We Bought Second GuildBank Tab!

Thanks to a generous donation from Pasternak, I was able to withdraw funds and purchase the second tab in the gBank. This should help *greatly* as we move upwards of lvl 50 and have many things to bank and share. For now, the tabs are named after the largest donors; however, we will find something more suitable after some time.  For now, enjoy the extra space and keep donating good items and mats! (And don’t forget that the gBank can always use more gold!)

Thank you Pasternak for helping us with this important addition to supporting or guild leveling!

Senior Officers Now Have GuildBank Item Withdraw Ability

effective today, all Senior Officers have the ability to withdraw items from the guild bank. this should make requests move faster. the following guidelines must be observed:

• items can only be withdrawn if the toon can equip/use the item immediately (not “down the road”). i.e. recipes can only be withdrawn for a toon if they have the skill to learn the recipe right away and gear can only be withdrawn for a toon if it can be equipped by that toon right away
• items for level 50+ can only be withdrawn for a Veteran rank or higher that is level 50+ (i.e. a level 20 officer cannot request a level 65 item to keep for later on when they can equip it)
• toons that have not made any donations to the guild coffers or significant donations to the guild bank cannot have withdrawn any items for them – this is an effort to make sure we are putting in more than we are taking out. similarly, toons cannot have withdrawn items that are of a higher level than the items they have deposited – this is an effort to prevent a bunch of level 13 items getting donated and a level 65 item being withdrawn
• keep basic track of whom you give what – in case guild leader wants to know.

in short, this should prevent abuse and waste while encouraging growth.

officer’s ALTs to be promoted to Officer rank

in reviewing the trend over the last two months, it is clear that the ALTs belonging to the officers and senior officers need to be at the same rank as their mains so that they do not need to interrupt an instance in order to execute their responsibilities. their ALTs will continue to carry the ‘ALT’ designation in the officer’s notes field to distinguish them from their mains. note to officers: if any of your ALTs do not get Officer rank, send Ironhelm a note, it is very likely that it is an ALT that is not marked as such!

gratz to all Initiates promoted to full Member rank

by later tonight, many of the initiates will have been promoted to the rank of full Member. you have all earned your place long term in our guild and we are glad to have you! if you have not yet fully explored and read through this website (namely about culture and rules), do so now. future Initiates will rely on you for guidance with respect to our guild and what is posted here is the foundation of that guidance.

Advice to Hunters Leveling Up a Lowbie Pet

Gratz! You tamed that rare pet and have major ‘pimp’ or brag rights. Or it may just be high on the LCF (look cool factor) scale. However, it turns out to be completely useless for questing or dungeons because it is so much lower than the mobs it cannot generate enough threat, the growls bounce off and are resisted, and your damage overpowers the pet’s damage drawing the mob straight to you (and recall the pet cannot growl it back off you).

What to do?

Beartracker visited the site three times to find the Ghost Saber and tame it. As a level 19 pet, it was in poor shape to hold up very long against the level 29+ mobs I was questing against. With just Ghost and I out there, aggro was all mine. So to fix this, I resorted to an old practice and I recommend it to you if you are trying to level up a lowbie pet.

Go do instances with the pet on passive.

Now the tank is handling aggro and you even have a healer in case the pet demands more heals than you can shower. I ran Gnomer and Ghost went in at level 20 and came out level 29. In the beginning, all he did was soak up xp. By the end, he was DPSing hard! It will take but a fraction of the time to get him up levels because you are not slowed down by having to tank and DPS the mobs yourself while your pet basically does nada.

Congratulations Shadowpixie, Thundrhammer and Catix on your WSG/AB Successes!

Shadowpixie & Thundrhammer and Catix have been in the top 3 and 1st spots in the battlegrounds WSG and AB, respectively despite being complete newcomers to the battlegrounds and not having any “twinkage” or “enhanced” gear! Fantastic! You are keeping up the Legends Reborn legacy of dominating in the battlegrounds.

It is always impressive to see skill beat out gold spending when it comes to the fast-paced bg slaughterhouses. Many of the founding members of our guild have had strong reputations and successes in the bg’s. It is all the sweeter to see complete newcomers to the bg’s outperform the experienced twinks.

gratz! and keep it up!

celeritas et vis

Initiate to Member Promotions and Officer Promotions

we are coming up on the promotions for the new Initiates to Member ranks. All current Members, Veterans and officer ranks should mail Ironhelm (in game) any commendations/recommendations or complaints they want taken into consideration regarding any of those in the crop of Initiates.

additionally, with the recent increase in membership and some attrition, it is time to promote some members to officer ranks. note: you have to be recommended by an officer rank to be promoted to an officer rank. officers, after reviewing again the promotion criteria in the rules & regulations page, send me your nominations for candidates to be promoted to officer rank.

promotions should take place no later than this coming weekend.

related note: review the current guild roster before sending me mail. a ‘certain lvl 55 hunter and his mage and warrior alts’ have already been removed based on several complaints and evidence. that’s a removal with a ‘do not reinvite’ (DNR).

