Officers’ Quarters: Personal loot and finding the right guild

This week, Officers’ Quarters answers your questions about finding the right guild, using personal loot in guild raids, and deciding between rebuilding your old guild or joining a new one.

Finding the right guild that fits your personality can be a long and painful process. An in-game system that matches up players with guilds is a big item on my guild features wish list. Until we get it (and we’re not likely to anytime soon, if ever), we have to work with what’s available. I agree that browsing forums is time-intensive and inefficient.

If you think you’re the type of player that guilds would go out of their way to recruit, you could try posting your own ad on forums and/or social media explaining who you are and what you can do for the guild you want to join. Let them find you instead.

Since you’re “looking to get back into raiding,” you are probably undergeared. Focus on your strengths in the ad: your experience and your ability to produce results despite your gear. Numbers are always more convincing than words. If you use Warcraft Logs to log an LFR or Group Finder raid, you can show potential guilds how you stack up against other players with your same item level (and whether you stood in the bad or not). Some guilds will ask for such a log on their application, too, so it’s a good thing to keep handy.

Another option is to use OpenRaid. OpenRaid is like Group Finder, but with far more customization and communication. Look for events that are designated as tryouts or as guild runs that need a few more players to fill out their team. Talk to an officer during the run if you want to know more about the guild.

Odds are no matter how you search, you’ll have to be patient to find the type of guild you’re looking for. Being open to the possibility of a realm transfer will increase your chances substantially. The good news is that many guilds are looking for experienced raiders right now. Good luck!

Personal loot is random and someone is always getting burned by it. Your luck will turn around at some point, but I understand the frustration in the meantime.

Personal loot makes things easier for your officers. They don’t have to deal with loot systems or loot drama. They can focus on leading the guild and the raid. The loot will even out for everyone on a long enough time scale. It’s not ideal for progression, certainly, but I’m guessing that’s not the priority for your raid team if they’re using personal loot.

In my opinion, point-based systems are the most fair with the least opportunity for complaints or drama. However, they have one big drawback: they take a fair amount of work. Your raid leader (and guild officers, I’m assuming) don’t want to put in the work to run a loot system. That’s their decision to make, ultimately, since they are the ones who would have to implement the system.

Even so, it couldn’t hurt for you to suggest a change or to ask the officers to poll the guild about the system members prefer. If enough people are in favor of implementing an actual loot system, the officers might give in. Offer to help them with the system if you feel strongly enough about it.

I would strongly urge you to put this guild aside for now. Keep it intact on an alt in case you want to use it someday. I’m saying this because starting from scratch — with only yourself in the guild — is incredibly difficult. If everyone you played with previously is gone, you have nothing to build on. You need at least a few in-game friends to help you rebuild a guild.

Also, creating and leading a guild takes a big effort. If you have major constraints on your playtime because of work, then you might not have time for the responsibilities of leadership. Disappearing every other week is not ideal for a guild officer, either, especially during a rebuilding process.

The best way to make new friends is to join another guild. (Just remember that if someone asks you to drink demon’s blood to be their friend, then they won’t really be your friend.) If you like the new guild and you’re happy, then stick with it. If you get the itch to lead a guild in the future, you’ll have your old guild to fall back on.

That’s it for this week. If you’d like me to answer your question in Officers’ Quarters, ask it below!

/salute