As of this posting Defiance maintains a robust guild roster 162 individuals following the last round of inactivity cuts.
As you are all well aware raid guilds will generally field about 60-80 members. This means that in the comming weeks nearly half of the guild will likely end up being removed as we identify our talent. If the guild roster is left larger it will mean drama, reserve raider possitions, loot rotation and general unhappiness as individuals are excluded from raid participation. However, as it currently stands the member base is spread out across nearly 40 levels, 20-60 and require balanced groups for leveling in order to be effective. The only way to get the druids, priests and warlocks of level we will require is through providing them with realistic instance groups and so forth.
The down side is that we will likely have to remove poor performers and slow levelers who helped provide assistance to those classes we required. This is the harsh reality of raid guilds.
Therefore the question of ethical responsibilty to members arrises. Should we retain a 60 warrior who does nothing for the guild simply because he is 60, or instead retain the level 50 who worked his way through the ranks helping guild members as he or she advanced? The answer is simple. Kick the dead weight, regardless of level. A fair process for determining who should remain is essential and must be implemented today.
My Proposal:
Start using our ranks. Demote poor performers to Trial, give them a week to distinguish themselves and after that period remove them.
Future applicants should have a date of joining posted and a trial period after which they are reviewed (likely by the class seniors when they are appointed).
Class balance is essential:
Make a ruling of maximum numbers of individuals for each class, ten is generally standard for raid guilds. This means a guild roster of 80 members.
If some sort of guest or pvp non rank is seen as valuable to the guild, so be it.
A process must be determined by which Trials can be promoted to member:
- Wearing their guild tabard. - Good conduct. - Donations to the guild bank. - Frequent participation in full guild instance runs. - Frequent use of Ventrilo. - Registration on the website. - Activity on the website.
I would like to hear more about basic requirements and have this enshrined in some sort of official guild rule as soon as is possible.
Promotions to more assured guild possitions, Veteran or Guaranteed raid status should require some exceptional contribution or demonstrated loyalty.
These are my preliminary thoughts on guild structure.
I can understand the confusion, as Defiance hasn't changed their layout from the default, which coincidentally looks just like the DKPSystem.com home page.
---- The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