Guild Objectives for 2008

the guild objectives for the first half of 2008 have been decided and posted in the ‘About Legends Reborn’ page.

about the 2007 objectives. all of our objectives set during 2007 were met. we did grow to 250+ toons. we did go to Kara. we did have +20x level 70s. we did re-grow the guild to 100+ toons. today, we stand at 125 toons across 83 accounts. most of those toons are 20+ level (unlike back when we were 250+ and we had a lot of -20 level toons). we learned a lot in 2007 – including about setting objectives. we learned we can set aggressive objectives and meet them – with work. we learned that we need to align them carefully with long term strategic goals (e.g. growing to 250+ in short term without a goal to retain them meant we did not spend enough time working on retaining them, so we saw a strong revolving door and not enough discussion on what we needed to do to keep the 70s from tearing each other apart and leaving for other guilds).

the 2008 objectives. strategically, we need to look to the expansion expected out in December 2008 – which means that as a guild we should be thinking about being well-positioned to enjoy that content by being level 70. level 70 in 12 months is very achievable. we suspect a fair amount of 10-man raids in the upcoming content requiring a variety of classes and specs. in order to be best positioned for that content, our guild needs to look to have a larger inventory of level 70 toons with depth into and breadth across all the classes. this means we need to have all classes represented at level 70 and we need to have more than just one of them! our current guild roster has a good ratio of toons to accounts: 125/83. this suggests that we can staff raid positions easily (compared to guilds that have a lot of toons and few accounts and therefore cannot easily staff raid roles without sacrificing other raid roles). our roster has a nice grouping of 50+ level toons and a healthy succession group leveling up from 20+ level. at mid-year (end of June 2008), in order to be comfortably ready for the content expansion in December, we need to have moved our current 50+ toons through Kara and have moved our 50- toons up towards Kara.

our June 2008 guild objectives are:

• 50% of the guild at level 50+
• have Kara on farm status

how this affects you is rather simple in implementation.

if you are higher than level 50, focus on building the camaraderie amongst the other 50+ level toons so that you know each other well enough to operate like a well-oiled machine in instances and raids together. if you do that, you will all get to 70, get geared, get keyed and will have the tight-knit weave to clear Kara consistently. this does mean, for example, that as a guild epic flying mounts are secondary (it may well still be primary to you – just don’t sacrifice the guild objectives for a 5,000 gold flying mount). it means that arena standings are great if they are helping you gear up to help clear Kara. *after* June 2008, you can epic flying mount grind and arena team till you are blue in the face (or purple) – by then you will have met the “kara on farm status” goal. (of course you can grind and arena team all you want anyways – but don’t forget to help the other 50+ toons get to 70, gear, key, and clear.) getting kara on farm status by end of June gears you up nicely for the second half of 2008 and pre-positions our guild to then take those toons that are currently 50- thru Kara in the second half of the year. all of which sets us up nicely for expanding into the new content post release in December.

if you are lower than level 50, focus on getting to level 50 or higher by the end of June 2008. plain and simple. with the recent 2.3 patch changes, you need less experience to get from 20-60 than before and you get more xp per quest/grind. everyone has their own favorite way of leveling up. from what i know and have read, all numerical evidence suggests that questing is the fastest way to level. James’ Alliance Leveling guides are listed as a link on this blog site and they are both free and very, very good. plan to do most instances at level with your peers as the higher level toons have a lot of work on their hands getting Kara to be on farm status. learn to play your roles in instances. not just average. learn to play them well. it will pay dividends come level 70.

everyone should be on the look out for good players as potential recruits to our guild. avoid blanket invites. it creates a lot of  ‘noise’ and ‘revolving door’ if folks are coming and going. with the goal of 50% of our guild above level 50 by the 50% mark of they year, let’s focus on recruiting 50+ toons as much as possible.

retention will be king. keeping who we have trumps. sure anyone can be replaced. but then they have to learn our culture, our way of clearing instances, and we have to re-build that well-oiled machine all over again. that means we have to shift from trigger happy gquiting and instead resolve problems. outright disrespect can still earn a quick kick. but it is time to try to hold on to our valuable assets: long term guild members. we are going to try to keep at the level of 100+ toons and 80+ accounts.

so level, recruit and retain – for 6 months.

if you have any comments or questions at any time regarding the guild objectives, contact me without hesitation. if you have an eye for ranking up in guild, remember that supporting guild objectives is key promotion criteria.

Ironhelm

Tackling the touchy subject of asking for “run thrus”

It seems to be about that time again when we should review the subject of asking for run thrus through instances. The subject is a touchy one that some folks feel particularly attached to – probably because it is more work to level and quest at level than to be power-leveled and run thru. Probably also because in starter guilds there is a lot of running thru going on. Mid-range guilds and [certainly] high-end guilds typically do not and tell you that up front. So how do we handle it?

