Considering my role as a guild and raid leader, it is very important that I hit 80 as soon as possible. With schoolwork and actual work stacked on top of the obligation I have to my raiders, this means I must divert attention away from blogging for about a week. Unfortunately, this also means I will not finish part one of my series on developing a successful hardcore raiding guild before the release of Wrath. I was hoping to, but I was unhappy with the first draft and now I do not have the time to finish it before I get in my extra sleep before Wrath’s release.

If this was a paying gig, I would sacrifice some of my leveling time to finish it. Alas, it is not. And I have my own interests to look out for as much as my readers’. That said, I want to acknowledge the fact that a lot of you are thinking of or committed to leading your own hardcore raiding guild in Wrath. So I will summarize a few important points.

Make Sure You’re Ready to Lead a Hardcore 25-Man Raiding Guild

You need to understand there is a level of micromanagement required to play the game on a hardcore level. A guild would never have defeated M’uru if their approach was merely to fill gaps with moderately adequate players and then brute force it. You needed a certain amount of cumulative DPS to have any chance at all in defeating M’uru. And often times this was higher than people realized. 2K for all but shadow priests, ret paladins, and slightly undergeared balance druid was unacceptable (and, even then, you tended to sit your ret pallies because they coudn’t contribute as much as, say, a fifth heroism or another warlock). And while you may never see an encounter as difficult as M’uru or Kil’jaeden ever again, a hardcore guild will err on the side of caution and find players who can micromanage and do everything they need to improve.

The same is said for the formation of strategies. It’s one thing to follow someone’s strategy point-for-point, and it’s another to find people who can refine them or to refine them yourself. If you want to be efficient in your success, then you need to march to your own beat at times. There’s a reason a lot of raiders call Bosskillers “Bossguessers.” Sometimes the written strategies are not the best in general, nor the best for your guild specifically.

I don’t think you need previous leadership experience explicitly to run a hardcore raiding guild, but it does help. Personally, I was the leader of a top clan in a game called Nox for six months straight, then a player in a small clan that had no real leadership structure (because it was just four of the best players in Nox banding together to dominate the competition outright). While only a total of maybe 2000 people competed in the clan ladder every month, it was still a lesson in what was necessary to lead a successful group of gamers. And while competition for world firsts is not always the focus of some hardcore raiding guilds, competitive experience can give people the tools they need to lead and help improve a guild on a personal level.

That said, I think you need to have witnessed leadership styles that exist in MMO’s. This can be done either as a leader yourself or as an underling watching the leadership. If you’ve never played an MMO before, however, you will be unfamiliar with concepts such as DKP and probably lose members when you can’t answer the question, “Why do(n’t) we use DKP?”

Develop Your Ideas, Philosophies and Guild Structure Before You Create It

While it is certainly possible to create a successful hardcore raiding guild on a whim, I don’t advise it. It’s best to develop ideas and philosophies for your guild and set them in stone through the guild’s written rules and structure. Even if that means your written structure is to “have a loose structure that gives way for flexibility that might be necessary for [your] success.” Some top guilds have no written structure other than this agreement. But they are very, very rare and are almost always well-established with highly mature players (and anyone who can’t work in the system gets the boot).

That said, at least decide what sort of loot system you want. Decide the amount of time you want to raid and when. State the type of conduct you expect from your members. And declare your goals and intentions. If you are going to go for world firsts, say so. If you are aiming to merely create an efficient raid that places respectably, say so. If you’re merely hoping to create an efficient raid that can beat content, improve and have fun, say so.

People join and leave guilds based on their philosophies, schedules, loot systems, leaders and rules. If you do not clearly state how your guild operates or plans to operate, you can lose people or fail to attract recruits. Especially if your guild is new and has no progression ranking.

Establish Yourself, and Become a Visible Figure on Your Server

While not absolutely necessary, it does help your cause if you can either prove to be a promising leader or create some sort of publicity for yourself before you create your guild. The more people know you somehow, the more people will think about applying to your guild.

I did this by playing pretty much every part of the game. PvP. PvE. And by joining PUG raids and even leading my own PUG MC that managed to kill Ragnaros every week except two (out of ten). I also did this by racing to become the first 70 on Proudmoore during TBC (in which I was successful). This generated some publicity and showed how committed I was to the ideal of efficiency.

While such exploits do not always cause people to apply, they can help your cause.

When You Recruit, State Your Intentions

When you first recruit for your guild, make sure you clearly state what you intend your guild to be. If people want to join the top guild on the server, and you hope to overcome the competition to do so, say so. That’s what I did. And I don’t think we would have managed it if I hadn’t.

The same can be said if you don’t. Especially if you reside on a server that has one or more of the world’s top guilds. You can bet that if Premonition ever transferred to Proudmoore, I’d openly admit we don’t intend to compete with them. There’s just no way we could on a twenty-hour schedule.

Don’t Be a Prick!

I’ve seen a lot of hardcore progression guilds fall apart or drop out of the stresses of hardcore progression because their leaders are pricks. Very rarely do they reform and recoop from the ousting of a cantankerous dictator. There’s a good reason why Nihilum and SK Gaming rose to become number one in their respective times (and now they are merging, but that’s a different story).

Don’t make the same mistake! Your players will perform better if you’re not constantly yelling at them, or if you fail to approach your guild’s problems reasonably.

Have Fun! Or Find Satisfaction!

If you can’t have fun or find some satisfaction in leading a hardcore raiding guild, don’t do it. Plain and simple.

Wow. That turned into something that is almost what I wanted to say in my first two parts. I guess stress really is a part of writer’s block. Anyway, that’s it for now. See you after Wrath!

–Lume