28.

Zanjina sees a bugged Hunter pet, at the release of the 3.0 Patch

Officers React

“So”, I said, “any questions?”

Silence followed, as the new looting system began to sink in. What remained of my officer core at the end of TBC sat in a admin-only channel in Vent. The leadership roll-call consisted of:

• Priest Officer: Neps - Having been with us since the tail end of Vanilla, Neps rose to the rank of Priest Officer, taking over for Haribo. Humble and quiet, Neps spoke volumes with his healing ability in both raids and PvP, and was the type of person who would drop everything to help a complete stranger in need. 

• Warrior Officer: Kurst - One of the older players, Kurst was a family man, and had recently become a father. He, too, dated back as far as Vanilla, and acted as one of the most consistent Warriors throughout our illustrious career. Kurst had recently taken the responsibility of officership at my request, after Ater’s exit from DoD and WoW. 

• Warlock Officer: Eacavissi - Eaca (pronounced “ekka”) was a university student, pursuing a PhD in physics. He had been with us throughout The Burning Crusade, and was the only consistent, reliable Warlock in progression. Eaca had built a reputation for doing extraordinary amounts of damage, to the point where he would often pull mobs off of the best of tanks. When he did, he would exclaim, “DPS HARDER!”, the in-joke being the boss would need to die before it reached him. 

• Hunter Officer: Larada - Larada had become a major contributor to DoD’s progression throughout TBC, and with my previous officer Skarg retiring (and taking his radio-quality voice with him), Larada became the next best candidate. 

• Paladin Officer: Klocker - A funny and extremely well-played healer, Klocker stood side-by-side with Kerulak (my original main in Vanilla) throughout our 40-Man career. His time in DoD surpassed all the other officers, prompting the guild to knight him “Sir Klocker”. 

• Rogue Officer: Blain - I knew Blain was already on the way out, as we had previously discussed. Nevertheless, I made a special request that he be present for the discussion. 

• Druid Officer / Number Two: Dalans - The hot-headed, take-no-prisoners guild member who I trusted to rule DoD with an iron fist in my absence; he had essentially become the guild’s new Main Tank (post Ater), and had little tolerance (or control) around incompetent players. His treatment of Wyse remained especially fresh in my memory.

Absent from the list: Mage Officer and Shaman Officer. Goldenrod (Mage) had exited WoW in frustration at PvP and Blizzard. As for Shaman officer, I had never trusted anyone after Kadrok departed for Elitist Jerks, and so, had never promoted anyone in his absence. I unofficially managed the Shamans -- which meant I managed Ekasra, and the others went about their business.

“So...people will get to bid on an item before anyone else?” asked Dalans.

“Correct”, I replied.

“What’s going to keep people from cleaning up and preventing noobs from gearing out?”

“The point is not to use 1st-round bids on every item that drops”, I answered, “The point is we’re giving players...the really good ones...an opportunity to bid first, if an exceptional item drops. Part of this is going to be educational; we’re going to get the raiders into the habit of learning when the appropriate time is to engage a 1st-round bid.”

“When do we figure out who gets these Elite promotions?” asked Kurst.

“We’re gonna have a trial period, the first tier of raiding in Wrath. At the start, everyone will be on the same playing field. We’ll watch signups, rotations, run damage and healing reports, see who performs at the top of their game and is reliable, and those folks will begin to receive the first Elite promotions.”

“Ah, ok, so everybody gets a shot at loot out of the gate, then”, said Dalans.

“Exactly. It’s business as usual when we begin raiding. Because we won’t know, right? It’s going to take time for some players to ramp up and demonstrate to us who the rock stars are. By the time everyone has become fully decked out from gear in that first tier, and we transition to the next, then the Elite rank will demonstrate its effectiveness. We’re going to lose people. I’m planning on it. The difference this time is that I want to make sure I protect the players that will be in it for the long haul.”

Blain broke his silence, “Do the Elites have to pay any special prices?”

“Nope”, I replied, “they follow the same rules as everyone else.” Suddenly, a bunch of voices all chimed in once with groans.

“You’re gonna have an inflation problem”, Blain said.

“Yeah”, Klocker added, “if these Elites pay no penalty for first rounding, and they don’t go up against anyone else, they’re going to continue to sit on huge pools of DKP.”

I pivoted. “Ok, so what do you all think is a reasonable minimum bid to get into the 1st-round?” Various answers shot out, with the group weighing the pros and cons of each numerical value. Eventually, they came to an agreement on 50 DKP.

“Alright”, I said, “I’ll amend the rule so that if an Elite wants to exercise his option to bid in the 1st round, he’ll have to start the minimum bid at 50.” The officers in Vent seemed to agree this was a good move to make.

Blain added a final note, “It’s still not going to solve the inflation problem...but it’ll be better.”
A few folks had still remained quiet. “Eaca, Larada...thoughts?”

“It’s good. The changes are good”, Eaca answered, “I think people have an incentive now to actually show-up and perform.” Larada concurred with Eacavissi’s assessment.

“Neps, what do you think?”

“I think they’re horrible and I’m gonna go join Pretty Pink Pwnies!”

Everyone laughed.

I felt relieved. The officers were on board. Next up: revealing our intentions to the rest of the guild.

Uld the Rogue, Darkwhisper Gorge

The Grand Reveal

I obsessed over revealing my intentions to Descendants of Draenor so much that I had mapped an entire schedule out in a spreadsheet. Over the course of the remaining weeks leading up to the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, I would slowly dole out bite-sized chunks. I didn't want to overwhelm them. I began with a forum post entitled Who We Are, and Who We Are Not, which realigned our goals as a guild. If there was ever any doubt as to what we were here to do, that doubt would be gone by the time the guild had completed reading that post. 

