3.3. Wrath of the Lich King

"Lich King"
Artwork by Justin Currie

Checks and Balances

On November 13th, 2008, nerds the world over were greeted to the sounds of Uilleann pipes as their zeppelins and ships brought them to the ice-touched continent of Northrend. Alliance and Horde rushed out of their respective transport crafts, weapons in-hand and guild-chat ablaze with new life, as they explored the frozen north. Howling Fjord, a forest playing home to the giant Vrykul, viking-themed humanoids that extended their occupation north into the Grizzly Hills. Borean Tundra, a barren and unexciting valley playing host to the Lich King's various minions, as well as the now-hostile blue dragonflight; many players would come to refer to this zone as boring tundra. Dragonblight, a glacier-thick icy boneyard that the dragonkind inhabit at the end of their lives. Zul'Drak, home to the drakkari ice trolls and which now bore the undead stench of the Lich King's grasp. Remnants of Night Elf history lay exposed in the sparse brush of Crystalsong Forest. Looking up from the forest revealed the floating city of Dalaran. The Storm Peaks, frigid mountains climbing higher than any peaks previous in WoW, were a mountain range hiding mysteries of the origins of life on Azeroth -- clues to the Titans influence on the creation of the world (further uncovered in the unusually temperate Sholazar Basin). The Storm Peaks were also home to a dark secret trapped deep below the dwarven city of Ulduar. And of course, Icecrown -- the final zone in which Arthas himself had amassed millions of undead scourge, now bent to his will, as he surveyed our arrival from atop Icecrown Citadel.

Northrend was nothing short of epic.

Descendants of Draenor once again became a flurry of activity. Day by day, we logged on, greeted each other, and continued to quest, explore, and level to 80. I was well behind most other players, since Death Knights began their life in WoW at 55; I was fine with playing catch-up. Besides, I wanted the extra time to learn my class, get comfortable with the new mechanics of runes and runic power, and hoped to eventually consider myself an expert in the class. Meanwhile, I harassed the officers on a daily basis. How are thing progressing? Are you pinging players to update the Raid Slot Template? Is there anything we need more or less of? The officers responded with equal enthusiasm. The Raid Slot Template continued to see activity as people decided what role was best for them. I kept tabs on what we needed, and tailored my recruitment accordingly. As per my new rules, all officers were directed to guide new recruitment to me. If people wanted to get a foot in the DoD door, I'd have them fill out an application. After receiving the application via email, if it passed an initial screen, I'd set up a time to meet in Ventrilo, to have a more personable interview. This process worked extremely well: 9 times out of 10, I was able to turn away people right at the app process from not paying attention to the application requirements; if they couldn't read a simple "how to apply" post, I reasoned, what chance would they have in paying attention during raids?

The new DoD public / private tags in effect
(phone numbers are blacked out),
Icecrown Citadel

The New Crew

The roster grew, both from old faces returning, and from new recruits passing the audit. Familiar names we welcomed back included Kragnl, one of my original earlocks from the 40-Man Vanilla days, who had taken time off during The Burning Crusade. He was back and ready to raid once again, this time on his druid, Beercow. The Shaman brothers Gunsmokeco and Deathonwing returned, ready to find their place in progression, as did Wematanye and Mcflurrie. Larada, one of our TBC progression Hunters, whom was now acting as hunter officer, was back for more, as well as the warriors Jungard and Abrinis. Even Ekasra returned, now as the warlock Nestonia, having taken my advice to switch out of healing. And, one of the longest running mages in the guild, the infamous Turtleman, also returned to our roster, his love of doing ridiculous amounts of damage was rivaled only by his love of pizza and tacos.

Joining these vets were new faces: Omaric, a warrior who snuck in at the tail end of TBC, yearning for a spot in progression, demonstrated spectacular expertise with his class, and had a knack for keeping the guild amused in Vent with his many vocal impressions. Also joining us near the end of TBC was Lix the resto druid, who came to us by way of my former officer Annihilation; they had PvP'd together extensively and Lix wished to contribute more to raiding. Lix's hubby, Vrykolakas the warlock, would join the guild three months later. I acquired Riskers the start of October, a friendly, well-played rogue who would soon earn the nickname "Seňor Riskers". Also new to the roster was Arterea the priest, who was welcomed into the DoD community and playfully referred to as "The Blind Healer", who managed to play exceptionally well, despite his tendency to run around in random directions. We also welcomed Robmelendez, a warlock who pushed out damage that rivaled even Eaca's, earning him the nickname "Aggromelendez". The list of new names grew and grew.

But it was the curious application from an ex-hardcore raider that got most of my attention. His experience surpassed our own: He'd had previous experience leading raids in other guilds, and was himself a part of a guild that had achieved the pièce de résistance of TBC raiding: Kil'jaeden the Deceiver, final boss of The Sunwell Plateau. Sunwell's extreme difficulty curve was comparable to that of Naxxramas 40; an instance we only carved a fraction out of. Anyone who had cleared that content had my instant respect. But I often wondered, why us? Wouldn't that be a step backwards? As it would turn out, he didn't care about our progression at all; it was the respectful professionalism demonstrated to him by a guildy during a random 5-man dungeon that impressed him enough to apply. We hit it off immediately in the interview process. He was Canadian, so was I. He had a passion for getting raid content cleared; I was of the same mindset. He bore the casualties and war stories from raids past, I had my own bruises and scars to brag about. It was clear in my mind I wanted him on-board. His only request was to bring along his RL friend; I obliged. Thusly, Descendants of Draenor became home to two additional players: Cheeseus the rogue and Sixfold the druid.

The raid signup sheet for Dec. 7, 2008.
DoD begins WotLK PvE

No More Excuses

With the roster exploding from both returning players and brand new faces, I worked to streamline the process of getting the guild to know one another. Our roots grew out of a family-based mindset, and I wanted that to continue. To encourage and facilitate communication between these old and new guildies, I instituted a simple change to the in-game guild listing. Previously, public and private tags maintained no consistency or held any function; officers would sometimes put random jokes in people's tags, and sometimes even make underhanded "inside" jokes for only the officers to see in the private tags. Effective at the start of WotLK, I wiped all the public and private tags clean, and filled them out using the following system:

Public Tag:

• A player's main character would read "Main"
• A player's alternate character or would read "Alt of XX", where XX had to map to an existing character in the guild list.

Private Tag:

• If a player was invited as a social app, a friend of a friend, this would read "Social of XX", where XX was another Main in the guild listing. This tied responsibility back to the inviter; if the person you ended up bringing into DoD was a douchebag -- you would have to answer for it.
• If a player was a Raider (or intending to be one), their phone number would be entered here. This allowed the officers to be able to contact a player in an emergency, thus preventing a raid from stalling. Additionally, it gave them direction on whom they should start with: players with verified working contact numbers in their private note had obviously given a shit about raiding in the past, and therefore, should be the most appropriate to go to when fires needed to be put out.

Once these updated guild notes were in place, I was able to point players to the roster in order to figure out the answers to questions like "Hey, is XX on?" Now, the guild was empowered to check on their own. Strike one thing off the administration list. When it came time to start raiding, what if we had a no-show? What if someone was stuck in traffic, or perhaps we lost connectivity with them mid-raid? Who would we call to replace them in a pinch? The officers had the tools they needed to pop open the roster, scan the list, find appropriate replacements, and phone or text them immediately. The admin load continued to lighten.

