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This will serve as the first in a series of interviews with Officers and Guild Masters from different servers. My intention for these articles is to cast a wide net to cover all of the different approaches to guild management and to shine a light on some of the ordinary guilds that may not be catching the spot light with World or Sever Firsts.

Today’s interview is with my old GM and good friend, NateArizona. Nate is the former GM for the Alliance Proudmoore guild, Pansy Division and also the co-host of the critically acclaimed podcast Proudmoore Pansies!

Plec: Time to go for the jugular Geraldo style! Just joking…but not really. You were recently the GM of Pansy Division and you decided to hand over the reigns of leadership after several months in charge. Most officers see guild management as a part of the meta-game offered by WoW, something that is as integral to their experience in game as raiding or PVP. Did you perceive Guild Management in a similar fashion? Why did you eventually hand over leadership?

Nate: This question turns out to be a bit complicated. Indeed I had decided to cede power to another guildie since I just didn’t feel like I was able to invest enough time in planning portions of leadership. The issue with the transfer for the GL/GM role came when the the selected individual got engaged and began planning her wedding. That kind of threw a wrench in my intended handing over the reins and is the sole reason I am still GL/GM.

The META part of WoW has always been a powerful draw for me. Existing in a virtual world has enough upsides to outweigh the downsides. If you told me in ’95 that a game would exist that was as immersive as WoW, I would have been stunned – and in many ways the scale of WoW still awes me. But it’s the social aspect of the game that essentially created that scale. Even with the douchbag contingent, many of the players generally are respectful and want to have fun. Being the GL/GM complicates the social structure in some cases when you are placed in the middle of a virtual land war in Asia. We all know that something like that is unwinnable, but we just try to maintain balance with the individual personalities in our respective guilds. What led me to decide to hand off Pansy Division to another GL/GM in addition to the planning, time-sync and present leadership was what raid leaders in PD call the herding of cats. Since PD is a casual guild, we do not have attendance requirements. This has led us to be diverse in many ways such as gameplay style, availability, attitude and skill. When you are forming a 10 man progression group you look for the most available parites, but this might not include all of your favorite people and players. Add in the casual nature of our group and you get an inconsistent group and a lot of guildies on the outside looking in. I felt like I made efforts to include other raiders, but with all of their QQ, they never really signed up for any of the additional raid nights or even planned their own event on the in-game calendar. I have always felt that a guild thrives on group activities and when there are only 1 or 2 members posting events, you are looking at a pretty depressing situation.

Plec: It seems like the entire point and function of a guild is to take something inconsistent and make it more consistent. For instance, PD was brought together ostensibly as a meeting ground for friends in game that would allow for more communication and more group play. Has PD been successful on this front or is it going to constantly run into the inherent difficulty of “We are a casual raiding guild but it would be REALLY awesome if you showed up to raid on Tuesday at 8?” Do you have any advice for casual guild leaders who are trying to drive attendance without some of the negative consequences that you see in more hardcore guilds (missing attendance credit or DKP)?

Nate: Consistency is what allows guilds to progress, I totally agree. When you have a regular group of players, their skill and gear starting out often times matters less than the group dynamic being tuned over the course of weeks and months. That dedicated time will make a raiding party that much more effective. Being able to use that in guild development as a whole would be refreshing but sadly it doesn’t work. In order to grow as a player and a guild member, you have to participate. Without joining a more hardcore guild, a casual player can easily be left behind to stagnate without the guild’s support. A casual player usually has no interest is endgame raiding but still enjoys the camaraderie that goes along with groups larger than 5 persons. (We’ve found that getting people on the Ventrillo server even if we aren’t raiding is an exercise in team building that can’t be discounted.) All that being said, it can be a slippery slope when you begin creating more rules for your raiders especially if they are casual. When you have a core of 12 – 13 raiders, when 3 of them are busy or tentative, it can be a destructive force within the guild. Part of the reason is that you then have to choose from the available players online who gets to go. This is the likely reason for many /gquits in the history of WoW in my opinion. You just have to temper it all with good humor and keep the energy positive. It’s very Buddhist to be a GL/GM.

Plec: Following up on the Buddhist tone that this interview has taken, let’s talk about the balance between WoW and RL. Many players (myself included), find that this is one of the hardest parts of the game. Everyone has pulled the 8 hour “disappearance” into Azeroth and come out a little dazed on the other side. Seeing how you are happily married and want to keep it that way, how do you balance out your RL time with your WoW time?

Nate: RL is where it’s at! Look, you have to treat WoW like a game and digest it in doses. While you may feel like your Resto Shammy requires nurturing to be the best they can be and min/maxing your rotation will make you a better player, nothing compares to actual physical contact and interaction. WoW in moderation can be treated as a player’s hobby. In many ways, playing WoW and tuning your toon’s gear and items is much like being a collector. Jay Leno (what.a.dick) collects cars, Shammyjammie collects non-combat pets. Blizzard has always been big on allowing the player to utilize the tools that WoW has to offer to play the game that they want to play and being able to have a healthy marriage and raid 2 nights a week shows that they’re doing something right. My wife tolerates the game…I’m not sure I would go further than that. I know she is aware that I really enjoy it and it’s something that I want to do, but she has her limits. I find myself hoping that there won’t be a crisis while I’m healing or tanking because there is nothing I can do but jump up out of my chair and take care of the situation – killing a spider comes to mind and has happened on multiple occasions – which would wipe the group sometimes. Offering a significant amount of attention to your spouse will give you game-time credits – say 1 foot rub equals 1 hour of uninterrupted raid time, etc. The best part of being in a casual guild would actually be that my scheduled time-sync into the game is not too bad. I also have to keep in mind that recording my podcast counts as WoW-time too even though I’m not logged into the game. Hearing one side of the podcast makes her laugh sometimes, but imagine how it must sound to her – complete gibberish. My advice would be to nurture yourself and your RL relationships and reward yourself with WoW.