A wonderful thing about World of Warcraft is that it is a social game. There are times where I’ve talked to a hundred different people by noon. As my social guild grows larger and larger, there’s a lot of opportunity for clashes to happen, drama to occur, just over chat. Some players invite themselves to this by being inflammatory and insensitive, riling up others with every comment they make.
Last night I was in such a raid. There was one particular red flag that I should have noticed when I was invited to the group. The player that extended the invitation asked me to promise not to rage quit, as he’s had other players do so. I assured him I would stay the whole time. I’ve hosted a lot of groups and I’ve had players leave before, it gets frustrating so I understand. What I failed to realize is that this is telling sign of how a raid is going, not only in terms of success, but in terms of attitude.
The first two bosses of Ulduar are easy. I’ve written a post about Ignis, the third boss, which is a difficult boss for many pick up groups. The apathy of the leadership was apparent from the formation of the group to the execution of the first two bosses. Very little chatter or organization came from leadership, with all of the communications being social banter. We arrived at Ignis and the group began to fall apart. Despite this being 15+ members of the same guild, there were attitude problems amongst a majority of the players. One leader asked a player to swap from a damage role to a healing role, which the player reluctantly accepted. As said player was switching roles, a comment came into raid chat. This player took the comment to heart, got on the mic and said, “You know what? I’d rather not deal with any of this shit right now.” He logged off. We were down a player, a healer at that.
Confusion struck the raid. We recruited a few more members, taking up lots of downtime. Players impatiently waited in front of Ignis. the chat was boiling. We attempt Ignis a second time and wipe. As we return to the boss and prepare for our third attempt, dissent began to brew in the raid chat. A player mentioned it would be their last attempt. Another player asked to skip this boss. Members of the organizing raid came at them with all kinds of attitudes. “I’d rather you leave now then after two more bosses.” “If you’re not going to stay then you can just leave.” Did these players not just start a raid an hour late? Did they not recruit these players over the last two hours in need to fill half of their raid? There was a clear dissonance. A few players left. We tried the boss again and wiped. A few more players left.
One of the hosting members began insulting those who left. I checked my damage meters to see the top contributors leaving. What was this guy’s problem? At this point I had concluded that these guys were assholes, so I tried to salvage the night by asking everyone to have a good attitude for the remainder of the evening. We looked for more players and waited at the next boss. I whispered the best healer in the group to gauge what was going on. He told me that the guild was talking about it. I could tell from the silence in Discord and the lack of progress with replacing lost raid members. I politely asked in Discord if we should continue by doing the trash before the boss. The group eagerly jumped forward. We wiped on the trash. The group fell apart.
The disconnect between the pick up members and the hosting group was stark. There was a clear lack of hospitality and gratitude from the hosting group. Impatience and poor communication led to weak execution and retention. The group had a limited loot set available for pick up members, which is normal for a strong group. But the product the organizers offered was not up to par with others on the server. A big blunder made by the organizers was assuming every bit of the raid would go off without a hitch. From recruiting players, to starting an hour late, to poor attitudes leaking from the guild members, it was obvious the leadership had very little control over their ship. I know I’ve had a history of overcontrolling things, which I why I wrote about handing over keys. There’s a balance and that balance is what I’ll be instilling into our guild as we grow forward and have more leaders.