When the day finally arrived that we had a large enough roster to move forward with, I circled back with the officers, and started plugging a schedule into our signup sheet. Meanwhile, the officers assisted me in vetting these players. We would check their gear, run 5-Man heroics with them, get a feel for their eligibility into progression. Once comfortable, the Guildy was promoted to Raider, and directed to the signup sheet. I also began posting initial information regarding the new raids: Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity, and our old favorite, Naxxramas...now re-designed to favor a 25-Man sized raid. I kept the Raiders honest by invoking a new feature I plugged into our forums: raid strategy posts were flagged as required reading; the forums would physically prevent you from doing anything else until you read the topic. No longer would I have to listen to the excuse of "Oh, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to stand in the fire!" -- a Guildy wouldn't be able to sign up for raids unless their account had been promoted to Raider...and once they were a Raider, the forums would ensure they saw required reading posts.

In short, you wouldn't even be considered for a raid rotation unless you were a Raider, and by being a Raider, I knew definitively that you had seen our raid strategy posts. Excuses were no longer an option. It was time for the progression team to be accountable for themselves.

I surveyed the roster, full of excited (and vetted!) Raiders, and felt the adrenaline pumping. It was official: We had a start date etched in stone, had a verified, qualified team to field the raid, and the excitement of new PvE content awaiting us.

There was just one problem: we had no raid leader.

3.2b. Master of One

Mature, near the end of The Burning Crusade,
before being sacrificed to The Lich King

Kerulak of All Trades

"Just wanted to let you know I really like all of the changes I've read so far."

I glanced down at the IM window on my desktop, then drew the window's focus to the front just long enough to fire back a response.

"Thanks! Burned a lot of hours on it."

I dragged the IM window to the side and returned to my code. I had a suspicion the conversation wasn't quite over yet. Sure enough, a status bar left hints that more digital letters were en route.

Ekasra is typing…

"And I really want to be a part of that core team again. Whatever DoD needs, I want to help. Which is why I'm asking if there is anything you think I should do differently this time around."

I stopped typing a moment and began to process his request. Instincts buried deep in the recesses of my brain screamed out as muscle memory reached for the keys. Remember your new rules. Don't start flushing them down the toilet now. You haven't even given them a chance yet. I listened. I wanted to fire off the first impulsive answer that came to mind, the same thing I had told a hundred other players when asking for a spot in the guild: we need healers. There were never enough healers. And as much as I knew Ekasra struggled with the role, I knew we'd need them. And falter without them.

But.

It went against the new guild order. Buried among the layers of documentation that read like an employee handbook sat my new declaration on changes to the Application Process.

We will no longer tell people what we need; we will ask them what they enjoy playing.

This was one of the most important fundamental changes I put into place for Descendants of Draenor at the start of Wrath; a methodology that erupted from my own volcanic experiences as a raider.

---

There was a time, near the beginning of the game, where the shaman filled me with a deep sense of importance and belonging. Out from behind the administrative desk of a guild leader, I played the role of healer. Every waking moment in-game was spent learning and re-learning the mechanics. Keyboard layouts were changed. Gear was min/maxxed. Mana management was a constant challenge, and I learned about the 5 second rule, as well as the difference between proactive and reactive heals. The biggest challenges came from learning to move and heal, a feat nearly impossible to do well as a shaman in Vanilla. In the early days, my attention was undivided -- Kerulak, or GTFO. Because of this focused attention, I emerged with enough healing expertise to act as a mentor to others.

When a crisis struck the guild halfway through The Burning Crusade, it became apparent that I was the only viable person in the roster to rely on for a shadow priest. I did exactly that and it never felt right. The raid had replenishment, but I experienced neither enjoyment nor fulfillment. I liked the class well enough, but the loss of control was palpable. Meanwhile, there were various strikes against Zanjina. Her race/class combo wasn't optimal for raiding; undead shadow priests dominated the meters with their additional dot Devouring Plague...and Berzerking simply didn't make up for the lost damage. Itemization was exceedingly poor. Shadow priests often waited until tier 6 before opting to slough off their crafted gear while their fellow raiders enjoyed tier 4 and 5 upgrades along the way. More than anything, I felt I lacked expertise as the result of being pulled in both the direction of the shaman and the priest. I was spread too thinly. It was difficult to act as a leader when I gave off all the tell-tale signs of a novice at the wheel. The sacrifice I made for the guild may have helped us get over the hurdles of TBC, but I wasn't having fun.

Thinking about those struggles with Zanjina reminded me of all the players who fought tooth and nail to get into the roster as a specific role I told them to adopt because 'the guild needed it'. And then watched them flounder, flopping around like some useless Magikarp out of water. They wanted to experience the end game, and I felt obligated to jam square pegs into round holes to make it happen. That misguided compassion produced a very mediocre group of raiders; a handful of players unenthusiastic about their role in the team. Unenthusiastic...and unskilled.

That would come to an end in Wrath of the Lich King.

Snippet of the
Raid Slot Template

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Along with the rest of the guildies now madly racing to level 80, I directed Ekasra's attention over to one of my newest forum posts. Titled "Raid Slot Template", it was a forum post tailored for a very specific mission. Down the left-hand column of the post were familiar names of both old and new guildies. Three headers sectioned each group of names off: Tanks, Healers, and DPS. Next to each player's name, a cryptic set of letters and numbers marked each entry:

Bretthew (T:212) (M) (H:198)

Contrary to popular belief, these were not chapters and verses of the King James Bible. They were, however, very carefully coded updates which would inform both the officers and the guild itself about our progress in becoming raid ready. In the above example, Bretthew, a paladin, had currently acquired tanking gear pushing his average ilvl up to 212. Meanwhile, he built an alternate set of healing gear which sat at ilvl 198. Bretthew had absolutely no interest in melee DPS, and therefore, wasn't pursuing it, didn't have any items that could fulfill it...and most importantly, I would not consider him for a role in it. He would never ask, nor would I ever have to tell.

Thanks to the raid slot template, all players focused on joining the 25-Man progression team could post what gear they had acquired, which in turn, allowed me to see what role they desired. That desire was reflected not by a thinly veiled statement like "YOU NEED HEALERS? I CAN HEAL!!!", but rather, as quantifiable progress that player was making in the acquisition of gear. As posts filled this forum thread, the officers and I continued to update the original post, keeping the channels of communication flowing at all times. Day or night, anyone could check where our deficiencies lay or surpluses overflowed. The raid slot template empowered players to make judgement calls about either switching gears, or treading the beaten path toward their original vision of end game raiding.

The beauty of the raid slot template is that it drove the raid team's balance by itself; it effectively removed me from the decision-making process. Guilt no longer hovered over me as it had when I compelled players to take on roles they didn't know nor enjoy. Likewise, if players couldn't find a spot in progression, they had nobody to blame but themselves. There wasn't some dark conspiracy at work, no evil villains named Sir Klocker or Dalans lurked in the shadows, twirling waxy mustaches in diabolical laughter as handfuls of guildies "who weren't their friends" were excised from raids.

Everything a player in DoD needed to know to join the 25-Man progression team was right there in front of them. No more excuses. Just the plain truth. Here's where we are; here's where we need to be. Choose wisely.

---

Ekasra, like many others, used the Raid Slot Template to help guide their own decision making process in finding a spot they could call their own.

"Based on what I'm seeing, looks like we're still a little light in the warlock department. Maybe I should try that."

Remember your new rules.

"Do you enjoy warlocks? It would be quite the shift from a shaman."

