Scary times, they are a-comin'

Limited Warranty is just starting to go through a phase that I think all guilds go through when the membership as a whole starts hitting the level cap and starts wondering what they want to do. You see, LW (Limited Warranty, not Leatherworking) is a casual guild is a (directly from the site):

Horde guild on the Vashj server. We are a casual guild that tries to have fun questing and running instances together. We are not currently a raiding guild, but we are working our way through the 5-man instances and working on getting geared up for Heroic 5-mans and maybe, just maybe, we will eventually make it into the 10-man raids.

Well, we can now boast at least six or 7 level 70s on a night (I know, not THAT big of a deal to you people who've been raiding for a long time) and have probably twice that in guild. I've noticed something about these people- they don't seem to have anything to do, as a group, I mean. We all have our own personal goals, but why do you join a guild? Because your goals coincide with a group of other people's goals and you can work together to achieve them. According to our mission statement, LW's goals are to gear up, run instances and progress as far as we can go.

Yesterday I brought up an idea to the Guild Master and Co-Leader, one that I knew could perhaps open up a big can of worms, one that I've seen almost destroy my old guild, but I knew that I needed to present this idea if I wanted to stay happy in LW (I know, that sounds selfish, but remember I'm a prick). The idea seems pretty small but the ramifications for the membership could be large and could be terrible for the guild as a whole. But, in my defence, they could also be very, very good.

I asked the leadership what they thought about assembling a progression team in the guild that would dedicate themselves to learning the instances and the tactics, spending the gold on repairs and consumables, and be ready to wipe on Shattered Halls forty-five times before calling it a night (again, I understand that SH isn't big-time for you uber-raiders, but we're small fish in a big pond). This team would run instances, gear up, learn tactics and then in turn, the members would run the other guildies through using our experience as a tool to help the people who may be less geared or less experienced in instances. I also told them that in the future we should add another tier, a second group who would progress on their own and would only need help once in a while from the first tier. Both groups get progressed enough- bang! We have our Kara raid.

Seems like a win-win situation to me. Of course, I have certain views on what a person's attitude should be about raiding: have fun, yes! But listen to instructions, put the ego away, and enjoy the new content. See, I tend to forget the human element.

The following has not happened! I'm just putting my concerns out there.

Here are the problems:

1. Gear envy. When the Scarlet and Gold team start getting that harder-to-get gear that the non-members won't have access to, people are going to wonder why they're in the guild if they're not getting the lootz (note, I said lootz, not "Why they're not progressing").


2. Cliquish-ness. The people on these two teams are going to get to know each other very well, they're going to learn each other's strengths and weeknesses and play styles. Now, what will happen when one of them want to start on their Netherdrake rep grind? 20-1 odds that they'll ask the other members of the team to help when needed. This won't be on purpose. We don't have assshats in LW. But it will be a sub-conscious decision.


3. let-out-ness. "Hey guys, can a couple 70s run me through Ramparts?" "Sorry, kid, Gold Team is running Arc." "Sorry, Scarlet Team is running Manatombs!" "Sorry, the rest of us are questing in Nagrand- we need to kill Durn!" And the poor level 61 is going to have to PuG Ramps, get frustrated and wonder why they're in LW when we really want them there.


4. "This guild has changed! We used to just hang out and have a laugh!" All i can say to this is, "Read the mission statement."

Those are the concerns I have with this scheme to encourage progression. It all but killed B O O M S L A N G when we tried to get people through Molten Core and Zul'Gurub. At first people were excited that Boom was actually getting its stuff together and doing something. Then we would wipe on the Bat boss for the 15th time and the raid would fall apart. I understood then and understand now that beating your head against a wall isn't the best idea for fun for many of the players in WoW. But what I don't get is the incessant bitching about everything that happened afterwards. The people that quit the raid were the first to start calling people names, were the first to say that Boom changed, were the first (interestingly enough) to complain about loot. Eventually, and this is after I deleted Amantara, Boomslang fell apart and became an alt-guild for the players who moved their mains to other progression guilds.

Solutions
1. Have set progression run nights, post them and keep them. Only run the progression instances on those nights. The other nights should be left open for farming, fun-runs and running the lower level characters through whatever they need or helping them quest.
2. Transparency. Post the results of the runs on the guild forums and not just who got what drops, but impressions, lessons learned, and any of teh funniez that happened. I think this will show the guild that it isn't just a few people selfishly running stuff to the exclusion of helping the other folks. This will let everyone learn from mistakes and accomplishments.
3. Repair costs from the guild bank. I'm a BIG SUPPORTER of helping our tanks out with the repair costs. Plate armor is a hefty investment and I want to keep our meatshields happy. To fund this? Maybe make a guild fun-run also a farming run. If a lowbie needs a drop, let them have it, otherwise it goes into the bank for sharding, selling or vendoring.
4. Set-up new teams as needed / shuffle the teams periodically. This should stop the cliquishness and would open up more progression teams to people who want.

Thoughts?