someone leaves the guild on one of their toons.

We join the Dambusters as characters, not as an account/person.  We do not enforce a ‘one in – all in’ policy where you must keep all your characters in the guild.  Instead we encourage an air of freedom for people to actually enjoy their gaming on individual toons as they wish, this guild may not always suit every character you have.

I have made a recent decision based on personal hurt due to actions of players, that is wrong of me.  A GM must preserve the community as a whole and not think of individuals when doing so may damage the community at large but I have forced myself to decide what the actual policy is for such matters regarding characters in/out.

In future, as we have always done in the past, we will welcome back anyone who left provided they did not leave on bad terms.  There has been one recent example where I removed a player’s alts having forewarned them of such consequences should they leave on their main.  I think that was the wrong decision by myself.  I really study guild management at the highest level and I have learned a lot about our guild from reading information provided by experienced guild leaders and the guild management community in forums and Warcraft websites.

In general, I have been greatly encouraged because it would appear that my recent activity regarding guild rules and discipline have been right on track according to other experienced guild leaders.  That said, there are plenty of improvements I still must strive to make regarding my own judgements of certain circumstances.

Most things that happen require individual consideration on the merits of the situation, but as a general rule, I will always work hard to protect the majority. It’s like a mini government 🙂

Please remember that although there are many legitimate reasons for leaving the guild on specific characters, you lose your guild reputation the moment you join another guild and in addition, your overall guild commitment may come into question and potential demotion may happen to remaining character(s) to facilitate protection of the guild and it’s assets from your wavering allegiance/potential estrangement from the Dambusters especially if you are of high rank and I determine that you are more committed to another guild.

IT IS MY PRIMARY ROLE TO PROTECT THE REMAINING MEMBERS WHO DESERVE TO BE REWARDED FOR THEIR CONTINUED COMMITMENT!

Most of you will understand the difficulties faced by a guild leader in a big guild like the Dambusters but I’m sure there’s more than a few who think it’s easy.  People display an arrogance towards me on a daily basis which leads me to the conclusion that they feel they can do a better job, advising me to change this or do that. I appreciate all suggestions since the people of the guild have always helped our progress by giving worthy ideas and a lot of them have been implemented.  That said, there are those people who get all upset when their ideas are not implemented,  furthering my opinion that they ‘think’ they know more than they do hehe.

Being a guild leader is not rocket science.  You need to be painstakingly meticulous about how you hold your own standards and how you apply the rules you’ve laid out.  If you don’t, then people might think you favour certain people.  1 thing is for sure, I never favour people whom I know in real life and I have taken drastic measures in the past to prove it.  Actually my officers are held in such high regard by me that I will strike down upon them with furious rebukes when they let me down 😀

These guys and gals have a high standard to live up to and as such, they have a long way to fall when it goes wrong, that is why I must implement the rules as fairly as possible, it’s not an easy job to be in a responsible position and consequences of questionable actions are less likely to be forgiven.

We all should remember that it’s just a video game after all, so we should be jovial and have fun, take things lightly.  The only people who need to take things seriously are the people in positions that ensure the masses are able to have fun and play the game in an environment of relative safety where there is a low likelihood of being abused or ridiculed. That job goes to your guild leader and less directly, to the officers.

I can tell you now, most of my rants are done with a cheeky smile on my face.  I play for fun and really enjoy playing with the guildies, even chatting on trade with a bit of mischief is done with a big silly grin haha.  I liken guild leadership discipline to dog training.  There are certain behaviours that may be funny on the face of it, but deep down you must remain stern and try to eradicate the bad behaviours for the greater good.  I find myself in this position quite often, having to remind someone of certain rules we must uphold, not because I think they are a bad person but simply because if everyone just did as they pleased, the guild would be utter chaos 🙂

Here’s a link to an excellent column on WoW insider which really hit home to me as I read it a few days ago.  The 4 lessons the author learned (especially number 1) ring home with alarmingly close sentiments to my recent forced activities within the guild.

