Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Farewell Doora!

Doora was a tank in our guild. He tanked our first blue action, ICC5 normal. I was pretty satisfied with his tanking.

He have not logged in ever since. Since one month have passed, I kicked him, just like I kick everyone with "1 month" in his "last online" column.

Did he get bored since he had BiS blues and can't "progress" his character?
Did he believe after tanking ICC5 normal that HC is impossible?
Did something happen in his real life?
Why is it an essential post?

Because his reasons does not matter. Nor it matters that without him we couldn't clear ICC5 that week, maybe ending our project (we always get a new batch of applicants after I post something cleared). Nor that I liked talking to him as he had deep knowledge about the game. Nor that he was our first "raider".

The guild has no use of him as he is inactive. He is no longer an asset. Time to say goodbye. Holding him (or any other no longer useful item or person) would cost us, and these costs would have no benefit. In this particular case having him on the guild list would make some applicant believe that we have 1 more tank and (while he wanted to tank) roll something else or does not even apply.

Removing something that we have fond memories is never fun. Even less if it's a person. But being a goblin is not about feelings. It's about success. He had to go.

Of course if he would come back and reapply, I would get him back, after seeing he can still tank. But that's not about "old memories", it's about a changed situation.

If you ever want to be successful, you must stop carrying old dead weight. You can start practicing by going to the bank, and shard/vendor that bunch of lvl60/70 stuff you're still carrying.

Or at least limit them to one bag. You can have luxury sometimes. But you must know it's luxury and not utility, and must know the cost (bag space in the example)

26 comments:

Glyph, the Architect said...

Heh. Old dead weight. My guild has no less than two tabs full of old BC crafting mats, blues for people levelling alts who out pace the usefulness of said gear, and so on. 3 full stacks of Shadow Dust.

Hate that stuff. Especially since most people who are actually levelling alts don't have access to that tab, and simply levelling to a point where these things are no longer necessary is much faster than waiting around for an officer to come and withdraw it from the bank for them.

Anonymous said...

Too bad the european servers are down atm, I can't check Doora :-D

I have characters of all classes and I have a personal guildbank of which two slots are reserved for gear, I only keep the good gear for the classes I'm still leveling and Disenchant whatever I wont be able to use later on. If something better gets moved into the guildbank, then all gear I won't be using get's disenchanted (all shouldergear gets disenchanted anyways since I have the +10%XP-shoulders from wintergrasp ... all of them) But I agree, you have to be able to clean up the bagspace and not be sentimental about gear you got earlier, your first epic ever is no longer useable so disenchant or vendor it (or destroy it if it's a PVP epic)

Anonymous said...

This is exactly something I'm having my GM do (removing in-actives). However one thing you seem to contradict yourself as a while ago you would disaprove of anyone with a mammoth/hog ect. You called these vanitys, a luxury is something that is benificial in some way other then to enlarge your Epeen, if it doesn't help, its a vanity, and unless you are raiding in your old 60,70 gear it would count as a vanity aswell.
PS, sorry if there are any grammer/spelling, its late here.

Anonymous said...

Essential?
It's simple. You're the guild leader. You stated the rule one month inactive = gkick.

So what do you do when you see a member inactive for a month or more?
Gkick.

That's part of being a guild leader, doesn't matter if you like it or not.

Anyone who can't do things like that should not become a guild leader.

Anonymous said...

Not that I really mind, but how is a name on al List (which has unlimited space) costing you?

JC said...

To anonymous:
A recruit might see there as being a tank already, and roll something different - or not bother at all, because someone else is already filling the role.

Denethal said...

Dear anonymous: Because of principles.

The goal with the guild is not to have a huge memberslist, but active, "casual" raiders.

It's not designed around being a "friendly, social guild", the only requirement is that you're capable of logging in atleast once a month.

(And not being an utterly useless baboon.)

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous

Gevlon did say how it costs him to leave the person in the guild-list (despite it being a bad reason imo):

"In this particular case having him on the guild list would make some applicant believe that we have 1 more tank and (while he wanted to tank) roll something else or does not even apply."

Unknown said...

This type of mindset is useful in business. I manage people and one thing I learned is that you have to be ruthless with underperformers. If someone is not pulling their weight they have to be confronted. No 'being nice' or any of that crap. It's not fair to the people who ARE performing, and it's not fair to the underperformers since once they are confronted they can up their game.

Anonymous said...