We are not a starter guild and we are not a high-end guild; if anything, we are on the smaller side of mid-range – which means we have a lot of toons that are still under level 50 and need help. The problem comes as a two-edged blade. If lowbies ask higher levels non-stop for run thrus, we have experienced many high level toons departing to guilds where they can focus on getting things done – and trust me, the higher level toons get A LOT of requests for run thrus. If the lowbies don’t get run thrus, they say our guild is not “a good guild” and gquit leaving us with a succession problem.

What we have found is that a common sense – no stress – approach seems to work out fine. No one I have asked has ever joined any other kind of leisure “club” or association (e.g. soccer team) and expected them all to give them power-leveling and “run thrus”. The more advanced members might offer to help out a bit or share some techniques with them, but they are not called a “bad soccer team” because the team did not level the newcomer up to World Cup level. By the same token, higher level toons need to not take lowbies asking in guild chat if anyone wants to do XYZ instance as a run thru request.

If you want to do an instance, ask if anyone else wants to do it. If there are no takers, a higher level toon might need a break from grinding out the 500,000 xp or the 5,000 gold they need and want a diversion like running you thru an instance.

Let the high level toons offer to give you a run thru, don’t ask them for it. It’s one of those social norms that it is polite to wait until someone offers. And offer they do. I see offers *every single day*. It’s not like there is a shortage of them. You may have missed it, been offline, in a battleground, doing something else. There is tomorrow.

One thing that almost guarantees a high-level to not offer to run you thru something is if as soon as you join the guild you ask for a run thru. One thing that almost guarantees that a high-level WILL offer run thrus is when they see you putting in effort to level and quest without asking for run thrus and ESPECIALLY is we see you helping others – including giving others run thrus. It makes sense. If you are committed to yourself and to the guild, the guild is committed to you too.

Help and run thrus are not the same.

Now let’s get something straight though – for both the high-level toons and the low-level toons. Someone needing help is not someone asking for a run thru and that we absolutely need to try to make happen. It could be that they were right before the last boss and their tank had to leave or that they simply cannot do it. Stepping in to join their group and help them clear through is very much in culture for us. Helping someone complete all of their gnomer quests in one shot because there is no one to group up with them is also helpful. Asking for VC run thrus when you aren’t high enough level yet to even get the quests is straight out “run thru request”. If you have completed the quests and are at level to do the instance and ask for a high level toon to take you through even though there are 30 people on the server at your level is again a run thru request.

The subtle difference lies in whether you need help or not.

Asking for a run thru and offering to give their lowbie a run thru on your high level is different and should be done privately.

We’re not saying “don’t ask” nor “we won’t”. Asking someone who has 500,000 xp to grind out over several days to level to come all the way back into the mainland to run you through an instance so you can get 15,000 xp and level borders on selfish when you are offering them nothing in return (i.e. you can’t help them level). More so if you ask them every time they log on. Even more so if you ask every high level every time they log on. Sooner or later, we end up with 10 level 70s that have not logged on in 2 months because they are leveling their alts waiting for us to get up to 70 before going back on their main. Or worse, they leave the guild to get away from the 6-12 run thru requests a day.

It’s not an exaggeration.

Yes – we are here to help you. No – we are not a bunch of selfish jackasses that don’t want to help lowbies.

More importantly, not everyone has had the experience in a high end guild or with a high-level toon and therefore may not have any basis to know how many run thru requests come through in a day nor how distracting it is from the huge amount of work at hand to level, gear and key up.

In short, we are a guild – not a power-leveling service. Our high-level toons are individuals with the same gaming time limitations we all have and are not individually a power-leveling service either. We will help you – we will not power-level you.

I’m not expecting this post to go over like free beer at a happy hour; however, I am expecting that it will provide guidance to those that might not have had any basis for knowing the ’social norms’ in our guild about run thrus.

[Small Egg] = 1 gold

It is the case of the golden eggs. In case you have not heard, Winterveil is upon us and the egg nog and gingerbread cookies recipes are out again. As always, that means those don’t-have-time-to-farm-but-have-too-much-gold 70’s are buying up [small egg]s on the AH.

For all you guildies that are looking to finance skills, gear, level-40 mounts or whatever, here’s the tip: moonkin just East of Auberdine in Darkshore drop [small egg]s at an alarming drop rate! Not every kill, but pretty much, you get a small egg. In a matter of under an hour, you can travel, farm, travel, list a 100 eggs.

Sell ‘em for what you want (check the market pulse), but I recommend 1 gold a piece. More (a lot are going for 1g 75s) seems over the top to me – but that is just me. You can list for less, but you are just losing cash that way. The market volume is fast.

Snowball machine engineering blueprints are also good right now – before the 24th.

Finally, if you are a tailor or alchemist, when you logged in you will have learned a new recipe (e.g. Red Winter Clothing). Turns out these are selling awfully well, too.

= )