Guys, be sure that I always consider the good of the majority first.  I am never leaving the guild and as such, it’s very much in my interest to ensure the guild grows to fulfil my own personal progress goals so any Dambusters who remain with us can be sure we will try to evolve and remain a viable for the foreseeable future.  You can bet the Dambusters will be a front-running Xavius guild in Mists of Pandaria due to the foundations we have laid.

/SALUTE

Excellent work by this great guild on attaining the Stay Classy achievement! Now, due to the ‘voucher‘ which costs fully 18,000g and doesn’t really feel like a voucher, we must implement severe austerity measures before we open up the guild bank slowly for guild repairs again.  Most of you will have heard this term from the news in the last couple of years and it seems we now require some guild bank spring cleaning. The lovely ladies of the guild have already commenced their hard work in the guid bank, started last night by the lovely Pocahunter and her alts.

Gibson tab will move down to slot 8 and it will remain the raiding tab for our raiders who are just as important as our levellers and beginners, ‘Air Raiders’ deserve a full tab to themselves to be kept away from the guys who are not using it so they can have flasks and other buff materials to help with content progress for the guild.

A new ‘Tall Boy‘ tab will be added and that should help with tab management categorisation since it’s been a mess for some time.

The guild bank is now accepting any donations from our members. A couple of us have started us off with deposits and the guild bank will slowly reintroduce guild repairs gradually as the gold drip feeds in over time.  Please keep up the great work in running guild dungeons, rated battlegrounds and I am sure the ‘Air Raiders’ team will down some bosses tonight to net the GB 1000g as always.

Please re-aquaint yourselves with the newly revamped guild rules page to be found here or here.  Or by clicking at the top of the blog page of course hehe.  My blog posts are not intended to be a rant although they do appear that way.  They are merely a direct approach to ensure people who do act against the ethos of the guild become clear as to what is expected of them in our friendly social environment. The vast majority of people need not worry about any of the disciplinary side to the guild as they are socially mature enough to know how to behave among other people.  Regardless, all members should inwardly digest the content of the rules to ensure they know where they stand in the guild 🙂   Hopefully most people will feel that it is protective of the guild rather than suffocating.  People who feel the latter should ask themselves if they should be in this guild. (Believe me, there are people who do think that)

Excellent victory last night for the Dambusters Air Raid team as we destroyed Heroic Morchok to begin our hard mode content in earnest. We have spent 2 weeks scratching our heads against this boss while hearing ‘how easy’ he is as a heroic fight from the so-called elites.  Although the team could have been forgiven for expecting a long progression night of wipes before killing him, we actually fared rather well.  With some help from our friend Carazylegs from our friends at Akatsukî  (Fermusion‘s alt – now no longer a Dambuster sadly) who stepped in to do a very commendable job when we required an extra healer, we slapped him down with surprising simplicity.  I would assume that boss is now on farm each week.

I would like to take a moment to underline the attitude required of a Dambusters Air Raider. On more than one occasion it has been noticed that people who feel deserving of an automatic raid spot will complain about about exclusion from the team.  The guild raid team has become a fairly solid unit over the last few months and shows no signs of stopping in the future.  Anyone who decided to leave the guild to get progress elsewhere should take a moment to watch how steadily we have progressed as a very new raid team.  If you would like to raid with the team then prove your commitment by being online before we start and grab any opportunities thrown your way by Fridai.  If you feel aggrieved about being ‘second choice’ or ‘only called when we need you’ etc then you are not in the right frame of mind to be in any raid team, far less the Dambusters team.  We require committed people who are willing to sacrifice time and effort to be a part of the team.  Be ready and grab the chance IF it comes. I do not expect any complaining from people who feel they have been overlooked, instead you should look inside for reasons why you have been overlooked, such as:-

1 – try to be online well in advance of raid times which are 8:30pm server time Wednesdays/Thursdays, failure to be online on time puts the entire raid at risk and you are then wasting the time of your friends who have managed to be there on time and are now waiting for you.  You may be replaced.  If you are not currently in the raid team then being online at these times and ready to be called upon would give yourself a better chance of becoming involved at some point.

