Titles, Drama And Other Guild Matters
Have I mentioned that I love my guild lately? =D
My guild, The Blood Legion, recently set the goal of achieving the “Champion of the Naaru” title. The title is given to players who have completed the attunement quest for both The Eye and Serpentshrine Cavern. It requires a guild to have (at least) 25 dedicated players who are geared well enough to clear Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, and kill Magtheridon. It’s definitely not for the weak or faint hearted 
I’m rather pleased that the guild has set this goal in place. I love the people in my guild, love BC raiding (at least the 10 man, so far), and I would love to have that title. The title will become unavailable once WotLK comes out, so there is a bit of urgency in completing the quests and clearing the dungeons that we need to do. I also enjoy having that definite goal - it’s given the guild a focus that we did not have before and I’m enjoying learning what I need to help the guild progress.
There are a number of obstacles in our way, however. The Blood Legion has been around almost since the launch of Shandris, and we’ve always been a casual guild. There are a number of people in the guild that are not yet 70, and a bunch of 70s that are not yet geared to raid.
The first problem this presents is that we have a long, long road to travel, gear-wise. Many of us have only been to Kara a couple of times and lots of us are still in normal and Heroic Blues. We just started running a 2nd Kara team - which I joined; I’d been to Kara a few times already when it started, but I decided to join them because the people on it were more fun - so that will help significantly with gear, but there is still a long ways to go. We have to get Kara on farm for two teams - not an easy task by itself - and then make the jump into 25 man raiding, which I’ve heard is quite a jump. At best, we are looking at a few months to get Kara down, and then a couple more to get the 25 man raids going smoothly.
The second obstacle, and probably the more difficult one, is that we are, and always have been, a casual guild. I don’t really want to make the transition to a raiding guild - there are several on Shandris that are far ahead of us in progression; if I wanted to raid hardcore, I could just apply to one of them - but I’m unsure how far we can get as a casual guild. There will always be that tension between the “raiders” and the “casuals”. The two groups’ goals are very different and somewhat incompatible.
It’s already been suggested that we split the guild up - non-raiders, alts, people not yet to 70, and casuals would stay in The Blood Legion, and the raiders leave to form a new guild. I don’t think that will happen - I think the friendships are too strong - but that the idea was even raised was surprising.
So, is this drama? I’m not really sure. To me, drama has always seemed to be one or two people that became disgruntled (usually over loot), started trash-talking the leaders behind their backs, and found other not-gruntled people, all the while not ever bringing their problem(s) into the open to be discussed like mature adults. Usually the whole thing eventually blows up in spectacular fashion, and The Disgruntleds end up leaving or getting kicked.
What The Blood Legion is going through doesn’t seem like that to me. This seems more like growing pains. The guild is large enough now that is probably can’t hope to meet everyone’s goals like it did in the past. I’m not sure where this will lead, but I do believe that we will remain strong.
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Nah, that’s not drama.
Drama is when your lead tank decides to stop cybering with your lead water vend…I mean, “mage”, which leads to horrendous fights during raids over Vent, which leads to an occasional wipe that goes unnoticed because your tank was too hot over the “You never really did it for me anyway” comment the mage just made to focus on her stance dance long enough to hold aggro.
And the absolute saddest thing about that story…sigh, you guessed it…it’s true. I was there.
And no, I wasn’t the mage (and no, smart-alecks, I wasn’t the tank, either)…I played the only class worth playing when I was in WoW.
A warlock.
“I wasn’t the tank.”
Sure… sure… =D