"I do, actually. I think I could bring a bit of DPS."

"Sounds like you have a plan, then. Let's see what you can bring to the table."

A few hours later, the raid slot template received yet another update.

Nestonia (T) (H) (M) (R:211)

Not bad, Ekasra. Not bad at all.

Mature the death knight, leveling at the
start of Wrath of the Lich King,
Nagrand

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. Kerulak had been in retirement for far too long, and the call of the healer just wasn't ripe for the picking. It didn't matter; the Raid Slot Template was doing its job, informing me of a wealth of shamans mass leveling toward various roles in progression. For a short time, I contemplated the viability of bringing my red-headed troll priest back to raids, but apathy toward the class lingered. The shadow tree looked mediocre: Dispersion screamed PvP, and while Mind Sear looked good on paper, its lackluster first-hand experience in the beta was overshadowed by some unbelievable coolness dripping from other classes. It was hard to justify sticking with Zanny when warriors were dual wielding 2-Handers and warlocks were transforming into enormous winged demons.

Another wild possibility entered my thoughts.

I had yet to experience melee DPS or tanking. The newest addition to WoW, the death knight, could do both. Their history was deeply entrenched in Warcraft lore; I was a card-carrying nerd, famous for spouting off trivia references that went over most of the guild's head.

Circa vanilla, much of the guild didn't even know what a "Draenor" even was.

Everything about the death knight reeked of awesome. They raised undead minions from the cold earth and sent them into battle. They could dual-wield weapons, something I've always felt gave certain classes an additional edge. They even spoke with a creepy, echoing effect -- their faces pale and icy, glowing eyes devoid of emotion and soul. Tanking without a shield? Check! (no offense, Druids). Resurrect a fallen player as a Ghoul to squeeze out some emergency damage? Check! No question about it, Blizzard poured every last drop of concentrated coolness into the death knight they could summon.

Even factors outside of raiding made me ponder the class further. The potential to dominate PvP was a major factor; they absolutely demolished other players. Villainy that lurked in the shadows for four years had grown accustomed to the secrets of the other classes, becoming experts in their various vulnerabilities. Unsuspecting gankers were ill-prepared for this new class "death-gripping" them across the map, shackling them in position with freezing Chains of Ice, dicing them into a meaty pulp with glowing runeforged blades. The more I considered the death knight, the more it made sense.

Any doubt that lingered about focusing on this new class was flushed away during the beta. After gaining the opportunity to beta test the expansion, I rolled a death knight to get a feel for how the class played. Upon entering the starting area for the death knight, a floating fortress known as Ebon Hold, I was greeted with a familiar musical track. Booming through my speakers came bone-chilling horns blanketed by the death rattle of a snare. I instantly recognized it as music from the death knight wing in Naxxramas, many years previous, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. As I listened to the track, Kerulak and Zanjina fell away into the fog of a distant memory, a previous life on which I would no longer dwell. Now, all waking moments, all research, experience, practice, all of my focus would be here.

The decision was made. In Wrath of the Lich King, my main became a death knight.

3.2. The Grand Reveal

Zanjina sees a bugged core houd pet at
the release of the 3.0 patch,
Shattrath City

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; he 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 recently became a father. He, too, dated back as far as Vanilla, acting 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'd been with us throughout The Burning Crusade, and was the only reliable warlock in progression to speak of. Eaca had built a reputation for doing extraordinary amounts of damage -- so much that he would often pull mobs off even the best of tanks. As his impending fate stomped towards him, Eaca would exclaim "DPS HARDER!", an in-joke demanding the boss die before it reached the warlock.

 
Hunter Officer Larada: Larada had become a major contributor to DoD's progression throughout TBC, and with my previous officer Skarg retiring (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 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: I trusted the hot-headed, take-no-prisoners guild member 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 of incompetent players. His treatment of Wyse remained especially fresh in my memory.

Vacancies remained in both mage and shaman officership. Goldenrod the mage exited WoW in frustration at Blizzard's handling of PvP and BlizzCon '08 ticket sales. And as for the shamans, I'd not yet come to trust anyone as deeply as Kadrok since his departure for Elitist Jerks; the role of shaman officer remained unfulfilled. Until which time that a suitable replacement made him/herself known, I unofficially managed the shamans (which meant I managed Ekasra), and the other officers ran their own ship.

...until today. 

It was the proverbial come to Jesus meeting, where all hands were on deck to listen in on the changes, provide whatever feedback they needed to, and then make a judgement call as to whether or not they were aligned with our new direction. As predicted, the officers got directly to the point, addressing what they felt was the biggest question mark on the list: loot.

50 DKP Plus

"So...certain 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 to engage in a 1st-round bid is."

"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. Those are the folks who'll receive the first round of Elite promotions."

"Ah, OK...so everybody gets a shot at loot out of the gate, then", said Dalans. They're starting to get it.

"Exactly. From our perspective it's business as usual when raiding starts. Because we won't know, right? It's going to take time for some players to ramp up and demonstrate ability. Find out who the rock stars are. By the time everyone's fully decked out from 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 around is that I want to make sure to protect the players that are in this 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 of concern. Blain spoke for them, "You're gonna have an inflation problem."

"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 sit on huge pools of DKP."

"Massive!" laughed Blain, feeding Klocker.

"Right...like we need any more reason for folks like Blain to hoard DKP."

I pivoted. "OK, let's talk this out. What do you all think is a reasonable minimum bid to get into the 1st-round?" Various answers shot out as the group weighed 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 agreed 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 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.

"Neps, what do you think?"

"I think they're horrible and I'm gonna go join Pretty Pink Pwnies!"

Everyone laughed.

I breathed a sigh of relief; the officers were on board. Next up: revealing our intentions to the rest of the guild.

Uld the Rogue,
Darkwhisper Gorge

Frequently Repeated Questions

I obsessed over revealing my intentions to Descendants of Draenor so much that I mapped out my entire 'reveal' schedule in a spreadsheet. The plan was to slowly dole out bite-sized chunks over the weeks leading up to Wrath. I didn't want to overwhelm them. The reveal began with a forum post entitled Who We Are, and Who We Are Not, the intent of which was to realign 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. No more excuses. No more "I didn't know that's what you meant."

Next, I revealed the age restriction, limiting new recruits to 21 years of age. Soon after, out came the new hierarchy of ranks, 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, easing anxiety that no particular rank was expected of you. Participate as much (or as little) in the guild as you want to -- and you will be treated appropriately. After that, I revealed the new application process, concluding with the changes to raiding rules and how the Elite rank would be affected by them. Now that the floodgates were wide open, I funneled the rush of questions toward a forum topic, encouraging one and all 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 I proposed. They voiced opinions on how many of our rules were simply "written down versions of common sense" things, to which I clarified, "common sense is something we've noticed a lot of players lack." Better to be safe than sorry.

"Do we have to become an Elite?" -- Absolutely not, no rank will be enforced. You play as you like, and based on your level of commitment, and you'll earn the appropriate rank that matches said level of contribution.

"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 your 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 the players that do so.

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

Do you hear that sound? That's 'buy-in'. It's working.

Indeed, it seemed like my once biggest fear, the total collapse of my guild, had been averted. On the contrary, players were warming up to these new rules and this new structure. With the officers and the troops both won over, it was time to lead by example once again.

I had to start by applying our new rules and vision to myself.

