TLDR Here's what I'm looking for in a guild and if you won't read it, then we're not a good fit.
The most fun I ever had gaming were the drunken nights in Karazhan. I healed the early group and tanked the late group each weekend. Luckily I was a very good tank, otherwise the sheer amount of alcohol consumed would have caused problems for the second group. I think our Elemental Shaman had some issues with me because I was usually a little late with the taunt button, but it was his fault for not watching the aggro meters LOL.
What I'm looking for is to have that sort of fun in this game.
A little (lot?) about me:
My first MMORPG (~1991-1993 or so) was technically Neverwinter Nights by SSI and was played on AOL. I only played for a short time, if I recall I was charged by the minute to play, and that was just not sustainable for someone in high school.
My first time in a guild was a CTF clan I was in when I played Quake 1995ish. I was a LPB flag runer since my college dorm had a dual T1 connection, and I was one of perhaps a dozen folks with the know-how to get his computer hooked up. This was in the days where most people were lucky to have a modem connection.
My second time with a guild was also my second MMO, Asheron's Call. I loved the monarchy/patron system they had, and wish they could find a non-exploitative way to introduce it into modern MMO's. My first patron was AMAZING. She was in the mid-west and I was on the west coast, but we watched Buffy on TV while we ran stuff together in-game.
The game I played the longest and was the most successful was WoW. While I was not a part of the open beta testing of Vanilla WoW, I was there on day one of retail. I texted my best friend, "I have a new girlfriend, and her name is WoW." A month later I got my second account. It seems that I developed a mild-case of altitis. Before Burning Crusade came out, I only had 4 toons to 60, so it wasn't that bad. Before Black Temple was released I had a few server firsts under my belt and 14 toons raiding Kara and beyond. Oops. Fast forward to MoP and 26 toons are in Pandaria - I was multi-logging 5 accounts through non-heroics. Luckily, I hated MoP so I beat my addiction. My wallet loves me now.
The most fun I ever had in a game were the drunken nights raiding Kara. Sure my mains were in T5 and T6 at the time, but I hated the hard core raid leaders. Yelling at folks because they stood in the bad? Really? Come on guys, this is a game, why so serious?
I expect to be playing a Devoted Cleric. Even though healing can be frustrating when the group refuses to move out of the fire or use their cooldowns appropriately, I find that I prefer the support/healing role more so than the others.
What I expect from a guild:
1. No PvP or RP
I don't like PvP, at all. I've been in guilds that have done varying amounts of PvP and the ones I enjoyed the most were those that had zero interest in PvP. As a result, my ideal guild will have no PvP involvement. I don't feel as strongly about RP, but I find it weird if guild chat is in-character. Go ahead and do your role playing, but don't make me do it if I don't feel like it. I PvPed in WoW for a mount, and to get my Rogue his Season 2 swords which were best in slot for the tier I was working on at the time. I will grudgingly PvP only if it is a marked increase to my gear.
2. Mature
I've had fun in guilds with kids, but inevitably they bring in high school/middle school drama at some point. I want no drama - having to scramble to find a main tank because she's been grounded isn't fun. I'm here to have fun playing a game, and am looking for like-minded people. Furthermore, I'm not interested in filtering my vocabulary. Occasionally I find it appropriate to curse like a sailor, but most times I keep it PG-13. I don't want to have to pretend to be someone else. Finally I don't tolerate racism, sexism, misogyny, or any other hate speech/behavior. If I get a whiff that that sort of attitude is around I'm gone. PS Mature doesn't mean that you don't goof off and have fun, but it does mean that you know when it's time to be serious and git'erdone.
3. Prepared
When I was in orchestra in college the director told us to be on time. On time meant in your chair, instrument tuned, music open to the correct page, ready to go on the first downbeat. For MMO's I expect people to be punctual (this means ready to pull at the appointed time, not ready to be summoned), appropriately geared and specced, with any appropriate consumables, and are proficient with their chosen class/role - I'm not expecting perfection, but I don't want to have to explain everything either. Since this game is so new and ti doesn't have the resources available, I'm not exactly sure how this translates into Neverwinter terms, but I'm sure we'll figure it out as we go along.
4. Voice Chat
One of the best players I ever played with was deaf. The raid leader still made him log into Vent during progression raids. That was stupid. That having been said, if you can hear get on Vent (or whatever VOIP that is chosen.) If you can speak, do it - being shy isn't an excuse. Vent (and other programs like it) is a useful tool for quickly organizing an in-game event. Just use it. Ever hear a drunkard to play Final Countdown on an accordion before a boss fight to improve morale? Well, you might if I'm in your guild.
