Guild Hex

The final type of guild that you will encounter in World of Warcraft is the Hardcore Raid guild.

Hardcore Raiding Guilds are the top of the food chain in every MMORPG. They are the ones that have the best equipment the most money and the envy of many of the other guilds on their server. This is the type of guild that just salivates at the thought of a new expansion.

These types of guilds are usually multi-national with members in many different time zones and tend to have a raid of some kind going on all the time. It does not matter what time of the day or night you log in there is usually something going on.

The rules for this type of guild are very strict. One that I was a part of had a rule that stated, “If you are online and our guild is raiding …YOU are raiding.” I got a lot of killer equipment while in the guild but burnt out quickly.

If you are considering starting this type of guild you had better be ready. The commitment from the Guild Leader and officers in this type of guild is absolutely immense. You can’t just come home from work and decide to lounge around on the couch; there will be players in the game ready to do something. A Guild Leader cannot undertake running a guild like this alone. You must have trusted officers who know what they need to do.

The Hardcore Raiding Guild appeals to the fanatical “I MUST PLAY’ type of individual. If you are considering this type of guild, as your first attempt at running a guild then it would be my opinion that you should seek professional help…you are going to need it.

These types of guilds are few and far between, but can be found if you look hard enough. I have been a member of these types of guilds and while the reward was great so was stress.

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During the BlizzCon 2009 event a new and quite exciting system was announced – the Guild Advancement System. From what the developers shared with us, it seems that the new system will allow the guild to level in a similar way to leveling characters. There will be total of 20 levels for guild progression and the experience gained will be obtained from the top 20 players (most active players) in the guild in terms of raid bosses killing, PvP battlegrounds victories, PvP arena matches victories, professions level and skilling up and alike. The very interesting feature, at least in my eyes is the fact that Guild XP can be farther converted into some sort of currency which can be used to buy guild-bound items. Similar to the account-bound items, such items can be something similar to the heirlooms just that it can be shared with other guild members, raid materials and such.

The way the Guild XP will be earned has some rules specified, however as the expansion is still under development, a lot can change. What we know so far is that participation in boss kills and rated battlegrounds will count towards Guild XP only if at least 75% of the party is from the same guild. The individual player’s advancements such as faction reputation advancements and profession advancements will count only from a number of players and not from the entire guild as total. This will allow smaller guilds to be able to compete with larger guilds as long as they have enough very active members.

The guilds will be awarded 1 guild-talent point as the guild advanced from one level to the next one, and this point can be used to get a guild-wide talent. There is very little information available at this point about what these talents will be, but we do know that these talents will be oriented towards giving more convenience in guild events rather than individual players performance bonuses. Such guild convenience abilities that will most likely be included are mass resurrection after a wipe, reduced cost on repairs, no reagents for raid-wide buffs and similar.

There are also Guild Achievements being implemented which will be quite similar to the Individual Player’s Achievements but will be applied to the guild as a whole. Such achievements will be awarded for clearing a raid instance, having at least one person with maximum profession points in each profession and much more.

It appears that Blizzard is giving us even more reasons to join a guild and stick to it, make new friends and explore the World of Warcraft universe with them, defeat powerful bosses and train our professions in the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion.

I’ve been playing WoW for more than four years. You can tell whenever I’m offline because I’m writing articles instead to stay in the zone. Support my habit (and yours) at getfreewowtips.com.

Any well organized end-game raiding guild focused on PvE progression needs to have a method for distributing the loot. The reason such system is needed is because often the players wish to put a lot of effort, money and time into raiding only if they know that they have an equally fair chance of obtaining the items they want from the loot. It is only fair that the people who work hardest on learning the new encounters and eventually beating them deserve such items more than players who have showed for 1 kill only after the boss is already on loot status. However, sometimes less geared players do benefit more from items than the veterans who have pretty much everything. So how should the guild be able to make it fair for everyone?

The short answer is that there is no simple solution. The long answer is that it takes a lot of team work to make things as fair as possible, but there is no ideal solution for everything and the lead of the guild often has to make decisions on the go when it comes to loot. Here are the loot distribution systems which are used more often with their down and up sides:

DKP (Dragon Kill Points) – this loot distribution system has been known in MMO games ever since Everquest and is quite popular. How does it work? The players earn DKP for being in the raid and these points are stored in a database or addon, depending on the choice the guild made. When an item drops, all players who are interested in getting it express interest in some way (placing a bid in a bid channel, whispering to the raid leader and so on) and the player with highest DKP or willing to pay most DKP for the item wins.

Downside: the more active players will get large DKP pool and will be able to take an item any time they wish even if it is better suited on another player’s character.

Upside: makes it all clear and obvious and everyone knows how much DKP they have / can spend as well as the players from the guild who have better chances in getting the items before your turn comes.

Loot Council – some guilds use this loot distribution system which consists of group of players (raid leader and officers) who decide which member of the raid group will get the item depending on who they think will need it most. This loot distribution system is easy to maintain as it requires no record keeping, but it is difficult to ensure that it is fair to everyone. Normally, the goal of this system is not to be fair – it is to ensure the success of the raid by awarding the items to key players first such as Main Tanks gets all the tanking bits first.

Downside: it is very difficult to convince everyone in the guild that the loot is distributed in a fair way, especially if there are people who also wanted the item and think they need it most. In order for Loot Council system to succeed, the guild needs to be similar minded and the Loot Council members must have everyone’s trust and support on their decisions.

Upside: you can gear up your key players easier and ensure some quicker progress – gearing up your main tank that is there for every raid is much more beneficial to the raid group than gearing up someone who shows up now and then.

No matter which loot distribution system your guild chooses, there is no magic formula for success. There will always be players who are not completely happy with the loot distribution; however minimizing the number of unhappy people should be doable. You can’t make everyone happy, but team work requires some hard decision to be made for everyone’s good.

I’ve been playing WoW for more than four years. You can tell whenever I’m offline because I’m writing articles instead to stay in the zone. Support my habit (and yours) at http://www.getfreewowtips.com.