Who We Are, Who We Are Not

After returning from my summer vacation at the end of August 2008, my plan was to restructure Descendants of Draenor from the ground up. Part of this process involved me making a public declaration about who were were as a group of players, and where our focus lay. The goal was to have this mission statement realign the members of the guild, so that there was no misunderstanding about what we were here to do. Additionally, it would serve as a "sales pitch" to possible guild candidates looking for a new home.

This statement was wrapped up into a forum post and revealed to the guild on October 1st, 2008, six weeks before the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Included for your perusal is the complete body of that forum post.

---

We are not like other guilds. We are unique.

You can join any guild on this server (or other servers) and expect to find:

1. An excessive amount of l33tspeak.
2. Constant trash-talk/ignorance in WoW General Chat or the Public Forums.
3. A guild comprised of people who know each other only by their character name, and know nothing about people's personalities or history, and whom show no compassion or empathy towards one another (or give a shit to even think about that).
4. A guild interested purely in raid progression, focusing more on raid stacking and brute-forcing content via excessive raid schedules and raiding hours, and who cares little (if any) about personal responsibility or utilizing accurate communication skills when teaching/learning.
5. Unfair treatment of guild members when it comes to anything from raiding, to guild vault access, to even the way guild members speak to one another.
6. Lack of structure and rules, and enforcement of those rules.
7. Instability. Guilds rise and fall like the tides.

The above traits are common in many guilds. They aren't wrong, but they are not how we do business. Other guilds employ these traits for any number of reasons: intolerance, lack of time management skills, inexperience, immaturity...to name a few. Here is how we are different:

The Guild Leader (Hanzo/Kerulak)

The guild leader treats the guild like a business.

He pours countless hours of energy and thought into the management and shaping of the guild.

He spends a lot of time getting to know as many of his troops as he can.

He is open to have any issue brought to his attention, and very rarely dismisses problems without further investigation.

He wants you to play the game the way you most enjoy it (provided you are not exploiting/cheating).

He doesn't have a problem telling you directly when you have fucked up. He is good about letting you know privately and what steps you can take to repair/improve. He'll also notice when you don't...and has no problem removing you from the guild.

He doesn't have any expectations on the amount of time or energy you invest, but he is actively aware of who contributes more than others, and he makes a habit of rewarding guild members who consistently go above and beyond the call of duty. Furthermore, he has set in motion a risk/reward structure into the guild rules that enforces this theory.

He wants every guild member's experience in DoD to be exceptional. He doesn't expect you to be perfect, but he expects you to evolve. It's ok to make mistakes. It's not ok to repeat them.

When the day comes and you move on, or put WoW down for good, the guild leader's goal is to have you reflect back and say, "The best guild I ever had the luxury of being in during my time in WoW was DoD." Above all else, he wants to have fun playing WoW, and he wants you to have fun as well.

The Guildies

We play WoW. A lot. For the majority of us, it is our favorite game at present.

We are stable. We have been around for the full duration of WoW and have never broken up, disbanded, re-formed, or taken time off. We are constant.

We are a guild comprised mostly of adults. Ages vary, spanning from the teens to the fifties.

Many of us have jobs. Many are 9-5, Mon-Fri. Some have jobs that span the weekend.

Some of us are married. Some of us have kids.

Many of us have been playing WoW together for several years and know quite a bit about one another. We understand each others nuances, behaviors, and mood swings and have grown accustomed to them. As such, we have the ability to resolve conflict quickly.

We enjoy the social aspects of the game and are a very social guild by nature. Some of us have friends that started in the guild and extend beyond WoW. We like people and we would like to get to know you.

No guild is drama free, but we keep ours to a dull roar.

No guild is free of oppressive, dictator-like officers, but ours just come across that way because they are more annoyed at incompetence than anything else. Some of our officers are actually patient and kind. In most cases where ex-guildies have complained about being oppressed, it is almost always a direct result of said guild member not taking criticism well.

We are respectful, both of guild members, and of other guilds and unknown players. We joke and kid each other, and will often ride each other in guild chat or vent, but this is because we are a group of friends who have been playing together for quite some time. We are helpful and considerate.

Our Approach to Raiding

We enjoy raiding and we enjoy raiding efficiently. We don't have time to fuck around. After four years, we know a few things about the game, and although we are usually good about helping new people learn the game, we are also not terribly focused on reiterating the same things we've done time and time again. We're looking to try and do new things.

When the guild re-evaluates its rules and regulations, it keeps the majority in mind. If one or two people feel very strongly about starting to raid a 3rd or 4th night a week, that's not very likely going to affect change. However, we have added raid nights in the past when there has been an overwhelming need to fill. As the demand grows, we will make an effort to meet that demand (so long as there is an adequate supply of guild members who are dedicated to making it work).

We are respectful to guild members who raid, and we expect that you return the favor. We will be mindful of speaking to you fairly in raids, giving you assistance where you need it, and doing our best to treat rotations fairly, while adhering to the rules of the guild. As such, we expect that you are consistent, reliable, communicate emergencies to us, and are a team player.

No loot system is free from being corrupt, but we have a reasonably solid one that has been, for the most part, fair to those who have raided with us. No one single person is in charge of being master looter and many officers with differences of opinion oversee loot distribution, while adhering to our guild rules. It is reasonably well monitored, and in the history of four years of raiding, has almost never caused drama.

We are not a "hardcore" guild: We don't raid every night of the week. Some of us need to get up in the morning and go to work, and we give a shit about our jobs, so we don't want to do them half-assed. We also give a shit about raiding and don't want to execute raids half-assed either; therefore, we have focused, quality time on the weekends to take care of business in WoW. When we do raid, we come prepared, as if we had to lead the raid ourselves. We don't expect anyone to hand us explanations or hold our hands while we re-learn content all over again.

We don't take the same 25 people when we raid. This is because we don't expect to have the same 25 people every raid night. We don't kick you out of the guild for not raiding every single night of the week, so we work with who we have. Some people raid more than others, and we make an effort to keep a large pool of players available to switch in and out. This is a very flexible model that allows you to raid as much or as little as you want. The side-effect is that you don't get to go all the time. If you prefer to go all the time, your raiding is probably best done in another guild where they raid every night and require the same people to be present, kicking you out of the guild if you miss one night out of 30.

We will not be the first guild on the server to kill a boss or clear a raid instance. If this is your priority, you may be better off elsewhere.

We are not ultra-hyper-focused on loot. We care more about the progression and accomplishment than handing out toys. Having said that, loot is fun. We like to play with new toys, and we are happy to reward you with loot for your contributions to our team. If you are thinking about quitting the guild because you feel you got the shaft on a new piece of loot that went to somebody else, I recommend packing up now; you will find no shoulders to cry on in this guild with those priorities. Sorry.

We won't guarantee you a raid spot. Raids spots are earned. If you have signed up for a raid, there is no guarantee either way that we will take you, or that we will not be requiring your services. Signing up tells us you are ready to commit. If you don't show up, chances are you've blown any chance in hell that we will take you seriously. Equally, there's no guarantee that existing raiders won't lose their spot to you...if they have been performing sub-par, and you demonstrate excellence...you may very well switch places with them in the raid lineup.

Challenges You May Face

We're not here to babysit you. If you don't get along with someone in the guild, I don't want to hear about it (unless you are being abused and/or neglected by an officer). You'd best deal with it.

We're not a faceless organization. We don't keep to ourselves, login, do some dailies and logout. We have names and are real people. We're uninterested in having people in this guild who are unwilling to communicate. If you keep to yourself, you are going to struggle to get things done in DoD.