5. Agenda
I don't expect the guild to be on the leading edge of content. I expect that there will be strategies available for particularly nasty boss fights by the time we get there. For guild events I expect to have a schedule/agenda for the night. Perhaps one night we will be running farm content until it is finished, or run it a set number or times, or for a set amount of time. I expect us to stick to the plan. I've cleared my schedule for the required amount of time and I expect the same from everyone else.
When Burning Crusade first came out, we had a static 5-man group running through heroics every day. I can remember beating our heads against heroic Shadow Labyrinth for days before downing Murmur. We kept at it, and it was so satisfying when we finally did it.
6. Damage Meters and Gear Score
I hated random PUGs posting the DPS meters in groups constantly. I was almost always the tank or healer, but it was still very annoying. The measure of a successful group is "did the boss die?" If "yes" then it was a successful group. Gear Score and DPS meters were tools that were misused by the public at large. Gear Score doesn't equal skill, and big DPS numbers don't mean you're better than someone else. If there are are mods available that do these things, I want to ensure that the guild uses them properly - as tools for personal improvement and not a competition.
7. Exclusivity
I'm not interested in a guild that is looking for quantity over quality. If your guild has 20+ like-minded people then I just found a group of awesome, but if you have a group of 100+ random people that have no cohesion or direction then I'm not interested.
8. Leadership
I've been an officer in every guild that I've been in. That's not to say that I expect to be an officer in your guild. What it does say is that I've found something lacking in every guild I've been in, and wasn't afraid to get my hands dirty in order to fix the perceived problem. Sometimes I recruited new people, sometimes I was a raid leader, sometimes I ran the whole show. I've found that the best followers are leaders, and the best leaders are followers. If you're looking for someone with leadership experience, I'm your man. If you're looking for someone that keeps his mouth shut about problems, look elsewhere - I want a well-oiled machine.
9.Time Zone
I'm in California (GTM/UTC -7,) but I don't expect you all to be in the same time zone as me (PDT). I expect you to play around the same times that I do, though. I expect my normal playtimes to be ~4pm-10pm work nights and ~8am-midnight weekends - not that I'll be on the whole time, just those are the times I can expect to be able to log on. Some of the folks we ran Kara with were bakers in Australia, because of their profession they couldn't play normal times for their timezone, but worked out to be a great fit for our raid times. I'd prefer to be able to play with the majority of the guild the majority of the time I'm on, ideally peak times fit within my expected playtimes.
End
I know it's a lot to digest, but I don't want to waste your time or my time with a bad fit.
1. PvE
Though we are a mixed guild, I can guarantee you that our PvE wing will be worthwhile. If you look at this page, you'll see how the Guild leadership and workflow is broken up. It just so happens that our PvE-guy is a WoW Veteran (I believe over 6 years, but I'd have to ask to confirm) and a very close friend of mine. Though I've never played WoW myself, I know that he has used our teamspeak for boss raids on many, many occasions.
Regarding PvE exclusivity, I won't hide that we have a PvP wing as well. However, the way our guild is organized, you could avoid PvP altogether without having to feel like a half-fledged member. I'm personally a coop-junkie, so most of my efforts will be directed towards PvE anyways.
2. RP
We're semi-roleplay, so there isn't too much awkwardness there.
3. Maturity
The few non-legally mature members we have are mentally mature. This is not because we have a registration filtration or operate as a cult, but immature people just don't fit well with our members and generally don't stay long with the community.
4. Prepared/Organized
All jokes aside, I seriously have an obsession with organization. You can bet your filing cabinet that I'll have snack-time on the schedule.
5. Leadership
You should really refer back to the council page again for this one.
6. Time Zone
We're at an almost 50/50 mix of EU and US players at this moment. Regarding the server we play on, I'm waiting for just a few days before release day before posting a vote for an EU vs US server. But just to give you an idea, two of the 3 leaders are located in US (Central and Eastern Zone)
My End
I understand that this may not be the most ideal guild for you, but I hope you find a bit of what you're looking for and perhaps even consider joining. You can always ask me for details on the guild. Best of luck in your search!
