Articles
WoW
The End of an Era
summary in terms of both people and progression, 2 weeks before TBC
What Became of BG?
after a year of WoW, how are things?
Moving On
leaving the biggest part of our lives behind, and hoping for something better
FFXI
FFXI Outlook
on the brink of quitting
The Promathia Problem
a reponse to Sundi's weak claim that everyone hates Promathia
Five Values
five changes that could repair tons, and cost little
The End of an Era
summary in terms of both people and progression, 2 weeks before TBC
What Became of BG?
after a year of WoW, how are things?
Moving On
leaving the biggest part of our lives behind, and hoping for something better
FFXI
FFXI Outlook
on the brink of quitting
The Promathia Problem
a reponse to Sundi's weak claim that everyone hates Promathia
Five Values
five changes that could repair tons, and cost little
What became of Blue Garter? - 10/11/2006
Into what has the group evolved, roughly one year later? With an expansion
imminent I'd describe the time period from when we started MC until that
expansion, probably early December, as the coming of age of the guild. During
this time the core has been defined by the most dedicated members stepping
forward, we've learned lots of important lessons by both successes and failures,
and we've achieved a level of progress I would have never thought possible
by nearly catching up to the best guilds in the game in Naxx. Now we're
poised to reorganize for the expansion and continue playing at the highest
of levels. Who we are now
"Like an all star combination of some of the greatest NA FFXI LSes with a dash of BG class of 2004, forum whore and random ginvite, our group is insane."
-From my first news update, after our horde/server first Nef
Forget more of the forum whores and random ginvites - they've been mostly weeded out - our core comes from two large sources: WoW and FFXI. The FFXI component has four main channels, Machina (Asura), Paradise Oblivion (Midgardsormr), Those Guys (Fairy), and FF Blue Garter (Bahamut). This is of whom our current core is comprised, with the remaining members from each guild highlighted by number.
Swamps through which we trudged
Nurfed DKP (NDKP) was selected as our loot system, and boy do we regret it. It got the job done, but at the cost of a lot of inequality. The seniority effect that it's had - that is that every top DKP earner gets every piece of loot first - has been grossly unfair and has led to a lot of displeasure. When the expansion hits we're trashing NDKP and using our own somewhat customized system with eqDKP. We've learned to avoid upgrade - a pecking order is much worse than DKP horders. Price formulas will never come without holes in a world so complex - so designing your own prices is much more fair and balanced. Anything that's brutal on the new guy is destructive - newcomers keep your guild alive.
On that note, recruiting is definitely different from what it was in FF, but a lot of things are held in common. Recruiting is a constant process. You have to recruit at whatever rate people leave. And people do leave; they'll never stop. The group has been ever changing, never the same any two months. Finding high quality recruits has been a hit and miss experience, there is hardly any way of telling whether someone will be an asset to the guild long-term, and there is a huge shortage of skilled players in WoW. The way around this for prominent guilds has been to get all the other stars out of the closeby guilds, but there are no more stars willing to leave and no other closeby guilds on our server - and there really haven't been in the past.
My favorite recruits are Final Fantasy XI players. The ratio of FF people who have become part of the core to FF people who have failed to is greatly larger than that of WoW. We have a few incredible players from WoW, but the amount of and stress stemming from failed WoW recruits makes me almost want to recruit exclusively out of where has worked - our old guilds.
#1 on Azshara tonight
When we started, the 2 main goals were "to recohere as a group, because there are a lot of new people, and to have level 60 content farmed before the cap is raised to 70." When we were all on vent, talking over these things, I felt kinda like these guys.
Trying to do something damn near impossible with a crew of really pimp individuals, but who hardly knew each other. And I feel like we did it. At that time I thought of all the 60 level content as Nef/whatever was at the end of AQ40, thought that finishing AQ would be next to impossible, and Naxx wasn't even previewed yet, I think.
We stormed through MC in 2 weeks, spent no more than 1-2 weeks on the hardest BWL/AQ bosses, and have reached deep into Naxx (Thaddius as of the writing of this), in an 11 month period. And despite typical social problems, overall we've been very cohesive and glued all the groups together into one, the new BG.
Expansion anxiety
In FFXI, Square dramatically changed the player size from 18-20 to 40-50 for new content. This quick shift combined with the fact that the 18-20 man stuff was still important (hell, more important, chuckle) really tore into guilds. You were both understaffed for 40-50 man stuff and overstaffed for 18-20 man stuff. I wish MMO companies would realize that sudden restrictive shifts in the scope of content are really destructive to guilds.
A cornerstone decision is on the horizon, and whether some grey middle of the road alternative ends up being chosen, ultimately the choice between either expanding to allow more guild members to raid, or shrinking to allow for focused and fast progress must be made. The tradeoffs are basically between progress and people, tasks and relationships, dare I say work and play? I sure hope not. It's very simple to see the two decisions, their costs, and what would be different in each case. The very very most difficult part, on which I haven't really gotten any clear advice or formed an opinion, is the actual decision of which route to take.
One source of hope to comfort the stress that this decision bears is that all of the projections and possibilities are assumed under the current game. Things could, and hopefully will, be very different in terms of how to deal with not making the main raid every night. On the other hand, people have been really bitter in the past about constantly being excluded from raids, so two groups would be necesary to avoid that.
So many variables, so many people who would be affected, so much of what makes this guild great at stake. Honestly I'm scared of this change and what it might do to our guild. But I've almost never been let down by thinking "In Blizz we trust." Regardless of raids, this xpac will be an instant hit, will re-whet my apetite for warcraft lore bringing me back to the days in playing WC2 at age 10, and will simply improve overall the opportunities for good times that are out there. What we've already seen is incredible, and what we will see in our PRESTIGIOUS GUILD BETA EXPERIENCE will reaffirm all of this, I'm sure.
As for the guild, we'll see what comes of it all.