If you insist on communicating in guild chat, and prefer not to speak in Ventrilo, you are also going to have real problems. Think of guild chat as just another instant messaging/IRC window that's up while you're at work...you may shoot the shit with other people online from time to time, but in actuality, you are getting work done. In DoD, the brunt of the work is done via Ventrilo. Insist on remaining silent in vent and hyper-focusing on guild chat and why nobody "listens to you" or "hears your requests when you ask for help", and you will surely be disappointed, time and time again.

Our schedule is what it is. It has been molded and shaped over time by the majority. As stated above, we have other interests, priorities and responsibilities outside of WoW that cause the schedule to be the way that it is. We apologize if it doesn't work for you, but it's unlikely to change, so if you cannot change your own schedule to meet the needs of the guild, it is going to be difficult for you to accomplish what you want.

If you like to cause drama, or bitch about trivial things that are out of your control, or even make generalized statements that have no basis in fact, you are going to be hard-pressed to find people to side with you. Also, leaving the guild without saying a word or putting us on /ignore doesn't "teach us a lesson"; it only makes certain you have poured the final drops of gasoline onto your newly burning bridge, and will only serve to make you look like a fool when you apply to other guilds and those guilds' officers ask us about you and your time spent here.

Your Reward

If you've read this far, it's clear that you still give a shit about DoD and are intrigued enough to make it your home. I assure you that you won't be disappointed. Let's review what your reward is for choosing the best damn guild on Deathwing:

1. The most stable and reliable Horde guild on the server.
2. The most dedicated guild leader in existence, who may even sing during raids (just don't loot during combat to prevent this).
3. A group of intelligent, funny, mature and fair (but firm) officers.
4. Low drama. Low corruption.
5. Guild structure and rules that have been tested through time and are enforced.
6. A fixed raid schedule that you are able to devote as much or as little time to as you wish, and a loot/reward system that quantifies your dedication to the guild.
7. A massive collection of guild members with varying personalities and interests, all of whom enjoy WoW and would like to have you join in.

If interested, I encourage you to apply.

- Hanzo, Guild Leader

Descendants of Draenor, Deathwing-US

3.1. Perestroika

Part III: Wrath of the Lich King

"It would never work, just as communism would never work in the real world, but if you look at it on paper, isn't it an excellent idea?"

World of Warcraft login screen, during the
Wrath of the Lich King ('09-'11) era,
Copyright © 2009 Blizzard Entertainment

The Restructure

In the summer of 2008, I had a lot to think about.

I built Descendants of Draenor from a group of people I used to play Quake and CounterStrike with, to a guild of hundreds. Over the course of both Vanilla and The Burning Crusade, the original ideals I set out for DoD evolved into two core goals. In Vanilla, my priority was to construct and grow a guild with other players of a similar, mutually respectful mindset. I accomplished this by building a solid core of friendly, helpful, skilled players. In turn, this catalyzed the assimilation of other guilds who shared that mindset. With a core reflecting my own ideals in place, we began to dabble in raiding. Initially, we saw impressive success, but it was haphazard and lacked focus. By The Burning Crusade, a second goal for DoD emerged: To make a real competitive push in endgame raid progression without having to maintain a hardcore schedule. We were working men and women after all, we couldn't be expected to raid until midnight (or later) throughout the week. I implemented changes during TBC to drive new behaviors surrounding raiding. We clearly identified the expectation of the raider, and what our unified goal was: the constant, consistent defeat of raid bosses, keeping pace with other hardcore guilds. I also stressed personal responsibility, compelling the guild to re-examine each player's individual level of contribution. Via these changes, we were able to maintain a two day per week raid schedule. It was this very schedule which allowed us to clear all of the content up through Black Temple, ending with an Illidan kill before he was nerfed in 3.0.

But there were other struggles beyond the schedule I had to give serious thought to. Players came and went in our raid rotations, and it frustrated the core players, leaving them stressed out. We had to retain a large pool of people to choose from, in the case that we had emergencies or last-minute-cancellations, and those fillers often left a lot to be desired. The disparity between player skill levels was vast. People coming and going also led to a decrease in overall raid performance. The "revolving door" of our guild also led to another issue: brand new players joined, raided, won items that my core had been working toward for weeks, then switched guilds the next day, effectively pissing off the entire raid team. Morale among progression was a roller coaster of highs and lows.

On top of all of this, my raid leader, Blain, had quit the game -- burned out from the exhaustion of having to deal with so many failed players, a cornucopia of excuses, and the lack of that "spark"; a willingness to simply cut out the excuses, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and dig in to endgame content until it was farmed. When he joined DoD at the start of Blackwing Lair, my then-warrior officer Ater had warned me, "he's going to whip this group into shape, but he's not going to make a lot of friends doing it." Ater and Blain played together previously in Lineage II, and Blain had made a name for himself as being detail-oriented and focused on doing whatever it took to be the best. When he joined the rogues, they were the most under-performing group of players in my guild. He walked into our raid wearing gear from Zul'Gurub and Dire Maul, yet within minutes, Blain was not only destroying the other rogues in DPS, he was quickly shooting to the top of the entire damage meters. He went on to become my raid leader for the duration of Vanilla, broke briefly at the start of TBC, but re-assumed his role when it was time to set the raid team straight. He then held the position all the way through the death of Illidan the Betrayer. By then, nearly four years later, he was completely spent. Nearly four years of listening to "This is too hard", "You're such an asshole!", "Why are you pushing us into more difficult content when we don't have the items we need from earlier bosses?"...he was done.

I didn't want him to go, but I didn't blame him.

These were only the in-game issues weighing heavily on me. I had a family that I was putting on the back-burner, and a career that was stagnating. I had to give some serious thought to how I was going to run Descendants of Draenor from here on out. The person whom I looked to for general leadership and guidance, Ater, was gone; I was officially on my own. I took my summer vacation out at my Dad's farm in a town called Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan -- a speck in the northern reaches of the Canadian prairies. Here, hours and hours away from any metropolitan city, I could step out on the deck at night, look up, and see nothing but stars. I'd stare upwards and lose all sense of time. No noise. No distractions. I let my mind go blank. All the stresses of the world washed away. I didn't care about the problems at work. I wasn't stressed about my family situation. And, it goes without saying, the pressures of running the guild were gone. Finally, I was able to think straight.

Kerulak, my main during Vanilla
Shattrath City

Learning from the Past

While I contemplated the state of my guild and where I wanted to go with it, I explored new avenues to gain insight and perspective. I read "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni, a fascinating tale of a failing company and its various employees, locked in a constant state of finger-pointing, stubbornness, and old habits. Although intended for the entrepreneurial crowd, I found an amazing amount of parallels between it and the difficulties I was experiencing managing a raiding guild. The book spoke to my plight so accurately that I paraphrased many of its concepts in a forum post that would help align the raid team during their preparation for Archimonde. Now on vacation, I returned to those notes, and re-purposed them into a new post entitled "Why Raid Teams Fail". In my post, I simply reiterated the same core fundamentals that Lencioni touched on. Instead of targeting a company and employees, my post was tailored for a WoW guild and its raiding members. I reviewed the forum post, and all at once, I had a path to follow.

This post would be the outline for my restructure.