2 – If called upon at short notice, leave whatever you are doing immediately, get focused and do your best for the team at whatever boss fight they are at.  If your raid leader needs you for guild progress and you decide to turn him down, will you expect first choice the next time?  Life just does not work that way I’m afraid 🙂  Remember different fights need different tactics, roles and other details, it’s the raid leader’s job to try to select the best team for each fight, much like a football match.  Don’t make his job any harder please.

3 – Do not join our raid team and start complaining about loot, other people’s output, tactics or anything else in the guild chat or raid chat.  If you have an issue with any of the aforementioned or any other problems with the raid then feel free to /w your raid leader, if I hear dissent in the raid chat then expect Bigticket to get a bit grumpy, and I got a GUN!

After a lengthy discussion with a few of our very decorated officers last night regarding some details about the way we run our raid teams, it became apparent to me that although we all have the same goal and the same love and pride for the guild, not all of us feel the same connection between the guild and it’s raid teams as I do.

I was at great pains to portray my reasoning to the raid team leaders after it transpired that old Bigticket had lost his place in the raid team for a lockout period.  On Wednesday evening, I had an annoying lag spike issue which I very rarely suffer so for the benefit of the team’s progress I decided it best to temporarily step out until I could rectify the problem.  Happily the anomaly disappeared within minutes after a good reboot but after repeated attempts and QQing from myself, the team were so engrossed on the heroic Morchok attempt that nobody in the team noticed my dismay.

They had replaced me with another hunter (how dare they hehehe) and seemingly he was a rather nice individual, though he had no intention of joining our guild.  So I logged out in the huff for the night.  Next night, I’m awaiting an invite for the team’s continuation only to notice a deafening silence. I was benched!  Replaced for the continuation of the raid by the other hunter from the Fade guild.  That rocked me to the core.  Never did I assume that some pug would take precedence over the guild leader and arguable rock of this team.

This story is not intended to cause upset to members of our raid team but to publicise my views on the aim of the Dambusters main raid team.  Our guild has struggled to reach a stage where we can be proud of our skills and be respected as a community that can get things done at the end game.  That struggle has been felt by the guild for a long time, we have lost members to ‘raiding’ guilds on so many occasions and each time we lose people I feel a personal hurt.

I have fought tooth and nail to get this guild to deliver when in the past it had a stubborn attitude towards direction, strategy and commitment.  Regardless of the raid team members possible arguments in favour of using PUG members for the entirety of the raid lockout period, I feel our guild members should always take priority over anyone not currently in the guild.  It is entirely the fault of the guild that it cannot put a Dambuster in all 10 raid team spots 100% of the time, but if there is a capable player online who is willing to do the work required in the team then the PUG player must accept that his position in the raid team is untenable.  I will expect the raid leader to ensure that any PUG is aware of this situation before he joins any of our raids, he may take his chance and accept the boost and loot rewards that are inevitable in our boss farming, but take a back seat in favour of that Dambuster who can come in and get loot, therefore helping the guild as a whole.

The raid team is nobody’s little empire, we must see it as an extension of the guild itself and we must look after our own because that is what makes us strong.  We should always account for ourselves favourably within the server community but that will manifest itself in situations similar to this through careful preparation in how we brief other members of the server as they join our teams.  There are guilds on this server who accept large sums of gold for boosts but we will not do that.  They are already getting a free ride so they should take their chance and accept their precarious position if necessary,  and that has to be the risk they take in not joining our guild 😀

I am sure this post will gather some interest with individuals who believe raid teams should act differently to the way I describe but we must remember this is not any raid team, this is a Dambusters raid team and the Dambusters will progress in the fashion we create for ourselves, not in someone else’s fashion.  We worked hard to get what we have so we deserve to create our own rules that suit our entire guild.  Our raid leader Fridai is a legend in this guild who will lead the team by great example, he deserves your full backing.

This guild has solid management who really care about it, these raid teams are for you Dambusters!