Also, I haven't still seen much in the way of numbers for an officer-to-member ratio. Obviously there will be variance depending on the guild, guild purpose, and game, but I'd be curious to hear about actual experiences.
I said before but I'll restate my opinion on the matter. I feel that the number of people above the rank of Raider or Member (I.E. anyone who could be considered a leader or Officer) should run somewhere in the 7-13% (10% being the ideal, but I threw in some leeway) of the entire guild populace. Too many leaders, and too often you get conflicting decisions, lack of communication, and people pick the officer/leader they know will side with them to get what they want. Too few, and I think it's probably putting a lot of stress on that person/those persons in charge, plus it can then be too hard to get ahold of a leader in the event of a dispute or issue.
Also, a couple questions:
Raid Leaders- Where do these people rank in your hierarchy? Or is it just a title for you?
Officer's Alts - How do you all Handle them? (I.E. Special rank, restricted privledges for alts, only mains get Officer rank, etc.)
You can also get into a lot of trouble if you don't have enough people in leadership positions within the guild. For a time I was in a guild where the leadership consisted of the guild master, and one trusted officer. The guild leader handled all the raiding, and the officer handled the loot system, recruiting, etc, etc. On occasion it was nice (lack of too many cooks syndrome), but mostly it just led to terrible things. With a control group that small favourtism becomes a big problem, and any time one of them was MIA on a given night, the guild may as well have just closed up shop for all that was accomplished.
So I'm all in favour of more people in leadership roles. It's just really important to set boundaries around those roles so you don't hit those situations of 10 people trying to give input into one problem, or at least 10 people trying to make the decision that one or two should be making. Some examples of duties I've seen handed out in my current guild:
Guild master, Raid leader, Bank Officer, Class leader, Officer at large, Recruiting officer.
I'll probably go more in-depth on this on the Six Mouths boards, but my old MC guild had a two-tiered officer system, and it caused a pretty significant amount of strife. Now, a large part of that was certainly due to the GL (and his useless, piece of shit lootwhoring idiot bitch of a girlfriend) being huge gaping tools, but there was always a touch of resentment between the class leads and the Council.
The newest iteration of the charter has moved away from that model quite a bit, though I'm still keeping an eye on the concept of modular roles for officers, allowing individuals to focus on their strengths. Not all officers need be tactical leaders as well, but the tactical leaders would be assigned from the officer pool.
It's good to know the former system hasn't worked for other guilds though. It became pretty clear in trying to document it that it was way too complex to be functional.
I think Raid Leader could be a role for any officer.
Guild Leader - The final say in what's going on. We use a Loot Council, so the GM would then make unbias decisions based on his Class Officer/Officer ideas. Runs the general comings and goings of the guild
Raid Leader - Runs the show, when it comes to raiding. Sometimes, this will also be the GM, but I find it much easier to let the boss handle the "diplomatic crap", while the Raiding stuff is handled by this guy. The GM picks the kill spot, and the Raid Leader makes sure that strats are posted/handled, and that the raid is running smoothly. When in a Raid, the RL's word is second to no one's, save the GM. Otherwise, he's an average joe. Tried and true individual, that knows his/her shit, and preferably has experience with multiple classes in a Raid.
Class Officers/Officers/Bank Officers/Recruitment Officers - Handle the day-to-day comings and goings. The GM/Raid Leader have chatted about what's needed for an upcoming boss, and they need more Mages. This is then discussed with the Mage CO, and then relayed to the Recruitment CO for handling. Basic things like this keep a guild flowing smoothly, without putting a bunch of stress on a single person's head. The normal COs are those that have proven themselves loyal, un-biased, and all around good people. Their primary job is to help advise the GM on situations in the guild. Most of the time, the CO will also be their respective Class CO. This works well in a Loot Council, because they will then know what's going on with their respective classes' gear setup.
Members - Easy to define.
FaFs/Non-raiders - Also easy.
Recruits - Time spent at this level is your own personal choice.
To re-hash something said in here, your leadership has to be absolute. The people in charge have to be of one mind, when they are approaching the masses. Arguing and bickering is something that must NEVER leave whispers or Ochat. It breeds dis-trust and general lack of respect. The United States has some flaws, but one thing we don't fail at is our Military Chain of Command. The Chain of Command is about the easiest thing to base a guild off of, because it does work.
Delegation keeps people from burning out.
Taking breaks for fun stuff helps keep people from burning out.
Keeping things as fair and drama-free as possible helps keep people from burning out.
Remembering that this is a game and not a job helps keep people from burning out.
Reading about setups for WoW raiding guilds is pretty fascinating. Never played the game, but the level of organization needed is impressive.
On a different topic, for non-raid guilds, how does the leader(s) go about setting the "tone" of the guild?
In my experience, the PA City of Heroes groups are easygoing, and the leaders don't really have to worry about much. It's a fun game, folks have fun playing together, we don't have to worry much about steering the supergroups in any particular direction. We take care of the little tasks like clearing inactive players, storage-permission promotions for new members/alts, and occasional base editing more than anything else.