Descendants of Draenor had been following the same set of unwritten rules I set forth since its inception in late 2004. Although we were still together and things seemed fine on the surface, there were cracks in the foundation. I had a raid team that, while successful, drained a massive amount of energy to manage and coordinate. I also had players of such vastly different skill levels contributing to raids that progression would stagnate for weeks at a time. This led to increased administration on my part, which forced me in-game for longer periods of time. I was pouring too much of myself in, and needed to balance my WoW time with my family and other external responsibilities. In order to accomplish that, I was going to need to refine and delegate. The guild would need a completely transparent set of expectations, unambiguous and unable to misinterpret. Every member would read them, confirm that they understood, and either meet those expectations...or be dismissed.

I reflected on the lessons I learned during Vanilla and The Burning Crusade, from the many individual experiences, players, and mentors that had come and gone. The highlights?:

Personally Oversee All Recruitment: The mass assimilation of guilds was a task I fielded solely during Vanilla. This granted me the luxury of first-hand knowledge of a person, and to go with my "gut" instinct when something felt right or wrong. This hands-on knowledge of people, in turn, was vital to the success of building a foundation comprised of guilds with similar mindsets as my own; it allowed us to make the leap to 40-Man Raiding. But in the course of TBC, I delegated much of the recruitment to my officer core. Each officer's opinion of a player varied too greatly. Thus, the pool of players that we expected to help us with raiding were suffered disparity. I solved this by personally taking on the recruitment process. All applications would go through me; there would be no more delegation of this task through officers. All invite privileges in-game were revoked. The public application forum (which often derailed into a flame fest) was locked. My guildies flaming n00bs during the app process went against everything I preached about being kind and respectful to fellow players and guilds. The open app process would come to an end. I would handle it from that point forward.

Everyone On the Same Page: "The Five Dysfunctions..." showed me that the team needed to speak a common language. The raid team's disharmony was sad and pathetic. It grew from (among other reasons) a generation gap; players in different age groups couldn't even agree upon the basic fundamentals. 38 year old players had a very different perspective on life than 17 year olds. If they couldn't see eye-to-eye on generalities outside the game, how could I expect them to form a cohesive team in-game? I imposed an age limit of 21 to diminish this generation gap. It wasn't about maturity -- it was about realignment.

Acknowledging Multiple Levels of Commitment: Ater taught me the value of acknowledging a player's contribution, and reminded me that players of different skill levels warranted hierarchical recognition. Players of poor quality fostered animosity among the team. Stellar players resenting foolish ones drained everyone's energy, and performance suffered as a result. Failing players could no longer be allowed to justify their behavior, and star players deserved priority over these mediocre folks. To solve this, I mapped out a hierarchy of ranks, each with its own requirements, rights, and responsibilities. Now, not only were there a clearly defined set of prerequisites that needed to be completed in order to set foot in a raid, players who exceeded them would be granted additional rewards and perks within the guild framework. Henceforth, two classes of player would be identified in the guild: "Raider" for general rotations, to come and go as they wished, and "Elite" for fixed rotations, whom I expected to be present every week, the rock stars of the team. The beauty of this solution was that the fixed rotation was perceived as a perk to the player, because they wanted to be there every week. And, by enforcing the attendance of the Elite, the overall performance of the team would remain high, instead of the sine wave of the past.

Elites Get 1st Round Bids: Players that treated our guild like a revolving door were murder for the progression team. Joining our team, gearing up...and then never setting foot in another raid again not only wound me into a ball of seething hatred, it flushed team morale down the toilet. I had a responsibility to provide some kind of incentive to keep stellar raiders returning to progression. In a somewhat controversial move, I introduced a change to our guild loot system, based off the aforementioned Elite rank. Players who gained the Elite rank by proving their consistent reliability and stellar performance would not only gain a guaranteed a spot in our raids, but would earn the option of a 1st-round bid, so that fleeting new members couldn't swoop in, bid and win the most powerful item in the dungeon, then hit the road the next day. This perk further incentivized players to outperform, and provided me with an additional layer of defense against cattledrivers; an in-joke we used when referring to top-geared raiders that suddenly left us high-and-dry.

Acknowledging Contribution Outside Elite: Not everyone that raided could hope to become Elite. Perhaps they weren't the greatest players in the world, or maybe not the most well-liked...but they still played a valuable role, and ought to be recognized for their efforts, even by contributing in some capacity without raiding. My vision of the new progression team would be comprised of a core of Elites, but it would be the Raiders (and others) that would allow us to continue to churn a rotation week-to-week, granting our members the schedule flexibility we committed to delivering. So, how would I recognize those non-Elites? I instituted the ability to earn a temporary "glory" rank for going above-and-beyond the call of duty, regardless of raid commitment. We would make a big deal about their contributions and assistance to the guild, both on the forums, and in-game with a special rank that granted access to the officer channel, even granting them temporary 1st-round bidding rights of the Elite rank, so that even non-hardcore players might be given a chance to shine. We'd name these players "Avatar".

Zanjina, my main during The Burning Crusade,
Black Temple

What Dreams May Come

The changes were significant. On paper, it read like an employee handbook. Was I going to scare people away? Would they look at this restructure, think it was some sort of joke, and walk away, pointing and laughing? I had to take a deep breath and make an important decision. Up until that very moment, my biggest fear was failure; that the guild would be seen as a laughing stock in retrospect, that we weren't able to accomplish anything of any value. I didn't want the entire four years to have been a waste of time and energy. My gut spoke to me again, much more loudly than ever before. So I stood out on my father's deck, staring up at the night sky in Hudson Bay, and listened.

It is time to come to terms with this.

There is a very real possibility that these changes will cause the end of your guild. You have to be willing to accept it. Prepare for it. And when that day arrives, be it tomorrow or years from now, you need to be ready to move on. No more excuses, no more crying about what was, or what could have been. When you are ready to accept the end of your guild, only then can you truly take a hold of that vehicle, and drive it as you always meant to. 

At the precise moment I realized this, I gained a new outlook on my ability to lead; I was overcome with a sense of confidence and direction. Once the fear of losing my guild was gone, all at once, the cloudy path ahead became crystal clear.

---

I returned home from my summer vacation, posted an announcement hinting to the changes that I had planned, and began to draft the first post that would pave our way: Who We Are, and Who We Are Not.

2.44. Epilogue: The Dinner

Mizuna,
Denver, Colorado

Where Common Sense Goes

One of the last memories I have in Ater's presence was the night I couldn't stop thinking about my wallet.

Ater's folks were in town and they invited me out to dinner. I was nervous. Already being in Ater's commanding presence on a day-to-day basis had a perpetual tinge of intimidation attached to it, but tonight, my anxiety would reach an entirely new level. Ater's father was an oil man, and the family had traveled the world extensively. My travels were insignificant by comparison: I claimed Puerto Vallarta as my only destination abroad.

I made my way toward Mizuna, a restaurant off of 7th Ave -- staffed by a celebrity chef, no less, and I tensed up. How many foolish ways will you stick your foot in your mouth tonight? Awash with stress spreading through my mind as I prepared for the dinner, I took my seat across from Ater and his parents. The horror gripped me like a vice as I felt no familiar wallet in my back pocket.

I'd forgotten it.

The conversation, as one might expect, covered much ground. As fanciful dishes came and went from the table, we discussed education, business, the agency that Ater and I worked at, even a bit of WoW managed to slip into the conversation. All the specifics have since been overwritten in my mind -- a bunch of corrupted files all discarded, replaced with more up-to-date data like the seller's agreement on my old house, the address of my kids' new high school, and all the different ways Mists of Pandaria delights and infuriates me. As I struggle to remember the details of that night eating dinner with Ater and his parents, all I know for certain was how stupid I felt to have forgotten my wallet, and how embarrassed I was going to be when the check arrived. Only a child makes mistakes like this, I thought. But as I braced for impact when the fateful moment arrived, my anxiety proved wasteful and unnecessary.

