One Man Crew

Tonight I attended my first officers’ meeting here in Malevolence. Of course I’m not goint to talk about the exact things that were discussed as I believe it is out of scope. What I’m going to write about is the topics we went through (actually I’d say “they” went through as I am a Veteran and as such I’m only counseling but I’m not part of the votes).

On the menu there were:

• An officer leaving
• What to do with the current trialists
• Recruitment
• A possible new officer
• Other things I’m gonna skip

The meeting went through Ventrilo which is our VoIP software of choice. I guess pretty much every raiding guild uses either Ventrilo or TeamSpeak which are both good choices for those kind of conference calls.

I’m going to skip quickly over the officer who left us. It happened. It’s not the first time this happens, it won’t be the last. The reasons are debateable but a solid guild can live even when losing some officers, so it’s not really an issue. I’m going to skip over the new officer as well as it’s something still being discussed so there’s no point in bringing that up on the table yet. What I will discuss is our Recruitment and Trialing system which has proven to work good so far and that it’s worth talking about.

Malevolence, as a guild, has a set of strict rules of conduct that are one of the most important parts of being accepted as a member. You could think of it as some ethics that have been agreed over time by those who have been in the guild for a long time, especially the officers. Something that comes to mind is that the majority of the guild members are over 25 and as adults we all require the members not to act in a childish way. No swearing, no insulting anywhere and trying to be helpful are good starting points. But these are all about being a member of the guild and it’s not all that is required to be a raider.

As a raider, you have to be able to follow some more rules that are supposed to grant everyone involved an enjoyable raiding experience. You can read them on this post on the forum. The fundation is that you’re expected to be available for most raids and be prepared and on time. Respect for the other players is a must as no one likes when someone goes AFK without saying that in advance or when someone does not know the tactics for a fight.

The raiding team itself is pretty small, especially for a non-hardcore guild. What is nice is that there’s a core of raiders that are turning up for most of the raids and thus recruitment during normal times is usually limited to a few classes, most of the time hybrids like boomkins, shadow priests, enhancement shamans. Recruitment usually starts from within the guild as we have members that from time to time might want to apply for a raider spot (which is also our preferred way of getting new people), otherwise the usual channels are being used: Terenas Tavern, guild recruitment channel, general chat advertisement in Dalaran, word of mouth between friends.

Once someone applies, its applications is being reviewed by officers (gear check, a quick look around to see if that person is applying to other guilds too, a check of his reputation). A talk with the applicant might follow to ask more information or to solve some doubts and once there’s an agreement, the applicant is being taken on board as a Raider Trialist. The trial time usually takes a month during which notes are being taken about raids signup, if that person shows up in time, if he leaves early, if there’s a good communication, etc. At the end of the trial timespan, officers review what has been noted and take a final decision whether to make him a fulltime raider or ask him to leave due to being under the expectations of the rest of the guild.

This whole process is very democratic and well thought. There is no rush and all of the small details are taken into consideration. I’m pretty fond of the guild officers as they care a lot about the people and the ethics of the guild and they’d do anything to preserve a nice and friendly environment for everyone to enjoy.

This is a good model for a guild like this that isn’t hardcore and that has a very strong social aspect.