But I noticed a dramatic difference with a couple of casual guilds in EQ2, where there seemed to be a fixation on being a "family-style" guild. It wasn't just those two guilds... being a "family" seemed to be quite prevalent in all the small casual guilds that were recruiting. I don't know if this is just an EQ2/EQ thing or what. What this seemed to mean in practice was a lot of statements from leaders like "welcome to the family," "let's not have family infighting," "we share things like a family," etc. I never did figure out what that stuff meant. But it seemed repeating the sentiment was really, really important to these leaders. And they were trying too hard to make things run smoothly. Does that happen in other games?
HarshLanguage on
> turn on light Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
Posts
I said before but I'll restate my opinion on the matter. I feel that the number of people above the rank of Raider or Member (I.E. anyone who could be considered a leader or Officer) should run somewhere in the 7-13% (10% being the ideal, but I threw in some leeway) of the entire guild populace. Too many leaders, and too often you get conflicting decisions, lack of communication, and people pick the officer/leader they know will side with them to get what they want. Too few, and I think it's probably putting a lot of stress on that person/those persons in charge, plus it can then be too hard to get ahold of a leader in the event of a dispute or issue.
Also, a couple questions:
Raid Leaders- Where do these people rank in your hierarchy? Or is it just a title for you?
Officer's Alts - How do you all Handle them? (I.E. Special rank, restricted privledges for alts, only mains get Officer rank, etc.)
So I'm all in favour of more people in leadership roles. It's just really important to set boundaries around those roles so you don't hit those situations of 10 people trying to give input into one problem, or at least 10 people trying to make the decision that one or two should be making. Some examples of duties I've seen handed out in my current guild:
Guild master, Raid leader, Bank Officer, Class leader, Officer at large, Recruiting officer.
The newest iteration of the charter has moved away from that model quite a bit, though I'm still keeping an eye on the concept of modular roles for officers, allowing individuals to focus on their strengths. Not all officers need be tactical leaders as well, but the tactical leaders would be assigned from the officer pool.
It's good to know the former system hasn't worked for other guilds though. It became pretty clear in trying to document it that it was way too complex to be functional.
I think Raid Leader could be a role for any officer.
Raid Leader - Runs the show, when it comes to raiding. Sometimes, this will also be the GM, but I find it much easier to let the boss handle the "diplomatic crap", while the Raiding stuff is handled by this guy. The GM picks the kill spot, and the Raid Leader makes sure that strats are posted/handled, and that the raid is running smoothly. When in a Raid, the RL's word is second to no one's, save the GM. Otherwise, he's an average joe. Tried and true individual, that knows his/her shit, and preferably has experience with multiple classes in a Raid.
Class Officers/Officers/Bank Officers/Recruitment Officers - Handle the day-to-day comings and goings. The GM/Raid Leader have chatted about what's needed for an upcoming boss, and they need more Mages. This is then discussed with the Mage CO, and then relayed to the Recruitment CO for handling. Basic things like this keep a guild flowing smoothly, without putting a bunch of stress on a single person's head. The normal COs are those that have proven themselves loyal, un-biased, and all around good people. Their primary job is to help advise the GM on situations in the guild. Most of the time, the CO will also be their respective Class CO. This works well in a Loot Council, because they will then know what's going on with their respective classes' gear setup.
Members - Easy to define.
FaFs/Non-raiders - Also easy.
Recruits - Time spent at this level is your own personal choice.
To re-hash something said in here, your leadership has to be absolute. The people in charge have to be of one mind, when they are approaching the masses. Arguing and bickering is something that must NEVER leave whispers or Ochat. It breeds dis-trust and general lack of respect. The United States has some flaws, but one thing we don't fail at is our Military Chain of Command. The Chain of Command is about the easiest thing to base a guild off of, because it does work.
Delegation keeps people from burning out.
Taking breaks for fun stuff helps keep people from burning out.
Keeping things as fair and drama-free as possible helps keep people from burning out.
Remembering that this is a game and not a job helps keep people from burning out.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
On a different topic, for non-raid guilds, how does the leader(s) go about setting the "tone" of the guild?
In my experience, the PA City of Heroes groups are easygoing, and the leaders don't really have to worry about much. It's a fun game, folks have fun playing together, we don't have to worry much about steering the supergroups in any particular direction. We take care of the little tasks like clearing inactive players, storage-permission promotions for new members/alts, and occasional base editing more than anything else.
But I noticed a dramatic difference with a couple of casual guilds in EQ2, where there seemed to be a fixation on being a "family-style" guild. It wasn't just those two guilds... being a "family" seemed to be quite prevalent in all the small casual guilds that were recruiting. I don't know if this is just an EQ2/EQ thing or what. What this seemed to mean in practice was a lot of statements from leaders like "welcome to the family," "let's not have family infighting," "we share things like a family," etc. I never did figure out what that stuff meant. But it seemed repeating the sentiment was really, really important to these leaders. And they were trying too hard to make things run smoothly. Does that happen in other games?
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.