Because there was no issue to begin with.

I was their guest. Ater and his parents had invited me to dinner. Sure, it was never actually spoken aloud, but the unspoken common sense should have put my mind at ease. This was standard operating procedure for them, and in inviting me as their guest, took care of dinner as well, never once giving it a second thought.

As I walked back to my car upon the dinner's end that evening, a deep feeling of relief washed over me. And then, disgust. For the first time, I finally understood all the chaos and confusion around my unwritten rules in the guild. Why players continually used ridiculous, embarrassing, nonsensical excuses to justify poor performance, poor behavior, an a total inability to follow my rules. I always just chalked it up to disinterest, or the inability to care about a video game.

Maybe it was something else entirely that blocked their ability to wield common sense.

You can't assume people think the way you do. A million and one factors all come into play. For all I knew, every player I ever recruited was nervous in my presence. The concept seemed absurd. Yet, I had proof of this happening before: Ater's story of Headhunter was a clear indication that, by some technique unfamiliar to me, I was commanding an air of leadership simply in presence alone. Even without saying or doing a single thing...there were players -- even complete strangers -- that saw me as a leader. Someone to be followed...or feared. If a stranger could feel this way, without knowing a single thing about me, why not a guildy, freshly recruited to the guild? Carrying that baggage around for months, even years afterward, was a possibility. It could happen as easily as it did to me, in the presence of Ater and his parents.

The days of assuming common sense were over for Descendants of Draenor.

Life Lessons

I cycled back through all the lessons Ater had given me, cataloging our conversations, sticking mental Post-It notes on my brain, writing each one down. All players want to be good at something. Identify the casuals, and keep them separate from the hardcores. Treat them fairly, which is not the same as equally. Acknowledge those players who go above and beyond the call of duty, and find ways to point out how they are the glue that keeps the guild bound together, make them feel important and special. Avoid negative reinforcement, make an effort to praise in public. And as I scribbled these notes down in an attempt to wrap my arms around the big picture, a realization set in.

The entire time I'd spent with Ater, working across the desk from him, going out to lunches, picking his brain, awaiting some new epiphany, some elegant simplistic solution...I always framed his answers around World of Warcraft and the guild. After all, that's the role he had played for so long. Leading the charge, mediating player issues, bringing Blain on board and guiding my decision process in DoD. And by always putting things into the context of the game, trying desperately to learn how to get a handle on the big picture -- I was missing the even bigger picture in the process, a picture Ater was trying to make me see all along.

His answers weren't about how to build a better guild. They were how to build a better me.

His soliloquy about people wanting to be good at something was what I wanted. I'd express bewilderment at the concept of people following a dictator like Bru berating his players in Pretty Pink Pwnies, and was disgusted at Depraved's foul language in addressing us. Then, I'd return to an office where sales managers treated me worse than both guilds combined. They made do. They were accepted into their social group, and that was worth the demeaning insults. They felt like they were contributing to something, even if it meant whittling away any remaining self-esteem in the process. That feeling of "belonging" that Annihilation touched on? He was close. They didn't feel like they belonged...they felt like they belonged to Bru, dehumanized and bullied. He owned them and treated them as such...and that's how they acted, subservient to his abhorrent behavior. Which is how I felt about my job. Fear kept me from taking a chance that the sales managers were wrong, and I was able to be something more. I wanted to go the extra distance. I wanted to be a star performer, and I knew I had it in me.

But when Ater spoke, I heard what I wanted to hear. I was getting direction on how to take control of the guild with greater proficiency. All that time, he was trying to give me direction on how to take control of my life. I was living in extremes, devoting too much time to the game, and not enough to my family or career. I was wallowing in self-pity, treating Ater's exit from the guild like abandonment. Yet the answer had stared me in the face the entire time, for as long as I had known him. Right from that first guild interview, I had the answer. This guy was different. His approach was so thorough, so professional. Put the coddling to bed and stop trying to be everyone's best friend. Stop letting people get away with murder just because we were a "family-friendly" guild. And most of all, find the part of me that was "abandoned" by Ater, and remove it before it metastasized. My emotions were completely in the wrong place. This wasn't a time to mourn, it was a time to celebrate a new venture, new challenges, and new ways to grow as a person.

To Ater, leaving Descendants of Draenor wasn't personal...it was just business.

It was time for me to start treating it like a business. No more falling back on people behind the scenes. Time for me to step up and start making decisions. Time to take control.

---

Taking control is not easy, but it begins with a single step. For Descendants of Draenor, it would begin with me sitting down on my Father's couch, deep in the Canadian north, as I took those scribbled notes and typed out every unwritten rule, every bit of common sense that a player could claim ignorance of -- so that they could never again wield that power over me. And as for my life, I handed in my resignation at that agency, taking my expertise to a place where I'd be better utilized and appreciated. As I sat across the table from the interviewer, discussing my programming credentials and history with web application development, he leaned over the desk and dropped the bomb: 

"Do you play World of Warcraft?"

