Kree's World of Warcraft Guild Leader Blog: Rankings

Showing posts with label Rankings. Show all posts

Monday, April 27, 2009

Be an Ensidia Player.

This weekend I was hanging out on Twitter and saw Ensidia post that they are recruiting. So I retweeted for them with the comment "too bad I'm not EU and a better player".

So what does it take to be an Ensidia quality player?

Let's take a look at their recruitment post.

A couple of pointers and requirements that you need to read before you apply:
We expect nothing but the highest performance from our players.
Be prepared to play long hours in an environment that does not suffer poor players for very long.
You need to be able to handle criticism and improve on any mistakes you make.
A high standard of English is expected since it is the main language within the guild. If you cannot understand and communicate well, both in written and spoken English, then please do not apply. This includes using Ventrilo and a microphone.

You only get the chance to make a good first impression once, don't screw it up! Your previous raiding experience is a huge part of your application. Having done most high level instances is a huge bonus, especially having cleared Sunwell before 3.0. Mention all this in detail in your application. We do not like to tell people specifically what to write in applications so what you write is up to you. Make sure, however, that you include links to your armory,WWS and a screenshot of your UI.

So they aren't asking specific questions and only mention a few basic requirements. Easy right?

Well the difference between what you read and what you really need to be is the knowledge of the guild. Ensidia is #1 in the world, no questions asked. They got world first Yogg-Saron kill well before anyone else AND since they are EU they started 24 hours later than any US guild. The quality of their players are supreme. Take the best players you have played with and chances are most of them wouldn't cut it. Ensidia (and guilds like them) are super competitive too. Chances are that if you screw up even once you get sat out and if you do it again your done.

But this post isn't about how amazing they are and how you aren't. Instead it's about how you can be more like one of these players. Since I don't actually have contact with specific players from these top guilds I more or less have to guesstimate so forgive me if my assumptions aren't exactly true.

1) Be the best player at your class that you know - I'm not talking a mindset of oh look I am better than so and so. I am talking a mindset of "Am I doing everything correct?" If you are the former then more than likely you aren't very good at your class. Working with others of your class will help improve your play. You will find both ways to play better and way to not play by working with others like you.

2) Be the best at your role that you know - Exactly the same as the first but this time for your role. You may play a class that is considered inferior than others. Show everyone that it's not necessarily true.

3) Research, research, research - Know the fights inside and out. Know your class inside and out. Follow every helpful blog that you can think of that will help you out in improving your playing.

4) Show up to ever raid prepared to wipe and wipe and wipe and wipe until it's done. Ensidia may have gotten these bosses down first before anyone else but they spent tons of time on the PTR wiping and wiping and wiping to try new strategies until they knew how it was going to go. Not only did they try their own they also researched how everyone was doing it. And it wasn't just the officers of the guild, it was EVERYONE. Once they got to live they spend long days making sure those strategies worked and if they didn't then they tried something different.

5) Pretend your the raid leader even if you aren't - I don't mean try to take over leading the raids. What I mean is put yourself in the raid leaders shoes. Think about what has to be done for EVERYONE. Do you know what the healers should be doing? Do you see something wrong that maybe the leader can't because he's across the room? Be his eyes and let him know that you see something. Don't be a jerk about it. Remember, it's not your raid to lead. Help but don't take over.

6) Don't complain, ever - Constructive criticism is one thing. Complaining is another. People who complain or give up after even a 3 hour night of constant wipes don't help moral. Not only that, they don't get anything accomplished. It brings focus from progression to failure and that is not good for a raid team because it spreads. Don't be the person who started it. Yes progression is costly and you're going to pay for it. A lot! If I had to guess Ensidia's repair cost to be world first was probably about 5,000g per person over the course of the progression (including the PTR learning sessions).

7) Handle criticism well - Your guild may not be the type of guild that even gives criticism but when someone actually does say something to you about how you play or something you did or whatever don't retorte with, "Well you are the most stupid tank I've ever seen." People may not word things perfectly (/raises hand) but most of the time they are just trying to help out in their own way.

8) Don't sell yourself short - Are you in a place where you can be great? No matter how good you are do you always get set aside for an older member that just performs not as good? As a GM I hate to see people leave but I understand completely when someone outgrows a guild. Personally I stick with it because for me just my personal performance isn't good enough, it's the whole guild. If my guild can consist of players who are playing the best they can then as a team we can progress.

Ok so a list post probably didn't make sense necessarily but it did in my head. The common denominator here is of course is to be the best that you can be and do it with humility. Your best way of improving yourself is to do exactly what you are doing now, reading up blogs and websites that help. Follow those bloggers that make sense to your topic, get on twitter and chat with the WoW Twitter community, read all those statistic sites that say such and such spell does this because of this and so forth. Know why you are speccing into the most popular spec, don't just do it because it's the most popular.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Why we play.