I hoard "old stuff" like a sentimental moron, but guess what, once for all I do not regret it, all my friends vendored frozen orbs when they "became worthless", then the patch notes hit... :)

And the TBC crafting mats sometimes sell better than the WotLK ones. So in that guild, all you need to decide someone will sell those and deposit gold to guild bank. On my realm fel iron is worth more than saronite, enchanting TBC essences sell for huge sums, all herbs above felweed sell nicely as well, so is knothide leather. So sell - yes, throw away as rubbish - no. And don't even let me start on golden draenites since the carpet change.

And old quest and reputation items are sometimes needed by people who go for Loremaster, reputation or other funny achievements, all those twilight cultist attires, AQ scarabs, unidentified plant parts and so on are sought by those people.

On my realm we have few freaks going for "the insane" title, it needs a lot of silly outdated mats, for example for shendralar rep.

Old azeroth stuff like globe of water or essence of air is needed for quests or crafts like the crafted pet, it's not all useless. Especially check mats for heirloom enchants.

Anonymous said...

This is something that desperately needs to be done in the US undergeared guild. I have brought it up to the GM, but my comments fell on deaf ears. The number of inactive players is makng it seem like a "we have 4 bank slot and a tabard pst for inv" guild.

Bent said...

I've been in small guilds that have grown "large" due to alts. This is before WoWs time. I remember making a note in the guild forum and motd that everyone must register their alts on the guild site or that they will be removed. Anyone removed was welcomed to reapply.

OH how people whined and whined. About their friend being kicked, their alt being kicked, being kicked theirself. A number even quit on their own as a result. Not one person reapplied.

RE to:
Gevlon did say how it costs him to leave the person in the guild-list (despite it being a bad reason imo):

Before any tank applies to a raiding guild they will certainly look into how many tanks they currently have and note their class and gear level. There are not many tank slots in a raid and if you prefer tanking and not sitting or DPSing you will take note.

Really I'd expect everyone to check a guilds status of tank/heals before applying. Casual means no sign ups in most cases. If you don't have enough tanks or heals it is a no go.

khaelie said...

I keep vanity crap... but i limit the space i use for it and when i reach that limit i throw something out. My very favorite item is the Bat shield from Kara... i may keep it forever. Love that thing!

but as for kicking the inactive player - rules are rules. he didn't log in for a month so he's gone. Makes perfect sense to me.

The Gnome of Zurich said...

"This is something that desperately needs to be done in the US undergeared guild. I have brought it up to the GM, but my comments fell on deaf ears."

Not sure who you are, but no it did fall on deaf ears, I've been trying to decide what makes sense. My sense of "very casual" is that you ought to be able to not log in for a stretch and not be out of the guild.

I also didn't recall that as a rule from gevlon, so I'll post it on the forums for a few days before I kick anybody.

The biggest thing is that I wanted to wait until we were close to doing something before I kicked anyone as some people created somebody just as a placeholder for an eventual transfer.

Ratshag said...

I am surprised that nobody has pointed out that the armory now shows all of your recent kills. Therefore, anyone checking out Doora's page to see if he's a tank would easily see that he is no longer active. So, he isn't a liability to guild recruiting after all. (Unless you are worried about losing a potential recruit who is too dense to notice)

smadronia said...

I have been going through on characters I actually play, and have sorted down their old stuff into a max of 2 bags of sentimentals. My priest's Benediction, my warlock's level 60 Nemesis cap, but a lot of other crap gets sharded, sold, or auctioned. I'm beginning to realize however much I'm sentimental, keeping 4 lunar festival dresses i NEVER wear is just space for stuff I might use, like stuff for faction grinds.

Bristal said...

@Gnome:
"The biggest thing is that I wanted to wait until we were close to doing something before I kicked anyone as some people created somebody just as a placeholder for an eventual transfer."

This is an example of what Gevlon is talking about. You are keeping a lot of useless baggage lying around clearly because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings.

They don't need a "placeholder". They can transfer over a toon and contact you for an invite. Boot them, or people will see your project as inactive and poorly run.

Klepsacovic said...

Is there any cost to keeping Doora around besides the extra line to look past in the guild roster? I suppose there's not much cost to kicking either, and it is good to keep things tidy, helps set standards.

Bagspace is one of the most underrated gold losses ever. Lack of bag space. I learned to run with 30-40 free slots to ensure that I wouldn't have to destroy greys (underrated source of gold) or make excessive trips to vendors. Or worse, spend extra time at corpses trying to pick the most valuable item. The bags have a cost, certainly, but over time, I believe they get paid off just by the extra vendor items, not even counting the cost of annoyance and time saved.

Jeanie said...