Just out of curiosity why would it matter if the guild has an interest in PvP? I don't think I've ever been in a guild with any substantial number of players and every single player had no interest in PvP. I mean if you have a guild of 100 people and even 10 of them have an interest in PvP there's likely at some point to be some type of movement by those 10 people to organize some PvP stuff for themselves and they'll likely try to ask others to join them some times. I don't really see how you could stop this, why you would want to or how it would even effect anyone who doesn't want to PvP.
I mean I can understand not wanting to join a guild where the primary focus is PvP as then that would maybe mean the PvE content takes a backseat but I can't really imagine a guild having zero PvP activity.
scrolltro0l - Thanks for the reply! I'll definitely give your website a looking over.
diablomuerto - I haven't found that folks interested in PvP to be the kind of people I'm interested in hanging out with - both in terms of topics of discussion and general attitude. I haven't had many good experiences with PvP-focused folks so I find that if I keep my distance I'm a happier person. I'm not sure exactly what it is, maybe some sort of competitive mentality that comes across I don't find to my liking? My idea of fun is the whole group wins, not one team wins and one team loses. It's hard to put into words, so I just distance myself from those sorts of people and we all get along.
I've ran into a situation where the guild's dedicated raiders decided to stop raiding and focus on PvP. Sometimes the raid would decide to go PvP instead of trying to pug a few missing slots. I'm not interested in repeating things like that.
Maybe it boils down to me being bitter about games that try to cater to both PvE and PvP. The compromise on gear, stats, and abilities having to work with both PvP and PvE ends up making both styles of play worse instead of making one of the styles the focus.
I guess the bottom line is I don't like it and don't want to be around it.
Comments
I hope I can respond fulfillingly with my short post. I'm going to start by linking to our Guild Recruitment Post, and then I'll address some of your key concerns: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?124231-Order-of-the-Raven-Casual-Guild-Awesome-Community!.
1. PvE
Though we are a mixed guild, I can guarantee you that our PvE wing will be worthwhile. If you look at this page, you'll see how the Guild leadership and workflow is broken up. It just so happens that our PvE-guy is a WoW Veteran (I believe over 6 years, but I'd have to ask to confirm) and a very close friend of mine. Though I've never played WoW myself, I know that he has used our teamspeak for boss raids on many, many occasions.
Regarding PvE exclusivity, I won't hide that we have a PvP wing as well. However, the way our guild is organized, you could avoid PvP altogether without having to feel like a half-fledged member. I'm personally a coop-junkie, so most of my efforts will be directed towards PvE anyways.
2. RP
We're semi-roleplay, so there isn't too much awkwardness there.
3. Maturity
The few non-legally mature members we have are mentally mature. This is not because we have a registration filtration or operate as a cult, but immature people just don't fit well with our members and generally don't stay long with the community.
4. Prepared/Organized
All jokes aside, I seriously have an obsession with organization. You can bet your filing cabinet that I'll have snack-time on the schedule.
5. Leadership
You should really refer back to the council page again for this one.
6. Time Zone
We're at an almost 50/50 mix of EU and US players at this moment. Regarding the server we play on, I'm waiting for just a few days before release day before posting a vote for an EU vs US server. But just to give you an idea, two of the 3 leaders are located in US (Central and Eastern Zone)
My End
I understand that this may not be the most ideal guild for you, but I hope you find a bit of what you're looking for and perhaps even consider joining. You can always ask me for details on the guild. Best of luck in your search!
I mean I can understand not wanting to join a guild where the primary focus is PvP as then that would maybe mean the PvE content takes a backseat but I can't really imagine a guild having zero PvP activity.
diablomuerto - I haven't found that folks interested in PvP to be the kind of people I'm interested in hanging out with - both in terms of topics of discussion and general attitude. I haven't had many good experiences with PvP-focused folks so I find that if I keep my distance I'm a happier person. I'm not sure exactly what it is, maybe some sort of competitive mentality that comes across I don't find to my liking? My idea of fun is the whole group wins, not one team wins and one team loses. It's hard to put into words, so I just distance myself from those sorts of people and we all get along.
I've ran into a situation where the guild's dedicated raiders decided to stop raiding and focus on PvP. Sometimes the raid would decide to go PvP instead of trying to pug a few missing slots. I'm not interested in repeating things like that.
Maybe it boils down to me being bitter about games that try to cater to both PvE and PvP. The compromise on gear, stats, and abilities having to work with both PvP and PvE ends up making both styles of play worse instead of making one of the styles the focus.
I guess the bottom line is I don't like it and don't want to be around it.
age 25+ to join
Laid back, no drama, all about the fun.