While a majority of the responses to my squirrels post last week were positive one person had this to say:

"achievement hunters" are so annoying. Who cares about your stupid achievements? Noone will ever look at you and say "that's impresive, he completed every achievement". At most they'll say that it's sad that you've lost that much time on those pointless little things.

Why else do people play this game? We do it for the achievements and we do it to have fun. Sure not all achievements are recorded within the game, although most are. We play it to either level up, raid, PvP, etc..

For those of us that play this game a lot there comes a point where we have finished most things but we wish to continue playing. The achievement system gives us more playability for our characters without having to focus on other characters.

Everything in life can be considered pointless to any one person. I personally think sitting at a desk 9 hours a day just to make money is pointless but others see it as a necessity and overzealous workers see it as an enjoyment. They want to achieve such a high level of respect from a few people just so they feel good about themselves. There is no difference from the WoW achievement system, sports numbers (IE - ERA in baseball), or the awards you get in an office.

So yes you may not look at any one of us who got an achievement and say wow that's impressive you; did a large chunk of quests in the game, got a million reps, killed the hardest content in full, PvPed to the top; but a large portion of people will have respect for the others that do care. In fact, I don't know one person that can't say a specific achievement is more important to others. I dare anyone who plays this game to find something in the game that is important to them that is NOT covered by an achievement.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

WoW EJ's are FTL!

Now that you've decided your endgame remember that every other guild leader has made this same choice(or it was made for them due to lack of choosing). Their choices are as much correct as yours is. Do not find fault in them for making a decision that is not the same as your own. The important part of this statement lies primarily in the execution, rather than the choice.

As i mentioned at the close of yesterdays post, the direction of a guild can change at any time. A guild that is a raiding guild now could have been primarily a family guild months before. Similarly the direction of guilds are held by time and other guild member circumstances. A guild may be formed because its former self was not able to do what the leadership hoped(or the leadership was poorly executing its chosen direction).

What I am trying to get at is to warn against forming an elitist jerk attitude towards unequal guilds(even attitudes like this towards equal guilds is not positive, albeit hard to control since you are actively "competing" with these guilds).

Take for instance No Vacancy. We were formed one year after Burning Crusade launched, and we were formed out of guilds which lacked the direction we wanted. Some guilds on our server have been around well before BC and some formed well after we did. We have no right treating higher guilds with nothing less than respect and newer guilds with the same.

Just because we started late or earlier than any guild does not make us better or worse. The only time that even becomes part of the picture is when guilds are at the same location of progression)IE- Both guilds are 2/6 SSC). Then it becomes part of the whole competition that we all get into. The guild who succeeds first can claim to be better assuming all others things equal. But a guild 2/6 SSC can not claim superiority over a guild that has yet to down Gruul, unless of course both guilds started equally.

I understand that this topic is a very grey area type topic and my explanation of it is not necessarily the most eloquent but remember, the most accomplished guilds are not necessarily the best. The best guilds are the ones who humbly complete the content. Having a bad reputation as a guild is just as bad as having a reputation of a ninja as a player.

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Sunday, October 26, 2008

WoW Guild Rankings

ok so maybe this isn't exactly what you were expecting when I come up with a new topic, but there is info to be gained from here at the least.

Guild Rankings:

Most servers have some sort of ranking system they use so that new server members can find a guild they are looking for(or more appropriately so each guild can flex their epeen). There is absolutely nothing wrong with having rankings like this and even if the server doesn't put up official ones(as official as player run rankings can be) there will always be those other websites that do it for you(Ie- WoWjutsu).

There is a lot of pride in each guild when they look at their rankings and much elation when they move up them by killing a new boss.

But, because these systems are run by players there are a lot of errors and duping of the system that takes place, which makes things a little less fun for those people who work hard to get to their ranking.

Take for instance this one guild on my server. Recently they updated their rankings as killing 5 new bosses within a few days(which is definitely doable considering that NV did in fact do more or less the same after 3.0). The problem that I have though is that they are not doing it all on their own. They have been pugging people from guilds that have killed the content but have taken the remaining 3.0-WOTLK time off and then claiming the kill. I know this from members of theirs who have admitted it to me or fellow NV guildies(not to mention that their "proof" screenshots[see todays blog picture] doesn't even show a full raids worth of people, much less all of them being within their own guild).

I have addressed the forums before on this topic when it happened another time months ago and it seems that no one cares. My feeling is that if you are not killing the bosses with your own guild in full then you should not be given the credit for the guild as killing them. It is cheating to claim these bosses as your own kill when in fact it would have never been done without the help of others. If you make the excuse of saying, well it was only a few people we did it ourselves mostly then you need to prove that you can do it yourselves fully.

It is a slight on the other "competing" guilds to cheat like this just so you can flex your epeen. Earn your way into recognition, the way everyone else has had to.

Yes, I am ranting because this one particular thing has effected my guilds rankings by knocking us down but I have seen it happen before as well. I feel like things should be played fairly, especially when it comes to the competition that effects our recruiting.