Next, I revealed the age restriction, limiting new recruits to 21 years of age. I also revealed the new rank structure, listing out every specific requirement that needed to be met. I made an effort to draw attention to the matching reward structure for each accomplishment, but that no particular rank was expected of you. You continued to participate as much (or as little) in the guild as you wanted--and would be treated appropriately. I also revealed the new application process, and finished with the changes to raiding rules and how the Elite rank would be affected. Once the floodgates were open, I started a discussion forum topic, and encouraged the guild to engage.

Initially, the discussion was heated. Many players began to express concern around the rigid structure. The officers swarmed into the forum topic and began to defend the changes. They voiced opinions on how many of our rules were simply “written down versions of common sense” things...common sense that players often lacked. 

“Do we have to become an Elite?” -- Absolutely not, no rank will be enforced--you play as you like, based on your level of commitment, and you’ll earn the appropriate rank that matches your contributions. 

“Are Elites going to bid 1st round on everything?” -- No, they’ll save their 1st round bids for important items, so that brand new players can’t come in and take away our hard work in one raid night. 

“Do I have to be a Raider to earn Avatar?” -- Not at all, players of all shapes and sizes can be great contributors to this guild, and we’ll recognize all of them. 

One by one, the officers and I put their minds at ease.

Along with revealing the rules changes, I drew the guild's attention to the Raid Slot Template, a forum post intending on keeping our raid lineup transparent as we leveled through Wrath. All players focused on joining the 25-Man progression team were to leave a note in the thread, with the class they were leveling, and what role they wished to play. The officers and I continued to update this thread, keeping communication flowing so that we knew where our deficiencies lay. At the same time, players on-the-fence about what role they wanted could refer to this topic, see what our needs were, and make adjustments based on their own preferences. 

The Raid Slot Template worked extremely well, because in the past, I had made the mistake of recruiting players after asking me, “What class you do you need?” only to find out later that they played that particular class like crap. The only reason they brought that class to the table was to get into our raids. To solve that problem, I tailored the interview process to ask a different question: “What class do you have the most fun with?” My idea was this: If I recruited players by the role they were most passionate about, I'd produce a raid that performed better across-the-board, as each individual player would strive to be the best at what they enjoyed the most. The only thing I had to do on my end was carve out a spot for that role in the roster.

Mature the Hunter, about to be sacrificed to The Lich King

Eating My Own Dogfood


If I was going to recruit players based off of what they loved playing, I felt an obligation to treat myself the same way. In Vanilla, my main was a Tauren Shaman, leading me to become a raid healer. I took the job very seriously and was dedicated to doing it well. But when we transitioned to The Burning Crusade, we had an excess of well-played Shamans. At the same time, I could not seem to get a consistent Shadow Priest into progression. This was a key deficiency because in TBC, Shadow Priests were the only class that provided a very important buff: Replenishment, a mana-battery charge for all magic users. As we were migrating from Serpentshrine Cavern (sans Vashj) to Tempest Keep: The Eye, I made a judgement call: I put my Tauren Shaman on the back-burner and pulled out my Priest alt, respecced her into to the Shadow tree, and began raiding in progression on that character as my new main. My interests were with the guild and its success, and I would constantly make sacrifices both in-game (with how I played) and out-of-game (family, career) to make it succeed.

But the days of me sinking vast amounts of time into WoW, to the detriment of everything else, were over. One of my line-items back at my Dad’s farm was to detach myself from the game, and strike a better balance between it and real-life. True, that balance would come from the restructure, empowering the officers to hold more responsibilities, but I felt that it was important for my own sanity to not be stretched thin -- to find a class I enjoyed playing and be passionate about, rather than being forced to play a class we needed for progression. It was this thought-process that led me to consider the Death Knight, the new class addition to Wrath of the Lich King.

I hadn’t yet experienced melee DPS or tanking, and the Death Knight could do both, so it would be an opportunity to experience a new part of the game. The Death Knight’s history was deeply entrenched in the Warcraft lore; Arthas would be the new villain in this expansion (also a Death Knight), and the first Death Knight Teron Gorefiend (whom we slew in Black Temple) dated as far back as Warcraft II. Everything about the class was cool. They raised undead minions from the cold earth and sent them into battle. They could dual-wield weapons, something I’ve always felt was an awesome trait. They had a creepy echo effect when they spoke, and their faces were pale and icy, complete with glowing eyes devoid of emotion and soul. They were bad-ass enough to be able to tank without a shield (no offense, Druids); they could run headlong into battle or grab a hold of a raid boss with nothing more than a 2-Handed Sword, draining the life forces of their target to keep their own health up. In PvP, they absolutely demolished other players, who for four years, had grown accustomed to the secrets of the other classes--and were ill-prepared for Death Knights “death-gripping” them across the map, freezing them in position with icy attacks, and cutting them apart with runeforged blades. Any doubt I had about switching classes was washed away when I was given the opportunity to beta test the expansion. Upon entering the starting area for the Death Knight, a floating fortress known as Ebon Hold, I was greeted with a familiar musical track, repurposed from the Death Knight wing in Naxxramas so many years previous--which just happened to be my favorite musical piece in the game, and that sent chills down my spine every time I heard it. Everything about the Death Knight class rung true to me.

The decision was made. In Wrath of the Lich King, I became a Death Knight.

Mature the Death Knight
Nagrand, Outland