I smiled and replied, "Not only do I play WoW, but let me show you this recruitment tool I threw together..."

~~~

2.43. The False Step

Zanjina and the 25-Man Progression team prepares
to work on Illidan the Betrayer,
Black Temple

Contemplating Promotion

We pressed on and defeated The Illidari Council the night of July 27th, concluding a month of work. The path to Illidan was now clear. Time was of the essence. The next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, was in beta, and I expected Blizzard to follow suit with applying the 3.0 patch to the game prior to its full retail release. This meant all existing encounters would be implicitly nerfed when our players gained all new talents and abilities. The defeat of 40-Man Maexxna was one of our proudest moments as a raiding guild, as we managed it prior to the 2.0 patch that trivialized said content. I insisted that the guild apply the same passion towards an Illidan kill, pre-3.0. Our original goal of defeating Illidan as a raiding guild was still doable, and would earn us a historic spot on the server, even when considering that Blizzard bolted on an entirely new raid tier after Black Temple, the Sunwell Plateau.

As The Burning Crusade waned, raiding guilds that were stalemating on progression began falling apart, and I picked up the pieces of these dismantled teams. I weeded through them, cherry picking the roles we needed and giving them a shot. This was my strategy to deal with any possible burnout the raid team was suffering as we neared our goal. Many of these guild breakups involved players who happened to be friends of Wyse. I found myself getting first-hand referrals on players she recommended; as the volume increased, I simply deferred to her judgement when taking new players in, bypassing the due diligence. The end result was a core of new players that were exceptionally well-geared and well-played, but were lacking in other social graces.

That summer was rough on the roster, and the BlizzCon 2008 ticket fiasco didn't help. Blizzard, unprepared for the popularity of previous BlizzCons, set up an online ticket purchasing website that completely buckled under the demand of WoW nerds across the globe. One such nerd happened to be my very own mage officer, Goldenrod. The sham of the ticket system failing, coupled with his growing disgust of mage treatment in PvP, was the straw that broke the camel's back. He announced that he was quitting the game, news that got back to me by way of one of my raiding priests, Neps. I shared this knowledge with Wyse in the hopes that she would assist me in holding things together through Illidan's completion. She obliged, expressing that she would reach out to the existing mages, folks like Turtleman, Dandrak, Barraged, and convince them to remain focused until the Betrayer met his fate.

Unbeknownst to any of them, Blain had already confided that he, too, would be leaving at the end of the expansion.

It was at this point that I began giving serious consideration to Wyse for officership. She had the unique benefit of being on-hand every day via IM; I could delegate the handling of situations at a moment's notice, without having to wait to log in to the game. It came from a feeling of desperation. I needed anyone available that demonstrated a sliver of leadership to help plug holes in the dam. This desperation clouded my judgement while I considered promotions -- it prevented me from seeing the warning signs. Signs such as Wyse expressing frustration at players who were tormenting her in guild chat, or worse, ignoring her outright. Signs in the form of her relaying to me how her friends in-guild were being "abused"; I would find out later that it was these same friends who incited arguments amongst players ill-equipped to raid. Soon, even laid-back members of the guild grew disgusted with her neediness and inability to handle criticism.

In a moment of clarity, my gut spoke to me. If you are going to extend a position of authority to her, she is going to have to demonstrate serious growth in both diplomacy and finesse. I listened to my gut and made the decision to hold back on the promotion.

Descendants of Draenor defeats Illidan the Betrayer,
Black Temple

The Betrayer

Descendants of Draenor clawed its way through the hellish summer months of 2008. By September, we had put in a solid four weeks of work on Illidan. Blain and I clung to the A-Team/B-Team rotations, allowing us to field the huge pool of players which now made up the roster. I drafted a "State of the Union" forum post, hoping to encourage those suffering from burnout to stay strong and remain involved in the rotations, so that we could claim an Illidan kill. Thankfully, the roster stayed full, and we continued our work on Illidan. Kurst continued his role of main tank and dealing with Illidan's Shear, while both he and Dalans worked together to perfect the Flames of Azzinoth tanking. Eventually, they were acting as a single cohesive unit. Within a few more weeks of earnest effort, Illidan Stormrage met his fate by our hand, granting us an official Black Temple clear date on the evening of September 21, 2008. It was both triumphant and bittersweet, because although we accomplished what we set out to at the start of The Burning Crusade, we lost many core folks from our original Vanilla raid team along the way. Still, few guilds could claim an Illidan kill; we now sat among those elite few. It was a proud moment for Descendants of Draenor, and the event remains permanently burned into my brain.

It was the week following our Illidan kill that would bestow upon me another everlasting memory.

Seven days later, we returned for our weekly clear. The rotations for that week were handled as fairly as possible; we brought as many must-have roles that were necessary for the kill, and rotated in folks that did not get a chance to be present for the first clear. Many core raiders fell into this latter category, officers included. Even the shaman Ekasra, whom I felt was vital to every raid that Kerulak was absent for, hadn't been present for the first kill. These folks all needed a shot, and thus, were rotated in on week two. As we were getting situated for a pull of Illidan, drama exploded in guild chat. Two recently acquired guildies (who happened to be friends with Wyse) threw a fit when they discovered they had been left behind for that evening's Black Temple raid. They were outraged that raiders who weren't involved in the initial kill were now getting priority over those who contributed to Illidan's defeat. Without even bothering to take it up with me and attempt some sort of resolution, they quit the guild.

This outburst of rage and immaturity would be the catalyst for Wyse's undoing.

Political Incongruity

By now, the raiders had grown into a unified, efficient team. They knew the goals we had set out to accomplish, and where our priorities lay. Clearing raids was the focus, being competitive and progressing so that the guild could experience the content was the endgame for us. We had burned into their brains that loot was not the reason we did what we did; we were not in this for individual gain or glory. The glory came from our accomplishments as an entire guild. Thus, any behavior demonstrating greed was immediately pounced on. The guild unanimously wrote the ex-guildies off as selfish and paid them no attention. Wyse, however, held a different opinion. She felt her friends had been mistreated and not given a fair opportunity at spots in the roster, reminding us that if it weren't for their contribution, Illidan would likely still remain undefeated. The result of this defiant public stance was an overwhelmingly negative response to Wyse.

Alienated, she became the focus of an entirely new round of personal attacks. Discussions she'd start in guild chat would cause officers like Dalans to instantly mute her. Any mention of the ex-guildies would cause my members to violently defend our morals and principles, further backing her into a corner -- with nobody on her side to defend her own claims. She made multiple attempts to contact me via IM, relaying to me the treatment she was receiving, but I could provide no additional support or advice. She had dug her own grave and nothing I could say or do would change the opinion of hundreds of guild members...including my own. It was not enough that she was a dedicated, experienced mage with a passion for progression and high-caliber play. She needed to be aligned with our ideals, our values. Instead, she remained frustratingly loyal to her friends; ex-guildies that had demonstrated selfishness and deceit -- not anything that I wanted us to stand for as a guild.

On November 11th, 2008, just six months after Wyse joined my guild, she posted a goodbye on our forums, and quietly left to join her friends. Various members of DoD made a concerted effort to be civil and wish her well; even Dalans left her a note: "Water under the bridge." I was appreciative that, in the end, my guild had the decency to let her know that she had been a contributing member. Skewed alignments aside, she had helped the raid progression team perform incredible feats. Without her, I cannot guess as to what amount of time we would have spent on Illidari Council, which potentially could have pushed Illidan far enough out, causing us to miss the pre-3.0 kill. I was thankful for her efforts, yet saddened that I couldn't convince her to see my side of the story. She would forever remain faithful to her friends, which in her eyes, were more important than the good of the guild.

---

A week later, one of my guild members started sending tells. "Hanzo, you need to jump into Vent. It's Wyse. She's pretty upset."

I popped on my headphones, turned on the mic, and jumped into Vent, finding her in a solitary channel. She was beside herself and in tears. I asked her what was wrong. Wyse proceeded to tell me how she had joined her friends' guild (the very same ones that stormed out of mine in a tantrum), and that she had been busy contributing raiding materials and gold from her characters to their guild vault. Once she had given them everything she had to help get their guild started on the right foot, her friends decided that they didn't need Wyse any longer, and kicked her to the curb.

It was an impressive demonstration of loyalty.

The very players Wyse had gone to extreme lengths to defend...had now turned around and cut her loose. She was distraught, not by the loss of trivial in-game goods, but by the betrayal of those she believed had her back, as she had theirs. I did my best to console her. I couldn't help but feel a certain sense of irony surrounding the events. Her "friends" had shown their true colors, something my gut had told me months earlier. It was unfortunate that she had to experience this first hand. As before, I wished that I could have found a way to convince her of this ahead of time. But, as with some people, the only way to truly convince them is for them to live through it themselves.

My experience with managing Wyse was profoundly enlightening. It was my first experience managing a player without the advice of a mentor, like Ater. I learned how to weigh my own needs in the middle of a crisis, but not jump to rash decisions like premature promotions. It was an exercise in keeping a level head. Dealing with Wyse reminded me that in leadership, I had a responsibility to not allow my emotional attachment to cloud my vision. The plucking of heartstrings is not a valid justification to sacrifice integrity, no matter how difficult it seems. And I won't lie to you...it is difficult to listen to someone pour their heart out, and hold yourself back from wanting to help -- to make everything better. It also reaffirmed my beliefs about people: you can't change them. All you can do is provide the necessary information to lead them down the right path. Whether they take that path or not is ultimately up to them.

I filed the Wyse experience into my stack of lessons learned, as I prepared to take Descendants of Draenor into the next expansion.