@Bristal : I think you get his idea wrong, it's not about not wanting to hurt someone's feeling. The placeholder toon is just a tool to check what is happening inside the guild: some people may be interested in the project, but don't want to transfer until something is actually ready, so the toon is there for them to log in once in a while to check the guild (how many 80s, how many leveling up, how many people etc). Of course, if they're no in guild they can always /who and ask someone, but isn't it better to see and judge things with your own eyes ?

Kurt said...

@ratshag

"...So, he isn't a liability to guild recruiting after all. (Unless you are worried about losing a potential recruit who is too dense to notice)"

#1 "too dense" is a pretty harsh term to apply to someone for not doing enough research into a guild that is not aiming to be a hardcore progression guild.

#2 People play, and get saved to armory, in offspecs or pvp specs. It seems to me to be a lot easier just to ask them about their current tank situation, then to make a bunch of armory guesstimates.

Anonymous said...

A suggestion for those who are going inactive for a reason rather then losing interest and disappearing indefinitely. For example - taking a vacation. Or going on an extended business trip.

Create a guild rank for just those people. Casual doesn't mean you cannot tell GM: "Listen, I'm going out of town for about a month or so and won't be able to play, but once the trip is done, I'll be back to normal playing schedule" Since this project will not be affected by gear reset, someone going inactive for a time will not suffer from falling behind.

Once they are back - test them before promoting them back to raider.

This way you can differentiate between truly dead weight and someone whose real life took precedence for a period of time.

Newton said...

@Bristal:

We don't have baggage, in the US Undergeared guild (The Forgotten Coast) we have 5 80's, 6 level 70-79's, 2 60-69, and 18 level 10-60 that have been active in the last month. We aren't at the point where we can really decide who's tanking, who's healing, who's the DPS and who's bringing replenishment. We don't have any extra 'baggage' because its easy to see in the guild who's active and who isn't. We had very few transfers, and those that did transfer are active or will be active. If you exclude DK's because of their insta level 55, its easy to see that we have people actively leveling up, and we have some people that gave up fairly early. We do have some placeholders that joined to see how things were going, mistakenly thinking we sat around on guild chat shooting the shit. We might get some transfers when we're closer to 10/25 man thresholds, but I expect we'll have a solid 10 man showing in a few weeks with the active players we have in the guild right now. As with the EU guild, if someone asks 'what do we need', the answer is always 'whatever you want to play'. We want people to play classes (or better yet "ROLES") they haven't raided with before. There are always going to be people left out, I can't imagine either group getting exactly 10 or 25 people that will be at every raid for the duration. Dual spec is a great thing, even DPS classes will benefit us by bringing more or less RAID buffs to the raid as needed.

Deathturtle said...

I fail to understand your reasoning for removing inactives after 1 month. As far as I can see the benefit of keeping them outweighs the cost of removing them. Say you had a very skilled tank who passed the 1-month mark. Is there a chance that he'll log in again? yes. If you kick him, is there a high chance that he'll just give up and stop playing again? yes.

The argument that removing somebody opens room for new applicants is dumb/easily solved: simply post a list somewhere of which spots (healer, tank, dps, etc) you have filled currently and update it whenever you gain/lose a spot, but keep players who haven't logged on for awhile in your guild- just because they're gone for one month doesn't mean they're gone for good, but if they log on and find they're kicked it greatly increases the chance that they won't reapply.

Ratshag said...

@Kurt - Gevlon specifically said he was worried about people using the armory to research the guild to count the number of tanks he has. The only way to do this is to study the individual members' armory pages. I have no problem with people applying to a guild explicitly described by the GM as casual not doing armory data-mining; my problem is with the logic that says they will do the research and yet miss the glaringly obvious fact that the member hasn't done anything in over a month.

Unknown said...

I have always believed in kicking inactives. I even went a bit further in my guilds.

I would track level progression, honor or renown progression, gearscore progression.

I wanted to make sure that someone just wasn't logging on their characters to remove the inactivity flag.

Most players hated it, but at least I knew who were hardcore, contributing to the success of the guild. I didn't care.

Rhii said...

I did our bi-weekly guild cleaning yesterday. Our rule is more severe than yours, though... for recruits 14 days inactive = gone. For member rank or raider rank it's 21 days. Officers too I suppose, although I'd like to hope if they were an officer they'd tell you where they were going first.

We also do have a way around the policy. If someone is taking a hiatus for a definite period of time (one of our members is doing a school term abroad, so he's not online until he gets back to the US, he's coming back in April), we'll put that in their guild note and move them to member status to wait. If they don't come back in their allotted time, /kick.